Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Síndrome de Munchausen by proxy: caraterísticas psicopatológicas e personalidade dos agressores

Introduction: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is a disorder characterized by the creation, exaggeration or induction of physical or mental diseases by a caretaker in an individual under his care, without any obvious external rewards. This diagnosis is applied to the perpetrator and not the victim, who can be diagnosed with abuse. The real prevalence of this disorder is unknown, and there is little information about individuals with this diagnosis, who in most cases are unwilling to collaborate with researchers who intend to explore the causes underlying this behavior. Objectives: the main purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the current scientific literature concerning the psychopathology, personality and psychosocial aspects of the perpetrators of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Additionally, the possible motivations of the perpetrator and some of the proposed explanatory theories will be addressed, as well as a few considerations about the diagnosis. Treatment and prognosis will be shortly addressed. Methodology: the search was conducted in the PubMed database, from which articles containing the keywords “Munchausen Syndrome”, “Munchausen by Proxy”, “Perpetrators”, “Personality” and “Psychopathology” were retrieved. Additionally, the bibliographic references of the articles obtained were analyzed, in order to identify other relevant sources for this dissertation. Only articles written in English were used, and no temporal limit regarding the publication date was applied to the search. Discussion: The studies identified several factors and characteristics common to many of the perpetrators of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (female sex, healthcare related professions, psychopathology and the presence of marital conflicts). The exposure to abuse during childhood is common in these individuals, and many have also experienced family disruption, with loss of or separation from a parent. These perpetrators frequently show some kind of psychopathology, the most common diagnoses being personality disorders, factitious disorder, somatization disorder, pathological lying and mood disorders. Conclusions: Despite the difficulties associated with the diagnosis and psychological characterization in this group of patients, it is important to expand the knowledge about their personality traits and relational dynamic, in order to improve therapeutic interventions and minimize the victim’s harm.
Tracking-aided target classification using multi-hypothesis sequential test

This paper deals with target classification by using both feature data and kinematic measurements. The problem is tackled by multi-hypothesis sequential testing with embedded target tracking. We implement Armitage's sequential probability ratio tests (SPRT) for non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets. Two track fusion architectures, including centralized fusion and distributed fusion, are used to handle the embedded tracking problem. The benefit of the kinematic measurements to classification is analyzed and improvement is shown analytically for a special case. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the performance of our algorithm.
Project Account: 16-40-201 Project Title: Intelligent Text Retrieval and Knowledge Acquisition from Texts for NASA Applications: Preprocesdng Issues Agency: NASA Deliverable: Final Report

A system that retrieves problem reports from a NASA database is described 1. The database is queried with natural language questions. Part-of-speech tags are first assigned to each word in the question using a rule-based tagger. A partial parse of the question is then p roduced with independent sets of deterministic finite state a utomata. Using partial parse information, a look up strategy searches the database for problem reports relevant t o the question. A bigram stemmer and irregular verb conjugates have been incorporated into the system to improve accuracy. The system is evaluated b y a set of fifty five questions posed by NASA engineers. A discussion of future research is also presented.
Bringing Photographs to Life with View Morphing

Photographs and paintings are limited in the amount of information they can convey due to their inherent lack of motion and depth. Using image morphing methods, it is now possible to add 2D motion to photographs by moving and blending image pixels in creative ways. We have taken this concept a step further by adding the ability to convey three-dimensional motions, such as scene rotations and viewpoint changes, by manipulating one or more photographs of a scene. The e ect transforms a photograph or painting into an interactive visualization of the underlying object or scene in which the world may be rotated in 3D. Several potential applications of this technology are discussed, in areas such as virtual reality, image databases, and special e ects.
Evaluation of Support Vector Machines Using Kernels for object detection in images

