Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Present and future technology for simultaneous superficial thermoradiotherapy of breast cancer

This paper reviews systems and techniques to deliver simultaneous thermoradiotherapy of breast cancer. It first covers the clinical implementation of simultaneous delivery of superficial (microwave or ultrasound) hyperthermia and external photon beam radiotherapy, first using a Cobalt-60 teletherapy unit and later medical linear accelerators. The parallel development and related studies of the Scanning Ultrasound Reflector Linear Arrays System (SURLAS), an advanced system specifically designed and developed for simultaneous thermoradiotherapy, follows. The performance characteristics of the SURLAS are reviewed and power limitation problems at high acoustic frequencies (>3 MHz) are discussed along with potential solutions. Next, the feasibility of simultaneous SURLAS hyperthermia and intensity modulated radiation therapy/image-guided radiotherapy (IMRT/IGRT) is established based on published and newly presented studies. Finally, based on the encouraging clinical results thus far, it is concluded that new trials employing the latest technologies are warranted along with further developments in treatment planning.
Asset Correlation of German Corporate Obligors : Its Estimation , Its Drivers and Implications for Regulatory Capital

This paper addresses the gap between the theoretically well-understood impact of systematic risk on the loss-distribution of a credit-risky loan portfolio and the lack of empirical estimates of the default correlation. To this purpose we start with a one-factor model in which the correlation with the systematic risk factor equals the asset correlation between two firms. In the theoretical part of the paper the small sample performance of three different correlation estimators is analysed by Monte Carlo simulation. In the empirical part asset correlations are estimated from time series of ten years with default histories of 53280 German companies. The sample is divided into categories that are homogenous with respect to default probability (PD) and firm size. In this way we can explore to what extent correlations depend on these two factors. Several economic explanations why asset correlation depends on size and PD are discussed. The empirical analysis is motivated as well by current proposals for the internal rating based approaches of the new Basel Accord. They suggest that the asset correlation parameter in the formula for the risk weights depends on the PD and on the firm size of the obligor. Our empirical results are compared with this proposal.
Practice of Usability Engineering in SDLC

Usability has become an increasingly important issue in the software industry. Software usability engineering is a structured approach to building software systems that meet the needs of users in various environments with varying levels of computer experience. In this paper, we understand the need of usability practices and integrate it into software development lifecycle. This paper reports the results from a recent study done to observe the practices of usability engineering during software development lifecycle in Pakistan software industry. A questionnaire survey was designed to gather information on the usability tasks and to what extent they are integrated in software development lifecycle. The results shows that majority of the organizations understand the importance of usability tasks but unable to fully integrate it in software development lifecycle. Furthermore, return on investment for usability activities are not being calculated in any organization.
Genetic polymorphism of monoamine oxidase B and susceptibility of Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND Monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) may play a role in the progression and cause of Parkinson's disease (PD), given consideration of the biochemistry and pathophysiology of the disease, and experiments on primates and humans. Assuming that the structural gene determines enzyme activity, an association study was undertaken to examine MAO-B genetic polymorphisms and look for the unique MAO-B gene alleles which occurred at a higher frequency in PD patients. METHODS Sixty-five PD patients, diagnosed according to the criteria set by a Core Assessment Program for Intracerebral Transplantations Committee, and 108 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral leukocytes by using a puregene kit. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify the MAO-B genome. The PCR products were screened by restriction enzyme Hae III digestion and analyzed by single-stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP). RESULTS Two bands with different mobility shifts, defined as MAO-B allele 1 and allele 2, were observed in SSCP analysis. Neither genotypes nor allelic frequencies of MAO-B showed a significant difference between PD patients and controls in our study. CONCLUSIONS Polymorphism of MAO-B genome was demonstrated in this study. It failed to show an association of a genetic marker with PD. However, this did not necessarily exclude the MAO-B locus from playing a role in causing PD because a polymorphism different from the one evaluated here may show some disease association.
The effects of explanatory conversations on children's emotion understanding

Ninety-three children ranging in age from 5 to 8 years (M = 82.46 months, SD = 13.20) participated in a training study designed to improve their emotion understanding. Children either explained (self-explanation condition) or listened to an experimenter who explained (experimenter-explanation condition) the causes of protagonists' hidden and ambivalent emotional reactions in nine different vignettes. Compared to a control group who listened to the vignettes and answered questions unrelated to emotions, children assigned to the self-explanation and experimenter-explanation conditions increased from pre- to post-test in their emotion understanding. The educational implications of explanatory conversations in facilitating children's emotion understanding and general learning are discussed.
Social Support: Global and Relationship-Based Levels of Analysis

This article reviews the development of a program of research on social support. It began with the construction of an instrument to assess overall support and determination of its correlation with various indicators of adjustment and performance. This led to inquiries into how people at different support levels behave socially and how they perceive the behavior of others. The results of these studies led, in turn, to focusing attention on the relative contributions to outcomes of both global and relationship-specific perceived support. We provide examples of studies that characterize each phase of the research and discuss needs for future research, with special emphasis on the need for closer integrations of research on social support and personal relationships.
EXPLORANDO LA INCERTIDUMBRE INFLACIONARIA: 1973-1995.

