Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mindfulness for the management of cachectic cancer patients: Arandomized study

QLQ-C30 was elected [3] while for mindfulness approach, the FFMQ (Five facet Mindfulness Questionnaire) validated in various languages (ie in french one) was applied [4]. EORTC questionnaire comprises 30 randomly distributed questions (with quotation from 0 to 4) allowing after grouping to obtain scoring for global health, physical, emotional, cognitive and social functioning; also some scorings are centered on symptoms (fatigue; pain; sleep disturbances; appetite) and treatments side-effects (GI-tract) [3]. In FFMQ document, 40 questions quoted from 1 to 5 (scale ranging from ‘never or very rarely true’ to ‘very often or always true’) also randomly applied, allowed after grouping to assess psychological behaviour in terms of observation, description, action, no judgment and lack of reactivity [4]. Data collected by both questionnaires for the aim of a comparative analysis had to be added, normalized (standardized) and directed so that the higher the value between 0.0 and 100.0% (thus inversing scoring for some questions), the more positive for the patient was the estimated variable [3,4].
Intermarriage and homogamy: causes, patterns, trends.

"Although many characteristics play a role in the choice of a spouse, sociologists have most often examined endogamy and homogamy with respect to race/ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. I summarize empirical research by answering four questions: (a) To what extent are groups endogamous and how do groups differ in this respect? (b) How has endogamy changed over time? (c) Which factors are related to endogamy? (d) How do various dimensions of partner choice coincide? [I then] discuss strengths and weaknesses of past research. "
Relational features of acetylcholine, noradrenaline, serotonin and GABA axon terminals in the stratum radiatum of adult rat hippocampus (CA1)

In a well‐defined sector of adult rat hippocampus (CA1, stratum radiatum), the ultrastructural features of acetylcholine (ACh), noradrenaline (NA), serotonin (5‐HT) and GABA axon terminals (varicosities) were compared by electron microscopy after immunostaining with antibodies against choline acetyltransferase, NA, 5‐HT and glutamic acid decarboxylase. Approximately 100 sectional profiles of each type were analyzed for size, presence of a synaptic membrane specialization (synaptic incidence) and composition of the microenvironment. An equivalent number of immunonegative varicosity profiles selected at random from the same micrographs were similarly examined. ACh, NA and 5‐HT varicosity profiles were of comparable size, and significantly smaller than GABA profiles. They exhibited a low frequency of junctional specialization, amounting to 7%, 15% and 21%, respectively, when extrapolated to the whole volume of these terminals. In contrast, GABA varicosities appeared entirely synaptic. The ACh, NA and 5‐HT varicosities also differed from their GABA counterparts in being juxtaposed to a greater number of unlabeled axonal varicosities and a lower number of dendritic branches. In addition, the microenvironment of immunostained terminals showed a much lower number of dendritic spines than that of immunonegative varicosities. This latter finding was viewed as another indication that predominantly asynaptic varicosities do not maintain particular relationships with their immediate surround. It was also concluded that volume transmission represents a major mode of transmission for ACh, NA and 5‐HT in adult rat hippocampus, thus contributing to the properties and functions assigned to these transmitters in this part of brain. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Learning Hierarchy for Classification and Regression by Ganesh Ajjanagadde

This thesis explores the problems of learning analysis of variance (ANOVA) decompositions over GF(2) and R, as well as a general regression setup. For the problem of learning ANOVA decompositions, we obtain fundamental limits in the case of GF(2) under both sparsity and degree structures. We show how the degree or sparsity level is a useful measure of the complexity of such models, and in particular how the statistical complexity ranges from linear to exponential in the dimension, thus forming a “learning hierarchy”. Furthermore, we discuss the problem in both an “adaptive” as well as a “one-shot” setting, where in the adaptive case query choice can depend on the entire past history. Somewhat surprisingly, we show that the “adaptive” setting does not yield significant statistical gains. In the case of R, under query access, we demonstrate an approach that achieves a similar hierarchy of complexity with respect to the dimension. For the general regression setting, we outline a viewpoint that captures a variety of popular methods based on locality and partitioning of some kind. We demonstrate how “data independent” partitioning may still yield statistically consistent estimators, and illustrate this by a lattice based partitioning approach. Thesis Supervisor: Gregory Wornell Title: Professor
Revenue Reserves and Financial Performance in the Brewery Industry: Evidence from Nigeria

