Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conventional physiotherapy and treadmill re-training for higher-level gait disorders in cerebrovascular disease.

OBJECTIVES to compare the therapeutic effects of two approaches to gait re-training--a schedule of conventional physiotherapy and treadmill re-training--in patients with higher-level gait disorders associated with cerebral multiinfarct states. DESIGN single-blind crossover study involving a 4-week baseline period, 4 weeks of treadmill re-training and 4 weeks of conventional physiotherapy. SETTING a large teaching hospital. SUBJECTS patients with cerebral multi-infarct states who met the criteria for higher-level gait disorders. Computed tomographic brain scans showed at least one large vessel infarct, basal ganglia and white matter lacunes or extensive leukoaraiosis. INTERVENTIONS a schedule of treadmill re-training and a specific schedule of physiotherapy containing 31 interventions in three treatment modules: (i) for gait ignition failure and turning; (ii) to improve postural alignment and enhance balance reactions; and (iii) for other components of cerebral multi-infarct state disordered gait. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES spatial and temporal gait measures and activity of daily living assessments. RESULTS we recruited 18 patients, mean (SD) age 79.1 (6.8) years. Patients walked an average of 7.9 (5.5) km on the treadmill and had an average of 6.7 (3.2) h of physiotherapy. There were clinically moderate but highly statistically significant (P < 0.001) improvements in the following indices: time taken to complete the sit-to-stand test; time taken to walk 10 m; number of steps over 10 m; walking velocity; right and left step lengths; and time taken to complete the 'S' test. There were no differences in the results obtained in each limb of the study. CONCLUSION there is no difference between the effects of conventional physiotherapy and treadmill re-training on the gait of patients with higher-level gait disorders associated with cerebral multi-infarct states. However, the improvements seen during the treatment period suggest that there is scope to improve the gait of this group of frail, elderly patients.
The Development of Writing Proficiency as a Function of Grade Level: A Linguistic Analysis

In this study, a corpus of essays stratified by level (9th grade, 11th grade, and college freshman) are analyzed computationally to discriminate differences between the linguistic features produced in essays by adolescents and young adults. The automated tool Coh-Metrix is used to examine to what degree essays written at various grade levels can be distinguished from one another using a number of linguistic features related to lexical sophistication (i.e., word frequency, word concreteness), syntactic complexity (i.e., the number of modifiers per noun phrase), and cohesion (i.e., word overlap, incidence of connectives). The analysis demonstrates that high school and college writers develop linguistic strategies as a function of grade level. Primarily, these writers produce more sophisticated words and more complex sentence structure as grade level increases. In contrast, these writers produce fewer cohesive features in text as a function of grade level. This analysis supports the notion that linguistic development occurs in the later stages of writing development and that this development is primarily related to producing texts that are less cohesive and more elaborate.
Dynamics of trade-by-trade price movements : decomposition and models

In this paper we introduce a decomposition of the joint distribution of price changes of assets recorded trade–by–trade. Our decomposition means that we can model the dynamics of price changes using quite simple and interpretable models which are easily extended in a great number of directions, including using durations and volume as explanatory variables. Thus we provide an econometric basis for empirical work on market microstructure using time series of transactions data. We use maximum likelihood estimation and testing methods to assess the fit of the model to a year of IBM stock price data taken from the New York Stock Exchange.
Number of lymph nodes examined and prognosis among pathologically lymph node‐negative patients after preoperative chemoradiation therapy for rectal adenocarcinoma

Preoperative chemoradiation for rectal cancer can decrease the number of evaluable lymph nodes. Hence, the prognostic role of lymph node evaluation in patients with rectal cancer who receive preoperative chemoradiation is unclear. The authors of this report evaluated the prognostic impact of the number of lymph nodes examined in patients with rectal cancer who had negative lymph nodes based on the pathologic extent of disease (ypN0) after they received preoperative chemoradiation.
Semiconducting Behavior of Carbon Steel in Electrolyte Solution

