Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fast versus slow weight loss: development process and rationale behind the dietary interventions for the TEMPO Diet Trial

Finding effective solutions to curb the obesity epidemic is a great global public health challenge. The need for long‐term follow‐up necessitates weight loss trials conducted in real‐world settings, outside the confines of tightly controlled laboratory or clinic conditions. Given the complexity of eating behaviour and the food supply, this makes the process of designing a practical dietary intervention that stands up to scientific rigor difficult. Detailed information about the dietary intervention itself, as well as the process of developing the final intervention and its underlying rationale, is rarely reported in scientific weight management publications but is valuable and essential for translating research into practice. Thus, this paper describes the design process and underlying rationale behind the dietary interventions in an exemplar weight loss trial – the TEMPO Diet Trial (Type of Energy Manipulation for Promoting optimal metabolic health and body composition in Obesity). This trial assesses the long‐term effects of fast versus slow weight loss on adiposity, fat free mass, muscle strength and bone density in women with obesity (body mass index 30–40 kg m−2) that are 45–65 years of age, postmenopausal and sedentary.
Promoter targeting sequence mediates enhancer interference in the Drosophila embryo

Gene transcription can be regulated by promoter competition when multiple promoters are available for a single enhancer. The converse, however, is largely undescribed. Here we report an occurrence of several enhancers competing for one promoter (enhancer interference) and propose its underlying mechanism. The promoter targeting sequence from the Abdominal-B locus of the Drosophila bithorax complex overcomes the enhancer-blocking activity of insulators in transgenic embryos. It may facilitate the long-range enhancer–promoter communication in Abdominal-B by bypassing insulator elements such as Frontabdominal-7 and Frontabdominal-8. In transgenic embryos, the anti-insulator activity allowed both an insulator-blocked enhancer and a nonblocked enhancer to contact the same promoter. We found that these two enhancers exhibited mutual inhibition or mutual exclusion in cells where both are transcriptionally active. This enhancer interference occurred at the level of enhancer–promoter communication. It occurred only between enhancers on opposite sides of an insulator and depended on enhancer activity. We hypothesize that enhancer interference limits the interaction of the Abdominal-B promoter to the enhancer(s) from only one regulatory domain in a specific abdominal segment.
What to Do When there is Nothing to Do: The psychotherapeutic value of Meaning Therapy in the treatment of late life depression

Psychotherapeutic treatment with the goal of cure, of course, is the standard within the healing professions but when we are dealing with late life depression where there is no hope for longevity, the agenda necessarily must shift from cure to care, from treatment with the goal of renewed healthy living to a focus upon the palliative aspects of a limited prognosis. Here, then, the clinician is faced with the challenge of existential intervention with an emphasis upon the “moment” rather than the future. The encroachment of ennui upon the elderly, particularly and especially those who have been actively engaged in a full life of service such as the clergy, physicians, teachers, and attorneys, can be a traumatic and debilitating experience.When hope for the future is not being sought but rather an effective and celebrative address to the existential realities confronting the elderly patient who is facing decline and death, the quest for those “happy moments” conjured in the patient’s memory constitute a promising field of treatment.Geriatric logotherapy is uniquely constructed to do just that. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE
A survey of consumers' attitudes towards online purchase of contact lenses in Japan

A survey with 324 respondents was conducted to explore factors influencing Japanese consumers' intentions to use the internet for the purchase of contact lenses. Analysis of the results revealed four types of consumers: (a) those who were strongly against using contact lenses and as a result did not intend to use the internet for their purchase, (b) those who had positive attitudes towards use of the internet for purchasing contact lenses, (c) those who preferred the current situation of purchasing contact lenses without using the internet and (d) those who were not unfavourable to purchase contact lenses via the internet.
A self-healing real-time system based on run-time self-reconfiguration

The new generations of SRAM-based FPGA (field programmable gate array) devices are the preferred choice for the implementation of reconfigurable computing platforms intended to accelerate processing in real-time systems. However, FPGA's vulnerability to hard and soft errors is a major weakness to robust configurable system design. In this paper, a novel built-in self-healing (BISH) methodology, based on run-time self-reconfiguration, is proposed. A soft microprocessor core implemented in the FPGA is responsible for the management and execution of all the BISH procedures. Fault detection and diagnosis is followed by repairing actions, taking advantage of the dynamic reconfiguration features offered by new FPGA families. Meanwhile, modular redundancy assures that the system still works correctly
Cisplatin-based chemotherapy: Add high-frequency audiometry in the regimen.

