Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stigmatic beliefs toward a person with Alzheimer’s disease among high-school students: Does majority–minority status make a difference?

ABSTRACT Research in the area of public stigma and Alzheimer disease (AD) is attracting increased attention in the last years. However, studies are limited to assessing the topic among adult persons. The aims of this study were to assess stigmatic beliefs toward a person with AD in high-school students and to examine whether majority–minority status is associated with stigmatic beliefs beyond other correlates of stigma. A total of 460 high-school students aged 14–15 participated in the study. Approximately half (55.1%) were female and the rest male. The majority of participants were Jewish (64.6%) and the rest were Israeli Arabs. Students completed a self-administered structured questionnaire assessing public stigma, ageism, knowledge about AD, and familiarity with AD. Results showed that high-school students reported relatively low levels of stigmatic beliefs toward a person with AD. Additionally, the majority–minority status had a unique contribution to the explanation of stigma, with Arab high-school students reporting higher levels of stigma toward a person with AD in comparison to Jewish students. Our results stress the importance of developing intervention programs to reduce stigma toward persons with AD at an early age. These programs should be tailored to the cultural values and needs of specific groups.
Decision theoretic approaches for focussed Bayesian fusion

Focussed Bayesian fusion is a local Bayesian fusion technique by that high costs caused by Bayesian fusion can get circumvented. This publication addresses globally optimal decision making on the basis of a focussed Bayesian model. Therefore, common decision criteria under linear partial information and in particular principles of lazy decision making are applied. We also present an interval scheme for global posterior probabilities whose informativeness is notably high.
Individualizing Life Expectancy Estimates for Older Adults Using the Gompertz Law of Human Mortality

Background Guidelines recommend incorporating life expectancy (LE) into clinical decision-making for preventive interventions such as cancer screening. Previous research focused on mortality risk (e.g. 28% at 4 years) which is more difficult to interpret than LE (e.g. 7.3 years) for both patients and clinicians. Our objective was to utilize the Gompertz Law of Human Mortality which states that mortality risk doubles in a fixed time interval to transform the Lee mortality index into a LE calculator. Methods We examined community-dwelling older adults age 50 and over enrolled in the nationally representative 1998 wave of the Health and Retirement Study or HRS (response rate 81%), dividing study respondents into development (n = 11701) and validation (n = 8009) cohorts. In the development cohort, we fit proportional hazards Gompertz survival functions for each of the risk groups defined by the Lee mortality index. We validated our LE estimates by comparing our predicted LE with observed survival in the HRS validation cohort and an external validation cohort from the 2004 wave of the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing or ELSA (n = 7042). Results The ELSA cohort had a lower 8-year mortality risk (14%) compared to our HRS development (23%) and validation cohorts (25%). Our model had good discrimination in the validation cohorts (Harrell’s c 0.78 in HRS and 0.80 in the ELSA). Our predicted LE’s were similar to observed survival in the HRS validation cohort without evidence of miscalibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow, p = 0.2 at 8 years). However, our predicted LE’s were longer than observed survival in the ELSA cohort with evidence of miscalibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow, p<0.001 at 8 years) reflecting the lower mortality rate in ELSA. Conclusion We transformed a previously validated mortality index into a LE calculator that incorporated patient-level risk factors. Our LE calculator may help clinicians determine which preventive interventions are most appropriate for older US adults.
No Evidence of a Common DNA Variant Profile Specific to World Class Endurance Athletes

There are strong genetic components to cardiorespiratory fitness and its response to exercise training. It would be useful to understand the differences in the genomic profile of highly trained endurance athletes of world class caliber and sedentary controls. An international consortium (GAMES) was established in order to compare elite endurance athletes and ethnicity-matched controls in a case-control study design. Genome-wide association studies were undertaken on two cohorts of elite endurance athletes and controls (GENATHLETE and Japanese endurance runners), from which a panel of 45 promising markers was identified. These markers were tested for replication in seven additional cohorts of endurance athletes and controls: from Australia, Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Poland, Russia and Spain. The study is based on a total of 1520 endurance athletes (835 who took part in endurance events in World Championships and/or Olympic Games) and 2760 controls. We hypothesized that world-class athletes are likely to be characterized by an even higher concentration of endurance performance alleles and we performed separate analyses on this subsample. The meta-analysis of all available studies revealed one statistically significant marker (rs558129 at GALNTL6 locus, p = 0.0002), even after correcting for multiple testing. As shown by the low heterogeneity index (I2 = 0), all eight cohorts showed the same direction of association with rs558129, even though p-values varied across the individual studies. In summary, this study did not identify a panel of genomic variants common to these elite endurance athlete groups. Since GAMES was underpowered to identify alleles with small effect sizes, some of the suggestive leads identified should be explored in expanded comparisons of world-class endurance athletes and sedentary controls and in tightly controlled exercise training studies. Such studies have the potential to illuminate the biology not only of world class endurance performance but also of compromised cardiac functions and cardiometabolic diseases.
A block-sparse music algorithm for the localization and the identification of directive sources