In this paper, the semiconducting behavior of carbon steel in acid, base and salt solutions was studied by utiliz- ing potential-capacitance and Mott-Schottky analysis. It was pointed out that the capacitance variation of space charge layer of carbon steel in different solution was different. The carbon steel showed p-type semiconducting behavior in 5% sulfuric acid and 5% sodium sulfate solution. However, the carbon steel showed n-type semiconducting behavior in 5% sodium hydroxide. It was suggested that the space charge layer of the carbon steel in different electrolytes might be asymmetric.
Repression-Sensitization, Self-Image Disparity, and Mental Health

This study predicted and demonstrated high positive correlations between repressor-sensitization, self-image disparity and mental health. Sensitization was highly correlated with mental illness (.78), and self-image disparity (.61) in a population of 77 normal adults. Analysis of the individual scales indicated that the high correlations were caused mainly by actual self ratings. Results are discussed in terms of the relationship between self-concept and mental health.
‘Ren Qing” versus the ‘Big Five’ The Role of Culturally Sensitive Measures of Individual Difference in Distributive Negotiations

In this study, we examine culture-specific relationships between individual differences and distributive negotiations. We measured individual characteristics and their effects on distributive negotiations in both American and Chinese cultures, using a Western-based scale (the ‘Big Five’) and a Chinese-based scale (CPAI). We found that agreeableness and extraversion (from the ‘Big Five’) affected negotiations for Americans, but not for Chinese. We found that harmony, face and Ren Qing (from the Chinese-based scales) affected negotiations for Chinese, but not for Americans. Specifically, we found that in the American culture, those higher in extraversion and agreeableness achieved lower economic gain, whereas in the Chinese context that those high in harmony, face, and Ren Qing were more likely to be influenced by opening offers and achieve lower economic gain in distributive negotiations. Our study highlights the need to examine negotiations using culturally sensitive constructs and measures.
Advanced glycation endproducts regulate smooth muscle cells calcification in cultured HSMCs.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the mechanism of Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) promoting the calcification of smooth muscle cells. METHODS The successfully cultured smooth muscle cells were divided into three groups: normal culture group (group A), calcified culture group (group B), calcification + AGEs group (group C); the concentration of intracellular calcium ion was detected in each group; the promotion of AGEs on the calcification of HSMCs was confirmed by VON KOSSA staining; and the expressions of β-catenin, RAGE, β-catenin, OPG and E-cadherin protein were detected by immunofluorescence and western blot. RESULTS The morphology of the cells in each group showed that the amount of calcified plaques in calcification + AGES group were significantly higher than the calcification group. VON KOSSA staining showed that with increasing concentrations of AGE-BSA, the amount of its calcification gradually increased. Calcium concentration in Calcification + 20 mg/L AGEs group was significantly higher, followed by 40 mg/L AGEs group. The expression of β-catenin increased with the increasing concentrations of AGEs. CONCLUSION AGEs can promote the calcification of human femoral artery smooth muscle cells, with a concentration gradient effect. With increasing concentrations of AGEs, the expression of RAGE increased, indicating that AGEs-induced HSMCs proliferation was correlated with RAGE expression.
Countercyclical Restructuring and Jobless Recoveries

In the past three recessions, two major features of the business cycle have changed. First, employment now lags output growth, leading to jobless recoveries. Second, average labor productivity (ALP) has become acyclical or even countercyclical. This paper proposes a joint explanation for both facts. I develop a quantitative model in which firms streamline and restructure during recessions. The model captures the idea that firms grow "fat" during booms but then quickly "restructure" during recessions by laying off their unproductive workers. Firms then enter the recovery with a greater ability to meet expanding demand without hiring additional workers. This model explains 55% of the decline in the procyclicality of ALP observed in the data and generates a 4 quarters long jobless recovery after the Great Recession.
ADDING COGNITIVE THERAPY ELEMENTS TO EXPOSURE THERAPY FOR OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER: A CONTROLLED STUDY

