Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgical Experience in Cases of L5 and S1 Symptoms Caused by Upper Lumbar Spinal Stenosis of L2-L3 and L3-L4

Object: Previous reports have indicated that the level of lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS) often differs from that diagnosed from neurological symptoms, and L5 nerve roots are often affected by stenosis at the L2-L3 or L3-L4 level; however, few cases have been described. Decompression surgery for upper lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS) of L2-L3 and L3-L4 causing L5 and S1 symptoms was investigated. Methods: Eight patients with a diagnosis based on L5 or S1 symptoms, but whose MRI or CT-myelography showed only one level of stenosis at L2-L3 or L3-L4 were studied. The level of stenosis was determined by the most narrowing lesion, such as total or subtotal block on CT-myelography and MRI. Selective nerve root block was performed to determine which nerve root was the origin of the pain in these patients. One-level decompression surgery at L2-L3 or L3-L4 was performed in 8 patients. Results: There were 2 cases of stenosis at L2-L3 and 6 cases at L3-L4. The level involved suggested by neurological symptoms was L5 in 6 cases and S1 in 2 cases. L5 symptoms were most often affected by L3-L4. Symptoms in all patients disappeared after one-level decompression surgery. Conclusions: Degenerative stenosis of upper levels such as L2-3 and L3-4 involved damage in lower nerve roots such as L5 or S1, and L5 symptoms were most often affected by L3-L4. Decompression surgery for upper- level stenosis improved symptoms in all patients. Physicians should be aware that upper-level stenosis can cause radiculopathy at a lower level.
E-learning and M-learning : Experiences , a Prototype and First Experimental Results

The importance of the utilization of modern technologies in education is continuously growing. One of the recently widely discussed fields is the one of mobile learning (or m-learning) where different mobile devices are used for educational purposes. This paper describes a system called Mobile ELDIT (m-ELDIT) that is under development at the University of Trento, Italy. It is a mobile version of an existing language learning platform (ELDIT), developed at the European Academy of Bolzano, Italy. While the ELDIT system can be accessed from any desktop PC having an internet connection, the mobile system can be accessed from PDAs and offers any-time anywhere access to the learning base of ELDIT. It means that both online and offline access can be provided to the users. A prototype of m-ELDIT is already being used by some learners as an additional tool for the preparation for the bilingualism exam, but also just for studying the Italian or German languages. The goal of this paper is to share design principles and the practical experience collected from the first experiments with the prototype.
Serving families with child maltreatment and substance use disorders: A decade of learning

ABSTRACT An increase in parental substance use disorders (SUD) and the number of infants and toddlers entering foster care has prompted federal and state efforts to change the treatment paradigm toward more integrated and family-centered strategies. The Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) program demonstrated that family-centered strategies can improve child and parent outcomes. The current challenge is to bring effective strategies to scale. This conceptual article highlights the lessons learned from 10 years of implementing and evaluating programs to meet the needs of families affected by parental SUD and child maltreatment. Effective family-centered strategies identified by the RPG program are illustrated with specifics from the Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team program. These effective strategies could be implemented in any jurisdiction and include (1) collaboration toward integrated services between child welfare and SUD treatment, (2) timely access to SUDS treatment, (3) recovery management and support, (4) tailored family services, and (5) adaptation to local jurisdiction needs. When these strategies are operational, children are more likely to be safe and remain in parent custody, and parents are more likely to achieve sobriety and improve their parental capacity. Future research might examine the unique impact of each of the five strategies independently.
Latency for Meaning Recognition and Picture Verification of Syntactic and Lexical Ambiguity

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact ecommons@luc.edu. Special gratitude must also be offered to Ms. Joanne Fanning for help in the preparation of the experimental materials. The author wishes to thank Ms. Kathleen McCaffrey for her extraordinary competence in the typing of this manuscript. Finally, special thanks must be given to Mrs. Carol Ney for her untiring faith, and support of the author. Without her many hours of typing and work, this dissertation would not have been completed. ii PREFACE The history of psycholinguistics, as with most sciences, has been marked by false starts, dead ends, and seemingly fruitless avenues of research. OVer a period of time, several theories of language processing and language learning have been offered only to be discarded in the light of discrepant data and unexplained linguistic phenomena. However, it is neither the intention nor within the scope of the present paper to discuss all of the historical foundations for the present state of psycholinguistic research. The historical background for language studies is discussed only as it relates to the development of a transformational model of generative grammar. Prior to any consideration of language as the object of scientific research, the format of the present paper must be delineated. Firstly, a short history of scientific language study will be presented. Secondly, linguistics will be treated in terms of the development of a transformational model of generative grammar according to Chomsky's standard theory. Thirdly, the basic distinctions between linguistic competence and performance will be delineated, and the concepts of deep and surface structure defined. awarded the Master of Arts in psychology. While at Loyola University of Chicago, the author presented several papers at the Midwestern Psychological Association meetings and at several meetings of the American Psychological Association.
Analysis and Design of Business - to - Consumer Online Auctions

