Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A two-item conjoint screen for alcohol and other drug problems.

BACKGROUND Although nonmedical use of illicit and prescription drugs is not uncommon among American adults, the currently recommended screens for substance use disorders focus only on alcohol. This study reports on the criterion validity of a two-item conjoint screen (TICS) for alcohol and other drug abuse or dependence for a split sample of primary care patients. METHODS Two random samples of primary care patients aged 18 to 59 years responded to several screening items that emanated from a focus group process. The DSM-III-R criteria for substance use disorders, as codified by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Substance Abuse Module, served as the criterion standard. RESULTS At least one positive response to the TICS (In the last year, have you ever drunk or used drugs more than you meant to? and Have you felt you wanted or needed to cut down on your drinking or drug use in the last year? ) detected current substance use disorders with nearly 80% sensitivity and specificity. The TICS was particularly sensitive to polysubstance use disorders. Respondents who gave 0, 1, and 2 positive responses had a 7.3%, 36.5%, and 72.4% chance of a current substance use disorder, respectively; likelihood ratios were 0.27, 1.93, and 8.77. The results were consistent across split samples of 434 and 702 participants. CONCLUSIONS Current alcohol or other drug problems can be detected in nearly 80% of young and middle-aged patients by asking two questions that are easily integrated into a clinical interview.
SOLAR: An automated deduction system for consequence finding

SOLAR (SOL for Advanced Reasoning) is a first-order clausal consequence finding system based on the SOL (Skip Ordered Linear) tableau calculus. The ability to find non-trivial consequences of an axiom set is useful in many applications of Artificial Intelligence such as theorem proving, query answering and nonmonotonic reasoning. SOL is a connection tableau calculus which is complete for finding the non-subsumed consequences of a clausal theory. SOLAR is an efficient implementation of SOL that employs several methods to prune away redundant branches of the search space. This paper introduces some of the key pruning and control strategies implemented in SOLAR and demonstrates their effectiveness on a collection of benchmark problems.
Use of a simplified cell blot technique and 16S rRNA-directed probes for identification of common environmental isolates

A simple technique in which rRNA-targeted oligodeoxynucleotide probes are used to identify bacteria immobilized on membranes is described. By using colony lifts, bacteria are directly transferred from plates to untreated nitrocellulose membranes. Alternatively, cells resuspended from colonies can be applied to membranes by using a vacuum manifold under high-salt conditions. Blotted cells are baked and hybridized under stringent conditions by using standard protocols. Treatment of blotted cells with sodium dodecyl sulfate, urea, formaldehyde, or protease had no apparent effect on hybridization signals. Hybridization to rRNA from cells that had been stored refrigerated for 6 days was readily detected; however, fivefold more cells (approximately 10(7) cells) were required to obtain hybridization signals comparable to those generated by cells not subjected to storage. The sequences of oligonucleotide probes specific for Pseudomonas cepacia, Comamonas testosteroni, and Acinetobacter calcoaceticus and a group probe identifying Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas mendocina, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Comamonas acidovorans, and "Flavobacterium" lutescens are presented. In conjunction with the colony lift hybridization procedure, bacteria isolated from river water were identified by using these probes.
Bacterial protein meal in diets for pigs and minks: Comparative studies on protein turnover rate and urinary excretion of purine base derivatives

