Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone mineral density in male adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

OBJECTIVES To determine the percentage of male adolescent patients with abnormal bone mineral density (BMD), to identify the variables related to BMD loss, and to study BMD change after follow-up. METHOD Dual-energy-x-ray absorptiometry tests at the lumbar spine (L2-L4) and the femoral neck were administered in 20 male adolescents with anorexia nervosa (treated from 1997 until 2000 at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology of the Hospital Clinic Universitari in Barcelona). Examinations were repeated in 15 patients after a follow-up of 6 to 24 months. RESULTS Thirty-five percent of patients had osteopenia at the lumbar spine and femoral neck. The following variables were related to osteopenia: >12 months' duration of anorexia (p = .003), <3 hours/week of physical activity (p = .009), and calcium intake <600 mg/day (p = .015). In a stepwise logistic regression analysis to predict spinal BMD with the three variables mentioned above, only months of duration entered in the equation (beta = 3.5, SE = 1.3, p = .008) and correctly classified 85% of patients. At the follow-up, patients with only partial weight recovery had a BMD loss of 3.2% at lumbar spine and 6.4% at femoral neck, whereas patients with total weight recovery had an increase of 7.8% at lumbar spine and 6.7% at femoral neck. CONCLUSIONS The risk of osteopenia in male adolescents with anorexia of more than 12 months' duration is high. In patients with total weight recovery, BMD increase is higher than normal.
Influences upon Students’ Perceptions of Workload

Abstract Student perceptions of workload are hypothesised to be a function of class contact hours, independent study hours, English language ability, GPA and the students’ propensity to employ meaning or reproducing approaches to learning. Data on these variables were gathered from students in a mechanical engineering programme in a university. Models testing the interrelationship between these variables and perceived workload were found to have a good fit to the data by structural equation modelling. The direction of the relationship between perceived workload and reproducing approach was investigated by comparing alternative models which were both found to fit the data well. The models suggest a number of guidelines for curriculum designers if students are not to feel pressured by overloaded curricula. These include the greater impact of timetabled class hours as compared to independent study and the need to avoid contextual influences which might induce students to employ a reproducing approach to lear.
A saliency-based auditory attention model with applications to unsupervised prominent syllable detection in speech

A bottom-up or saliency driven attention allows the brain to detect nonspeciﬁc conspicuous targets in cluttered scenes before fully processing and recognizing the targets. Here, a novel biologically plausible auditory saliency map is presented to model such saliency based auditory attention. Multi-scale auditory features are extracted based on the processing stages in the central auditory system, and they are combined into a single master saliency map. The usefulness of the proposed auditory saliency map in detecting the prominent syllable and word locations in speech is tested in an unsupervised manner. When evaluated with broadcast news-style read speech using the BU Radio News Corpus, the model achieves 75.9 % accuracy at the syllable level, and 78.1 % accuracy at word level. These results compare well to results reported on human performance.
tan and ebony Genes Regulate a Novel Pathway for Transmitter Metabolism at Fly Photoreceptor Terminals

In Drosophila melanogaster, ebony andtan, two cuticle melanizing mutants, regulate the conjugation (ebony) of β-alanine to dopamine or hydrolysis (tan) of the β-alanyl conjugate to liberate dopamine. β-alanine biosynthesis is regulated byblack. ebony and tan also exert unexplained reciprocal defects in the electroretinogram, at ON and OFF transients attributable to impaired transmission at photoreceptor synapses, which liberate histamine. Compatible with this impairment, we show that both mutants have reduced histamine contents in the head, as measured by HPLC, and have correspondingly reduced numbers of synaptic vesicles in their photoreceptor terminals. Thus, the histamine phenotype is associated with sites of synaptic transmission at photoreceptors. We demonstrate that when they receive microinjections into the head, wild-type Sarcophaga bullata (in whose larger head such injections are routinely possible) rapidly (<5 sec) convert exogenous [3H]histamine into its β-alanine conjugate, carcinine, a novel metabolite. Drosophila tan has an increased quantity of [3H]carcinine, the hydrolysis of which is blocked; ebony lacks [3H]carcinine, which it cannot synthesize. Confirming these actions, carcinine rescues the histamine phenotype ofebony, whereas β-alanine rescues the carcinine phenotype of black;tan double mutants. The equilibrium ratio between [3H]carcinine and [3H]histamine after microinjecting wild-typeSarcophaga favors carcinine hydrolysis, increasing to only 0.5 after 30 min. Our findings help resolve a longstanding conundrum of the involvement of tan andebony in photoreceptor function. We suggest that reversible synthesis of carcinine occurs in surrounding glia, serving to trap histamine after its release at photoreceptor synapses; subsequent hydrolysis liberates histamine for reuptake.
Consensus-based distributed optimization: Practical issues and applications in large-scale machine learning