Business-to-consumer online auctions form an important element in the portfolio of mercantile processes that facilitate electronic commerce activity. Much of traditional auction theory has focused on analyzing single-item auctions in isolation from the market context in which they take place. We demonstrate the weakness of such approaches in online settings where a majority of auctions are multiunit in nature. Rather than pursuing a classical approach and assuming knowledge of the distribution of consumers' valuations, we emphasize the largely ignored discrete and sequential nature of such auctions. We derive a general expression that characterizes the multiple equilibria that can arise in such auctions and segregate these into desirable and undesirable categories. Our analytical and empirical results, obtained by tracking real-world online auctions, indicate that bid increment is an important factor amongst the control factors that online auctioneers can manipulate and control. We show that consumer bidding strategies in such auctions are not uniform and that the level of bid increment chosen influences them. With a motive of providing concrete strategic directions to online auctioneers, we derive an absolute upper bound for the bid increment. Based on the theoretical upper bound we propose a heuristic decision rule for setting the bid increment. Empirical evidence lends support to the hypothesis that setting a bid increment higher than that suggested by the heuristic decision rule has a negative impact on the auctioneer's revenue.
Renoprotective effects of renin–angiotensin system inhibitor combined with calcium channel blocker or diuretic in hypertensive patients

Objectives: To conduct a meta-analysis of studies comparing the renoprotective effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker (ACEI/ARB) combined with either calcium channel blocker (CCB) or diuretic, but not both, in hypertensive patients. Data sources: Pubmed, Embase, Medline, and Cochrane databases were searched to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of blood pressure lowering treatments in patients with hypertension. Study selection: RCTs comparing the renoprotective effects of ACEI/ARB plus CCB with ACEI/ARB plus diuretic in hypertensive patients, with at least one of the following reported outcomes: urinary protein, estimated glomerular filtration rate/creatinine clearance (eGFR/CrCl), or serum creatinine. Results: Based on 14 RCTs with 18,125 patients, statistically significant benefits were found in ACEI/ARB plus CCB for maintaining eGFR/CrCl (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.36; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.20–0.53; P < 0.001), serum creatinine reduction (mean difference [MD] = −0.05 mg/dL; 95% CI: −0.07 to −0.03; P < 0.001). However, no statistical differences were found between the 2 therapeutic strategies in terms of urinary protein (MD = 7.48%; 95% CI: –6.13% to 21.08%; P = 0.28; I 2 = 92%). Conclusions: This meta-analysis concluded that ACEI/ARB plus CCB have a stronger effect on the maintenance of renal function in patients with hypertension than ACEI/ARB plus diuretic.
A systematic approach to fuzzy modeling for rule generation from numerical data

This paper addresses a new method for automatically extraction of the fuzzy rules from input-output data. The proposed fuzzy system modeling approach has three significant modules: (1) input selection; (2) knowledge representation; and (3) approximate reasoning. In the first module, a heuristic method is presented to select more significant input variables among the possible candidates. We decrease the number of inputs one by one with the improvement of a given criterion by implementing a neural network. In the second module, the data set is partitioned into several clusters according to their similarities. In this phase, we generalize Kwon index by using covariance norm matrix and implement the Gustafson-Kessel (GK) fuzzy clustering algorithm. Then, the results of fuzzy clusters are used for generation of fuzzy if-then rules, and neural networks optimize the membership functions of corresponding rules. The third module is parameterized inference formulation and optimization by implementing "sequential quadratic programming" algorithm. In this framework, the whole procedure of structure identification and parameter optimization is carried out automatically and efficiently by the combined use of neural networks, fuzzy clustering, and adaptive back-propagation learning. Finally, the proposed fuzzy methodology is implemented in supply chain of an automotive plant. The results show the superiority of the model in comparison with the Sugeno and Yasukawa's fuzzy modeling in terms of error reduction.
General Deficit in Inhibitory Control of Excessive Smartphone Users: Evidence from an Event-Related Potential Study