Abstract The effect of increasing the dietary content of bacterial protein meal (BPM) on protein turnover rate, and on nucleic acid and creatinine metabolism in growing minks and pigs was investigated in two experiments. In each experiment, 16 animals were allocated to four experimental diets. The diets containing no BPM served as controls, i.e. for minks diet M1, for pigs P1; the experimental diets contained increasing levels of BPM to replace fish meal (minks) or soybean meal (pigs), so that up to 17% (P2), 20% (M2), 35% (P3), 40% (M3), 52% (P4), and 60% (M4) of digestible N was BPM derived. Protein turnover rate was measured by means of the end-product method using [15N]glycine as tracer and urinary nitrogen as end-product. In minks, protein flux, synthesis, and breakdown increased significantly with increasing dietary BPM. In pigs, diet had no observed effect on protein turnover rate. The intake of nucleic acid nitrogen (NAN) increased from 0.15 g/kg W0.75 on M1 to 0.26 g/kg W0.75 on M3 and M4 in the mink experiment, and from 0.08 g/kg W0.75 on P1 to 0.33 g/kg W0.75 on P4 in the pig experiment. Increased NAN intake led, in both experiments, to increased allantoin excretion. Analysis of species effects showed that minks excreted 1.72 mmol/kg W0.75 of allantoin, significantly more than the 0.95 mmol/kg W0.75 excreted by pigs. In minks, approximately 96% of the excreted purine base derivatives consisted of allantoin, whereas in pigs approximately 93% did. Thus, increasing the dietary content of BPM increased protein turnover rate in minks but not in pigs, and allantoin excretion increased with increasing dietary BPM although it seemed that mink decomposed purine bases to their end-product more completely than pigs did. Collectively these data show that BPM is a suitable protein source for pigs and mink, and recorded differences between species were to a large extent due to differences in protein retention capacity and muscle mass.
Art-Based Educational Research to Generate a Practice Based Approach

Arts-based research was born in an academic context where the arts and research unite. The departing point of today’s art-based educational research studies is to bring a more in-depth and critical thought. As a growing field of interest, art-based research is becoming an effective approach in every step of the research practice. The relationship between art-based research and practice provides a fertile ground for new and extraordinary approaches to the research phenomenon. That’s why in liberal arts and educational research, literature on theoretical and practical dimensions of art-based research becomes essential. Such literature directs its concentration toward introducing artists and social scientists to various approaches of art-based research while making it possible, for them, to apply these approaches and reach original results. These approaches give chance to the researcher to arrange the research process, participants, and other elements of the researched phenomenon in different ways utilizing different angles. In other words, especially in educational contexts, art-based research approaches bring new possibilities for detailed and deep interpretation with new points of view and a new understanding of the nature of research. In this respect, art-based educational research has emerged as a rising field of study that provides new space for effective interaction and communication among researchers, education professionals, and artists. The researcher conducting art-based research approaches has to utilize relationships between multiple disciplines creating new ways of seeing.
How personality traits affect crisis perceptions: an experimental test of the use of crisis response strategies and the moderating effects of locus of control

This study provides empirical evidence for the Situational Crisis Communication Theory, which provides guidelines for matching crisis response strategies (CRS) to crisis types. The impact of crisis type and CRS on corporate reputation was measured among 316 consumers in a 3 (crisis type: victim, accidental, preventable) x 3 (CRS: deny, diminish, rebuild) between subjects factorial design. Preventable crises had the most negative effects on reputation. The rebuild CRS restored the reputation best. The interaction between crisis type and CRS on reputation was not significant. The respondents’ locus of control had a moderating impact on the relationship between CRS and reputation.
Characterization of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Using Gate Resistance Thermometry

In this paper, gate resistance thermometry (GRT) was used to determine the channel temperature of AlGaN/GaN high electron-mobility transistors. Raman thermometry has been used to verify GRT by comparing the channel temperatures measured by both techniques under various bias conditions. To further validate this technique, a thermal finite-element model has been developed to model the heat dissipation throughout the devices. Comparisons show that the GRT method averages the temperature over the gate width, yielding a slightly lower peak temperature than Raman thermography. Overall, this method provides a fast and simple technique to determine the average temperature under both steady-state and pulsed bias conditions.
Hyperglycemia Induces Oxidative Stress and Impairs Axonal Transport Rates in Mice

