Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Confidence intervals and power calculations for within-person biological variation: effect of analytical imprecision, number of replicates, number of samples, and number of individuals.

BACKGROUND Reliable estimates of within-person biological variation and reference change value are of great importance when interpreting test results, monitoring patients, and setting quality specifications. Little information has been published regarding what experimental design is optimal to achieve the best estimates of within-person biological variation. METHOD Expected CIs were calculated for different balanced designs for a 2-level nested variance analysis model with varying analytical imprecision. We also simulated data sets based on the model to calculate the power of different study designs for detection of within-person biological variation. RESULTS The reliability of an estimate for biological variation and a study's power is very much influenced by the study design and by the ratio between analytical imprecision and within-person biological variation. For a fixed number of measurements, it is preferable to have a high number of samples from each individual. Shortcomings in analytical imprecision can be controlled by increasing the number of replicates. CONCLUSIONS The design of an experiment to estimate biological variation should take into account the analytical imprecision of the method and focus on obtaining the highest possible reliability. Estimates of biological variation should always be reported with CIs.
Selection of Entropy Based Features for Automatic Analysis of Essential Tremor

Biomedical systems produce biosignals that arise from interaction mechanisms. In a general form, those mechanisms occur across multiple scales, both spatial and temporal, and contain linear and non-linear information. In this framework, entropy measures are good candidates in order provide useful evidence about disorder in the system, lack of information in time-series and/or irregularity of the signals. The most common movement disorder is essential tremor (ET), which occurs 20 times more than Parkinson’s disease. Interestingly, about 50%–70% of the cases of ET have a genetic origin. One of the most used standard tests for clinical diagnosis of ET is Archimedes’ spiral drawing. This work focuses on the selection of non-linear biomarkers from such drawings and handwriting, and it is part of a wider cross study on the diagnosis of essential tremor, where our piece of research presents the selection of entropy features for early ET diagnosis. Classic entropy features are compared with features based on permutation entropy. Automatic analysis system settled on several Machine Learning paradigms is performed, while automatic features selection is implemented by means of ANOVA (analysis of variance) test. The obtained results for early detection are promising and appear applicable to real environments.
Deep-Fill Hyaluronic Acid for the Temporary Treatment of the Naso-Jugal Groove: A Report of 303 Consecutive Treatments

Purpose: To report a 2-year experience of treating the naso-jugal groove with injectable hyaluronic acid gel, using a deep-fill method. Methods: This was a consecutive, retrospective, nonrandomized case series of patients presenting with concerns involving dark circles, lower eyelid hollows, or other contour irregularities that make up the naso-jugal groove. One author performed all treatments, consisting of transcutaneous injection of hyaluronic acid gel filler, to address the naso-jugal groove. The filler was placed deep on the anterior lip of the orbital rim and molded to the desired shape. Results: Between December 2003 and December 2005, 164 patients (34 male and 130 female) received hyaluronic acid gel filler in the face. Ninety-eight patients were treated just once and 66 had multiple treatment sessions. The mean dose of filler per session was 1.53 ± 0.8 ml, with 0.84 ± 0.38 ml divided between the two lower eyelids. The most common complication was localized swelling, followed by bruising, asymmetry, cellulitis (2 cases), and migraine (1 case). There were no cases of visual loss. Conclusions: Hyaluronic acid gel fillers have had an enormous impact on the practice of cosmetic surgery, and this series demonstrates the usefulness of these fillers for treatment of the lower eyelid and midface. The authors recommend the deep-fill method described as a reliable means of addressing the hollow created by the naso-jugal groove.
Working with Children

The general purpose of this article is to provide a review of potential roles that counseling psychologists can assume in meeting the needs of children. Conceptualized within the method of intervention dimension, roles will be examined relative to different childhood stressors whose impact is influenced by a child's developmental stage. Examples are provided to illustrate the function of various roles in different contexts. Special attention is given to the topic of divorce, a prevalent stressor that often has a significant intra- and interpersonal impact on the children it affects.
Openness to Experience and Growth Need Strength as Moderators between Job Characteristics and Satisfaction

This study examines a specific personality variable Growth Need Strength (GNS) and a general Big Five Personality Factor Openness to Experience as moderators between job characteristics and job satisfaction. Respondents were 95 graduate students working in part-time jobs. They filled out Goldberg’s (1992) bi-polar rating scale measuring the Big Five factors and Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) Job Diagnostic Survey. Results show that GNS and openness to experience are substantially related. Further, from hierarchical regression analyses, it appeared that the moderating effect of GNS on the relation between skill variety and job satisfaction was explained by the moderating effect of openness to experience. Practical implications for the use of openness to experience and other Big Five personality factors versus specific characteristics in selection and career counselling are discussed.
Do modifications of nonequimolar assays for total prostate-specific antigen improve detection of prostate cancer?

