Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protein Calorie Malnutrition and Immune Response in Children

The fundamental relationship between malnutrition and immunity was initially described as a thymolymphatic deficiency caused by protein calorie malnutrition (PCM). The selective sensitivity of the thymus to nutritional injury is specifically important in the formative phases of the fetal and neonatal immune system. Recent studies suggest that prenatal nutrition and growth during the first of life may predict thymic function in adolescence. Related studies have shown that prenatal zinc deficiency is associated with decreased immune function in later life. The prenatal zinc deficiency is generally accepted that age related in immune response appear to be seen from programmed involution of the thymus. Thymic involution and induction of thym ulin secretion from human thymic epithelial cells have obtained with zinc treatment, suggesting that specific nutrien ts may act as regulatory elements by modulating cellular programs. The potential significance of early nutrition for adaptive immune response in general is also indicated by studies of mucosal immune response to antigens, which have shown that experimental priming at birth ensured both a stronger and a more lasting immune response toward potential pathogens. Malnutrition has an adverse impact on immunological functions and can serve to suppress ce ll-mediated, humoral, and secr etory immune competence. Nutritional immunodeficiencies in human beings appear to respond well to dietary therapy. Micronutrients, trace elements, and vitamins have important regulatory effects on adaptive immune cell function.
Carbohydrate Moieties and Cytoenzymatic Characterization of Hemocytes in Whiteleg Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

Hemocytes represent one of the most important defense mechanisms against foreign material in Crustacea and are also involved in a variety of other physiological responses. Fluorescent lectin-binding assays and cytochemical reactions were used to identify specificity and distribution of carbohydrate moieties and presence of several hydrolytic enzymes, in hemocytes of whiteleg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. Two general classes of circulating hemocytes (granular and agranular) exist in L. vannamei, which express carbohydrates residues for FITC-conjugated lectins WGA, LEA, and PNA; UEA and Con-A were not observed. Enzymatic studies indicated that acid phosphatase, nonspecific esterase, and specific esterases were present; alkaline phosphatase was not observed. The enzymes and carbohydrates are useful tools in hemocyte classification and cellular defense mechanism studies.
Cortical thickness is linked to executive functioning in adulthood and aging

Executive functions that are dependent upon the frontal‐parietal network decline considerably during the course of normal aging. To delineate neuroanatomical correlates of age‐related executive impairment, we investigated the relation between cortical thickness and executive functioning in 73 younger (20–32 years) and 56 older (60–71 years) healthy adults. Executive functioning was assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Cortical thickness was measured at each location of the cortical mantle using surface‐based segmentation procedures on high‐resolution T1‐weighted magnetic resonance images. For regions involved in WCST performance, such as the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices, we found that thicker cortex was related to higher accuracy. Follow‐up ROI‐based analyses revealed that these associations were stronger in older than in younger adults. Moreover, among older adults, high and low performers differed in cortical thickness within regions generally linked to WCST performance. Our results indicate that the structural cortical correlates of executive functioning largely overlap with previously identified functional patterns. We conclude that structural preservation of relevant brain regions is associated with higher levels of executive performance in old age, and underscore the need to consider the heterogeneity of brain aging in relation to cognitive functioning. Hum Brain Mapp, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Systematic Design Of A Protective Controller In Process Industries By Means Of The Boolean Different

Protective controllers prevent the occurrence of forbidden states in chemical processes. In this paper we present a new and systematic approach to design a protective controller with respect to the standardized concept in process industries`Safety of Process Plants Using Process Control Systems' 1]. The plant is modelled by means of nite automata. For an ef-cient solution of the controller synthesis task the system is described in the formalism of the Boolean Diierential Calculus. An algorithm for the synthesis of the protective controller is proposed. As an example it is applied to a simple subsystem of a chemical process.
Study on Critical Success Factors for IT Outsourcing Lifecycle

Nowadays IT outsourcing has changed and become more complex. The management of IT outsourcing continues to challenge organizations today. Each IT outsourcing has its own lifecycle, and can be regarded as an IT project. In this work, IT outsourcing process is divided into four development stages: preparation, selection, negotiation, and implementation, which ranging from decision to continuous management and performance evaluation. We take a qualitative research approach, grounded theory, to analyze the main characteristics for different IT outsourcing development stages. Especially, we concentrate on the implementation stage, and discuss four critical success factors influencing on both client side and vendor side, including inter-organizational relationship, organizational IT capability, knowledge transferring and sharing, and dual-role skilled people.
Adaptive multicore scheduling for the LTE uplink

