Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is the 90th Percentile Adequate? The Optimal Waist Circumference Cutoff Points for Predicting Cardiovascular Risks in 124,643 15-Year-Old Taiwanese Adolescents

Adolescent obesity has increased to alarming proportions globally. However, few studies have investigated the optimal waist circumference (WC) of Asian adolescents. This study sought to establish the optimal WC cutoff points that identify a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs) among 15-year-old ethnically Chinese adolescents. This study was a regional population-based study on the CVRFs among adolescents who enrolled in all the senior high schools in Taipei City, Taiwan, between 2011 and 2014. Four cross-sectional health examinations of first-year senior high school (grade 10) students were conducted from September to December of each year. A total of 124,643 adolescents aged 15 (boys: 63,654; girls: 60,989) were recruited. Participants who had at least three of five CVRFs were classified as the high-risk group. We used receiver-operating characteristic curves and the area under the curve (AUC) to determine the optimal WC cutoff points and the accuracy of WC in predicting high cardiovascular risk. WC was a good predictor for high cardiovascular risk for both boys (AUC: 0.845, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.833–0.857) and girls (AUC: 0.763, 95% CI: 0.731–0.795). The optimal WC cutoff points were ≥78.9 cm for boys (77th percentile) and ≥70.7 cm for girls (77th percentile). Adolescents with normal weight and an abnormal WC were more likely to be in the high cardiovascular risk group (odds ratio: 3.70, 95% CI: 2.65–5.17) compared to their peers with normal weight and normal WC. The optimal WC cutoff point of 15-year-old Taiwanese adolescents for identifying CVRFs should be the 77th percentile; the 90th percentile of the WC might be inadequate. The high WC criteria can help health professionals identify higher proportion of the adolescents with cardiovascular risks and refer them for further evaluations and interventions. Adolescents’ height, weight and WC should be measured as a standard practice in routine health checkups.
Neural effects of cognitive–behavioural therapy on dysfunctional attitudes in depression

Background Dysfunctional attitudes are a feature of depression that has been correlated with receptor binding abnormalities in limbic and cortical regions. We sought to investigate the functional neuroanatomy of dysfunctional attitudes in major depressive disorder (MDD) and the effects of treatment with cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT). Method Participants were 16 patients with unipolar depression in an acute depressive episode (mean age 40.0 years) and 16 matched healthy controls (mean age 39.9 years). Patients were medication free and received a course of treatment with CBT. All participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans at baseline and at week 16, prior to the initiation of therapy and following the course of CBT for patients. During each fMRI scan, participants indicated their attributions to statements from a modified Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (mDAS-48). Results MDD patients in an acute depressive episode endorsed a greater number of extreme responses to DAS statements, which normalized following CBT treatment. Extreme attributions were associated with greater activation in the left hippocampal region, inferior parietal lobe and precuneus in MDD patients as compared with healthy controls as a main effect of group. An interaction effect was found in the left parahippocampal region, which showed less attenuation in MDD patients at the follow-up scan relative to healthy controls. Conclusions Attenuation of activity in the parahippocampal region may be indicative of an improvement in dysfunctional thinking following CBT treatment in depression, while persistent engagement of regions involved in attentional processing and memory retrieval with extreme attributions reflects a trait feature of depression.
Aligning manifolds to model the earliest phonological abstraction in infant-caretaker vocal imitation

We argue that infants perform an abstraction over their auditory representations of the vowels of individual speakers, by mapping them to a mediating space of speaker-independent representations, guided by vocal imitative interaction with their caretakers, as a ﬁrst step in the phonological acquisition process. Furthermore, we proffer a methodology for modeling this abstraction which involves the alignment of the cognitive structures, or manifolds, that the infant builds from the auditory representations of the vowels of individual speak-ers. As a demonstration of the methodology, we show that higher-dimensional “excitation pattern” representations facilitate modeling of the inﬂuence of the imitative process on perception and abstraction more so than lower-dimensional formant representations.
Parent Perceived Stress and Child Temperament: Qualities that Facilitate or Impede Child Developmental Outcomes

Effective parent-child relationships contribute to the development of well-adjusted children. Taxing personal and situational factors encumber a caregiver’s capacity for responsivity with his or her child. The purpose of the present study was to identify interpersonal factors that impact child outcomes in low socioeconomic status family populations. Data was collected in northeast Florida Head Start centers from 219 low income, at-risk caregivers and their children ages one and a half through almost five. Parents completed questionnaires on parent perceived stress, child temperament, and child developmental outcomes. Hierarchical regression was used to assess the influence of child temperament and parent perceived stress independently and interactively on child developmental outcomes. Although parent stress and negative child temperament significantly influenced child developmental outcomes, there was no significant interaction effect. Policies aimed at ameliorating negative child temperaments or subjective parent stress may serve families and improve child developmental outcomes. Researchers should investigate the potential moderating influence of parent sensitive responding on the relationship between parent stress and child developmental outcomes.
Ceding and Succeeding: How the Altruistic Can Benefit from the Selfish in Joint Decisions