Thirty-five outpatients (25 women, 10 men) with a DSM-III-R principal diagnosis of OCD accepted exposure treatment at a psychiatric outpatient clinic. They were randomly assigned to one of two individual treatments for a 6-week exposure therapy treatment based on a treatment manual or to a 6-week waiting list condition. The 12 patients assigned to the waiting list were subsequently randomly assigned to one of the active treatments. Both treatment groups received in vivo or imaginal exposure in each of the 10 twice-weekly treatment sessions held after two assessment sessions. One group (n=16) received cognitive therapy interventions for comorbidity problems or to alter beliefs underlying patients' OCD. The other group (n=19) received relaxation training as an attention placebo control. Both groups received relapse prevention follow-up contacts. Twenty-seven patients completed intensive treatment. Both treatments overall showed satisfactory levels of clinical improvement and large effect sizes. ANCOVAS for treatment completers showed non-significantly lower levels of OCD symptoms, depression and state anxiety in the treatment condition that did not include cognitive interventions. The patients receiving additional cognitive therapy showed significantly lesser dropout than those in the other treatment condition, but there were no significant differences in the intention-to-treat analyses.
Observer Variation in Interpreting 18F-FDG PET/CT Findings for Lymphoma Staging

Many studies demonstrate a high accuracy for PET in staging lymphoma, but few assess observer variation. This study quantified agreement for staging lymphoma with PET/CT. Methods: The PET/CT images of 100 patients with lymphoma who had been referred for staging were reviewed by 3 experienced observers, with 2 observers reviewing each series a second time. Ann Arbor stage and individual nodal and extranodal regions were assessed. Weighted κ (κw) and intraclass correlation coefficient were used to compare ratings. Results: Intra- and interobserver agreement was high for Ann Arbor stage (κw = 0.79–0.91), number of nodal regions involved (intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.83–0.93), and presence of extranodal disease (κ = 0.74–0.86). High agreement was also observed for all nodal regions (κw > 0.60) except hilar (κw = 0.56–0.82) and infraclavicular (κw = 0.14–0.55). Lower agreement was observed for bowel involvement (κw = 0.37–0.71). Conclusion: Experienced observers had a high level of agreement using PET/CT for lymphoma staging, supporting its use as a robust noninvasive staging tool. Further research is needed to evaluate observer variability for restaging during and after chemotherapy.
Coupled Sparse NMF vs. Random Forest Classification for Real Life Acoustic Event Detection

In this paper, we propose two methods for polyphonic Acoustic Event Detection (AED) in real life environments. The first method is based on Coupled Sparse Non-negative Matrix Factorization (CSNMF) of spectral representations and their corresponding class activity annotations. The second method is based on Multi-class Random Forest (MRF) classification of time-frequency patches. We compare the performance of the two methods on a recently published dataset TUT Sound Events 2016 containing data from home and residential area environments. Both methods show comparable performance to the baseline system proposed for DCASE 2016 Challenge on the development dataset with MRF outperforming the baseline on the evaluation dataset.
[Predictive factors for readmission in heart failure patients].

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Heart failure (HF) is a prevalent and increasing disease and represents one of the main causes of hospital admission. It is associated with an important morbi-mortality and a high rate of readmission. The objective of this study was to know the clinical characteristics of admitted patients with HF and to detect any valuable prognosis factors. PATIENTS AND METHOD Prospective study of admitted HF patients between May'99 and May'00. Readmission rate was evaluated six months later. RESULTS 204 patients were included with an average age of 78 (9.9) years. 66% were women. Diabetes mellitus (DM) (36.4%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (23.4%) were the most outstanding associated pathologies. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) was the most frequent etiology in 33.4% cases. Mean time of admission was 10 days. 34% patients had systolic dysfunction (SD). Men with IHD presented a higher rate of SD (p < 0.001). Mortality was 12.4%, especially in COPD patients (p < 0.011). IECAs were prescribed in 71.2% in the SD group. Readmission rate at 6 months was about 43%. Patients with renal failure (p < 0.04) and those with a more impaired functional class (p < 0.02) displayed a higher readmission rate. CONCLUSIONS Several clinical factors determine the morbi-mortality and prognosis including an older age, associated comorbility, type of cardiopathy and presence of systolic dysfunction. All these factors are detected at the time of hospital admission.
What is Education Studies?

