Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Linguistic Distance and the Language Fluency of Immigrants

We use a newly available measure of linguistic distance developed by the German Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to explain heterogeneity in language skills of immigrants. This measure is based on an automatical algorithm comparing pronunciation and vocabulary of language pairs. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel covering the period from 1997 to 2003, the linguistic distance measure is applied within a human capital framework of language acquisition. It is shown that linguistic distance is the most important determinant for host country language acquisition and that it explains a large fraction of language skill heterogeneity between immigrants. By lowering the effi ciency and imposing higher costs of language learning, the probability of reporting good language skills is decreasing by increasing linguistic distance.
HUMAN STUDY: Preconscious attentional bias in cigarette smokers: a probe into awareness modulation on attentional bias

It has been frequently reported that smokers showed attentional bias toward smoking‐related stimuli. The current study aimed to examine whether such bias was also present when subjects were unaware of the presented stimuli and the possible role of awareness modulation on attentional bias. With a psychophysical approach (interocular suppression), we suppressed subjects' awareness to the cigarette pictures presented to one of their eyes. The visual dot probe task was modified to increase the perceptual load and to control the physical features between two rivaling images. Twenty‐eight male smokers and 25 male non‐smokers participated in the experiment. We found a significant interaction between experiment conditions and subject groups, with only the smoker group showed attentional bias toward cigarette pictures in unaware condition. Moreover, smokers' attentional bias in unaware condition was negatively correlated with their scores on Cigarette Dependence Scale while their attentional bias in aware condition was positively correlated with scores on Questionnaires of Smoking Urges. Such dissociation indicates the possibility of awareness modulation on attentional bias: it is possible that in aware condition, the attentional bias was modulated by smoking urge in awareness, thus concealed the effect of dependence degree. Further studies indicated that awareness modulated attentional bias through many factors, such as craving, quit attempt, attitude and disgust. Interestingly, non‐smokers also showed attentional bias in aware condition, which further suggested that due to awareness modulation, attentional bias could even be addiction‐unrelated.
Subclinical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Infection in Transgenic Mice Expressing Porcine Prion Protein

The bovine-porcine species barrier to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) infection was explored by generating transgenic mouse lines expressing the porcine prion protein (PrP) gene. All of the porcine transgenic (poTg) mice showed clinical signs of BSE after intracerebral inoculation with a high-titer BSE inoculum. The protease-resistant PrP (PrPres) was detected in 14% (3 of 22) of the BSE-infected poTg mice by immunohistochemical or immunoblot analysis. Despite being able to infect 42% (5 of 12) of control mice, a low-dose BSE inoculum failed to penetrate the species barrier in our poTg mouse model. The findings of these infectivity studies suggest that there is a strong species barrier between cows and pigs. However, after second-passage infection of poTg mice using brain homogenates of BSE-inoculated mice scoring negative for the incoming prion protein as inoculum, it was possible to detect the presence of the infectious agent. Thus, porcine-adapted BSE inocula were efficient at infecting poTg mice, giving rise to an incubation period substantially reduced from 300 to 177 d after inoculation and to the presence of PrPres in 100% (21 of 21) of the mice. We were therefore able to conclude that initial exposure to the bovine prion may lead to subclinical infection such that brain homogenates from poTg mice classified as uninfected on the basis of the absence of PrPres are infectious when used to reinoculate poTg mice. Collectively, our findings suggest that these poTg mice could be used as a sensitive bioassay model for prion detection in pigs.
JOURNAL CLUB: Radiology Report Addenda: A Self-Report Approach to Error Identification, Quantification, and Classification.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to analyze report addenda to assess the self-reported error rate in radiologic study interpretation, the types of errors that occur, and the distribution of error by image modality. MATERIALS AND METHODS Addenda to all diagnostic radiology reports were compiled over a 1-year period (n = 5568). The overall error rate was based on addenda frequency relative to the total number of studies performed. Addenda written over the most recent 2-month interval (n = 851) were classified into five major categories of predominant error type: underreading, overreading, poor communication, insufficient history, and poor technique. Each category was further divided into multiple subtypes. RESULTS Diagnostic studies at our hospital had an error rate of 0.8%. Errors of poor communication occurred most frequently (44%), followed by underreading (7%), insufficient history (21%), overreading (8%), and poor technique (1%). Analyzed by imaging modality, most errors occurred in PET (19.45 per 1000 studies), followed by MRI (13.86 per 1000 studies) and CT (12.45 per 1000 studies). CONCLUSION Through the use of report addenda to calculate error, discrepancy between individual radiologists is removed in a reproducible and widely applicable way. This approach to error typology eliminates sample bias and in a departure from previous analyses of difficult cases shows that errors of communication are most frequent, representing a clear area for targeted improvement.
Extending the Indications of Flow Diversion to Small, Unruptured, Saccular Aneurysms of the Anterior Circulation