We examine how the interplay of two partners’ interpersonal orientations (selfish vs. altruistic) in a decisionmaking dyad impacts the extent to which the joint decision matches each partners’ individual a priori preferences. Two experiments, in which we manipulate and measure interpersonal orientations, as well as examine real consumption decisions, demonstrate the benefit of mismatching interpersonal orientations (selfish-altruistic) in dyadic decisions. Specifically, altruistic and selfish consumers reach joint decisions that better reflect their individual preferences when working with a partner who has the opposite interpersonal orientation (heterogeneous dyad) versus a matching one (homogeneous dyad). Initial evidence suggests that this effect occurs because homogeneous dyads are more prone to engage in negotiation (communication that involves departure from one’s initial position to a mutually serving position) than heterogeneous dyads. This leads homogeneous dyads to focus more on equally preferred options than on their own most preferred options, which pushes them further down both partners’ preferences lists. This research contributes to the literature on joint decision making and has important implications for consumer well-being.
Social Identity, Self-Categorization, and the Communication of Group Norms

We articulate the role of norms within the social identity perspective as a basis for theorizing a number of manifestly communicative phenomena. We describe how group norms are cognitively represented as context-dependent prototypes that capture the distinctive properties of groups. The same process that governs the psychological salience of different prototypes, and thus generates group normative behavior, can be used to understand the formation, perception, and diffusion of norms, and also how some group members, for example, leaders, have more normative influence than others. We illustrate this process across a number of phenomena and make suggestions for future interfaces between the social identity perspective and communication research. We believe that the social identity approach represents a truly integrative force for the communication discipline.
Hepatoprotective Effect of Ethanolic Extract of Lavandula officinalis L. in Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Rats

Background: Plants have been the basis for medical treatments throughout much of human history. Although the active compounds of many herbal drugs are unknown, they have been widely prescribed by traditional medicine practitioners due to their beneficial effects and low cost. Although the primary feature of diabetes is hyperglycemia, diabetic disease can cause damage in several organs, such as the liver, over the long term. Objectives: The present study was conducted to determine the hepatoprotective activity of Lavandula officinalis L. ethanolic extract (LOE) in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Materials and Methods: Twenty-eight male Wistar rats (weight 200 250 g) were randomly divided into four groups as follows: the healthy control group (HC) received saline (0.9% intraperitoneally [i.p.]) on all experimental days, the diabetic control group (DC) received a single dose of alloxan (120 mg/kg i.p.), the first treatment group (FT) received a single dose of alloxan and then 100 mg/kg of LOE i.p. for 21 days, and the second treatment group (ST) received a single dose of alloxan and then 200 mg/kg LOE i.p. for 21 days. After completion of the experimental period, liver tissue was dissected to measure the activity of certain antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and lipid peroxidation (MDA) by spectrophotometry. Blood samples were collected to measure aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) in the serum, using commercially available diagnostic kits. Results: This study revealed that intraperitoneal administration of LOE for 21 days provided significant hepatoprotection against alloxan-induced elevation in the serum marker enzymes AST (38%) and ALT (38.65%, P < 0.05), the liver antioxidant enzyme SOD (68.61%, P < 0.01), CAT (41.53%), and liver lipid peroxidation (44.74%, P < 0.05) compared to the DC group. Conclusions: The present study indicated a hepatoprotective effect of LOE in diabetic rats.
Parallel algorithms for real-time colliding face detection

We propose parallel algorithms for detecting collisions among 3D objects in real-time. First, a basic algorithm of serial version is described. It can detect potential collisions among multiple objects with arbitrary motion (translation and rotation) in 3D space. The algorithm can be used without modification for both convex and concave objects represented as polyhedra. This algorithm is efficient, simple to implement, and does not require any memory intensive auxiliary data structure to be precomputed and updated. Then, two parallel algorithms are proposed for MIMD multi-processors having a shared-memory; one uses a static and the other uses a dynamic method for proper load balancing. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed collision detection methods.
Reflections of Students in Their Use of Asynchronous Online Seminars