Background While hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress damages peripheral neurons, technical limitations have, in part, prevented in vivo studies to determine the effect of hyperglycemia on the neurons in the central nervous system (CNS). While olfactory dysfunction is indicated in diabetes, the effect of hyperglycemia on olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) remains unknown. In this study, we utilized manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI) to assess the impact of hyperglycemia on axonal transport rates in ORNs. We hypothesize that (i) hyperglycemia induces oxidative stress and is associated with reduced axonal transport rates in the ORNs and (ii) hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress activates the p38 MAPK pathway in association with phosphorylation of tau protein leading to the axonal transport deficits. Research Design and Methods T1-weighted MEMRI imaging was used to determine axonal transport rates post-streptozotocin injection in wildtype (WT) and superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) overexpressing C57Bl/6 mice. SOD2 overexpression reduces mitochondrial superoxide load. Dihydroethidium staining was used to quantify the reactive oxygen species (ROS), specifically, superoxide (SO). Protein and gene expression levels were determined using western blotting and Q-PCR analysis, respectively. Results STZ-treated WT mice exhibited significantly reduced axonal transport rates and significantly higher levels of ROS, phosphorylated p38 MAPK and tau protein as compared to the WT vehicle treated controls and STZ-treated SOD2 mice. The gene expression levels of p38 MAPK and tau remained unchanged. Conclusion Increased oxidative stress in STZ-treated WT hyperglycemic mice activates the p38 MAPK pathway in association with phosphorylation of tau and attenuates axonal transport rates in the olfactory system. In STZ-treated SOD-overexpressing hyperglycemic mice in which superoxide levels are reduced, these deficits are reversed.
Optimization of Effluent Phosphorus Control for Al-Aziziah (Wasit) Wastewater Treatment Plant

The combination between the enhance biological phosphorus removal EBPR process and chemical phosphorous precipitation process removal from wastewater to avoid the instability of the biological phosphorus removal process due to temperature variation has been simulated and optimized by implementing three different strategies in the GPS-X 5.0 modeling and simulation software (Hydro mantis). The results were demonstrated that the annual consumption of alum for the three different phosphorus control strategies (side stream line dosing only, wastewater line dosing only and dosing at both wastewater and side stream lines) were 290, 80 and 68 tons Alum/year respectively. Therefore, the implement of both wastewater and side stream lines dosing strategy show a better phosphorus removal choice in terms of effluent quality and amount of alum used.
Increased excitability of cortical neurons induced by associative learning: an ex vivo study

In adult mice, classical conditioning in which whisker stimulation is paired with an electric shock to the tail results in a decrease in the frequency of head movements, induces expansion of the cortical representation of stimulated vibrissae and enhances inhibitory synaptic interactions within the ‘trained’ barrels. We investigated whether such a simple associative learning paradigm also induced changes in neuronal excitability. Using whole‐cell recordings from ex vivo slices of the barrel cortex we found that layer IV excitatory cells located in the cortical representation of the ‘trained’ row of vibrissae had a higher frequency of spikes recorded at threshold potential than neurons from the ‘untrained’ row and than cells from control animals. Additionally, excitatory cells within the ‘trained’ barrels were characterized by increased gain of the input–output function, lower amplitudes of fast after‐hyperpolarization and decreased effect of blocking of BK channels by iberiotoxin. These findings provide new insight into the possible mechanism for enhanced intrinsic excitability of layer IV excitatory neurons. In contrast, the fast spiking inhibitory cells recorded in the same barrels did not change their intrinsic excitability after the conditioning procedure. The increased excitability of excitatory neurons within the ‘trained’ barrels may represent the counterpart of homeostatic plasticity, which parallels enhanced synaptic inhibition described previously. Together, the two mechanisms would contribute to increase the input selectivity within the conditioned cortical network.
Enacting virtual connections between work and home

