Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors That Explains Student Anxiety toward Mathematics.

Background:State of the literature: Mandler (1989), Mc Leod & Adams (1989) have shown that poor academic performance in mathematics is an emotional problem. Fennema & Sherman (1976, 1978), Whitley (1979), author (2012, 2013, 2014) have shown it to be attitudinal. These studies coincide in that mathematics anxiety has a negative effect on students. According to Akey (2006), there is a positive correlation between attitude and mathematics performance in students at the secondary level of education.Materials and methods:Our study sample was formed of one thousand students from the Centro de Estudios Tecnologicos Industrial y de Servicios No. 15 in Veracruz City. Statistics technique used was structural equation modeling.Results:The results of goodness of fit indices are meaningful when applied to students in High School Education, which indicates that the hypothetical model fits the theoretical model.Conclusions:Furthermore, the evidence obtained in this study contributes to predicting the reality describe by authors in regards to mathematics, while at the same time, giving light to redirect the questions in a way that gives rise to the search for new knowledge in a different environment to the one proposed by the authors.
Two languages, two modalities : a special type of early bilingual language acquisition in hearing children of Deaf parents

In this study, early bilingual language acquisition was explored from the age of 12 to 36 months in 10 hearing children of Deaf parents, KODAs (Kids of Deaf Adults). KODA children’s language acquisition is bimodal; they acquire simultaneously sign language in visual-gestural and spoken language in auditory-vocal modality. This study aimed to describe the developmental paths of early bilingual language acquisition and their interrelationships with language input. Additionally, the characteristics of children’s language use and their associations with the features of the linguistic environment, child’s language competence and contextual variables were examined. Information about the children’s linguistic environment was collected with parental interviews. Children’s linguistic development (productive vocabulary) was measured with the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) in both Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) and the Finnish language between the ages of 12 to 30 months. Children’s development in the Finnish language was tested at the age of 36 months by using the Reynell Developmental Language Scales III. Additionally, the children’s interaction was video recorded twice a year between the ages of 12 to 36 months during three different play sessions: with their Deaf parent, with the Deaf parent and a hearing adult and with the hearing adult alone. A large variation was uncovered in both the amount and type of language input and the children’s bilingual developmental paths. According to the results of the MCDI, KODA children’s (N = 8) mean size of productive vocabulary in both languages separately was smaller when compared to the monolingual norms. However, in all but three children, their total vocabulary, which includes both productive vocabulary of FinSL and Finnish, was comparable with age peers. According to the Reynell test in Finnish, three children scored at age level, three within –1 SD and two children within –2 SD. Contextual variables clearly influenced the KODA children’s language use. KODA children, as young as 12 months old, accommodated their use of language and communication modes according to the language(s) of their interlocutor(s). Children preferred to code-mix when communicating with their Deaf parent by producing simultaneous, mainly semantically congruent signs and words.
Reducing Achievement Gaps in Academic Writing for Latinos and English Learners in Grades 7–12

This study reports 2 years of findings from a randomized controlled trial designed to replicate and demonstrate the efficacy of an existing, successful professional development program, the Pathway Project, that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing. Building on an earlier randomized field trial in a large, urban, low socioeconomic status (SES) district in which 98% of the students were Latino and 88% were mainstreamed English learners (ELs) at the intermediate level of fluency, the project aimed to help secondary school students, specifically Latinos and mainstreamed ELs, in another large, urban, low-SES district to develop the academic writing skills called for in the rigorous Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The Pathway Project draws on well-documented instructional frameworks that support approaches that incorporate strategy instruction to enhance students’ academic literacy. Ninety-five teachers in 16 secondary schools were stratified by school and grade and then randomly assigned to the Pathway or control group. Pathway teachers participated in 46 hr of training to help students write analytical essays. Difference-in-differences and regression analyses revealed significant effects on student writing outcomes in both years of the intervention (Year 1, d = 0.48; Year 2, d = 0.60). Additionally, Pathway students had higher odds than control students of passing the California High School Exit Exam in both years.
Circulating tumor cells, tumor-derived extracellular vesicles and plasma cytokeratins in castration-resistant prostate cancer patients