This paper discusses practical consensus-based distributed optimization algorithms. In consensus-based optimization algorithms, nodes interleave local gradient descent steps with consensus iterations. Gradient steps drive the solution to a minimizer, while the consensus iterations synchronize the values so that all nodes converge to a network-wide optimum when the objective is convex and separable. The consensus update requires communication. If communication is synchronous and nodes wait to receive one message from each of their neighbors before updating then progress is limited by the slowest node. To be robust to failing or stalling nodes, asynchronous communications should be used. Asynchronous protocols using bi-directional communications cause deadlock, and so one-directional protocols are necessary. However, with one-directional asynchronous protocols it is no longer possible to guarantee the consensus matrix is doubly stochastic. At the same time it is essential that the coordination protocol achieve consensus on the average to avoid biasing the optimization objective. We report on experiments running Push-Sum Distributed Dual Averaging for convex optimization in a MPI cluster. The experiments illustrate the benefits of using asynchronous consensus-based distributed optimization when some nodes are unreliable and may fail or when messages experience time-varying delays.
IN VITRO AND IN VIVO EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON TRABECULAR MESHWORK DEGENERATION INDUCED BY BENZALKONIUM CHLORIDE ( AN AMERICAN OPHTHALMOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Purpose: Long-term antiglaucomatous drug administration may cause irritation, dry eye, allergy, subconjunctival fibrosis, or increased risk of glaucoma surgery failure, potentially due to the preservative benzalkonium chloride (BAK), whose toxic, proinflammatory, and detergent effects have extensively been shown experimentally. We hypothesize that BAK also influences trabecular meshwork (TM) degeneration. Methods: Trabecular specimens were examined using immunohistology and reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction. A trabecular cell line was stimulated by BAK and examined for apoptosis, oxidative stress, fractalkine and SDF-1 expression, and modulation of their receptors. An experimental model was developed with BAK subconjunctival injections to induce TM degeneration. Mass spectrometry (MS) imaging assessed BAK penetration after repeated instillations in rabbit eyes. Results: Trabecular specimens showed extremely low densities of trabecular cells and presence of cells expressing fractalkine and fractalkine receptor and their respective mRNAs. Benzalkonium in vitro induced apoptosis, oxidative stress, and fractalkine expression and inhibited the protective chemokine SDF-1 and Bcl2, also inducing a sustained intraocular pressure (IOP) increase, with dramatic apoptosis of trabecular cells and reduction of aqueous outflow. MS imaging showed that BAK could access the TM at measurable levels after repeated instillations. Conclusion: BAK enhances all characteristics of TM degeneration typical of glaucoma—trabecular apoptosis, oxidative stress, induction of inflammatory chemokines—and causes degeneration in acute experimental conditions, potentially mimicking long-term accumulation. BAK was also shown to access the TM after repeated instillations. These findings support the hypothesis that antiglaucoma medications, through toxicity of their preservative, may cause further long-term trabecular degeneration and therefore enhance outflow resistance, reducing the impact of IOP-lowering agents. Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc 2012;110:40-63
Stomatin-like protein 2 deficiency results in impaired mitochondrial translation