The major form of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in serum is complexed to α1-antichymotrypsin (1)(2). This form is present in a higher proportion of men with prostate cancer (PCa) than in men with benign prostate (2). The ratio between the unbound free form of PSA and total PSA is lower in patients with PCa. Assays for total PSA that preferentially detect free PSA overreport the total PSA in sera of patients with benign prostate compared with patients with PCa (3). Thus, it was recommended that assays for total PSA should measure the immunologically detectable forms of PSA on an equimolar basis (4). The clinical relevance of these considerations remains controversial (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11), although differences between total PSA assays are well documented (3)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), but it has yet to be discovered whether the molar response characteristics of total PSA assays have a clinically relevant influence on the clinical diagnostic performance of the assay. Recently, the Assay Comparison Study for PSA of the Working Group on Laboratory Diagnostics of the German Urological Association (19) evaluated 25 total PSA assays and 11 free PSA assays using identical serum samples. During the course of the study, three nonequimolar assays were identified, which subsequently underwent major modifications by the manufacturers, thus challenging us to test the performance before and after modification using aliquots of identical sera. Serum aliquots of 338 men with total PSA concentrations of 2–30 μg/L (mean, 9.2 μg/L; median 7.5 μg/L; SD, 6.6 μg/L) as determined by the Tandem-E® (Hybritech) assay reagent set were selected from the Assay Comparison Study for PSA (19) in accordance with practices and ethical standards of the Committee on Ethical …
Validation of a U.S. Adult Social Self-Efficacy Inventory in Chinese Populations 1Ψ7

The authors report a series of efforts to validate a U.S. adult social self-efficacy inventory, the Perceived Social Self-Efficacy scale (PSSE), in Chinese populations. They argue that the construct underlying the PSSE scale constitutes an important component of Chinese adult social self-efficacy, which was confirmed in focus group discussions. The original English PSSE items were back translated into Chinese and were adapted to suit Chinese language and culture. Two validation studies were then conducted with Chinese undergraduate students. Results consistently showed that the Chinese PSSE scale had a single-factor structure, high reliabilities, excellent construct validity, and acceptable criterion validity. Implications for counseling research and practice in Chinese contexts are discussed.
DETERMINANTS OF INDIVIDUAL NEIGHBORHOOD TIES AND SOCIAL RESOURCES IN POOR URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Studies on life in poor urban neighborhoods suggest the importance of kin and non-kin ties for support. Research also notes the dearth of certain ties that are important to locate economic and social resources. This research evaluates the determinants of certain types of social resources for residents in poor urban neighborhoods. Specifically, I consider the relationship between five types of neighborhood ties for residents--religious, kin, friendship, neighbor, and informal jobs--as well as race/ethnicity, and neighborhood poverty and social resources. Using the Urban Poverty & Family Life Survey and OLS and logistic regression analyses, results show religious and friendship ties are important predictors of individual social resources and support. Also, neighborhood poverty is insignificant in most of the analyses and when it is important, residents in more impoverished areas are more likely to seek out social resources than their counterparts in non-poor and moderately poor areas. These findings support variants of Compression and Composition theories as possibleexemplars for explaining ways in which residents secure social resources in poor urban neighborhoods.
Pricing Out the Disadvantaged? The Effect of Tuition Deregulation in Texas Public Four-Year Institutions

This article examines whether tuition deregulation in Texas (in 2003 the state legislature gave tuition-setting authority to institutional governing boards) has affected the college enrollment of underrepresented and low-income students. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we find that Hispanic students have been most negatively affected by tuition deregulation. Results for black students are largely mixed, in that we find an increase in college enrollment after deregulation in some specifications, while Pell Grant recipients, incoming and returning, appear to have experienced an increase in college enrollment following deregulation. Implications and recommendations for state governments considering this contentious legislation are provided.
Agreement between child and parent reports of 10- to 12-year-old children's meal pattern and intake of snack foods.

BACKGROUND Dietary assessment in children is associated with misreporting, which is a problem with both child and parent reports. Therefore, it is of interest to study how children and parents report children's eating, respectively, although comparative studies are rare. The aim of the present article was to study the meal patterns and intake of certain snack foods of 10- to 12-year-old children as reported by the children and their parents, respectively, and to determine whether there was agreement between the child and parent reports. An additional aim was to study what factors might influence rater agreement. METHODS School children aged 10-12years and their parents were given parallel questionnaires regarding the children's meal pattern. Matched pairs (n=147) were analysed for agreement. Descriptive statistics were used to study all variables. Rater agreement and whether agreement depends on the age and the sex of the child, the sex of the parent and household type were analysed using ordinal regression models. Correlations between the child and parent assessments were estimated as polychoric correlations. RESULTS There was a general agreement between child and parent reports, except with respect to sweets and chocolate, where children reported less frequent consumption than the parents did (P= 0.0001). The sex of the child was a significant factor regarding consumption of in-between meals (P=0.0001) and soft drinks (P=0.01). Most children had breakfast, school lunch and dinner every day, whereas it was less common to report daily consumption of in-between meals. CONCLUSIONS There was a general agreement between children's and parents' reports, and most children were reported to have a regular meal pattern.
Supplementation with n‐3 fatty acids from fish oil in chronic inflammatory bowel disease—a randomized, placebo‐controlled, double‐blind cross‐over trial