We introduce a generalization of the MUSIC algorithm to treat block-sparse signals in a multi-measurement vector framework. We show, through theoretical analysis and numerical experiments, that the requirements in terms of number of snapshots and number of measurements depend not only on the sparsity and on the size of the blocks, but also on the rank of the matrices of coefficients for each block. We apply this algorithm to the localization of directive sources, which can be modeled by block-sparsity in a dictionary of multipoles, and show that it compares favorably to a greedy approach based on the same model.
The Influence of Identity Characteristics on E-Shopping Enjoyment and E-Loyalty among Women Online Shoppers

This paper extends a previous study that examined the role of enjoyment on the development of e-Loyalty by considering the role of race, income, and education on the enjoyment and development of e-Loyalty in women online shoppers. The goal of this research was to develop a better understanding of the online consumer by investigating women in relation to their e-commerce behaviors and perceptions. By looking at the intersectionality of race, income, and education level, it is a goal to gain a better understanding of the complexities of women as consumers. After completing a quantitative analysis of the data, it was found that the intersectionality of the demographic dimensions of Race, Income, and Education were not found to have a significant moderating impact on the enjoyment of an online shopping experience and the development of E-Loyalty in women online shoppers. This suggests that the complexity and multidimensionality of the psychographic social identification profile possibly supersedes the one-dimensional demographic identification variables in defining the traits and preferences of online shoppers, specifically women online shoppers.
Proceedings of Detc'05 2005 Asme Design Engineering Technical Conferences Detc2005/dac-84489 an Adaptive Sequential Linear Programming Algorithm for Optimal Design Problems with Probabilistic Constraints

Optimal design problems with probabilistic constraints, often referred to as Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) problems, have been the subject of extensive recent studies. Solution methods to date have focused more on improving efficiency rather than accuracy and the global convergence behavior of the solution. A new strategy utilizing an adaptive sequential linear programming (SLP) algorithm is proposed as a promising approach to balance accuracy, efficiency, and convergence. The strategy transforms the nonlinear probabilistic constraints into equivalent deterministic ones using both first order and second order approximations, and applies a filter-based SLP algorithm to reach the optimum. Simple numerical examples show promise for increased accuracy without sacrificing efficiency. NOMENCLATURE E a acceptable tolerance in switching between FORM and SORM f X probability density function of a random variable X f g probability density function of g(X) f (x) objective function to be optimized w.r. t. x F current set of filter entries G active constraint set g inequality constraints g equivalent deterministic inequality constraints * Corresponding author, Phone/Fax: (734) 647-8401/8403 h infeasibility defined as max(0, max i g i (x)) k iteration counter n number of design variables N(µ µ µ X , σ σ σ 2 X) normal distribution with mean µ µ µ X and standard deviation σ σ σ X m number of probabilistic constraints Pr[·] probability of · P f failure probability levels s step vector x deterministic design variables X random design variables x M most probable point (MPP) of the random variables X β t target reliability index ∆ trust region radius δ active constraint tolerance, positive value η filter parameter, equals − ∇ f T · s κ principle curvatures Φ(Φ −1) (inverse) CDF values for standardized normal distributions τ minimum value of infeasibility, greater than or equal to zero ζ filter parameter, ζ ∈ {γ, 1} 1 INTRODUCTION We consider optimal design problems where the presence of random variables changes the constraint formulations from de-terministic to probabilistic. A deterministic nonlinear programming (NLP) problem written in a standard negative null form is shown in Eq.(1), see [1], where equality constraints have been eliminated implicitly or explicitly.
Synchronized Distributed Termination

An efficient decentralized algorithm for synchronized termination of a distributed computation is presented. It is assumed that distributed processes are connected via unidirectional channels into a strongly connected network, in which no central controller exists. The number of processes and the network configuration are not known a priori. The number of steps required to terminate distributed computation after all processes met their local termination conditions is proportional to the diameter D of the network (D + 1 steps).
Free dermatoplasty combined with vacuum sealing drainage for the treatment of large-area soft tissue defects accompanied by bone exposure in the lower leg