BACKGROUND Cisplatin-induced ototoxicity shows high interindividual variability and is often accompanied by transient or permanent tinnitus. It is not possible to identify the susceptible individuals before commencement of the treatment. We conducted a prospective, randomized and observational study in a tertiary care centre and evaluated the effects of different doses of cisplatin on hearing. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty-seven patients scheduled for cisplatin-based chemotherapy were included in the study. All patients were divided into three groups depending on the dose of cisplatin infused in 3 weeks. RESULTS The subjective hearing loss was found in seven patients, while six patients had tinnitus during the chemotherapy. The hearing loss was sensorineural, dose dependent, symmetrical, bilateral and irreversible. Higher frequencies were first to be affected in cisplatin chemotherapy. CONCLUSION As use of high-frequency audiometry is still limited in research work only, we need a strict protocol of adding high-frequency audiometry in the cisplatin-based chemotherapy regimen.
Conceptualizing Knowledge Work Utilizing Skill and Knowledge-based Concepts

This paper engages with the related debates on what constitutes knowledge work and how to conceptualize the role of knowledge processes in work. Fundamentally it is suggested that the use of both skill and knowledge-based concepts provides a richer way of conceptualizing work than through the use of knowledge-based concepts only. The framework developed which utilizes both skill and knowledge-based concepts involves the reconceptualization of Frenkel et al.'s (1995) neglected perspective on (knowledge) work. The utility of this framework is illustrated via both using it to conceptualize the work of some management consultants and office equipment service engineers, and through a discussion which compares this framework with the practice-based perspective on knowledge.
Improved Generative Models for Continuous Image Features through Tree-structured Non-parametric Distributions

Density estimation arises in a wide range of vision problems and methods which can deal with high dimensional image features are of great importance. While in principle a nonparametric distribution can be estimated for the full feature distribution using Parzen windows technique, the amount of data to make these estimates accurate is usually either unattainable or unmanageable. Consequently, most modelers resort to parametric models such as mixtures of Gaussians (or other more complicated parametric forms) or make independence assumptions about the features. Such assumptions could be detrimental to the performance of vision systems since realistically, image features have neither a simple parametric form, nor are they independent. In this paper, we revive non-parametric models for image feature distributions by finding the best tree-structured graphical model (using the Chow-Liu algorithm) for our data, and estimating non-parametric distributions over the oneand two-node marginals necessary to define the graph. This procedure has the appealing property that, if the tree-structured model represents the true conditional independence relations for the features, then our estimated joint distribution converges rapidly to the true distribution of the data. Even when this is not true, it converges to the best possible tree-structured model for the original distribution. We illustrate the effectiveness of this technique on simulated data and a real-world plankton classification problem.
A cognitive architecture for emergency response (Extended Abstract)

Plan recognition, cognitive workload estimation and human assistance have been extensively studied in the AI and human factors communities, but have seldom been integrated and evaluated as complete systems. In this paper, we develop an assistant agent architecture integrating plan recognition, current and future user information needs, workload estimation and adaptive information presentation to aid an emergency response manager in making high quality decisions under time stress, while avoiding cognitive overload. We describe its main components as well as results for en experiment simulating various possible executions of the emergency response plans used in the real world, comparing reaction time of an assisted versus an unassisted human.
Wavelength locking of a Si ring modulator using an integrated drop-port OMA monitoring circuit

We demonstrate wavelength locking of a hybrid C MOS-silicon photonics ring-based transmitter through direct monitoring of the optical modulation amplitude (OMA) at the drop port of the ring modulator. The OMA is read from a Ge photodetector by a low-power 40nm CMOS circuit, which subsequently drives a feed-back loop that controls the modulator temperature using an integrated heater. OMA stabilization is demonstrated under abrupt laser wavelength variations of up to 150pm, under dynamic modulation at 2Gb/s.
Seemingly Unrelated Measurement Error Models, with Application to Nutritional Epidemiology

Summary Motivated by an important biomarker study in nutritional epidemiology, we consider the combination of the linear mixed measurement error model and the linear seemingly unrelated regression model, hence Seemingly Unrelated Measurement Error Models. In our context, we have data on protein intake and energy (caloric) intake from both a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and a biomarker, and wish to understand the measurement error properties of the FFQ for each nutrient. Our idea is to develop separate marginal mixed measurement error models for each nutrient, and then combine them into a larger multivariate measurement error model: the two measurement error models are seemingly unrelated because they concern different nutrients, but aspects of each model are highly correlated. As in any seemingly unrelated regression context, the hope is to achieve gains in statistical efficiency compared to fitting each model separately. We show that if we employ a “full” model (fully parameterized), the combination of the two measurement error models leads to no gain over considering each model separately. However, there is also a scientifically motivated “reduced” model that sets certain parameters in the “full” model equal to zero, and for which the combination of the two measurement error models leads to considerable gain over considering each model separately, e.g., 40% decrease in standard errors. We use the Akaike information criterion to distinguish between the two possibilities, and show that the resulting estimates achieve major gains in efficiency. We also describe theoretical and serious practical problems with the Bayes information criterion in this context.
Precueing response factors in choice reaction time: a word of caution.