Purpose The presence of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) patients is associated with poor prognosis. In this study, we evaluated the association of clinical outcome in 129 CRPC patients with CTCs, tumor-derived Extracellular Vesicles (tdEVs) and plasma levels of total (CK18) and caspase-cleaved cytokeratin 18 (ccCK18). Experimental Design CTCs and tdEVs were isolated with the CellSearch system and automatically enumerated. Cut-off values dichotomizing patients into favorable and unfavorable groups of overall survival were set on a retrospective data set of 84 patients and validated on a prospective data set of 45 patients. Plasma levels of CK18 and ccCK18 were assessed by ELISAs. Results CTCs, tdEVs and both cytokeratin plasma levels were significantly increased in CRPC patients compared to healthy donors (HDs). All biomarkers except for ccCK18 were prognostic showing a decreased median overall survival for the unfavorable groups of 9.2 vs 21.1, 8.1 vs 23.0 and 10.0 vs 21.5 months respectively. In multivariable Cox regression analysis, tdEVs remained significant. Conclusions Automated CTC and tdEV enumeration allows fast and reliable scoring eliminating inter- and intra- operator variability. tdEVs provide similar prognostic information to CTC counts.
Use of oral contraceptives for management of acne vulgaris and hirsutism in women of reproductive and late reproductive age

Hormonal contraception in both reproductive and late reproductive age, as well as contraceptive action, is used also for other indications like dysmenorrhoea, menstrual disorders, endometriosis, acne vulgaris, and hirsutism. Acne vulgaris and hirsutism are important signs related to hyperandrogenaemia and present a serious medical problem for the patients and a challenge for medical doctors in terms of effective treatment. The application of hormonal contraception to treat acne vulgaris and hirsutism requires knowledge of the mechanism of antiandrogenic actions and the possible contraindications and complications. These data are presented in this review.
M7824, a novel bifunctional anti-PD-L1/TGFβ Trap fusion protein, promotes anti-tumor efficacy as monotherapy and in combination with vaccine

ABSTRACT Tumors evade host immune surveillance through multiple mechanisms, including the generation of a tumor microenvironment that suppresses immune effector function. Secretion of TGFβ and upregulation of immune checkpoint programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) are two main contributors to immune evasion and tumor progression. Here, we examined the efficacy of a first-in-class bifunctional checkpoint inhibitor, the fusion protein M7824, comprising the extracellular domain of human TGFβRII (TGFβ Trap) linked to the C-terminus of human anti-PD-L1 heavy chain (αPD-L1). We demonstrate that M7824 reduces plasma TGFβ1, binds to PD-L1 in the tumor, and decreases TGFβ-induced signaling in the tumor microenvironment in mice. In murine breast and colon carcinoma models, M7824 decreased tumor burden and increased overall survival as compared to targeting TGFβ alone. M7824 treatment promoted CD8+ T cell and NK cell activation, and both of these immune populations were required for optimal M7824-mediated tumor control. M7824 was superior to TGFβ- or αPD-L1-targeted therapies when in combination with a therapeutic cancer vaccine. These findings demonstrate the value of using M7824 to simultaneously target TGFβ and PD-L1/PD-1 immunosuppressive pathways to promote anti-tumor responses and efficacy. The studies also support the potential clinical use of M7824 as a monotherapy or in combination with other immunotherapies, such as therapeutic cancer vaccines, including for patients who have progressed on αPD-L1/αPD-1 checkpoint blockade therapies.
Rendition: Reclaiming what a black box takes away

The premise of our work is deceptively familiar: A black box $f(\cdot)$ has altered an image $\mathbf{x} \rightarrow f(\mathbf{x})$. Recover the image $\mathbf{x}$. This black box might be any number of simple or complicated things: a linear or non-linear filter, some app on your phone, etc. The latter is a good canonical example for the problem we address: Given only "the app" and an image produced by the app, find the image that was fed to the app. You can run the given image (or any other image) through the app as many times as you like, but you can not look inside the (code for the) app to see how it works. At first blush, the problem sounds a lot like a standard inverse problem, but it is not in the following sense: While we have access to the black box $f(\cdot)$ and can run any image through it and observe the output, we do not know how the block box alters the image. Therefore we have no explicit form or model of $f(\cdot)$. Nor are we necessarily interested in the internal workings of the black box. We are simply happy to reverse its effect on a particular image, to whatever extent possible. This is what we call the "rendition" (rather than restoration) problem, as it does not fit the mold of an inverse problem (blind or otherwise). We describe general conditions under which rendition is possible, and provide a remarkably simple algorithm that works for both contractive and expansive black box operators. The principal and novel take-away message from our work is this surprising fact: One simple algorithm can reliably undo a wide class of (not too violent) image distortions. A higher quality pdf of this paper is available at this http URL
Emotional speech processing: Disentangling the effects of prosody and semantic cues