The research evaluates the co-integration, magnitude and strength of the relationships between corporate retentions as proxied by retained earnings and some key financial performance indicators, in the Nigeria manufacturing industry using the Brewery sub-sector as a focal point. The ex- post facto research designed which made use of secondary data obtained from annual reports and accounts of the two market leaders in the sector: Nigeria Breweries Plc and Guinness Nigeria Plc, from year 2000 to 2013.The magnitude of association of the variables was validated using the ordinary least squares method. Augmented Dickey- Fuller (ADF) test was also conducted on all the variables to check for stationary of time series data. Log of retained earnings, current asset ratio, dividend per share attained stationary at first difference, while earnings per share, net asset value per share, price -to- earnings ratio and market price of equity shares, achieved stationary at second difference. Results indicate that a strong relationship (about 77%) exist between retained earnings and net asset value per share. Also long run relationship exists between retained earnings, and the rest of the variables implying that, if the retained earnings are properly invested, the returns will catalyze growth, development and expansion of the firms while the financial performance indicators will serve as predictors to the appropriate levels of retentions and investment which could guarantee good bottom line without incurring the opportunity cost of excess liquidity.
Reducing mismatching under time-pressure by reasoning about visibility and occlusion

Three methods are explored which help indicate whether feature points are potentially visible or occluded in the matching phase of the keyframe-based real-time visual SLAM system. The first derives a measure of potential visibility from the angular proximity to keyframes in which they were observed and globally adjusted, and preferentially selects those with high visibility when tracking the camera position between keyframes. It is found that sorting and selecting features within image bins spread over the image improves tracking stability. The second method automatically recognizes and locates 3D polyhedral objects alongside the point map, and uses them to determine occlusion. The third method uses the map points themselves to grow surfaces. The performance of each is tested on live and recorded sequences.
Work complexity and cognitive functioning at midlife: Cross-validating the Kohn–Schooler hypothesis in an American cohort

In an influential body of work extending across more than three decades and drawing on data from the United States, Poland, Japan and the Ukraine, Melvin Kohn, Carmi Schooler and their associates have found that cognitive capacities are affected by experiences on the job; specifically, that working at a complex job improves cognitive functioning. These findings anticipate and parallel research on the relationships among social integration, leisure-time activities and cognitive functioning among the elderly. This paper tests the Kohn–Schooler hypothesis using different measures, models and data. Specifically, we estimate models of the reciprocal influence of work complexity and cognitive functioning at ages 53 to 54 and 64 to 65 among women and men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Even when adolescent academic ability test scores and high school rank have been controlled, we find moderate effects of the complexity of work on abstract reasoning ability at ages 53 to 54 (in 1993). These effects are similar among women and men and are robust to reasonable assumptions about the unreliability of measurement of adolescent academic ability. However, there were no such effects, either in 1993 or in 2004, among individuals who were still working at ages 64 to 65. Thus, the full set of findings provides only limited support for the Kohn–Schooler hypothesis.
FRRED: Fourier robust RED algorithm to detect and mitigate LDoS attacks

As most of consumer electronics are connected to the Internet, network attacks can cause massive damage and loss of data to the users. By sending periodic packet bursts to bottleneck routers, Low-Rate Denial-of-Service (LDoS) attacks can degrade the throughput of TCP applications while being hard to be detected. In this paper, we introduce Power Spectrum Density Entropy (PSD-entropy) to detect LDoS attacks. We also propose a Fourier transform based Robust RED (FRRED) queuing algorithm to preserve TCP throughput when faced with LDoS attacks. This novel Active Queue Management (AQM) Algorithm firstly detects the suspicious attack packets based on their arrival time and then filter the attack packets based on Power Spectrum Density (PSD) entropy. We perform extensive simulations in NS-3 to evaluate the performance of FRRED. Compared to other AQM algorithms, FRRED has the lowest False Positive Rate and can preserve nearly the full TCP throughput.
Fractional timing offset and channel estimation for MIMO OFDM systems over flat fading channels

This paper addresses the problem of fractional timing offset and channel estimation in Multiple input Multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO OFDM) systems. The estimators have been derived assuming a flat fading channel and using the maximum likelihood criterion. Closed form Cramer Rao bound (CRB) expressions for fractional timing offset and channel response are also derived. Simulation results have been used to cross-check the accuracy of the proposed estimation algorithm.
Effect of low and high glycaemic index drink on sleep pattern in children.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effect of high and low glycaemic index drinks on children's sleep pattern. METHODS Eight children underwent 3 nights of full polysomnography study, one familiarization and two test nights consecutively. On the test nights, 1 hour before bedtime, the children had a milk drink of either low or high GI in a random order. The glycaemic loads (GL) were 7.4 and 52.8 for low and high GI drink respectively. RESULTS The mean of total arousal index in the first half of night after the high GI was greater than that of low GI drink. (12.9 +/- 4.6 vs. 9.9 +/- 2.2, P = 0.03). NREM arousal index in the first half of night after the high GI was also higher than that of low GI drink. (12.7 +/- 4.8 vs. 9.6 +/- 2.3, P = 0.05). Other sleep parameters did not show any significant difference in low GI and high GI diets. CONCLUSION NREM and total arousal indices were higher in those who consumed high GI drinks compared with low GI, one hour before sleep. It seems that the high quantity consumption of carbohydrates close to the bedtime is accompanied by frequent arousals and may affect the sleep quality.
Context-Aware Access Control for Pervasive Access to Process-Based Healthcare Systems