This note discusses the assumption researchers make when movement attributes are precued in a choice reaction time (RT) paradigm-i.e., that the precue only reduces the number of response alternatives, so that changes in RT reflect the programming time for the unprecued attributes. However, it is argued that since the precue reduces the number of stimulus alternatives, changes in RT reflect changes in both stimulus processing and response programming. Therefore, the interpretation made by Klapp (1977), using the precue paradigm, that response selection and response timing are not independent sequential stages in the programming sequence, is not necessarily correct.
Reticulate representation of evolutionary and functional relationships between phage genomes.

Bacteriophage genomes show pervasive mosaicism, indicating the importance of horizontal gene exchange in their evolution. Phage genomes represent unique combinations of modules, each of them with a different phylogenetic history. The traditional classification, based on a variety of criteria such as nucleic acid type (single/double-stranded DNA/RNA), morphology, and host range, appeared inconsistent with sequence analyses. With the genomic era, an ever increasing number of sequenced phages cannot be classified, in part due to a lack of morphological information and in part to the intrinsic incapability of tree-based methods to efficiently deal with mosaicism. This problem led some virologists to call for a moratorium on the creation of additional taxa in the order Caudovirales, in order to let virologists discuss classification schemes that might better suit phage evolution. In this context, we propose a framework for a reticulate classification of phages based on gene content. Starting from gene families, we built a weighted graph, where nodes represent phages and edges represent phage-phage similarities in terms of shared genes. We then apply various measures of graph topology to analyze the resulting graph. Most double-stranded DNA phages are found in a single component. The values of the clustering coefficient and closeness distinguish temperate from virulent phages, whereas chimeric phages are characterized by a high betweenness coefficient. We apply a 2-step clustering method to this graph to generate a reticulate classification of phages: Each phage is associated with a membership vector, which quantitatively characterizes its membership to the set of clusters. Furthermore, we cluster genes based on their "phylogenetic profiles" to define "evolutionary cohesive modules. " In virulent phages, evolutionary modules span several functional categories, whereas in temperate phages they correspond better to functional modules. Moreover, despite the fact that modules only cover a fraction of all phage genes, phage groups can be distinguished by their different combination of modules, serving the bases for a higher level reticulate classification. These 2 classification schemes provide an automatic and dynamic way of representing the relationships within the phage population and can be extended to include newly sequenced phage genomes, as well as other types of genetic elements.
User Modeling on Twitter with WordNet Synsets and DBpedia Concepts for Personalized Recommendations

User modeling of individual users on the Social Web platforms such as Twitter plays a significant role in providing personalized recommendations and filtering interesting information from social streams. Recently, researchers proposed the use of concepts (e.g., DBpedia entities) for representing user interests instead of word-based approaches, since Knowledge Bases such as DBpedia provide cross-domain background knowledge about concepts, and thus can be used for extending user interest profiles. Even so, not all concepts can be covered by a Knowledge Base, especially in the case of microblogging platforms such as Twitter where new concepts/topics emerge everyday. In this short paper, instead of using concepts alone, we propose using synsets from WordNet and concepts from DBpedia for representing user interests. We evaluate our proposed user modeling strategies by comparing them with other bag-of-concepts approaches. The results show that using synsets and concepts together for representing user interests improves the quality of user modeling significantly in the context of link recommendations on Twitter.
Deinstitutionalisation: an unrealised desire

Abstract The mental illness reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s or ‘anti-psychiatry’ produced a rich critique of institutional responses to mental illness. One consequence of this movement was a powerful commitment from across the political spectrum for the closure of specialist mental hospitals and a move to community care – deinstitutionalisation. This paper briefly explores the reform movement’s impact on mental illness services, but it also examines the much less well known and less influential counter critique mounted by archivists, historians, clinicians and philosophers. This counter critique showed that while place was important, no one location guaranteed humane and effective mental illness care. Good, poor and horrific treatment occurred in the community as well as in a range of institutional settings. This paper explores the complexity, interconnectedness and cyclical nature of mental illness services in Victoria, Australia. A regional case study from Gippsland, Victoria, and the story of Cornelia Rau help support the contention that deinstitutionalisation in its most humane and therapeutic sense is an unrealised desire.
Lee, Hee Won. Network Emulation with Adaptive Time Dilation. (under the Direction of Network Emulation with Adaptive Time Dilation