Abstract. Thirty‐nine patients with chronic inflammatory bowel disease were studied in a 7‐month, double‐blind, placebo controlled cross‐over trial of dietary supplementation with fish oil, which provided about 3.2 g n‐3 fatty acids per day. At control, biopsies from inflamed mucosa contained higher levels of arachidonic acid than uninvolved mucosa. Dietary n‐3 fatty acids were well tolerated and incorporated into plasma and enteric mucosa phospholipids at the expense of n‐6 fatty acids. The arachidonic acid‐derived prostanoid generation was reduced by fish oil and the extension and severity of macroscopic bowel involvement was moderately improved. In patients with Crohn's disease, clinical activity was unchanged by fish‐oil supplementation. In patients with ulcerative colitis, clinical disease activity fell during fish oil supplementation and thereafter: this was not significant however. Despite a moderate reduction in inflammatory lipid mediators by dietary n‐3 fatty acids and limited morphological improvement in chronic inflammatory bowel disease, the clinical benefit seems to be confined to patients with ulcerative colitis.
Diferencias entre la banca comercial y la banca de desarrollo mexicanas en el financiamiento bancario a empresas

Based on hard data, this paper studies some of the features of bank lending to firms in Mexico which are of interest to economic theory and looks for evidence of statistically significant differences between the loans provided by commercial and development banks. The analysis is based on a comparison of characteristics of the loans (the exis - tence of collateral, loan purpose, etc.) as well as those of the borrowers (if they are firms or persons, their size, their economic activity, etc.). It is found that the loans granted by
Ambiguities of global civil society

The concept of an emergent global civil society (GCS), an identifiable public sphere of voluntary association distinct from the architecture of states and markets, has become voguish in some approaches to international relations and international political economy, and in the practices of global governance. This article seeks to reveal the limitations of the prevailing commonsense framing of GCS. Challenging the idea that we can isolate an unambiguous GCS sphere, we focus instead on the particular uses of GCS – on the practices that are shaped in its name. We make a number of interventions to emphasise the conceptual and political ambiguity of GCS. First, we shift the emphasis from GCS as a bounded ‘non-governmental’; space to GCS as precisely a means of making global politics governable in particular ways. Second, we question the assumption of GCS as ‘voluntary association’, asking what it means for GCS to embody or represent the interests of social groups. Finally, we raise questions of the image of empowerment through GCS, highlighting the power relations, tensions and contradictions at the heart of a transformative politics.
Relay Beamforming for Amplify-and-Forward Multi-Antenna Relay Networks with Energy Harvesting Constraint

For amplify-and-forward multi-antenna relay networks with energy harvesting (EH) constraint, we study the optimal relay beamforming problem which maximizes the achievable rate from source to information-decoding receiver subject to the transmit power constraint at relay and the EH constraint at EH receiver. Because of the EH constraint, the beamforming problem is not convex. We propose the optimal beamforming scheme by converting the beamforming problem into a convex semidefinite programming with the rank-one relaxation and Charnes-Cooper transformation. We also propose a suboptimal closed-form beamforming scheme. It is shown from simulations that when the maximum allowable relay transmit power to noise power ratio is high, the performance of proposed suboptimal scheme approaches that of the optimal scheme.
Dilemmas in the formation of student identity in offshore higher education: a case study in Hong Kong

This paper explores the impact of the internationalization of higher education on the formation of student identity. It does so in the context of increasing developments in offshore education and the rapid emergence of the professional doctorate in Australia and overseas. Drawing on data from a larger qualitative study of student experiences of offshore education, the focus is on professional doctorate candidates located in Hong Kong. Identity is characterized by a series of dilemmas experienced by the students as they seek to become members of the academic community. These dilemmas centre on a range of inter‐related issues, including sense of belonging, educational goals, learning style preferences and relationships with supervisors.
The Psychology of Women's Partner Violence: Characteristics and Cautions

This article provides an overview of research on women's partner violence as well as the literature that investigates the developmental pathway to women's aggressive behavior. While women are known to commit partner violence toward their male partners, the prevalence and motivations for such behavior is still debated. Evidence that finds gender symmetry is reviewed and alternative literature discussed. Research challenging the conceptualization of women's partner violence as self-defensive is explored. The literature on the veracity of women partner violence offenders' explanations for their aggression is contrasted with the tendency within the literature to treat women's accounts as unproblematic. Alternative explanations for women's aggression are discussed with a focus on personality traits of psychopathology. Implications for interventions are also discussed.
Determinants of organisational climate for academia