Mitochondria translate the RNAs for 13 core polypeptides of respiratory chain and ATP synthase complexes that are essential for the assembly and function of these complexes. This process occurs in close proximity to the mitochondrial inner membrane. However, the mechanisms and molecular machinery involved in mitochondrial translation are not fully understood, and defects in this process can result in severe diseases. Stomatin-like protein (SLP)-2 is a mainly mitochondrial protein that forms cardiolipin- and prohibitin-enriched microdomains in the mitochondrial inner membrane that are important for the formation of respiratory supercomplexes and their function. Given this regulatory role of SLP-2 in processes closely associated with the mitochondrial inner membrane, we hypothesized that the function of SLP-2 would have an impact on mitochondrial translation. 35S-Methionine/cysteine pulse labeling of resting or activated T cells from T cell-specific Slp-2 knockout mice showed a significant impairment in the production of several mitochondrial DNA-encoded polypeptides following T cell activation, including Cytb, COXI, COXII, COXIII, and ATP6. Measurement of mitochondrial DNA stability and mitochondrial transcription revealed that this impairment was at the post-transcriptional level. Examination of mitochondrial ribosome assembly showed that SLP-2 migrated in sucrose-density gradients similarly to the large ribosomal subunit but that its deletion at the genetic level did not affect mitochondrial ribosome assembly. Functionally, the impairment in mitochondrial translation correlated with decreased interleukin-2 production in activated T cells. Altogether, these data show that SLP-2 acts as a general regulator of mitochondrial translation.
PREPARING TO TESTIFY

This article is about how rape survivors prepare themselves for courtroom appearances. Through it, the author attempts to take research on rape processing beyond a focus on the affective responses of rape “victims” have to the behavior of legal personnel and toward an investigation of the agency of rape survivors. The study builds on law and society research about lay litigants' efforts to use the U.S. civil court system, linguistic research about witnesses involvement in courtroom interaction, and the existing literature on rape processing. It is based on face-to-face interviews with 32 survivors and 12 courtroom observations. The analysis is inductive; the presentation is ethnographic. The author explicates six types of preparation for court: appearance work, role rehearsal, emotion work, team building, role research, and case enhancement. The author discusses how survivors' perceptions of what the criminal justice process entails are reflected in the different preparation activities, and the author offers policy implications regarding the treatment of rape survivors in the criminal justice system.
Location-Aware Routing for Data Aggregation in Sensor Networks1

In-network aggregation has been proposed as one method for reducing energy consumption in networked sensors. In this paper, we explore the idea of influencing the construction of the routing trees for sensor networks with the goal of reducing the size of transmitted data for networks with in-network aggregation involving Group By queries. Toward this, we propose a group-aware network configuration method and present two algorithms, that “cluster” along the same path sensor nodes which belong to the same group. We evaluate our proposed scheme experimentally, in the context of existing in-network aggregation schemes, with respect to energy consumption and quality of data. Overall, our routing tree construction scheme provides energy savings over existing network configuration schemes and improves quality of data in systems with imperfect quality of data such as TiNA.
Web Service Flash Crowd Mitigation Using Feedback to Users

A flash crowd is a situation in which a large number of users access a Web service simultaneously. Conventional methods for managing flash crowds include dropping of excessive requests, preparing of redundant servers, and dynamic provisioning of server resources. It is, however, difficult to use these methods to satisfy all the related requirements such as prevention of system down, avoidance of user abandonment, and efficient use of resources. With a focus on the psychological factor of users, we propose a method for flash crowd mitigation based on the presentation of feedback information. The proposed method was confirmed by experiment to be effective for influencing user behaviors such as abandonment and retransmission of requests. Consequently, we developed a user behavior model and used it to conduct website stress tests using a simulated website. The results further revealed that feedback information could be used to reduce the server load and user abandonment ratio. This paper also suggests the type of Web services for which feedback information-based flash crowd mitigation is most suitable.
Attitude toward the Advertisement and Brand Attitudes: A Classical Conditioning Perspective

Abstract Affectively-valenced television commercials for supermarket products were used as treatment stimuli in a laboratory test of the role of the attitude toward the ad construct. Results show that affect generated by TV commercials does influence attitude toward the advertised brands. However, the lack of support for hypotheses designed to rule out alternative mechanisms which might account for this linkage leaves the proposed classical conditioning mechanism open to question.
Improving ‘at-action’ decision-making in team sports through a holistic coaching approach

This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making ‘at-action’. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.
The Effects of Volunteering on the Physical and Mental Health of Older People

The purpose of this study is to build on the growing body of literature examining the correlations between volunteering and health among older persons. Longitudinal data from the 1993 and 2000 panels of the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old Study (AHEAD) were used to measure health and mental health outcomes of people over age 70 who volunteered at least 100 hours in 1993. The findings provide empirical support to earlier claims that volunteering slows the decline in self-reported health and functioning levels, slows the increase in depression levels, and improves mortality rates for those who volunteer. However, volunteering had no effect on the number of physician-diagnosed health conditions or nursing home residence rates. The findings provide support for the concept of role enhancement.
The power of the instructor in the solo experience: An empirical study and some non-empirical questions