The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical efficacy of free dermatoplasty combined with vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) for the treatment of large-area soft tissue defects accompanied by bone exposure in the lower leg (crus). Free dermatoplasty combined with VSD was used to treat 36 patients with large-area soft tissue defects accompanied by bone exposure in the lower leg. The areas of the soft tissue defects ranged from 25×12 to 35×30 cm and the areas of exposed bone ranged from 6×4 to 10×6 cm. When evaluated by the open fracture Gustilo classification, 14 cases were of Gustilo type IIIA and 22 cases were of type IIIB. During surgery, adjacent available muscle flaps were transferred to cover the outer areas of the exposed bone and reduce the bone exposure range. Following VSD treatment, granulation tissues grew well and free dermatoplasty combined with VSD was used to treat and repair the wound surfaces. The patients were followed up for 1–5 years (mean duration, 2.5 years). All 36 cases with skin flap grafts survived, the free skin graft texture on the wound surface was good, the recovery of lower limb function was satisfactory and the success rate was 80.56%. Free dermatoplasty combined with VSD used for the treatment of large-area soft tissue defects accompanied by bone exposure in the lower leg may eliminate the need for amputation and complex surgery, and is a simple, fast and effective treatment method.
Implications of Asymmetry Risk for Portfolio Analysis and Asset Pricing

Asymmetric shocks are common in markets; securities' payoffs are not normally distributed and exhibit skewness. This paper studies the portfolio holdings of heterogeneous agents with preferences over mean, variance and skewness, and derives equilibrium prices. A three funds separation theorem holds, adding a skewness portfolio to the market portfolio; the pricing kernel depends linearly only on the market return and its squared value. Our analysis extends Harvey and Siddique's (2000) conditional mean-variance-skewness asset pricing model to non-vanishing risk-neutral market variance. The empirical relevance of this extension is documented in the context of the asymmetric GARCH-in-mean model of Bekaert and Liu (2004).
International Journal of Health Geographics Open Access the Case of Montréal's Missing Food Deserts: Evaluation of Accessibility to Food Supermarkets

Background: Access to varied, healthy and inexpensive foods is an important public health concern that has been widely documented. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in identifying food deserts, that is, socially deprived areas within cities that have poor access to food retailers. In this paper we propose a methodology based on three measures of accessibility to supermarkets calculated using geographic information systems (GIS), and on exploratory multivariate statistical analysis (hierarchical cluster analysis), which we use to identify food deserts in Montréal.
Universal algorithms: Building a case for pointwise convergence

We consider algorithms for prediction, compression and entropy estimation in a universal setup. In each case, we estimate some function of an unknown distribution p over the set of natural numbers, using only n observations generated i.i. d. from p. While p is unknown, it belongs to a known collection P of possible models. When the supports of distributions in P are uniformly bounded, consistent algorithms exist for each of the problems. Namely, the convergence of the estimate to the true value can be bounded by a function depending only on the sample size, n, and not on the underlying distribution p. However, when the supports of distributions in P are not uniformly bounded, a more natural approach involves algorithms that are pointwise consistent, namely, the convergence to the true value is at a rate that depends on both n and the underlying (unknown) distribution p. The obvious practical difficulty with pointwise convergence is that the asymptotic consistency of the algorithm may indicate nothing about the performance of the algorithm for any fixed sample size, since the underlying distribution is unknown. In this paper, we first note that for many complex model classes P, we can still circumvent the above practical difficulty with pointwise convergence. Secondly, we take here a preliminary step towards characterizing a broad framework establishing the hierarchy of difficulty of problems involving pointwise convergence. We look for connections among the following problems which we define for a pointwise convergence scenario: (i) predicting good upper bounds on the next unseen sample, (ii) weak universal compression, and (iii) entropy estimation. We construct counter-examples to show that no two properties above imply the third.
PHONETIC SPEAKER RECOGNITION

The aim of this study is to answer two questions regarding the use of phonetic information for speaker modelling. We formulate answers for (1) what are the discriminative powers of broad phonetic classes for the task of speaker identification? (2) Are the phonetic speaker models more suitable for speaker recognition than standard models?
BER-driven synthesis for directional modulation secured wireless communication

Directional modulation (DM) is a recently introduced technique for secure wireless transmission using direct physical layer wave-front manipulation. This paper provides a bit error rate (BER)-based DM array synthesis method. It is shown for the first time that the standard constellation mappings in In-phase and Quadrature (IQ) space to a pre-specified BER can be exactly achieved along a given specified spatial direction. Different receiver capabilities are investigated and different assessment metrics for each case are discussed. The approach is validated for a 1 × 4 element dipole array operating at 1 GHz.
Using sperm morphometry and multivariate analysis to differentiate species of gray Mazama