This article argues that, in the light of the forthcoming QAA reviews of education studies programmes in 2000-2001, there is a need to initiate discussion regarding the nature of education studies as an academic field of study in its own right. We argue here that education studies at King Alfred's College, Winchester, provides a model of such a programme but one which QAA in their descriptors of the subject do not easily recognise. We argue that the most significant feature of education studies at undergraduate level is that, perhaps alone of all degree courses, it has as part of its subject matter critical examination of what it is to be 'educational'. Our claim for our own programme is that it is not just about education but is structured around a model of development and learning, based on the German idealism of Kant and Hegel, and is in itself an 'educational' experience. In conclusion, we criticise those ITE providers who do not recognise education studies defined in this way as a relevant preparation for PGCE training.
Practical consensus for heterogeneous linear time-varying multi-agent systems

This paper studies practical consensus (PC) problem for linear multi-agent systems (MAS) under a fixed, connected, and undirected communication network. PC means that the difference between any two agents remains in an arbitrarily chosen neighborhood of the origin after some time by using a suitable control law. All the agents, which are heterogeneous first-order linear time-varying (LTV) systems, can collect only relative state information from their neighborhoods. According to the assumptions of MAS, we divide the problem into two cases; one is a class of homogeneous LTV MAS with heterogeneous disturbances where the difference between any two disturbances is bounded, and the other is a class of heterogeneous LTV MAS with heterogeneous bounded disturbances. Finally, we show that PC for each case is always achieved if the control gain is sufficiently large.
Corticosteroid therapy in IgA nephropathy with minimal change-like lesions: a single-centre cohort study.

BACKGROUND There is a lack of high-quality evidence that advocates the use of corticosteroids for IgA nephropathy (IgAN) with minimal change-like lesions (also called IgAN with minimal change disease, MCD-IgAN). METHODS Twenty-seven biopsy-proven adult MCD-IgAN patients were enrolled. Daily single dose of 1 mg/kg (maximum 60 mg/day) prednisone was given until complete remission (CR), followed by gradually decreasing dosage. The clinical data were collected from baseline up to 12 weeks of treatment (Certification No. 2011NLY-006, Clinical trials gov ID. NCT01451710). RESULTS The patient cohort consisted of 15 males and 12 females. The mean age of the patients was 29.2 ± 10.8 years (range 18-60 years) at the time when they were subject to renal biopsy. All patients had hypoalbuminaemia (23.7 ± 4.13 g/L) and heavy proteinuria (>3.5 g/24 h). Cumulative CR (proteinuria < 0.4 g/24 h) rates were 3.70, 48.1, 92.6 and 100% after 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks of treatment, respectively. Two cases relapsed after CR, one at 6 weeks of treatment, likely due to failure to follow the corticosteroid withdrawal schedule, and the other one at 8 weeks of treatment accompanied with an upper respiratory infection. Infection, alanine aminotransferase elevation (>2-folds), fasting blood glucose (FBG) elevation (>6.2 mmol/L) and hypopotassaemia (<3.5 mmol/L) occurred in 2, 5, 2 and 5 cases, respectively, but were eliminated after treatment. CONCLUSION Corticosteroid therapy is likely effective and safe for MCD-IgAN patients.
Burnout, job stress and violent behaviour among Dutch police officers