Background and Purpose— Flow diverters are currently indicated for treatment of large and complex intracranial aneurysms. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the indications of flow diversion can be safely extended to unruptured, small, saccular aneurysms (<10 mm) of the anterior circulation. Methods— Forty patients treated with the pipeline embolization device (PED) were matched in a 1:4 fashion with 160 patients treated with stent-assisted coiling based on patient age, sex, aneurysm location, and aneurysm size. Procedural complications, angiographic results, and clinical outcomes were analyzed and compared. Results— The rate of periprocedural complications was 5% in the PED group and 3% in the stent-coil group (P=0.7). In multivariable analysis, increasing age was the only predictor of complications. At follow-up, a higher proportion of aneurysms treated with PED (80%) achieved complete obliteration compared with stent-coiled aneurysms (70%) but the difference did not reach statistical significance (P=0.2). In multivariable analysis, increasing aneurysm size and aneurysm location were predictors of nonocclusion. The rate of favorable outcome (modified Rankin Scale, 0–2 and modified Rankin Scale, 0–1) was similar in the PED group and the coil group. Conclusions— The PED was associated with similar periprocedural risks, clinical outcomes, and angiographic results compared with stent-assisted coiling. These findings suggest that the indications of PED can be safely extended to small intracranial aneurysms that are amenable to conventional endovascular techniques. Larger studies with long-term follow-up are necessary to determine the optimal treatment that leads to the highest rate of obliteration and best clinical outcomes.
Sharing of Snorting Straws and Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Pregnant Women

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate possible modes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) acquisition in pregnant women found to be HCV-infected in the prenatal period and to assess transmission risk factors. METHODS: This was a prospective cohort study conducted from March 2014 through June 2015 involving the distribution of an anonymous survey to HCV-infected pregnant women that assessed for numerous modes of potential HCV transmission involving, intravenous drug use, blood transfusion, organ transplant, sexual contact, tattoos, and snorting drugs with a straw. Participants were drawn from our institutional obstetric high-risk clinic. Statistical analysis involved simple percentages and &khgr;2 comparisons where appropriate; P<. 05 was considered significant. To test biologic plausibility, snorting utensils confiscated by law enforcement authorities from patients not in this study were tested for the presence of human blood. RESULTS: A total of 189 HCV-infected pregnant patients completed the survey, and no approached patients declined. Of these, 136 (72%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 65–78%) admitted to intravenous drug use, of whom 89 (65%, 95% CI 57–73%) reported sharing needles. Of the 178 (94%, 95% CI 90–97%) who admitted snorting drugs, 164 (92%, 95% CI 87–96%) reported sharing straws. The difference between the proportion reporting sharing of snorting utensils compared with the proportion sharing intravenous drug use utensils was significant (P<.001). Twenty-nine patients (15%, 95% CI 11–21%) reported snorting drugs and sharing straws but denied any other risk factor except sexual contact. Of the 54 straws confiscated by law enforcement authorities, 13 (24%, 95% CI 13–38%) tested positive for the presence of human blood. CONCLUSION: Sharing snorting utensils (straws) in noninjection drug use may be an additional risk factor for HCV and other virus transmission.
Reasonable incomplete revascularisation after percutaneous coronary intervention: the SYNTAX Revascularisation Index.

AIMS Incomplete revascularisation is common after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). While the absolute amount of residual coronary artery disease (CAD) after PCI has been shown to be associated with worse outcomes, whether the proportion of treated CAD is prognostically important remains to be determined. We sought to quantify the proportion of CAD burden treated by PCI and to evaluate its impact on outcomes using a new prognostic instrument - the SYNTAX Revascularisation Index (SRI). METHODS AND RESULTS The baseline SYNTAX score (bSS) and residual SYNTAX score (rSS) were determined from 2,618 angiograms of patients enrolled in the prospective ACUITY trial. The SRI was then calculated for each patient using the following formula: SRI=(1-[rSS/bSS])×100. Outcomes were examined according to three SRI groups (SRI=100% [complete revascularisation], 50-99%, and <50%). The median bSS was nine (IQR 5, 16), and after PCI the median rSS was one (IQR 0, 6). The median SRI was 85% (IQR 50, 100), and was 100% in 1,079 patients (41.2%), 50-99% in 907 patients (34.6%), and <50% in 632 patients (24.1%). One-year adverse outcomes, including death, were inversely proportional to the SRI. An SRI cut-off of <80% (present in 1,189 [45.4%] patients after PCI) had the best prognostic accuracy for prediction of death (area under the curve 0.60, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.53-0.67, p<0.0001). By multivariable analysis, SRI was an independent predictor of one-year mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 2.17, 95% CI: 1.05-4.35, p=0.03). However, when compared to other scores, the rSS showed superior accuracy and predictive capability for one-year mortality. CONCLUSIONS The SRI is a newly described method for quantifying the proportion of CAD burden treated by PCI. Given its correlation with mortality, and pending external validation, the SRI may be useful in assessing the degree of revascularisation after PCI, with SRI ≥80% representing a reasonable goal. However, the rSS showed superior predictive capability for one-year mortality.
Structural imaging biomarkers of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy

The mechanisms underlying sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) remain unclear. Wandschneider et al. reveal increased amygdalo-hippocampal volume in cases of SUDEP and in individuals at high risk, compared to individuals at low risk and people without epilepsy. Findings are consistent with histopathological reports in sudden infant death syndrome.
The effect of organisational culture and leadership style on job satisfaction and organisational commitment: A cross‐national comparison

This study examined the effects of organisational culture and leadership styles on job satisfaction and organisational commitment in samples of Hong Kong and Australian managers. Statistically significant differences between the two samples were found for measures of innovative and supportive organizational cultures, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, with the Australian sample having higher mean scores on all these variables. However, differences between the two samples for job satisfaction and commitment were removed after statistically controlling for organizational culture, leadership and respondents' demographic characteristics. For the combined samples, innovative and supportive cultures, and a consideration leadership style, had positive effects on both job satisfaction and commitment, with the effects of an innovative culture on satisfaction and commitment, and the effect of a consideration leadership style on commitment, being stronger in the Australian sample. Also, an “initiating Structure” leadership style had a negative effect on job satisfaction for the combined sample. Participants' level of education was found to have a slight negative effect on satisfaction, and a slight positive effect on commitment. National culture was found to moderate the effect of respondents' age on satisfaction, with the effect being more positive amongst Hong Kong managers.
Design in Nature

The English (original) version is published by Doubleday, Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Ltd., Toronto. The vernissage of the Romanian version was on February 21, at the Romanian Academy, in Bucharest. The book has 296 pages, 60 figures, and it is shaped and structured in ten chapters: The Birth of Flow; The Birth of Design; Animals on the Move; Witnessing Evolution; Seeing Beyond the Trees and the Forest; Why Hierarchy Reigns; The Fast and Long Meets the Slow and Short; The Design of Academia; The Golden Ratio, Vision, Cognition, and Culture; The Design of History. The book is a story of science. It is about the emergence and the evolution of design patterns of “organization” in nature, and about how this universal phenomenon is condensed into one single law of Physics: the Constructal Law, discovered by Adrian Bejan. The story covers the entire territory of nature, from animate and inanimate phenomena to human, social and technology phenomena. The constructal law unifies these all, reveals their deep connection, and entrench them firmly in Physics. Quite so: biology, economy, evolution of sports and machines, they all belong to Physics. Why? Because everything that moves anywhere in nature obeys the few laws of Physics, for instance, the second law of mechanics, and the laws of thermodynamics: energy balance and irreversibility. This book is about a new law, the constructal law – a natural tendency that was not recognized until recently as a unifying phenomenon in Physics: organization, configuration, freedom of evolution, and life. Unavoidably, any scientific text has a biographical nuance. In fact, the research is, in the first place, about the researcher, or it is not original. This is why the story returns often to the Danube, the delta, the olympiads of mathematics, higher level basketball, and the author’s unique chance to hear his parents telling him about liberty at a time when such lessons was putting them in great an permanent danger. For more information on the Constructal Law visit the site: www.constructal. org.
NICKEL METABOLISM IN HEALTH AND DISEASE *

Recent investigations in our laboratory have been concerned with applications of atomic absorption spectrometry to the elucidation of nickel metabolism in health and disease. *-" These studies have shown that nickel is maintained within characteristic ranges of concentrations in blood sera of man and several species of domestic and experimental animals:' Pathological alterations of serum nickel concentrations have been found to occur in various common diseases of man.G As summarized in TABLE 1, measurements of serum nickel are performed in our laboratory by means of a Perkin-Elmer model 403 atomic absorption spectrometer. ' The addition of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) to serum dissociates nickel from serum proteins and simultaneously precipitates the proteins. Nickel is combined with pyrrolidone dithiocarbamate (PDC) , and the Ni-PDC complex is extracted into methylisobutylketone (MIBK). The MIBK extract is aspirated into the acetylene-air flame of the atomic absorption spectrometer, and absorbance is measured at 232 nm. The same technique is used for analyses of nickel in diets, excreta, and tissues, except that organic constituents are destroyed by preliminary acid digestion. ', :L The sensitivity of the analytical method is 0.2 pl Ni/l of serum, expressed as the concentration of nickel that yields a recorder signal equal to twice the base line noise level. The analytical precision is 8.7%, expressed as the coefficient of variation of duplicate analyses of sera within a single run, or 9.9%, expressed as the coefficient of variation of replicate daily analyses of a single pooled serum. The mean concentration of nickel in sera from 47 healthy adults is 2.6 (S.D. 2 0.8) pg/l, with a range from 1.1-4.6 pg/l. " TABLE 2 lists the concentrations of nickel found in sera from several species of animals. ' It may be seen that there is wide variability in the mean concentrations of serum nickel in these species, but that within each species the concentrations of serum nickel fell within a relatively narrow range. The highest mean concentrations of nickel were found in sera from pigs, rabbits, and lobsters. Due to the relative abundance of nickel in rabbit serum, the rabbit has proven to be particularly well suited for studies of nickel metabolism. No significant differences were found in any of the species between the mean concentrations of nickel in sera from males and females. In man, the normal ranges of concentrations of serum nickel appear to be constant from birth to senescence and are not significantly affected by pregnancy. " Investigations in our laboratory have confirmed the report by D'Alonzo and Pel1 7 that increased concentrations of serum nickel frequently develop within 24 hr after the onset of acute myocardial infarction. FIGURE 1 shows serial
Palmitoylation Controls the Catalytic Activity and Subcellular Distribution of Phosphatidylinositol 4-Kinase IIα*