This paper presents evaluation of support vector machine for object detection in images. A support vector machine is used to classify each pixel in the image and identify region of interest based on localized color patterns. General linear transformations of the image through linear, quadratic and radial basis function kernel are considered. The main problem in this approach is high run-time complexity of SVMs. To alleviate this problem we are using multiple kernels. The main target of this evaluation is introducing an object recognition system based on the results of kernel comparisons. The comparison result shows that radial basis function produces robust and efficient object detection.
In Vivo Study on the Pharmacological Interactions between a Chinese Herbal Formula ELP and Antiresorptive Drugs to Counteract Osteoporosis

Antiresorptive drugs, alendronate and raloxifene, are effective in lowering bone mineral density (BMD) loss in postmenopausal women. However, long-term treatment may be associated with serious side effects. Our research group has recently discovered that a Chinese herbal formula, ELP, could significantly reduce BMD loss in animal and human studies. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the potential synergistic bone-protective effects of different herb-drug combinations using ovariectomized rats. To assess the efficacy of different combinations, the total BMD was monitored biweekly in the 8-week course of daily oral treatment. Bone microarchitecture, bone strength, and deoxypyridinoline level were also determined after 8 weeks. From our results, coadministration of ELP and raloxifene increased the total tibial BMD by 5.26% (2.5 mg/kg/day of raloxifene; P = 0.014) and 5.94% (0.25 mg/kg/day of raloxifene; P = 0.026) when compared with the respective dosage groups with raloxifene alone. Similar synergistic effects were also observed in BMD increase at distal femur (0.25 mg/kg/day; P = 0.001) and reduction in urinary deoxypyridinoline crosslink excretion (2.5 and 0.25 mg/kg/day; both P = 0.02). However, such interactions could not be observed in all alendronate-treated groups. Our data provide first evidence that ELP could synergistically enhance the therapeutic effects of raloxifene, so that the clinical dosage of raloxifene could be reduced.
More Algorithms for Provable Dictionary Learning

In dictionary learning, also known as sparse coding, the algorithm is given samples of the form $y = Ax$ where $x\in \mathbb{R}^m$ is an unknown random sparse vector and $A$ is an unknown dictionary matrix in $\mathbb{R}^{n\times m}$ (usually $m > n$, which is the overcomplete case). The goal is to learn $A$ and $x$. This problem has been studied in neuroscience, machine learning, visions, and image processing. In practice it is solved by heuristic algorithms and provable algorithms seemed hard to find. Recently, provable algorithms were found that work if the unknown feature vector $x$ is $\sqrt{n}$-sparse or even sparser. Spielman et al. \cite{DBLP:journals/jmlr/SpielmanWW12} did this for dictionaries where $m=n$; Arora et al. \cite{AGM} gave an algorithm for overcomplete ($m >n$) and incoherent matrices $A$; and Agarwal et al. \cite{DBLP:journals/corr/AgarwalAN13} handled a similar case but with weaker guarantees. This raised the problem of designing provable algorithms that allow sparsity $\gg \sqrt{n}$ in the hidden vector $x$. The current paper designs algorithms that allow sparsity up to $n/poly(\log n)$. It works for a class of matrices where features are individually recoverable, a new notion identified in this paper that may motivate further work. The algorithm runs in quasipolynomial time because they use limited enumeration.
BIVTECI: a bibliographic visualization tool