Healthcare is an increasingly collaborative enterprise involving a broad range of healthcare services provided by many individuals and organizations. Grid technology has been widely recognized as a means for integrating disparate computing resources in the healthcare field. Moreover, Grid portal applications can be developed on a wireless and mobile infrastructure to execute healthcare processes which, in turn, can provide remote access to Grid database services. Such an environment provides ubiquitous and pervasive access to integrated healthcare services at the point of care, thus improving healthcare quality. In such environments, the ability to provide an effective access control mechanism that meets the requirement of the least privilege principle is essential. Adherence to the least privilege principle requires continuous adjustments of user permissions in order to adapt to the current situation. This paper presents a context-aware access control mechanism for HDGPortal, a Grid portal application which provides access to workflow-based healthcare processes using wireless Personal Digital Assistants. The proposed mechanism builds upon and enhances security mechanisms provided by the Grid Security Infrastructure. It provides tight, just-in-time permissions so that authorized users get access to specific objects according to the current context. These permissions are subject to continuous adjustments triggered by the changing context. Thus, the risk of compromising information integrity during task executions is reduced.
Five New Species of Minute Salamanders, Genus Thorius (Caudata: Plethodontidae), from Northern Oaxaca, Mexico

Five new species of diminutive salamanders of the endemic Mexican genus Thorius (Plethodontidae) are described from the Sierra de Juirez in northern Oaxaca. The species are diagnosed by adult body size, external proportions, dentition, osteology and coloration. The three species that have been studied using protein electrophoresis are genetically unique; all differ from T. macdougalli, the only species of the genus previously known from these mountains. Each of the six species studied has distinct geographic and elevational ranges, and there is a complex pattern of geographic overlap and replacement. As many as three species co-occur locally at elevations up to 2955 m on Cerro Pelon, and each species is sympatric with at least one other. One species descends to approximately 800 m, which is the lowest known elevational record for the genus. The new taxa include the full size range of the genus, with two large and three small species.
Early Detection of Preeclampsia Using Inhibin A and Other Second-Trimester Serum Markers

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether second-trimester maternal serum markers including inhibin A are useful for the detection of preeclampsia. Methods: Between January 2005 and March 2009, we analyzed the data of 4,764 subjects who underwent second-trimester multiple-marker screening for Down syndrome. Serum samples were assayed at 15+0 to 20+6 weeks for maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein (MSAFP), human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), unconjugated estriol (uE3) and inhibin A. We reviewed all medical records retrospectively, and assessed the relationships of several markers with preeclampsia using logistic regression analysis. Results: The study sample included 41 patients who developed preeclampsia and a control group consisting of the other 4,723 healthy subjects treated between January 2005 and March 2009. There were no significant differences in gestational ages at blood sampling, maternal weights, gravidity and parity between the two groups. However, the mean ages, Apgar scores, gestational age at delivery and neonatal weights were significantly different between the study group and the control group. The levels of markers in the study group were significantly increased compared to the control group, 1.76 ± 2.68 for inhibin A, 1.18 ± 0.69 for MSAFP, and 1.62 ± 1.18 for hCG, but uE3 did not differ significantly between the two groups. The AUC of inhibin A was 0.715, but the AUC of a three-marker combination model (0.800) was even better. A mid-trimester inhibin A concentration of 1.5 MoM or greater had a sensitivity of 60% and a false-positive rate of 16% for the prediction of preeclampsia. Inhibin A was the best predictor of preeclampsia. Three other markers were reliable predictive markers of preeclampsia. Conclusions: Inhibin A and other second-trimester serum markers may be useful for early detection of preeclampsia. Inhibin A was in fact the most important predictable marker among the markers we surveyed. The results of this study support those of previous studies, and provide quantified data elucidating the occurrence of preeclampsia.
Rehabilitation of spelling along the sub-word-level routine

Contemporary psycholinguistic models assume at least two routes in writing. These models have been verified on the basis of neuropsychological observations of patients suffering from acquired dysgraphia. Many studies have discussed the architecture of the phonological and graphemic lexicons, their relations to semantic knowledge, and their disruption following neuropsychological damage, but few have dealt with the nature of the sub-word level writing routine and its disruption. This may be due to the fact that, although this routine has importance in languages such as Italian, where orthography is much more regular and predictable, it appears to have a relatively reduced impact on the spelling abilities of educated English-speaking adults. The present paper describes the rehabilitation of dysgraphia along the sub-word-level route in Italian dysgraphic patients. Particular emphasis is given to the treatment of the unit that allows the phonological analysis of the auditory string to be written. The treatment procedure was tested on two patients (RO, and DR suffering from severe dysgraphia. After treatment, the spelling ability of the two subjects was restored to practically normal levels on most subsets of items. Both patients were also able to apply the restored skills to spontaneous writing and to written naming tasks. Results are discussed in relation to the contemporary writing models and the principles of cognitive neurorehabilitation.
The Effect of Implementing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports on Student Misbehavior in a Large Urban High School.