With the popularity of smartphones, the problem of excessive use has drawn increasing attention. However, it is not clear whether there is an inhibitory deficit in excessive smartphone users. Using a modified Go/NoGo task with three types of context (blank, neutral, and smartphone-related), the present study combined measures of behavior and electrophysiology [event-related potentials (ERPs)] to examine general and specific inhibitory control in an excessive smartphone use group and a normal use group. Results showed that participants in both groups had larger amplitude of N2 and P3 on NoGo trials than Go trials. NoGo N2, an ERP component associated with inhibitory control, was more negative in the excessive smartphone use group than the normal use group. These results suggest that in the early stage of inhibition processing, excessive smartphone users experience more conflicts and show a general deficit that does not depend on smartphone-related cues. Moreover, the study provides further neuroscience evidence of the physiological correlates of excessive smartphone use.
Combining Multiple Evidencefrom Di erent Relevance Feedback

It has been known that using diierent representations of a query retrieves diierent sets of documents. Recent work suggests that signiicant improvement in retrieval performance can be achieved by combining multiple representations of an information need. In this paper, we rst investigate a fully automatic way of generating multiple query representations for a given information problem. We produce multiple query vectors by expanding an initial query vector with various relevance feedback methods. We then describe the eeect of combining the multiple query vectors on retrieval eeectiveness. Experimental results show that signiicant improvements can be obtained by the combination of multiple query vectors expanded with diierent relevance feedback methods.
On Morphological Competence

My goals in this paper are (a) to argue that parameter-resetting is the wrong metaphor for explaining variability in the production of morphological inflection in second language acquisition; (b) to attempt to illustrate just a few of the types of learning problems confronting an adult native speaker of one language who is learning the grammatical features of another; and (c) to underscore the seemingly mundane and obvious point that such learning involves figuring out how to reconfigure features into new or different formal configurations in the L2. The claim that second language acquisition requires parameter-resetting was an idea that carried great promise. It offered a principled way to cope with the issue of L1 influence in L2A, although in my view it has never coped well with the issue of variable performance—which of course is a hallmark of second language development. In general, however, the failure of many adult language learners to reach nativelike proficiency could be modeled in terms of the failure or inability to reset one or more parameters from the L1 value to that of the L2. In this paper I would like to address a more recent and theoretically interesting instantiation of parameter-resetting-failure in SLA, known as the representational deficit approach (e.g. Hawkins 2000, 2003, Hawkins & Chan 1997, Hawkins & Liszka 2003, Tsimpli 2003). This approach attributes L2 inflectional variability or error to a failure in the selection of parameterized formal features. The theoretical point of departure is that of Chomsky’s more recent Minimalist assumptions, as exemplified in the quote shown in (1) from Chomsky (2001):
Bounds and constructions for n-e.c. tournaments

Few families of tournaments satisfying the $n$-e.c. \ adjacency property are known. We supply a new random construction for generating infinite families of vertex-transitive $n$-e.c. \ tournaments by considering circulant tournaments. Switching is used to generate exponentially many $n$-e.c. \ tournaments of certain orders. With aid of a computer search, we demonstrate that there is a unique minimum order $3$-e.c. \ tournament of order $19,$ and there are no $3$-e.c. \ tournaments of orders $20,$ $21,$ and $22. $
How the Visual Cortex Handles Stimulus Noise: Insights from Amblyopia

Adding noise to a visual image makes object recognition more effortful and has a widespread effect on human electrophysiological responses. However, visual cortical processes directly involved in handling the stimulus noise have yet to be identified and dissociated from the modulation of the neural responses due to the deteriorated structural information and increased stimulus uncertainty in the case of noisy images. Here we show that the impairment of face gender categorization performance in the case of noisy images in amblyopic patients correlates with amblyopic deficits measured in the noise-induced modulation of the P1/P2 components of single-trial event-related potentials (ERP). On the other hand, the N170 ERP component is similarly affected by the presence of noise in the two eyes and its modulation does not predict the behavioral deficit. These results have revealed that the efficient processing of noisy images depends on the engagement of additional processing resources both at the early, feature-specific as well as later, object-level stages of visual cortical processing reflected in the P1 and P2 ERP components, respectively. Our findings also suggest that noise-induced modulation of the N170 component might reflect diminished face-selective neuronal responses to face images with deteriorated structural information.
Novel Pattern Matching using FSM Algorithm for Memory Architecture

: Network intrusion detection system is used to inspect packet contents against thousands of predefined malicious or suspicious patterns. Because traditional software alone pattern matching approaches can no longer meet the high throughput of today’s networking, many hardware approaches are proposed to accelerate pattern matching. Among hardware approaches, memory-based architecture has attracted a lot of attention because of its easy reconfigurability and scalability. In order to accommodate the increasing number of attack patterns and meet the throughput requirement of networks, a successful network intrusion detection system must have a memory-efficient pattern-matching algorithm and hardware design. In this paper, we propose a memory-efficient pattern-matching algorithm which can significantly reduce the memory requirement. For Snort rule sets, the new algorithm achieves 21% of memory reduction compared with the traditional Aho–Corasick algorithm. In addition, we can gain 24% of memory reduction by integrating our approach to the bit-split algorithm which is the state-of-the-art memory-based approach.
Feature Based Sequence Image Stitching Method