Relatively little research has been published about bibliographic visualization, although scientists, researchers, and students often have need for such technology. In this paper, we examine the functionality needed to visualize bibliographies effectively. After reviewing some existing tools, we present BIVTECI (Bibliographic Visualization Tool with Enhanced Citation Interactivity) which derives from our analysis.Our main research goal is to capture the user-required relationships between bibliographic entries or articles. First, a user must understand the chronology of articles. Second, a userneeds to see the influence of articles on later work, i.e., the citation relationships. Third, the user wishes to group articles by specified attributes (e.g., title, author, keyword). Fourth, the user needs to examine information at varying levels of detail from general, multi-article views to specific, single-article ones. Finally, the user may need to use several information views simultaneously. We note that baseline functionality includes simple retrieval of entries by title, author, and keyword.The prototype BIVTECI tool demonstrates effective solutions for most of these requirements, combining information visualization with manipulation. The article proposes future research into features not yet implemented. BIVTECI is based on the Star data translator and the Landscape information visualizer, both developed at the University of Toronto.
Botulinum toxin A as an adjunct to treatment in the management of the upper limb in children with spastic cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND Cerebral palsy (CP) is a central nervous system deficit resulting from a non-progressive lesion in the developing brain. Although the brain lesions are static, the movement disorders that arise are not unchanging and are characterised by atypical muscle tone, posture and movement (Rang 1990). The spastic motor type is the most common form of CP and its conventional therapeutic management may include splinting/casting, passive stretching, facilitation of posture and movement, spasticity-reducing medication and surgery. More recently, health care professionals have begun to use botulinum toxin A (BtA) as an adjunct to interventions in an attempt to reduce muscle tone and spasticity to improve function OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness of intramuscular BtA injections as an adjunct to managing the upper limb in children with spastic CP. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2003), MEDLINE (1966 to March Week 3 2004), EMBASE (1980 to 2003 Week 16) and CINAHL (1982 to Week 3 March 2004). SELECTION CRITERIA All randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing intramuscular BtA injections into any muscle group of the upper limb with placebo, no treatment or other interventions. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two authors using standardised forms extracted the data independently. Each trial was assessed for internal validity with differences resolved by discussion. Data was extracted and entered into RevMan 4.2. 3. MAIN RESULTS Two trials met the inclusion criteria, each having short-term follow up, a small number of subjects and using a single set of injections. The study by Corry 1997 compared BtA with an injection of normal saline and found promising results in elbow extension, elbow and wrist muscle tone. At three months, encouraging results for wrist muscle tone and grasp and release were noted. The trial reported median change, range of changes and the difference in these measures between groups. The study by Fehlings 2000 compared BtA with no intervention. When data were analysed no treatment effect was found for quality of upper limb function, passive range of motion, muscle tone, grip strength or self-care ability. REVIEWERS' CONCLUSIONS This systematic review has not found sufficient evidence to support or refute the use of intramuscular injections of BtA as an adjunct to managing the upper limb in children with spastic cerebral palsy. Only one of the two identified RCTs reported some promising results in support of reduced muscle tone following BtA injections. Further research incorporating larger sample sizes, rigorous methodology, measurement of upper limb function and functional outcomes is essential.
Real-time Linear Projection Speed Sign Detection System in Low Light Conditions

In this paper, a real-time algorithm for detecting speed signs in low light conditions is presented. This application oriented algorithm starts with performing the popular difference of Gaussian (DoG) filter as a pre-processing step. After that pixels are thresholded and classified into predefined classes. The paper introduce an efficient voting method called linear projection, in which each pixel that belongs to any predefined classes continuously votes on an incremental image along its gradient vector to identify centre of the speed sign candidates. This algorithm is fast, reliable, suitable for real-time hardware (FPGA) implementation. A Matlab simulation model is built to verify the algorithm's operation in nighttime driving conditions. A FPGA initial prototype of this algorithm has been implemented and showed promising results.
A multi-policy, cooperative playback control protocol

This work proposes the modeling and the analysis through simulation of a multi-policy, application-level multicast protocol for the cooperative control of media streams transmitted by a multimedia server. The proposed protocol basically relies on a lower-level protocol incorporating a multicast-based coordination mechanism that reduces competition among clients for accessing a shared resource. Performance evaluation of the lower-level protocol was carried out on multicast control trees using a discrete-event simulator. Simulation results showed that the lower-level protocol provides higher performances than random floor control protocols which do not exploit coordination among clients.
Identifying fake Amazon reviews as learning from crowds