To inform how emotions in speech are implicitly processed and registered in memory, we compared how emotional prosody, emotional semantics, and both cues in tandem prime decisions about conjoined emotional faces. Fifty-two participants rendered facial affect decisions (Pell, 2005a), indicating whether a target face represented an emotion (happiness or sadness) or not (a facial grimace), after passively listening to happy, sad, or neutral prime utterances. Emotional information from primes was conveyed by: (1) prosody only; (2) semantic cues only; or (3) combined prosody and semantic cues. Results indicated that prosody, semantics, and combined prosody–semantic cues facilitate emotional decisions about target faces in an emotion-congruent manner. However, the magnitude of priming did not vary across tasks. Our findings highlight that emotional meanings of prosody and semantic cues are systematically registered during speech processing, but with similar effects on associative knowledge about emotions, which is presumably shared by prosody, semantics, and faces.
Influence of disc area on retinal nerve fiber layer thickness measurement by spectral domain optical coherence tomography

Background: To examine the effect of optic disc area on peripapillary RNFLT (retinal nerve fiber layer thickness) measurement at circle diameter of 3.4 mm around optic nerve head using spectral OCT/SLO (Optical coherence tomography/scanning laser ophthalmoscope). Materials and Methods: In this prospective, cross sectional study, one hundred and two eyes of 102 normal subjects underwent RNFLT and disc area measurement using spectral OCT/SLO. Based on disc area, subjects were divided into three groups i.e., <3 mm2 (32 eyes), 3-4 mm2 (36 eyes) and >4 mm2 (34 eyes). The effect of disc area on RNFLT parameters was analyzed using linear regression analysis. Results: The mean and quadrant RNFLT did not show significant correlation with disc area in subjects with disc area of <4 mm2, however in eyes with disc area >4 mm2, average RNFLT, superior and temporal quadrant RNFLT showed negative correlation with disc area, which was statistically significant (P = 0.004, P = 0.005 and P = 0.002, respectively) Conclusion: In healthy eyes of disc area <4 mm2, disc size does not appear to affect peripapillary RNFLT measurement by spectral OCT/SLO. Average, superior and temporal quadrant RNFLT measurements were inversely proportional to disc area in eyes with disc area >4 mm2. Hence, RNFLT measurement by OCT in eyes with optic disc area of >4 mm2 should be interpreted carefully.
Corneal Endothelial Changes in Behçet’s Patients with Inactive Ocular Involvement

ABSTRACT Purpose: The purpose of this article is to evaluate alterations in the corneal endothelial layer in Behçet’s disease (BD) with inactive ocular involvement using specular microscopy. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three eyes of 33 BD patients who had at least one anterior segment involvement and no active inflammation in the last 3 months were included in the study (group 1). Twenty-seven of the 33 BD patients had an anterior uveitis attack and six of them had a panuveitis (both anterior and posterior involvement) attack. Thirty-three eyes of 33 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects were enrolled in the control group (group 2). Corneal endothelial cell density (CD), coefficient of variation (CV), hexagonal cell ratio (HEX), and central corneal thickness (CCT) were measured using specular microscopy (Konan Medical, Nishinomiya, Japan), and the results were compared between groups. Results: The mean CD was 2739 ± 164.18 cells/mm2 in group 1 and 2922 ± 107.60 cells/mm2 in group 2 (p = 0.001). The mean CV was 32.9 ± 4.76 in group 1 and 28.5 ± 3.06 in group 2 (p = 0.001). The mean HEX was 44.7 ± 6.51 in group 1 and 49.7 ± 6.10 in group 2 (p = 0.019). The mean CCT was 545.75 ± 40.89 μ in group 1 and 545.66 ± 30.09 μ in group 2 (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Ocular attacks in our BD patients may have caused permanent changes in the corneal endothelial layer. However, these changes did not lead to corneal decompensation, but further studies are necessary to confirm these results.
Oral Health Conditions and Dental Visits Among Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women of Childbearing Age in the United States, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2004

Introduction Oral diseases can be prevented or improved with regular dental visits. Our objective was to assess and compare national estimates on self-reported oral health conditions and dental visits among pregnant women and nonpregnant women of childbearing age by using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Methods We analyzed self-reported oral health information on 897 pregnant women and 3,971 nonpregnant women of childbearing age (15–44 years) from NHANES 1999–2004. We used χ2 and 2-sample t tests to assess statistical differences between groups stratified by age, race/ethnicity, poverty, and education. We applied the Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. Results Our data show significant differences in self-reported oral health conditions and dental visits among women, regardless of pregnancy status, when stratified by selected sociodemographic characteristics. Significant differences were also found in self-reported oral health conditions and dental visits between pregnant and nonpregnant women, especially among young women, women from minority race/ethnicity groups, and women with less than high school education. Conclusion We found disparities in self-reported oral health conditions and use of dental services among women regardless of pregnancy status. Results highlight the need to improve dental service use among US women of childbearing age, especially young pregnant women, those who are non-Hispanic black or Mexican American, and those with low family income or low education level. Prenatal visits could be used as an opportunity to encourage pregnant women to seek preventive dental care during pregnancy.
The effect of an outdoor recreation program on individuals with disabilities and their family members: a case study.