The potential for information and communication technologies to reorganize time and space has emerged as a key theme in social theory. Affordances of the Internet mean that it has the capacity to affect temporal and spatial boundaries dividing work and home. Some theorists express concern that this may extend work into times normally reserved for family life, while others argue the Internet can encourage flexible work practices and result in better work—life balance. Focusing on a nationally representative sample of Australian employees, we examine the purpose and timing of Internet use and its role in the interaction between these domains. We demonstrate that the Internet is being used for personal purposes during work time to a greater extent than for work purposes during non-work time. Furthermore, we show that use of the Internet for work purposes outside work hours can assist work—family balance.
Education in a plural society or multicultural education? The views of Israeli Arab and Jewish school counselors

We suggest that in societies with highly complex and conflictual cultural diversity, different perceptions of pluralism and multiculturalism are likely to be related to divergent expectations for multicultural education. Our study examines—through semi‐structured interviews—the perceptions of cultural pluralism and multicultural education among 37 Israeli school counselors from two national groups—Arabs and Jews. Our findings suggest that the majority‐minority context largely determines the counselors’ views of multiculturalism: Arab counselors focus primarily on the Arab‐Jewish divide which places them within the unprivileged minority, whereas the Jewish counselors equate multiculturalism primarily with the approach toward Jewish immigrants who belong to their own ethnic/national group. Counselors’ responses seem to reflect their national and school organizational cultures, and it is suggested that training institutions should provide them with the knowledge, values and skills to make them culturally proficient and enable them to become agents of educational and social change.
Separate Face and Body Selectivity on the Fusiform Gyrus

Recent reports of a high response to bodies in the fusiform face area (FFA) challenge the idea that the FFA is exclusively selective for face stimuli. We examined this claim by conducting a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment at both standard (3.125 × 3.125 × 4.0 mm) and high resolution (1.4 × 1.4 × 2.0 mm). In both experiments, regions of interest (ROIs) were defined using data from blocked localizer runs. Within each ROI, we measured the mean peak response to a variety of stimulus types in independent data from a subsequent event-related experiment. Our localizer scans identified a fusiform body area (FBA), a body-selective region reported recently by Peelen and Downing (2005) that is anatomically distinct from the extrastriate body area. The FBA overlapped with and was adjacent to the FFA in all but two participants. Selectivity of the FFA to faces and FBA to bodies was stronger for the high-resolution scans, as expected from the reduction in partial volume effects. When new ROIs were constructed for the high-resolution experiment by omitting the voxels showing overlapping selectivity for both bodies and faces in the localizer scans, the resulting FFA* ROI showed no response above control objects for body stimuli, and the FBA* ROI showed no response above control objects for face stimuli. These results demonstrate strong selectivities in distinct but adjacent regions in the fusiform gyrus for only faces in one region (the FFA*) and only bodies in the other (the FBA*).
Splice site choice in a complex transcription unit containing multiple inefficient polyadenylation signals

The relationship between polyadenylation and splicing was investigated in a model system consisting of two tandem but nonidentical polyomavirus late transcription units. This model system exploits the polyomavirus late transcription termination and polyadenylation signals, which are sufficiently weak to allow the production of many multigenome-length primary transcripts with repeating introns, exons, and poly(A) sites. This double-genome construct contains exons of two types, those bordered by 3' and 5' splice sites (L1 and L2) and those bordered by a 3' splice site and a poly(A) site (V1 and V2). The L1 and L2 exons are distinguishable from one another but retain identical flanking RNA processing signals, as is the case for the V1 and V2 exons. Analysis of cytoplasmic RNAs obtained from mouse cells transfected with this construct and its derivatives revealed the following. (i) V1 and V2 exons are often skipped during pre-mRNA processing, while L1 and L2 exons are not skipped. (ii) No messages contain internal, unused polyadenylation signals. (iii) Poly(A) site choice is not required for the selection of an upstream 3' splice site. (iv) When two tandem poly(A) sites are placed downstream of a 3' splice site, the first poly(A) site is chosen almost exclusively, even though transcription can proceed past both sites. (v) Placing a 3' splice site between these two tandem poly(A) sites allows the more distal site to be chosen. These and other available data are most consistent with a model in which terminal exons are produced by the coordinate selection and use of a 3' splice site with the nearest available downstream poly(A) site.
Linear system identification via atomic norm regularization