Customers who buy products such as books online often rely on other customers reviews more than on reviews found on specialist magazines. Unfortunately the confidence in such reviews is often misplaced due to the explosion of so-called sock puppetry-Authors writing glowing reviews of their own books. Identifying such deceptive reviews is not easy. The first contribution of our work is the creation of a collection including a number of genuinely deceptive Amazon book reviews in collaboration with crime writer Jeremy Duns, who has devoted a great deal of effort in unmasking sock puppeting among his colleagues. But there can be no certainty concerning the other reviews in the collection: All we have is a number of cues, also developed in collaboration with Duns, suggesting that a review may be genuine or deceptive. Thus this corpus is an example of a collection where it is not possible to acquire the actual label for all instances, and where clues of deception were treated as annotators who assign them heuristic labels. A number of approaches have been proposed for such cases; we adopt here the 'learning from crowds' approach proposed by Raykar et al. (2010). Thanks to Duns' certainly fake reviews, the second contribution of this work consists in the evaluation of the effectiveness of different methods of annotation, according to the performance of models trained to detect deceptive reviews. © 2014 Association for Computational Linguistics.
Towards Affordance-based Robot Control Dagstuhl Seminar 06231 June 5 – 9 , 2006

This article summarizes the objectives and the program of the Dagstuhl seminar 06231, “Towards Affordance-based Robot Control”. It was held from June 5 to June 9, 2006, at the International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science Schloss Dagstuhl near Wadern, Germany.
Performance Evaluation in Time-Synchronized Multi-Piconet Bluetooth Environments

Multiple Bluetooth piconets operating in the globally available 2.4-GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band are likely to co-exist in a physical environment, supporting applications such as wireless earphones, keyboards etc. An independently operating Bluetooth piconet will inevitably encounter the interference from collocated piconets, which results in individual piconet as well as overall network performance degradation. This paper shows that synchronization among co-existing Bluetooth piconets yields considerable performance improvements as compared to uncoordinated piconets.
Coelution of other proteins with albumin during size-exclusion HPLC: Implications for analysis of urinary albumin.

BACKGROUND Size-exclusion HPLC has been used as an alternative to immunoassays for quantifying urinary albumin (microalbumin). Systematically higher values for the HPLC method have been proposed to result from nonimmunoreactive albumin. METHODS We evaluated separation of purified proteins and urinary components by size-exclusion HPLC using a Zorbax Bio Series GF-250 column eluted with phosphate-buffered saline. Urinary components eluting in the "albumin" peak were analyzed by mass spectrometry and reversed-phase HPLC. RESULTS Several proteins, such as transferrin, alpha1-proteinase inhibitor, alpha1-acid glycoprotein, and alpha2-HS glycoprotein, analyzed as purified components, were not resolved from albumin by size-exclusion HPLC. Peaks for other proteins, such as IgG and urinary components identified as dimers of alpha1-microglobulin and immunoglobulin light chains, overlapped with the albumin peak. Profiles of urine specimens showed variable amounts of components overlapping with albumin. Furthermore, the albumin peak obtained by size-exclusion HPLC was found by mass spectrometry and reversed-phase HPLC to contain multiple components in addition to albumin. CONCLUSIONS Size-exclusion HPLC does not resolve albumin from several other proteins in urine. The albumin peak resolved by this technique, although predominantly composed of albumin, contains several coeluting globulins that would contribute to overestimation of albumin concentration by size-exclusion HPLC.
The Causal Impact of Cleft Lip and Palate Surgery on Psychological Wellbeing

Cleft lip and/or cleft palate (CL/P) are birth conditions in which a newborn has an opening in the roof of their mouth or a slit in their upper lip. Left untreated, CL/P can lead to speech impediments and an unsightly orofacial deformity. However, a sequence of simple, common surgical procedures can restore function with minimal scarring. To date, the psychological effects of being born with CL/P have been investigated in the literature, but the restorative impact of CL/P surgery on psychological wellbeing has not been rigorously evaluated. This study uses a quasiexperimental approach to estimate the impact of being born with CL/P on outcomes including anxiety, depression, self esteem, hope and an index of overall psychological well-being, as well as the impact of receiving reparative surgery prior to one’s teenage years. The results show that a one-level increase in the severity of a child’s CL/P is associated with a . 074 standard deviation loss in overall psychological wellbeing. The study’s key finding is that the average CL/P surgery improves psychological wellbeing by an estimated . 237 standard deviations, more than 310% of the loss associated with increasing CL/P severity. The author thanks Bruce Wydick, Yaniv Stopnitzky, Alessandra Cassar, Abhishek Das, and the 2018 MS IDEC class at the University of San Francisco for helpful comments and input on this research as well as Yogesh Roy, Akash Roy, Rounak Lenka, Akash Dutta, Sanjana Bose, Nihal Singh, and Munmun Banik for outstanding help with data collection. Furthermore, the author thanks the staff at Operation Smile – Kristin Hatcher, Abhishek Sengupta, Soumen Dey Malakar, and Bhaskor Mukherjee for their partnership to make this research a success. Grant funding from the University of San Francisco and the Kellogg Institute of International Studies at the University of Notre Dame is gratefully acknowledged. This study is dedicated to Saugata Gupta, without whom it would not have been possible.
Regulation of PTX3, a key component of humoral innate immunity in human dendritic cells: stimulation by IL‐10 and inhibition by IFN‐γ