This paper reports on research that has been carried out into the use, process, and effectiveness of an asynchronous online seminar within an undergraduate sports studies degree programme. Contemporary sources are used to justify the use of technology supported learning (TSL) in higher education and to inform a reflective and critical account of the planning and delivery of an asynchronous online seminar. Through student feedback gained from qualitative questionnaires, we conclude that the online seminar made a positive contribution to the learning experience of the majority of participating students. However, encouraging widespread participation was problematical. It was also clear that some participants only took part because of the extrinsic rewards on offer and that this might have had some impact on the quality of their learning experience (Biggs, 2003). Despite the benefits of the online seminar, we would also suggest that where student numbers are manageable, the benefits of a “blended” approach, delivering online seminars in conjunction with more traditional face-to-face seminars, should be considered.
A Psychological and Computational Study of Sub-Sentential Genre Recognition

Genre recognition is a critical facet of text comprehension and text classification. In three experiments, we assessed the minimum number of words in a sentence needed for genre recognition to occur, the distribution of genres across text, and the relationship between reading ability and genre recognition. We also propose and demonstrate a computational model for genre recognition. Using corpora of narrative, history, and science sentences, we found that readers could recognize the genre of over 80% of the sentences and that recognition generally occurred within the first three words of sentences; in fact, 51% of the sentences could be correctly identified by the first word alone. We also report findings that many texts are heterogeneous in terms of genre. That is, around 20% of text appears to include sentences from other genres. In addition, our computational models fit closely the judgments of human result. This study offers a novel approach to genre identification at the sub-sentential level and has important implications for fields as diverse as reading comprehension and computational text classification.
ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANT PATTERN OF FECAL ESCHERICHIA COLI IN SELECTED BROILER FARMS OF EASTERN HARARGE ZONE, ETHIOPIA

A study was conducted to determine the pattern of antimicrobial resistance in Escherichia coli isolated from Cloacal swab of broiler chickens in selected farms of Eastern Harrarge zone of Ethiopia. Isolation and identification of Escherichia coli were done by using enrichment media, selective media, and biochemical tests. 65 selected isolates were subjected to 9 antimicrobial agents to determine their resistance by the disk diffusion method. Accordingly, the resistance of E.coli was tetracycline (90%), streptomycin (78%), ampicillin (60%), amoxicillin (56%), erythromycin (45%), ciprofloxacin (38%), and chloramphenicol (15%). None of the isolates showed resistance to gentamicin. Sensitivity was observed in case of 80%, 77%, 44%, 32%, 26%, 20%, 20%, 15%, and 10% of the isolates for chloramphenicol, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, amoxicillin, ampicillin, streptomycin, erythromycin, and tetracycline, respectively. Intermediate resistance/susceptibility was recorded for 5-35% of the isolates. 92.3% of the isolates tested showed multidrug resistance for 2 or more antimicrobials and the highest levels (18.5%) of multidrug-resistant E. coli were observed for 3 antimicrobials accounting 7.7% for tetracycline-ampicillin-streptomycin and 10.8% for tetracycline-ampicillin-amoxicillin. This study showed resistance against the antibiotics that are commonly used in poultry. Furthermore, it was concluded that gentamicin, chloramphenicole and ciproflaxin will be the first drugs of choice to resist infections caused by E. coli in chicken in Ethiopia. These findings confirm significant increase in the incidence of antimicrobial resistance in the E. coli isolates which is most probably due to increased use of antibiotics as feed additives for growth promotion and prevention of diseases and use of inappropriate antibiotics for treatment of diseases. Hence, excess or abusive use of antimicrobials should be guarded through judicious application of antimicrobials
Thirty Years of Shareholder Activism: A Survey of Empirical Research

We summarize and synthesize the results from 73 studies that examine the consequences of shareholder activism for targeted firms, and draw two primary conclusions. First, activism that adopts some characteristics of corporate takeovers, especially significant stockholdings, is associated with improvements in share values and firm operations. Activism that is not associated with the formation of ownership blocks is associated with insignificant or very small changes in target firm value. Second, shareholder activism has become more value increasing over time. Research based on shareholder activism from the 1980s and 1990s generally finds few consequential effects, while activism in more recent years is more frequently associated with increased share values and operating performance. These results are consistent with Alchian and Demsetz' (1972) argument that managerial agency problems are controlled in part by dynamic changes in ownership, and with Alchian's (1950) observation that business practices adapt over time to mimic successful strategies.
Embedded Objects in Web Pages

An important characteristic of a Web page|the number of objects embedded in it|is di cult to obtain using publicly available sources of Web characterization data, such as proxy and server traces. It is important, however, to have an estimate for the number of embedded objects found in Web pages for modeling of realistic Web sites and workloads. We analyzed two data sets collected using active measurement technique and present our ndings in this paper. We compare our results to those obtained by others, and show that the complexity of Web pages, in terms of the number of embedded objects, steadily increases.
Measuring Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market