This paper proposes a new algorithm for linear system identification from noisy measurements. The proposed algorithm balances a data fidelity term with a norm induced by the set of single pole filters. We pose a convex optimization problem that approximately solves the atomic norm minimization problem and identifies the unknown system from noisy linear measurements. This problem can be solved efficiently with standard, free software. We provide rigorous statistical guarantees that explicitly bound the estimation error (in the ℌ2-norm) in terms of the stability radius, the Hankel singular values of the true system and the number of measurements. These results in turn yield complexity bounds and asymptotic consistency. We provide numerical experiments demonstrating the efficacy of our method for estimating linear systems from a variety of linear measurements.
Total tau and S100b proteins in different types of multiple sclerosis and during immunosuppressive treatment with mitoxantrone

Bartosik‐Psujek H, Psujek M, Jaworski J, Stelmasiak Z. Total tau and S100b proteins in different types of multiple sclerosis and during immunosuppressive treatment with mitoxantrone. Acta Neurol Scand: 2011: 123: 252–256. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Enhancing the Efficiency of Organic LEDs Through Spin-Orbit Coupling of Charge-Transfer States

In this thesis, the possibility of enhancing the efficiency of small molecule organic light-emitting diodes through spin-orbit effects is examined. Because only singlet spin states, statistically one quarter of the total possible states, emit fluorescent light, it has generally been thought that a maximum of 25% efficiency could be attained without the addition of an emissive phosphor. Here, we present evidence that this is not a fundamental limit. Two OLED structures have been studied, each providing evidence that the efficiency of the OLED can be enhanced by the use of a heavy-metal material to mix spin in charge-transfer states. A structure with a heavy-metal mixing layer placed beside a neat emissive layer was found to show a (2.5 ± 0.3) times enhancement in the efficiency compared with an OLED without the heavy-metal layer. However, differences in the electroluminescent emission spectra made attributing this result to spin statistics alone difficult. In a structure with the the heavy-metal mixing layer placed next to a fluorescent dye doped into a host, a (2.7 ± 0.2) times enhancement in the efficiency is measured. Thesis Supervisor: Marc A. Baldo Title: Assistant Professor
Intraspecific variation in root and leaf traits and leaf-root trait linkages in eight aspen demes (Populus tremula and P. tremuloides)

Leaf and fine root morphology and physiology have been found to vary considerably among tree species, but not much is known about intraspecific variation in root traits and their relatedness to leaf traits. Various aspen progenies (Populus tremula and P. tremuloides) with different growth performance are used in short-rotation forestry. Hence, a better understanding of the link between root trait syndromes and the adaptation of a deme to a particular environment is essential in order to improve the match between planted varieties and their growth conditions. We examined the between-deme (genetic) and within-deme (mostly environmental) variation in important fine root traits [mean root diameter, specific root area (SRA) and specific root length (SRL), root tissue density (RTD), root tip abundance, root N concentration] and their co-variation with leaf traits [specific leaf area (SLA), leaf size, leaf N concentration] in eight genetically distinct P. tremula and P. tremuloides demes. Five of the six root traits varied significantly between the demes with largest genotypic variation in root tip abundance and lowest in mean root diameter and RTD (no significant difference). Within-deme variation in root morphology was as large as between-deme variation suggesting a relatively low genetic control. Significant relationships existed neither between SLA and SRA nor between leaf N and root N concentration in a plant. Contrary to expectation, high aboveground relative growth rates (RGR) were associated with large, and not small, fine root diameters with low SRA and SRL. Compared to leaf traits, the influence of root traits on RGR was generally low. We conclude that aspen exhibits large intraspecific variation in leaf and also in root morphological traits which is only partly explained by genetic distances. A root order-related analysis might give deeper insights into intraspecific root trait variation.