Much has been published on burnout in the human services. However, despite the extensive literature on job stress in policing, burnout in police officers has rarely been studied. The present study examined stressors in police work, focusing specifically on the lack of reciprocity that officers experience in relations with civilians, colleagues and the police service. It also investigated the relationship between burnout and the attitudes of officers towards violence, as well as to their own use of violence. Dutch police officers (N = 358) completed a self-report questionnaire. The results showed that: (1) organizational stressors were more prevalent than task-related stressors; (2) compared to other service jobs, police officers report a particular profile on the three scales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)? a relatively low level of emotional exhaustion,an average level of depersonalization, and a high level of personal accomplishment; (3) burnout is associated with a lack of reciprocity between in.
Sex of preceding sibling and anthropometrics of subsequent offspring at birth and in young adulthood: a population-based study in Sweden.

In many mammal species with sexual dimorphism producing sons is energetically more demanding to the mother than producing daughters. Although some studies in humans have suggested that offspring born after a brother have a smaller birth weight and adult height when compared with those born after a sister, little is known about this intergenerational cost of producing sons. We aimed to study whether the sex of preceding sibling is associated with anthropometrics of the subsequent child at birth and in young adulthood. This population-based study was carried out on two data sets derived from the Swedish registers. Information on birth weight and length was obtained for 752,723 children of both sexes. Adult weight, height and muscle strength were available for 506,326 men. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that boys and girls born after a brother were, respectively, 18 and 9 g lighter and 0.08 and 0.03 cm (P < 0.001) shorter at birth than those born after a sister. Adjustment for gestational age decreased the magnitude of the associations [10 g and 0.04 cm (P < 0.001) in men and nonsignificant estimates in women], suggesting that part of the lower mean birth weight and length of individuals born after a brother was due to a shorter gestation. In young adulthood, men with a preceding brother showed 0.16 kg more in weight, 0.3% higher body mass index (P < 0.001) and a trend towards reduced height and muscle strength. Our results suggest that even though the sex of the previous child is associated with the anthropometrics of the subsequent child, the effect sizes are very small questioning whether this mechanism has adaptive value in contemporary humans.
A wearable armband “iFeel” for electrotactile stimulation

Electroactile feedback is crucial to close the loop systems of the teleoperation system, virtual reality system, and prosthetic system. Feedback devices are always limited in application due to large size for their inconvenience. In the present study, a wearable armband named “iFeel” is developed, which includes five pairs of electrodes for electrotactile stimulation is introduced for feedback to close the loop in the systems above. The armband also includes a custom-designed stimulator for generating pulses. The stimulator consists of power module, voltage converting module, Bluetooth module, the microcontroller Unit, constant-current power supply module and multiplexing module. Two experiments including position discrimination and frequency discrimination are conducted to validate the armband. We use the success rate to evaluate feasibility of armband. Our preliminary results show a high accuracy of position discrimination (success rate > 90%) and frequency levels discrimination (success rate > 90%). The sensory substitute feedback has the potential to be applied for feedback to achieve more information with high resolution and accuracy after minimal training.
The Theory Of Planned Behaviour And The Impact Of Past Behaviour

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has since its development some 20 years ago proved to be a powerful approach to explain human behaviour. It has been successfully applied to a wide range of behaviours. Interestingly, it is in particular complex behaviour such as managerial decision making which saw only a few attempts to use TPB. This is in particular true for company internationalisation. While the main elements of the theory are generally accepted, it has been suggested at many occasions that the model would benefit by the inclusion of more constructs in terms of explanatory quality. Among the elements proposed, Past Behaviour is of particular importance. Although being vividly discussed, researchers did not come to a definitive judgement on whether or not the construct really should be integrated as an independent factor. The paper at hand adresses these issues by developping a framework for an extended TPB which should be relevant in particular for complex behaviours such as International Entrepreneurship. It is based on an extensive literature review which identifies two main lines of research in terms of Past Behaviour. Using a decomposition approach to integrate Past Behaviour, the shortcomings of earlier approaches are avoided. The framework features a second contribution by explicitly modelling information processing modes, which are proposed to influence development of intentions.