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate participants' perceptions of an organized solo within a wilderness experience program and the influence that the instructors have on their perception of the solo. More specifically, this research project focused on the role of the instructor in the solo as perceived by the participants while still on solo, at the end of their wilderness experience, and three and a half months following the program. Qualitative data indicated that the instructors do have an influence on the participants' perception of their solo experience through the (a) preparation for, (b) facilitation during and (c) discussion after the solo. Recommendations to enhance the use of the wilderness solo include: (a) understand student expectations prior to the solo, (b) provide a clear rationale for the solo and associated activities, (c) implement an optional instructor/student visit during solo, (d) provide a one-on-one discussion with students prior to a group debrief after the solo, and (e) carefully consider the impact of the solo on program events and group dynamics that follow.
Evaluating student satisfaction of quality at international branch campuses

The aim of this research is to present the determinants of students’ perceptions of quality and experience of study at international branch campuses in Malaysia, a country that is set to become an academic hub in Asia. This study used a multi-method approach for data collection. The respondents comprised 245 students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) from six renowned international branch campuses operating in the country – three from Australia, two from the UK and one from India. In addition, a total of 21 face-to-face interviews were conducted after the survey. The results revealed that across the seven dimensions examined concerning education and non-education qualities – university reputation/image, programme quality, lecturers and teaching quality, student learning environment, effective use of technology, counselling and academic advising support, and social life (direct/indirect) facilities – the students were largely satisfied. The paper adds to the existing body of research on higher education service quality, particularly on students’ perceptions and expectations of international branch campuses.
Sperm selection capacity of the human zona pellucida

Previous hemizona assay (HZA) results have illustrated a positive and significant correlation between the percentage of morphologically normal spermatozoa in the semen and the number of spermatozoa tightly bound to the zona pellucida. The present study was designed to evaluate the morphologic features using strict criteria of spermatozoa tightly bound to the zona pellucida. Semen samples of 4 normozoospermic and 11 teratozo‐ospermic men were used to compare the percentage of normal spermatozoa in the semen with that found (1) after swim‐up separation and (2) bound to the zona under HZA conditions. The mean (± SEM) % normal forms for normozoospermic men in semen, after swim‐up and zona‐bound spermatozoa were 21.5 ± 1.6, 27.5 ± 2.9, and 44.8 ± 3.4, respectively. A significantly higher % of normal forms were found among zona‐bound sperm compared to swim‐up forms (p = 0.02) and seminal sperm (p = 0.02). The mean % of normal sperm forms present in semen, after swim‐up and zona pellucida‐binding for teratozoospermic men, were 3.7 ± 0.9, 5.8 ± 1.6 and 15.6 ± 3.1, respectively. Significant differences existed between the % of normal sperm forms found in the swim‐up and zona‐bound spermatozoa (P = <0.01 and P = <0.0003, respectively) compared to the original ejaculates. Results indicate that a selective process against abnormal spermatozoa occurs at the site of the zona pellucida. Spermatozoa classified as normal or slightly abnormal are selectively bound to the zona in favor of abnormal (bizarre) spermatozoa; particularly those sperm cells with acrosomal abnormalities are either actively excluded or simply cannot bind to the zona or do it with a low efficiency due to inherent defects. This newly identified human zona property of sperm selectivity points out another potential use of the HZA, i.e., selection of sperm to be used in assisted fertilization.
College Course Grades for Dual Enrollment Students

This study compared college course grade outcomes, both during and after high school, of dual-enrollment students to those of traditional students. The study was based on a large, multiyear sample of Iowa high school and community college students. The results showed that while in high school, dual-enrollment students consistently outperformed traditional students in community college courses. However, much of the difference might be due to underlying differences in the two groups associated with the type of college the students chose to attend after high school (i.e., four-year vs. two-year). Dual enrollment students tended to perform about the same as traditional students in terms of post-high-school community college course grades. For students who enrolled in four-year institutions after high school, analyses of college course grade data suggested a small positive effect of dual enrollment on first-year college grade point average (GPA).