Phosphatidylinositol 4-kinases play essential roles in cell signaling and membrane trafficking. They are divided into type II and III families, which have distinct structural and enzymatic properties and are essentially unrelated in sequence. Mammalian cells express two type II isoforms, phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase IIα (PI4KIIα) and IIβ (PI4KIIβ). Nearly all of PI4KIIα, and about half of PI4KIIβ, associates integrally with membranes, requiring detergent for solubilization. This tight membrane association is because of palmitoylation of a cysteine-rich motif, CCPCC, located within the catalytic domains of both type II isoforms. Deletion of this motif from PI4KIIα converts the kinase from an integral to a tightly bound peripheral membrane protein and abrogates its catalytic activity ( Barylko, B., Gerber, S. H., Binns, D. D., Grichine, N., Khvotchev, M., Sudhof, T. C., and Albanesi, J. P. (2001) J. Biol. Chem. 276, 7705-7708 ). Here we identify the first two cysteines in the CCPCC motif as the principal sites of palmitoylation under basal conditions, and we demonstrate the importance of the central proline for enzymatic activity, although not for membrane binding. We further show that palmitoylation is critical for targeting PI4KIIα to the trans-Golgi network and for enhancement of its association with low buoyant density membrane fractions, commonly termed lipid rafts. Replacement of the four cysteines in CCPCC with a hydrophobic residue, phenylalanine, substantially restores catalytic activity of PI4KIIα in vitro and in cells without restoring integral membrane binding. Although this FFPFF mutant displays a perinuclear distribution, it does not strongly co-localize with wild-type PI4KIIα and associates more weakly with lipid rafts.
Central venous port system associated thromboses: outcome in 3498 implantations and literature review

Methods: From 1 July 1995 to 31 June 2006 we implanted 3498 intravenous port systems. In nearly all cases the indication was vascular access for chemotherapy. Results: We registered 199 complications (5.7%), mostly infections (n=85 i.e. 2.4%) and thromboses (n=63 i.e. 1.8%). Conclusions: Permanent central venous catheters have become standard in the management of patients with malignancies. Because of the improvement of material and design during the past twenty years technical complications have been reduced significantly. The most frequent occurring medical complications are infection and thromboses. In order to further minimize these disadvantages we developed a “best practices“ standard for port implantation combining own data with recent studies.
Robust variable step-size affine projection algorithm suitable for acoustic echo cancellation

The affine projection algorithm (APA) and different versions of it have proved to be very attractive choices for acoustic echo cancellation (AEC). In this context, a classical APA with a constant step-size has to compromise between two performance criteria, i.e., 1) high convergence rates and good tracking capabilities, and 2) low misadjustment and robustness against background noise variations and double-talk. Consequently, a variable step-size APA (VSS-APA) is a more reliable solution. In this paper we propose a VSS-APA that is designed to recover the near-end signal from the error signal of the adaptive filter. Therefore, it is robust against near-end signal variations, including double-talk. Moreover, since it does not require a priori information about the acoustic environment, the proposed algorithm is easy to control in real-world AEC applications.
Transfer of Training: The Role of Feedback in Supportive Social Networks

The transfer of training to the workplace often fails to occur. The authors argue that feedback generated within the work environment about the application of newly learned skills in the workplace helps to close the gap between the current performance and the desired goal of full application of what is learned during training. This study takes a social network perspective and explores the role of feedback generated within the social network in fostering motivation-to-transfer and the transfer of training. The results show that the number of people providing feedback and the helpfulness of this feedback are positively related to the motivation for and actual transfer of training. The frequency of feedback appears to be negatively related. This study underlines the importance of feedback in turning the workplace into a learning environment fostering the transfer of training. It also suggests the value of adopting a social network perspective.