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the next generation cellular system of 3GPP, where every subframe (1 millisecond duration), a base station receives information from up to one hundred users. Multicore heterogeneous embedded systems with Digital Signal Processors (DSP) and coprocessors are power efficient solutions which decode the LTE uplink signals and encode the downlink LTE signals in base stations. The LTE Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) uses a dynamic algorithm, as its multicore scheduling must be adapted every subframe to the number of transmitting users and to the data rate of the services they require. To solve this particular issue of the dynamic deployment while maintaining low latency, one approach is to find efficient on-the-fly solutions using techniques such as graph generation and scheduling. This approach is opposed to a fully static scheduling of predefined cases, approach currently used in the UMTS deployments. We show that the fully static approach is not suitable for the LTE PUSCH and that present DSP cores are powerful enough to recompute an efficient adaptive schedule for the application most complex cases in real-time.
Revisiting the Functional Specialization of Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus in Phonological and Semantic Fluency: The Crucial Role of Task Demands and Individual Ability

Despite a large body of research, extant findings on the functional role of left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in phonological and semantic fluency are still controversial. Based on cross-study comparisons, a recent meta-analysis of neuroimaging results suggests that posterior-dorsal (Brodmann area, BA, 44) and anterior-ventral parts (BA 45) of LIFG contribute differentially to processes of phonologically and semantically cued word retrieval, respectively. In contrast, a subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment failed to validate the proposed dissociation using a within-subjects design. In particular, no evidence for a specific role of BA 45 in semantic fluency was found. Here, we resolve this apparent controversy by showing that the conflicting findings can be accounted for when considering the influence of task demands and individual ability on resulting functional magnetic resonance imaging activation patterns. By comparing phonological versus semantic fluency, higher activation was robustly observed in BA 44. For the opposite comparison, higher activation was found in dorsal BA 45; however, this was more pronounced in posterior-dorsal parts of BA 45 for low-performing subjects and was only apparent in anterior-dorsal parts of BA 45 under high demands on controlled semantic retrieval. Our results thus disclose important determinants for detecting a functional segregation of LIFG in verbal fluency that also have implications for the controversial findings in previous lesion studies. Moreover, the present parcellation of dorsal BA 45 corresponds well with anatomical evidence suggesting a subdivision into an anterior (45A) and posterior part (45B) and may therefore represent evidence for its functional significance in humans.
Testing a Point Null Hypothesis: The Irreconcilability of P Values and Evidence

Abstract The problem of testing a point null hypothesis (or a “small interval” null hypothesis) is considered. Of interest is the relationship between the P value (or observed significance level) and conditional and Bayesian measures of evidence against the null hypothesis. Although one might presume that a small P value indicates the presence of strong evidence against the null, such is not necessarily the case. Expanding on earlier work [especially Edwards, Lindman, and Savage (1963) and Dickey (1977)], it is shown that actual evidence against a null (as measured, say, by posterior probability or comparative likelihood) can differ by an order of magnitude from the P value. For instance, data that yield a P value of . 05, when testing a normal mean, result in a posterior probability of the null of at least . 30 for any objective prior distribution. (“Objective” here means that equal prior weight is given the two hypotheses and that the prior is symmetric and nonincreasing away from the null; other definiti.
Determinants of work performance of seafarers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the aims of discovering the problems existing in the seafarer recruitment management system and of finding out an efficiency recruitment system for shipping companies to retain skillful seafarers continue serving in their companies. Design/methodology/approach This study interviewed with the senior managers of shipping companies to clarify the seafarers’ problems they have encountered and conducted questionnaire survey to collect the seafarers’ perceptions for further analysis. Exploratory factor analysis and multi-regression analysis were applied for the data analysis. Findings There were four primary dimensions relating to seafarers’ management, namely, work attitude, loyalty, payment and welfare and opportunity. The results revealed that dimensions of payment and welfare and opportunity were significantly positive effect on seafarers’ loyalty; only the dimension of payment and welfare was found to significantly effect on the work attitude. However, these four dimensions were all found a positive effect on the work performance as well. Research limitations/implications The results of cross-section research cannot fit all economic fluctuation conditions. Practical implications The ship owners and the operators should consider both the environmental motivation and the hygiene factor to establish a proper seafarers’ recruitment management system to retain seafarers and lead to better performance of the seafarers. The study findings also suggest the shipping company should pay attention to hire local seafarers, i.e. seafarers from the place where the company is based, as those local seafarers might have more work commitment than seafarers from other countries. Originality/value The findings of the study show that welfare and opportunity is the most important factor on loyalty, while it also exerts significant effect on work attitude and work performance. The results suggest that the motivation and performance are not merely dependent upon environmental needs (payment). The findings provide evidences of the importance of non-monetary remuneration within the seafarers’ recruitment management system.
Contribution of Rare Copy Number Variants to the Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder in High-risk Siblings