Recently, the investor sentiment measure has become one of the most widely studied areas in behavioral finance. Various measures have been developed in the literature without being to determine which measure should be used. The purpose of this study is to test their relative performance in predicting stock returns. Using a panel of investor sentiment measures, we develop a new measure of sentiment which combines direct and indirect sentiment measures. Our results show that our composite sentiment index affects the returns of stocks hard to value and difficult to arbitrage consistent with the predictions of noise trader’s models. Finally, we find that our composite index has a better predictive ability than the alternative sentiment measures largely used in the literature.
Potential Relevance of α1-Adrenergic Receptor Autoantibodies in Refractory Hypertension

Background Agonistic autoantibodies directed at the α1-adrenergic receptor (α1-AAB) have been described in patients with hypertension. We implied earlier that α1-AAB might have a mechanistic role and could represent a therapeutic target. Methodology/Principal Findings To pursue the issue, we performed clinical and basic studies. We observed that 41 of 81 patients with refractory hypertension had α1-AAB; after immunoadsorption blood pressure was significantly reduced in these patients. Rabbits were immunized to generate α1-adrenergic receptor antibodies (α1-AB). Patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB were purified using affinity chromatography and characterized both by epitope mapping and surface plasmon resonance measurements. Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes, rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), and Chinese hamster ovary cells transfected with the human α1A-adrenergic receptor were incubated with patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB and the activation of signal transduction pathways was investigated by Western blot, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and gene expression. We found that phospholipase A2 group IIA (PLA2-IIA) and L-type calcium channel (Cacna1c) genes were upregulated in cardiomyocytes and VSMC after stimulation with both purified antibodies. We showed that patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB result in protein kinase C alpha activation and transient extracellular-related kinase (EKR1/2) phosphorylation. Finally, we showed that the antibodies exert acute effects on intracellular Ca2+ in cardiomyocytes and induce mesentery artery segment contraction. Conclusions/Significance Patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB can induce signaling pathways important for hypertension and cardiac remodeling. Our data provide evidence for a potential clinical relevance for α1-AAB in hypertensive patients, and the notion of immunity as a possible cause of hypertension.
Use of the van Hiele Theory in Investigating Teaching Strategies used by College of Education Geometry Tutors

The main purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which 11 selected mathematics tutors facilitate the teaching and learning of geometry at the van Hiele Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the college of education level in Ghana. The van Hiele theory of geometric thinking was used to explore the type of teaching strategies employed by the mathematics tutors. The theory served as a guideline from which classroom observation protocol was developed. Results indicated that the tutors exhibit a good conceptual understanding in facilitating the teaching and learning of geometry that is consistent with van Hiele Levels 1 and 2. However, much of the geometry teaching and learning strategies of the mathematics tutors were not structured in a way that support the development of geometric thinking as described in van Hiele Levels 3 and 4. Implications for the involvement of college mathematics tutors in utilizing the van Hiele framework were discussed.
A perspective on Quantum Gravity Phenomenology

I give a brief overview of some Quantum-Gravity-Phenomenology research lines, focusing on studies of cosmic rays and gamma-ray bursts that concern the fate of Lorentz symmetry in quantum spacetime. I also stress that the most valuable phenomenological analyses should not mix too many conjectured new features of quantum spacetime, and from this perspective it appears that it should be difficult to obtain reliable guidance on the quantum-gravity problem from the analysis of synchrotron radiation from the Crab nebula and from the analysis of phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources. Forthcoming observatories of ultra-high-energy neutrinos should provide several opportunities for clean tests of some simple hypothesis for the short-distance structure of spacetime. In particular, these neutrino studies, and some related cosmic-ray studies, should provide access to the regime $E>\sqrt{m E_p}$.
Absolute Time and Temperature in Quantum and Classical Relativistic Mechanics

We present a relativistic quantum mechanics of a point mass with absolute thermodynamic time and temperature, combined to a single complex parameter of evolution. In this theory, the geometric time is introduced as one of space-time coordinates; it does not coincide with the thermodynamic time on the kinematical level. It is established, that the theory allows a consistent dynamics with nontrivial probability density at the limit $\hbar\to 0$. We identify this dynamics with the classical one, and prove its relativistic invariance. It is shown, that the thermodynamical time becomes proportional to the proper time of the point mass in the conventional classical regime of its evolution with the delta-functional distribution of the probability density.