Efforts to understand physical activity and its potential effect on psychosocial well-being have been extensive (Blick et al., 2015; Folkins, 1976). Physical activity has been shown to improve psychological wellness, and benefits are enhanced when activities are performed outdoors (Boden & Hartig, 2003). Common Ground was established to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities through outdoor recreation. Informed by general and family systems theory, the present qualitative case study was designed to develop an in-depth understanding of Common Ground , an outdoor recreation program for individuals with disabilities. Results of three semi-structured focus groups offer a breadth of perspectives on the effect of Common Ground on program participants and their family members, and how outdoor recreation opportunities help reduce stereotypes, while empowering participants to realize their full potential. This work has the potential to inform therapeutic recreation research and enhance the provision of recreation services to individuals with disabilities.
Genetic variation across species’ geographical ranges: the central–marginal hypothesis and beyond

There is growing interest in quantifying genetic population structure across the geographical ranges of species to understand why species might exhibit stable range limits and to assess the conservation value of peripheral populations. However, many assertions regarding peripheral populations rest on the long‐standing but poorly tested supposition that peripheral populations exhibit low genetic diversity and greater genetic differentiation as a consequence of smaller effective population size and greater geographical isolation relative to geographically central populations. We reviewed 134 studies representing 115 species that tested for declines in within‐population genetic diversity and/or increases in among‐population differentiation towards range margins using nuclear molecular genetic markers. On average, 64.2% of studies detected the expected decline in diversity, 70.2% of those that tested for it showed increased differentiation and there was a positive association between these trends. In most cases, however, the difference in genetic diversity between central and peripheral population was not large. Although these results were consistent across plants and animals, strong taxonomic and biogeographical biases in the available studies call for a cautious generalization of these results. Despite the large number of studies testing these simple predictions, very few attempted to test possible mechanisms causing reduced peripheral diversity or increased differentiation. Almost no study incorporated a phylogeographical framework to evaluate historical influences on contemporary genetic patterns. Finally, there has been little effort to test whether these geographical trends in putatively neutral variation at marker loci are reflected by quantitative genetic trait variation, which is likely to influence the adaptive potential of populations across the geographical range.
Comparing the consequences of natural selection, adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and matching habitat choice for phenotype–environment matching, population genetic structure, and reproductive isolation in meta‐populations

Abstract Organisms commonly experience significant spatiotemporal variation in their environments. In response to such heterogeneity, different mechanisms may act that enhance ecological performance locally. However, depending on the nature of the mechanism involved, the consequences for populations may differ greatly. Building on a previous model that investigated the conditions under which different adaptive mechanisms (co)evolve, this study compares the ecological and evolutionary population consequences of three very different responses to environmental heterogeneity: matching habitat choice (directed gene flow), adaptive plasticity (associated with random gene flow), and divergent natural selection. Using individual‐based simulations, we show that matching habitat choice can have a greater adaptive potential than plasticity or natural selection: it allows for local adaptation while protecting genetic polymorphism despite global mating or strong environmental changes. Our simulations further reveal that increasing environmental fluctuations and unpredictability generally favor the emergence of specialist genotypes but that matching habitat choice is better at preventing local maladaptation by individuals. This confirms that matching habitat choice can speed up the genetic divergence among populations, cause indirect assortative mating via spatial clustering, and hence even facilitate sympatric speciation. This study highlights the potential importance of directed dispersal in local adaptation and speciation, stresses the difficulty of deriving its operation from nonexperimental observational data alone, and helps define a set of ecological conditions which should favor its emergence and subsequent detection in nature.
Education and Genetic Risk Modulate Hippocampal Structure in Alzheimer’s Disease

Genetic and environmental protective factors and risks modulate brain structure and function in neurodegenerative diseases and their preclinical stages. We wanted to investigate whether the years of formal education, a proxy measure for cognitive reserve, would influence hippocampal structure in Alzheimer’s disease patients, and whether apolipoprotein Eε4 (APOE4) carrier status and a first-degree family history of the disease would change a possible association. Fifty-eight Alzheimer’s disease patients underwent 3T magnetic resonance imaging. We applied a cortical unfolding approach to investigate individual subregions of the medial temporal lobe. Among patients homozygous for the APOE4 genotype or carrying both APOE4 and family history risks, lower education was associated with a thinner cortex in multiple medial temporal regions, including the hippocampus. Our data suggest that the years of formal education and genetic risks interact in their influence on hippocampal structure in Alzheimer’s disease patients.