As microarrays are commonly used to identify the causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) we are investigating whether genetic testing in young children can predict ASD status prior to the typical age of onset of symptoms. A total of 441 individuals (190 probands, 88 siblings with ASD, 163 unaffected siblings) from the Infant Siblings Research Consortium were genotyped on the high-resolution Affymetrix CytoScan HD platform. De novo and inherited presumed pathogenic CNVs were identified in 23/199 families (11.4%). In 6 of these families, the index case and one or more siblings carried the presumed pathogenic CNV; in every such case the carrier individual either had ASD (4) or had a subclinical form of ASD (2). There were 6 additional families in which CNV data would have been informative for early ASD diagnosis or detection of developmental delay. Our results suggest CNVs may serve as biological markers for
Decomposition-Based Analysis of Queueing Networks

Model-based numerical analysis is an important branch of the model-based performance evaluation. Especially state-oriented formalisms and methods based on Markovian processes, like stochastic Petri nets and Markov chains, have been successfully adopted because they are mathematically well understood and allow the intuitive modeling of many processes of the real world. However, these methods are sensitive to the well-known phenomenon called state space explosion. One way to handle this problem is the decomposition approach. In this thesis, we present a decomposition framework for the analysis of a fairly general class of open and closed queueing networks. The decomposition is done at queueing station level, i.e., the queueing stations are independently analyzed. During the analysis, traffic descriptors are exchanged between the stations, representing the streams of jobs flowing between them. Networks with feedback are analyzed using a fixed-point iteration.
The impact of game design on students' interest in CS

We examine the effect of game design on students' attitudes, specifically interest in attaining a Computer Science degree, continued development of programming skills and experience in game design. Students in a Computer Science Survey course are given the task of applying software engineering principles in the context of game design. Using the Game Maker platform, students are divided into teams and participate in collaborative game design for 2.5 weeks. Pre and post survey results reveal that game design can have both a positive and negative impact on students' attitudes about Computer Science, game design and further development of programming skills. Furthermore, it is imperative that assignments are carefully planned and cover appropriate material in respect to time constraints if the goal is to positively influence students' attitudes and lead to positive learning outcomes.
Chinese gay men’s coming out narratives: Connecting social relationship to co-cultural theory

ABSTRACT Theorizing the intersection of queer identity and culture values, this study examines Chinese gay men’s coming-out experiences through a narrative analysis of 60 self-reported stories online. It finds that Chinese gay men’s decision to come out, their communication orientations, and the outcomes of their coming out are influenced by traditional Chinese cultural values such as family, marriage, and duty. Assertive assimilation, assertive accommodation, and nonassertive accommodation are the most used communication orientations. The study adds to co-cultural theory by demonstrating that types of social relationships affect the communication orientations adopted, at least in the context of China.
The effects of community policing on fear of crime and perceived safety: findings from a pilot project in Trinidad and Tobago

ABSTRACT Using findings from a quasi-experiment, this study examines whether the implementation of community policing in Gonzales, a distressed Caribbean community, reduced fear of crime and increased perceptions of safety. We use a pre-post, comparison group design with two groups. Data are based on three waves of citizen surveys carried out in both groups. Our findings reveal that from wave 1 to wave 2, the treatment area experienced an increase in fear relative to the comparison area; the effect size was small and positive, but was not statistically significant. The change in perceived safety from wave 1 to 2 in the treatment area was trivial and non-significant. From wave 2 to 3, the treatment area experienced a significant positive increase in perceptions of safety relative to the comparison area. The treatment area also experienced a small reduction in fear relative to the comparison area, but the effect was not statistically significant. Overall, we conclude that the early stages of implementing community policing in Gonzales may have increased fear but had no effect on perceived safety. Later and more robust implementation was associated with a significant increase in perceived safety and possibly a small reduction in fear.
Culture, coping, and context: primary and secondary control among Thai and American youth.