John Power. THE EFFECT OF IMPLEMENTING SCHOOL-WIDE POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORTS ON STUDENT MISBEHAVIOR IN A LARGE URBAN HIGH SCHOOL. (Under the direction of Dr. Nathan Putney), School of Education, Liberty University, September 2012. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effect that implementing School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) had on student misbehavior as determined by Office Discipline Referrals, chronic student misbehavior, In School and Out of School Suspensions assignments, and student tardy referrals in a large urban high school. School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is a systematic, proactive, preventive, research-based approach that has shown to reduce student misbehavior when implemented with fidelity. The study focused on the Primary Prevention Tier of SWPBIS to prevent and reduce student misbehavior. The study attempted to answer the question is School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports an effective model to significantly decrease the number of office discipline referrals, In School and Out of School Suspensions assignments, and student tardy referrals. The results from the study showed SWPBIS significantly reduced ODRs, ODRs of students that exhibited chronic student misbehavior, and student tardy referrals in the targeted large urban high school; however, the effect size was small. Descriptors: Expectations, In School Suspension, Office Discipline Referrals, Out of School Suspension, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, positive reinforcement, School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, student management, student misbehavior, student tardy referrals. Copyright John Power, 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Tunable Dielectric Resonator-Based Left-Handed Leaky Wave Antenna

Recently, left-handed (LH) metamaterials have been achieved by arranging an array of TE resonant dielectric resonators (DRs) in a cut-off parallel plate waveguide [1], [2]. Since negative permittivity is provided by the TE cut-off background, the DRs only need to generate the required negative permeability in order to realize a LH metamaterial. This configuration provides a more flexible choice in structural parameters and uses a non-metallic resonant structure for achieving negative permeability that can be scaled to terahertz frequencies and beyond. One of the unique features of a LH metamaterial-based leaky wave antenna is that it can scan from back-fire to end-fire simply by changing the operational frequency. To overcome this frequency-dependent feature, an electrically-controlled tunable leaky wave antenna has been proposed [3]; the dispersion curve can be shifted by varying the bias voltage of the varactor diodes in each unit-cell. In contrast to the frequency and electrically controlled leaky wave antenna, this paper presents a mechanically controlled leaky wave antenna suitable for DR-based LH transmission lines. The dispersion curve is shifted when the boundary condition on the other side of the radiation aperture changes. A 15-cell leaky wave antenna is designed with the proposed structure and the radiation patterns are measured to confirm the capability of mechanical tunability for the maximum beam direction.
Image-guided intervention in management of complications of portal hypertension: more than TIPS for success.

Management of clinically important sequelae of portal hypertension, such as variceal bleeding and ascites, may involve a combination of medical, endoscopic, surgical, and interventional approaches and procedures. Although clinically significant esophageal and rectal varices are typically visible endoscopically, ectopic varices may require multiplanar portal venous phase computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging for diagnosis. A detailed understanding of individual vascular anatomy, flow dynamics, and patient-related factors such as cardiac and hepatic status is necessary for appropriate treatment selection in patients with complicated portal hypertension. The hepatic venous pressure gradient is the key indirect measurement of portal venous pressure. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) placement is regarded as the archetypal intervention for treating complicated portal hypertension by reducing portal pressure. Various modifications, such as direct portocaval shunt, may be used in patients with challenging vascular anatomy. A subset of patients with obstructed hepatic venous outflow or portal venous inflow should be considered for recanalization. Splenic artery embolization may be considered for reduction of portal pressure in selected patients, particularly when hypersplenism or splenic vein occlusion is a prominent feature. Gastric and ectopic varices may bleed even when the portal pressure is low, and balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (BRTO) in such patients may lead to equal or improved outcome compared with TIPS placement. BRTO is not limited by poor hepatic reserve or encephalopathy; however, it does not reduce portal pressure and may aggravate esophageal varices. Interventional radiology plays an important role in maintaining the patency of surgically created portosystemic shunts, and it remains at the forefront of new approaches in shunt design and placement. Supplemental material available at http://radiographics.rsna. org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1148/rg.335125166/-/DC1.