LEE, HEE WON. Network Emulation with Adaptive Time Dilation. (Under the direction of Mihail L. Sichitiu and David Thuente.) In order to evaluate the performance of new network architectures and protocols, researchers have used diverse methods such as theoretical analysis, network simulation, testbed implementation, and emulation. Among these methods, emulation has been widely employed over the past decade because it is more flexible than simulation in that it does not need to re-implement the protocols while maintaining much of the realism of testbeds. Since virtual machines (VMs) allow a single physical host (PH) to create multiple virtual nodes, it is possible to construct an emulation testbed for large-scale networked systems with a relatively small number of PHs. However, as a PH is heavily loaded with multiple virtual nodes, emulation accuracy decreases due to the execution delay. Time dilation allows VMs to perceive higher performance than that of their physical machine. We present an approach using adaptive time dilation to emulate large-scale networks composed of heterogeneous operating systems (OSs). Our emulation system dynamically adapts virtual time rates to system and network loads created by the virtual nodes. To evaluate the system, distributed VMs running Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, and Junos are emulated on general purpose physical machines. Our system also adapts the degree of time dilation to emulate communication links of arbitrary latency and data rate. To evaluate this system, virtual hosts (VHs) distributed over multiple PHs are heavily loaded by applications that generate UDP and TCP traffic. Finally, we build an integrated emulation and simulation environment based on adaptive time dilation, which significantly improves the accuracy of the integrated system without the use of adaptive time dilation. © Copyright 2015 by Hee Won Lee All Rights Reserved Network Emulation with Adaptive Time Dilation
Approaching in the right spirit: Spirituality and hope in recovery from mental health problems

Aims Research indicates that having an active spiritual or religious life and sense of hope is highly protective against a wide range of problems throughout the life cycle. However, the two important domains of spirituality and hope have received limited coverage in mental health rehabilitation literature. Therefore the authors sought to discuss the role of spirituality and hope for people with mental health problems, and propose a process for practice which uses these concepts. Methods A discussion on the role of spirituality and hope in mental health rehabilitation is presented. The authors explore how spirituality has been defi ned in the literature, and its role in recovery from illness. The concept of hope in relation to spirituality and mental illness is discussed. Finally the authors propose how rehabilitation practitioners can apply these concepts in practice, in both assessment and interventions. Findings and conclusions This article highlights the importance of including spirituality and hope in.
Somatic Hypermutation at A/T-Rich Oligonucleotide Substrates Shows Different Strand Polarities in Ung-Deficient or -Proficient Backgrounds

ABSTRACT A/T mutations at immunoglobulin loci are introduced by DNA polymerase η (Polη) during an Msh2/6-dependent repair process which results in A's being mutated 2-fold more often than T's. This patch synthesis is initiated by a DNA incision event whose origin is still obscure. We report here the analysis of A/T oligonucleotide mutation substrates inserted at the heavy chain locus, including or not including internal C's or G's. Surprisingly, the template composed of only A's and T's was highly mutated over its entire 90-bp length, with a 2-fold decrease in mutation from the 5′ to the 3′ end and a constant A/T ratio of 4. These results imply that Polη synthesis was initiated from a break in the 5′-flanking region of the substrate and proceeded over its entire length. The A/T bias was strikingly altered in an Ung−/− background, which provides the first experimental evidence supporting a concerted action of Ung and Msh2/6 pathways to generate mutations at A/T bases. New analysis of Pms2−/− animals provided a complementary picture, revealing an A/T mutation ratio of 4. We therefore propose that Ung and Pms2 may exert a mutual backup function for the DNA incision that promotes synthesis by Polη, each with a distinct strand bias.
Spontaneous prosocial choice by chimpanzees

The study of human and primate altruism faces an evolutionary anomaly: There is ample evidence for altruistic preferences in our own species and growing evidence in monkeys, but one of our closest relatives, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), is viewed as a reluctant altruist, acting only in response to pressure and solicitation. Although chimpanzee prosocial behavior has been reported both in observational captive studies and in the wild, thus far Prosocial Choice Tests have failed to produce evidence. However, methodologies of previous Prosocial Choice Tests may have handicapped the apes unintentionally. Here we present findings of a paradigm in which chimpanzees chose between two differently colored tokens: one “selfish” token resulting in a reward for the actor only (1/0), and the other “prosocial” token rewarding both the actor and a partner (1/1). Seven female chimpanzees, each tested with three different partners, showed a significant bias for the prosocial option. Prosocial choices occurred both in response to solicitation by the partner and spontaneously without solicitation. However, directed requests and pressure by the partner reduced the actor's prosocial tendency. These results draw into question previous conclusions indicating that chimpanzees have a limited sensitivity to the needs of others and behave prosocially only in response to significant prompting.