Image mosaic is useful for the traditional image process. We proposed a novel feature based sequence image stitching method for the image mosaic system. In this method, the whole image registration process has five steps, which includes feature point detection, feature descriptor extraction, feature points matching, estimation of the motion model parameters and stitching process. In these steps, difference of Gaussian image is used to get the extreme points as the feature points, then the SIFT descriptor operator is used to describe the feature, finally random sample consensus method is used for estimating the motion parameters. We test our method on two kinds of sequence images, the artificial images and the real images. The results show the stitching method is robust.
A Danish Population-Based Twin Study on General Health in the Elderly

Objectives: To study the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on self-rated health and hospitalization patterns in the elderly. Methods: Asurvey among all 3,099 Danish twins ages 75 years and older identified in the Danish Twin Registry. An interviewwas conducted with 77% of the twins. The number of hospitalizations in the previous 18 years was obtained through register linkage, thereby obtaining health information on 96% of the study population, including all nonresponders. Results: Structural equation modeling suggested that approximately a quarter of the variation in the liability to self-reported health and the number of hospitalizations could be attributed to genetic factors. The remaining variationwas most likely due to nonfamilial environment. Analyses of the hospitalization patterns of proxy responders and nonresponders suggest that the estimates of the genetic influence on health outcomes in the study are conservative. Discussion: The present study indicates that variation in general health among the elderly is partly explained by genetic factors.
Solving the Molecular Sequence Alignment Problem with Generalized Differential Evolution 3 (GDE3)

Molecular sequence alignment is one of the most essential tools of the molecular biology. It permits to track changes and similarities between molecular sequences. In this paper the molecular sequence alignment problem is formulated suitable for an evolutionary algorithm (EA), and two problem instances are solved using generalized differential evolution 3 (GDE3), which is a general purpose EA. Regardless of relatively large number of decision variables, the instances were solvable and results were comparable to those by sequence alignment solvers in comparison
Local atmospheric decoupling in complex topography alters climate change impacts

Cold air drainage and pooling occur in many mountain valleys, especially at night and during winter. Local climate regimes associated with frequent cold air pooling have substantial impacts on species phenology, distribution and diversity. However, little is known about how the degree and frequency of cold air drainage and pooling will respond to a changing climate. Evidence suggests that, because cold pools are decoupled from the free atmosphere, these local climates may not respond in the same way as regional‐scale climates estimated from coarse‐grid general circulation models. Indeed, recent studies have demonstrated that historical changes in the frequency of synoptic conditions have produced complex spatial variations in the resulting climatic changes on the ground. In the mountainous terrain of the Oregon Cascades, we show that, at relatively exposed hill slope and ridge top locations, air temperatures are highly coupled to changes in synoptic circulation patterns at the 700‐hPa level, whereas in sheltered valley bottoms, cold air pooling at night and during winter causes temperatures to be largely decoupled from, and relatively insensitive to, 700‐hPa flow variations. The result is a complex temperature landscape composed of steep gradients in temporal variation, controlled largely by gradients in elevation and topographic position. When a projected climate warming of 2.5 °C was combined with likely changes in the frequency distribution of synoptic circulation, modelled temperature changes at closely spaced locations diverged widely (by up to 6 °C), with differences equalling or exceeding that of the imposed regional temperature change. Because cold air pooling and consequent atmospheric decoupling occur in many mountain valleys, especially at high latitudes, this phenomenon is likely to be an important consideration in understanding the impacts of climate change in mountainous regions. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society
LES CARACTÉRISTIQUES DES UTILISATEURS DE SITES DE SOCIALISATION VIRTUELLE : PERSONNALITÉ, ATTACHEMENT ET FONCTIONNEMENT CONJUGAL

Depuis leur creation en 2004, les sites de socialisation virtuelle sont devenus des plateformes de communication privilegiees par plusieurs internautes. La presente etude vise a examiner les liens entre l’utilisation des sites de socialisation virtuelle et diverses variables intrapersonnelles et relationnelles. Dans la presente etude, 822 participants en relation de couple ont repondu a un questionnaire sur Internet. Les resultats indiquent que plus les internautes affichent des taux eleves d’attachement anxieux, de nevrosisme et de cyberinfidelite, plus ils consacrent de temps a leurs activites sur les sites de socialisation virtuelle. Les resultats des analyses de regression multiple soulignent que le nombre d’amis sur Facebook, ainsi que les problemes relies a l’utilisation de Facebook contribuent significativement a l’explication de la variance associee a l’ajustement conjugal et la satisfaction sexuelle.