There is genetic evidence that the two species of Brazilian gray Mazama, Mazama gouazoubira and Mazama nemorivaga, belong to different genera. This study identified significant differences that separated them into distinct groups, based on characteristics of the spermatozoa and ejaculate of both species. The characteristics that most clearly differentiated between the species were ejaculate colour, white for M. gouazoubira and reddish for M. nemorivaga, and sperm head dimensions. Multivariate analysis of sperm head dimension and format data accurately discriminated three groups for species with total percentage of misclassified of 0.71. The individual analysis, by animal, and the multivariate analysis have also discriminated correctly all five animals (total percentage of misclassified of 13.95%), and the canonical plot has shown three different clusters: Cluster 1, including individuals of M. nemorivaga; Cluster 2, including two individuals of M. gouazoubira; and Cluster 3, including a single individual of M. gouazoubira. The results obtained in this work corroborate the hypothesis of the formation of new genera and species for gray Mazama. Moreover, the easily applied method described herein can be used as an auxiliary tool to identify sibling species of other taxonomic groups.
On the Connes-Moscovici Hopf algebra associated to the diffeomorphisms of a manifold

For our own education, we reconstruct the Hopf algebra of Connes and Moscovici obtained by the action of vector fields on a crossed product of functions by diffeomorphisms. We extend the realization of that Hopf algebra in terms of rooted trees as given by Connes and Kreimer from dimension one to arbitrary dimension of the manifold. In principle there is no modification, but in higher dimension one has to be careful with the order of cuts. The order problem leads us to speculate that in quantum field theory the sum of Feynman graphs which corresponds to an element of the Connes-Moscovici Hopf algebra could have a larger symmetry than the individual graphs.
Self Esteem between Assam Police Trainees and Sports persons - A Comparative Study

The aim of the study was to compare self esteem between Assam Police trainees and sports persons. The researchers selected total 50 (fifty) subject’s i.e. N1=25 Assam Police (AP) trainees from 2nd AP Battalion Camp, Makum, Tinsukia, Assam, India and N2=25 sports person from Dibrugarh University Post Graduate team participated different Inter-college level Tournament and between the 19-22 years age. The purposive sampling technique was used to select the subjects. To collect the data, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used. To determine the differences between the groups the Independent t-test was applied and the level of significance was kept at 0.05confidence. The result showed that statistically there was significant difference between the groups (t0.05 (48) = 3.55 > 1.677).
Design Matters! An Empirical Analysis of Online Deliberation on Different News Platforms

Ever since the Internet has provided easy access to online discussion, advocates of deliberative democracy have hoped for an improved public sphere. This article investigates which particular platform features promote deliberative debate online. We assume that moderation, asynchronous discussion, a well-defined topic, and the availability of information enhance the level of deliberative quality of user comments. A comparison between different types of news platforms that differ in terms of design (a news forum, news websites, and Facebook news pages) shows that deliberation (measured as rationality, reciprocity, respect, and constructiveness) differs significantly between platforms. We find that the news forum yields the most rational and respectful debate. While user comments on news websites are only slightly less deliberative, Facebook comments perform poorly in terms of deliberative quality. However, comments left on news websites and on Facebook show particularly high levels of reciprocity among users.
Linking habitat selection and predation risk to spatial variation in survival

1. A central assumption underlying the study of habitat selection is that selected habitats confer enhanced fitness. Unfortunately, this assumption is rarely tested, and in some systems, gradients of predation risk may more accurately characterize spatial variation in vital rates than gradients described by habitat selection studies. 2. Here, we separately measured spatial patterns of both resource selection and predation risk and tested their relationships with a key demographic trait, adult female survival, for a threatened ungulate, woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou Gmelin). We also evaluated whether exposure to gradients in both predation risk and resource selection value was manifested temporally through instantaneous or seasonal effects on survival outcomes. 3. We used Cox proportional hazards spatial survival modelling to assess the relative support for 5 selection- and risk-based definitions of habitat quality, as quantified by woodland caribou adult female survival. These hypotheses included scenarios in which selection ideally mirrored survival, risk entirely drove survival, non-ideal selection correlated with survival but with additive risk effects, an ecological trap with maladaptive selection and a non-spatial effect of annual variation in weather. 4. Indeed, we found positive relationships between the predicted values of a resource selection function (RSF) and survival, yet subsequently incorporating an additional negative effect of predation risk greatly improved models further. This revealed a positive, but non-ideal relationship between selection and survival. Gradients in these covariates were also shown to affect individual survival probability at multiple temporal scales. Exposure to increased predation risk had a relatively instantaneous effect on survival outcomes, whereas variation in habitat suitability predicted by an RSF had both instantaneous and longer-term seasonal effects on survival. 5. Predation risk was an additive source of hazard beyond that detected through selection alone, and woodland caribou selection thus was shown to be non-ideal. Furthermore, by combining spatial adult female survival models with herd-specific estimates of recruitment in matrix population models, we estimated a spatially explicit landscape of population growth predictions for this endangered species.