Do cultural values and traditions influence the development of coping styles ? To address this question, we compared self-reports of coping by 6-14-year-olds in Thailand and the U.S. One hundred and forty-one children were interviewed about six common stressors: separation from a friend, injection in a doctor's office, adult anger, peer animosity, school failure, and physical injury. Children's self-reported coping methods were coded as overt or covert. Coping goals were coded as reflecting primary control (attempts to influence objective conditions), secondary control (attempts to adjust oneself to objective conditions), or relinquished control. Although findings revealed numerous cross-national similarities, there were also multiple main and interaction effects involving culture, suggesting that sociocultural context may be critical to our understanding of child coping. Consistent with literature on Thai culture, Thai children reported more than twice as much covert coping as American children for stressors involving adult authority figures (i.e. adult anger, injection in doctor's office). Thai children also reported more secondary control goals than Americans when coping with separation, but American children were five times as likely as Thais to adopt secondary control goals for coping with injury. The findings support a model of coping development in which culture and stressor characteristics interact, with societal differences most likely to be found in situations where culture-specific norms become salient.
Polymorphisms of IKBKE gene are associated with major depressive disorder and panic disorder

The immune system has been increasingly implicated in the development of mood and anxiety disorders. Inhibitor of kappa light polypeptide gene enhancer in B cells, kinase epsilon (IKBKE) gene encodes IKKε protein that is involved in innate immunity, predominantly antiviral response generation. It also bears pro‐inflammatory properties that could affect psychiatric outcomes. In order to investigate the possible role of IKBKE gene in major depressive disorder (MDD) and panic disorder (PD), we conducted a case–control genetic association study concerning these disorders.
Shoulder pathoanatomy in marathon kayakers

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of soft and hard tissue abnormalities and their interrelations in the shoulders of marathon kayakers and to examine the pathoanatomical factors that predispose these athletes to injury. Methods: Fifty two long distance kayakers completed a questionnaire. Their shoulders were examined for range of motion, pain, and stability using a standard set of 10 clinical tests. The shoulder was subsequently scanned by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in three planes and evaluated for evidence of injury or other abnormality. The relation of clinical symptoms and MRI findings was investigated with respect to kayaker’s age, number of years kayaking, and number of marathon races completed. Results: Thirty subjects were asymptomatic at the time of scanning, and twenty two showed symptoms of pain and/or instability. MRI showed acromioclavicular hypertrophy, acromial or clavicular spur, supraspinatus tendinitis, and partial tear of the supraspinatus as the most common abnormalities. Kayaker’s age, number of years kayaking, and number of races completed did not relate significantly to symptoms or to the presence of an abnormality on MRI scan. Of all the pathoanatomical findings that are reported to predispose to rotator cuff injury, only acromial and clavicular spurs were found to correlate highly with supraspinatus muscle pathology. Conclusions: Rotator cuff injuries make up a large portion of the injuries seen in marathon kayakers, about twice the number reported for sprint kayakers. These injuries are the result of secondary impingement factors associated with overuse, possibly specific to kayakers, and not the result of bony restrictions around the shoulder joint. Acromioclavicular hypertrophy is a common finding in marathon kayakers, but is possibly the result of portaging or a previous injury.
Time Is on Our Side: Temporal Agency in Courtship Narratives

ABSTRACT The reported study investigated how newlyweds linguistically encode changes in relationship commitment in retrospective courtship narratives. In particular, we explored their use of emotion words and its correspondence with “temporal agency,” that is, the attribution of temporal change to human actors or to abstract events and processes. A corpus of courtship narratives composed by recently married participants was analyzed. Narrators used a higher frequency of positive emotion terms (e.g., wonderful) and human temporal agency assignments (e.g., We spent Thanksgiving together) to describe episodes they associated with an increase in relationship commitment from others they associated with a decrease. When describing increases in commitment, their expression of positive emotion partially mediated human temporal agency assignments. However, they did not use significantly more negative emotion words (e.g., sad) or abstract temporal agency assignments (e.g., Our relationship went through a tough period) to describe decreases in commitment than increases. The implications of these findings for relational discourse analysis and embodiment theory are considered.