The protopypic long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is a unique, humoral pattern‐recognition receptor, which plays a nonredundant function in innate resistance to pathogens. Dendritic cells (DC) of myelomonocytic origin, but not plasmacytoid DC, are a major source of PTX3 in response to Toll‐like receptor (TLR) engagment. The present study was designed to explore the regulation of PTX3 production in DC. PTX3 production was induced by TLR ligands, CD40 ligand, and interleukin (IL)‐1β and was suppressed by dexamethasone, 1α, 25‐dihydroxivitamin D3, and prostaglandin E2. It was unexpected that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐stimulated PTX3 production was enhanced by IL‐10 and inhibited by IL‐4 and interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ). Enhancement of PTX3 production by IL‐10 was also evident when Pam3 Cys‐Ser‐(Lys)4.3HCl, a TLR2‐TLR1 agonist, polyionisicpolycytidylic acid, a TLR3 agonist, and IL‐1β were used as stimuli. The effect of IL‐10 was blocked by an anti‐IL‐10 monoclonal antibody (mAb) or an anti‐IL‐10 receptor α mAb, which also reduced the LPS‐induced production. Thus, production of PTX3 in DC is subjected to a distinct regulatory network, with inhibition by IFN‐γ and enhancement by IL‐10. The amplification by IL‐10 of production of a nonredundant component of fluid‐phase innate immunity mirrors the IL‐10 stimulatory function on B cells in adaptive immunity. As PTX3 is also an extracellular matrix component, IL‐10‐enhanced PTX3 production may play a role in orchestration of tissue remodeling in chronic inflammation.
Status of Air Pollutants after Implementation of CNG in Delhi

Air pollution kills more than 5.9 million people annually, with more than 90 per cent of these deaths in capital city of India, Delhi. For improving the status of air pollution in Delhi, various policies and laws have been implemented. But even after the implementation of CNG, there was no significant change of pollutants (NOx, O 3 , SPM, RSPM & CO) except SO 2 . The objective of our study is whether CNG conversion has impinged on the primary pollutant and tropospheric ozone pollution profile and for the improvement in the quality of air in post CNG period. To carry out the analysis, daily ambient air quality secondary data (Jan 2002-Dec 2009; Source-CPCB) of all the above discussed pollutants were used. For generating own data, NOX and O3 monitoring were carried out at four different sites viz. Site I (Yamuna Biodiversity Park, away from traffic intersection), Site II (Traffic intersection at outside YBP, outer ring road, Gandhi vihar), Site III (Aravalli Biodiversity Park, away from traffic intersection) and Site IV (traffic intersection at outside ABP, ring road, Vasant vihar) during monsoon season (Aug-Sept, 2009). The concentration of ozone was higher at sites which are at traffic intersection (Site II & IV) than those which are away from traffic intersection (Site I & III). The results however, do not indicate an all round improvement in ambient air quality of Delhi. Hence, our short term study suggests that after the implementation of CNG in Delhi there is no remarkable improvement in the status of the pollutants and moreover, the sites which are near to traffic intersection possess high concentration of pollutants than the sites which are away from traffic intersection.