Being aware of the factors that develop a positive organisational climate is especially important in universities, where the academic members of staff are, in large measure, self-motivated. To identify the determinants of organisational climate for university academia, the validity and reliability of the first-order constructs of autonomy, cohesion and pressure were examined. These three constructs were found to have inadequate validity in this environment. The remaining five valid constructs indicated a second-order organisational climate construct organisational climate was influenced by support, followed by trust and fairness, and then by recognition and innovation. The findings of our study will assist university managers to identify areas to focus upon when developing their academic staff in the pursuit of improving the organisational climate.
Randomized impact evaluation of education interventions: experiences and lessons from a reading to learn intervention in East Africa

This paper presents the experiences and lessons learnt during the design and implementation of the randomized impact evaluation (IE) of a reading to learn (RtL) intervention in early primary grades. The study was to assess the impact of RtL on literacy and numeracy among pupils in low-performing districts in East Africa. The intervention was designed in a way that in each country one district implemented an intervention package that included teacher training, and teaching and learning materials; while the other district implemented this same package with an additional parental involvement component. Baseline data were collected in mid-2009 in Grades 1 and 2, and in 2010 for the incoming Grade 1. The endline data were collected in mid-2011. A total of 119 treatments and 110 control schools participated in the study. The randomized design provided an opportunity to attribute causality and also qualitatively establish pathways through which the intervention impacted on learning. The paper provides lessons learnt and demonstrates how the challenges faced during the evaluation were addressed. Additionally, the paper shows how IE was utilized to provide robust evidence of what works thus enabling policy-makers to make decisions on sustainability and scale-up of education interventions.
Flow bei der Arbeit, doch Glück in der Freizeit

Zusammenfassung. Bei N = 101 Arbeitnehmern verschiedener Berufe wurden mit der Experience Sampling Method (ESM) eine Woche lang Daten zum Flow-Erleben, zu Gluck/Zufriedenheit und zur Zielausrichtung laufender Aktivitaten erhoben (N = 4 603 Messungen). Die Daten wurden mit GLMM-Analysen ausgewertet. Auch bei der jetzt vollstandigen Erfassung aller Flow-Komponenten mit der FKS bestatigte sich das Paradoxon der Arbeit, wonach wahrend der Arbeit hohere Flow-Werte, aber niedrigere Werte fur Gluck/Zufriedenheit auftreten als jeweils in der Freizeit. Wahrend der Arbeit waren Aktivitaten haufiger auf die Erreichung von Zielen ausgerichtet als wahrend der Freizeit. Die Zielausrichtung wirkte auf Flow vs. Gluck/Zufriedenheit signifikant verschieden. Wahrend der Arbeit hat die Zielausrichtung auf Flow einen stark positiven Effekt, auf Gluck/Zufriedenheit jedoch nicht. Im Freizeitbereich war der Effekt von Zielausrichtung auf Gluck/Zufriedenheit sogar negativ. Das Paradoxon der Arbeit lasst sich partiell als Effekt d.
Hibiscus sabdariffa L. tea (tisane) lowers blood pressure in prehypertensive and mildly hypertensive adults.

In vitro studies show Hibiscus sabdariffa L. , an ingredient found in many herbal tea blends and other beverages, has antioxidant properties, and, in animal models, extracts of its calyces have demonstrated hypocholesterolemic and antihypertensive properties. Our objective in this study was to examine the antihypertensive effects of H. sabdariffa tisane (hibiscus tea) consumption in humans. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted in 65 pre- and mildly hypertensive adults, age 30-70 y, not taking blood pressure (BP)-lowering medications, with either 3 240-mL servings/d of brewed hibiscus tea or placebo beverage for 6 wk. A standardized method was used to measure BP at baseline and weekly intervals. At 6 wk, hibiscus tea lowered systolic BP (SBP) compared with placebo (-7.2 +/- 11.4 vs. -1.3 +/- 10.0 mm Hg; P = 0.030). Diastolic BP was also lower, although this change did not differ from placebo (-3.1 +/- 7.0 vs. -0.5 +/- 7.5 mm Hg; P = 0.160). The change in mean arterial pressure was of borderline significance compared with placebo (-4.5 +/- 7.7 vs. -0.8 +/- 7.4 mm Hg; P = 0.054). Participants with higher SBP at baseline showed a greater response to hibiscus treatment (r = -0.421 for SBP change; P = 0.010). No effects were observed with regard to age, gender, or dietary supplement use. These results suggest daily consumption of hibiscus tea, in an amount readily incorporated into the diet, lowers BP in pre- and mildly hypertensive adults and may prove an effective component of the dietary changes recommended for people with these conditions.