This document is a first approach, based on the uruguayan experience, to the relationship between the rate of inflation and its uncertainty. It aims to assess whether the empirical evidence supports the usual belief that higher inflation rates are more difficult to predict. Our estimates allow to build a time profile for period-to-period uncertainty during the last two decades. The analysis of causality supports the usual assumption that higher rates of inflation cause -in Granger’s sense- higher levels of uncertainty.
Evaluation of circulating betatrophin levels in gestational diabetes mellitus

Abstract Experimental data indicate that betatrophin plays a significant role in the regulation of lipid metabolism and glucose homeostasis. In recent years, considerable attention has focused on the relationship between betatrophin and diabetes mellitus in humans. This case-control study included 45 women diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and 45 pregnant healthy controls. The groups were matched for maternal and gestational age and body mass index. Serum betatrophin levels were significantly higher in women with GDM (median = 635.8 ng/L; range: 290–1841.6 ng/L) compared to control subjects (median = 320.1 ng/L; range: 94.6–936.8 ng/L; p = 0.001). No significant correlations were observed between serum betatrophin levels and clinical or biochemical parameters in the control group. However, in the GDM group, serum betatrophin levels were positively correlated with weight gain during pregnancy (r = 0.304, p = 0.042), systolic blood pressure (r = 0.394, p = 0.007), fasting insulin level (r = 0.348, p = 0.019), and homeostatic model assessment insulin resistance (HOMA-IR; r = 0.311, p = 0.038). Multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that fasting insulin levels (β = 0.342, p = 0.022) and HOMA-IR (β = 0.312, p = 0.037) were independently associated with serum betatrophin levels. Chinese abstract 实验数据表明，促胰岛生成素在脂质的代谢及糖类的稳态的调节方面起很重要的作用。 近年来大量的注意力集中在促胰岛生成素和人类糖尿病的关系上。 本病例对照研究包括45例诊断为妊娠期糖尿病的孕妇，以45例健康的孕妇作为对照组。 以孕妇、胎龄、体重指数作为匹配项目。 妊娠期糖尿病组(中位数=635.8ng/L；范围: 290–1841.6 ng/L)的血清促胰岛生成素水平显著高于对照组(中位数=320.1 ng/L；范围: 94.6–936.8 ng/L; p=0.001)。 对照组的血清促胰岛生成素水平和临床、生物化学参数并没有发现有明显相关性。 然而，妊娠期糖尿病组血清促胰岛生成素水平和妊娠期间体重增长(r=0.304, p=0.042)、收缩压(r=0.394, p=0.007)、空腹血糖(r=0.348, p=0.019)、与胰岛素抵抗相关的稳态模型(HOMA-IR;r=0.311, p=0.038)均有明显相关性。 多元线性回归分析显示空腹血糖(β=0.342, p=0.022)及HOMA-IR (β =0.312, p=0.037)均与血清促胰岛生成素水平有独立相关性。
Taking the Next Step: Ways Forward for Coaching Science

Coaching is no longer a subset of physical education or sport psychology but is rather an established vocation for research. In reaching such a position, we argue that a broad range of epistemologies have been used to investigate coaching such as sociology and cognitive psychology. However there is danger that, in the search for new ground, research becomes increasingly esoteric, having less and less impact on the domain that it is researching—namely coaching. As a step against this trend, we argue for and attempt to establish the commonalities across these research approaches suggesting that coaching is social, political, and pedagogical in nature. We accept that coaching is inherently complex but argue that coaches can be educated to cope with complexity through a professional judgment and nested decision making process. To facilitate this process, we offer a model for coaching that is inclusive of the commonalities across coaching research, summarizes our major theoretical points yet practical enough for application by coach educators and coaches.
Culture and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Proposed Conceptual Framework

It is widely accepted that the understanding of any psychological disorder needs to be contextualised within cultural parameters. The notion that current diagnostic taxonomies are not always universally applicable does not mean that all symptoms are not applicable. We present a framework that is aimed at being a starting point from which to delineate universal and culture specific elements of PTSD. The framework follows the possible influence of cultural factors on (a) the formation of an intrusive memory, (b) an understanding of how such a memory becomes pathological, and (c) how symptoms are expressed from the intrusive memory core of PTSD. While the framework presents certain elements (e.g. intrusive memory and core schemas) as centrally important, the focus is on a heuristic framework that allows for the study of the dynamic interaction between potentially universal and cultural factors and how this interaction may produce the symptom profile generally seen with PTSD. Tentative recommendations are made for a research agenda and are presented after a brief exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of such a framework.
Attention and Memory for Newspaper Advertisements: Effects of Ad–Editorial Congruency and Location

Summary: Previous research suggests that the same ad can have different effects depending upon the media context in which the ad appears. This experiment investigated how the semantic relation between the content of advertisements and editorial texts, and the ad location on newspaper pages affect attention and memory for advertisements. We recorded participants’ eye movements while they read newspaper articles to rate how interesting the texts were. Recognition for ads, logos, and editorial headlines was measured on the following day. Results revealed a discrepancy between attention and memory results, suggesting that incongruency increased attention to ads, whereas congruency improved recognition of ads. In addition, ads presented on the right attracted more attention and were recognized better than ads on the left. The results have implications for pretesting of advertisements, because attention and memory for ads were associated with higher preference for brands, and purchase intention was enhanced for the brands that were recognized. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparison of MMPI-2 Clinical and Content Scales Administered to Hispanic and Anglo-Americans

Anglo and Hispanic Americans were compared on the MMPI-2 clinical, validity, and content scales. The MMPI-2 was administered to 400 male and female Anglo and Hispanic American university students. Hispanic subjects scored significantly higher than Anglos on 2 of the 3 validity and 4 of the 10 clinical scales, whereas Anglos were significantly higher than the Hispanics on only the K scale. Hispanics also scored significantly higher than Anglos on 13 of the 15 content scales. Although statistically significant, the absolute clinical and content T score differences were relatively small and these results do not appear to warrant either the invalidation of the use of the MMPI-2 with Hispanics or the development of separate Hispanic norms.
Multiple reproducibility indices for evaluation of cognitive functional MR imaging paradigms.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate a variety of reproducibility indices for cognitive functional MR imaging (fMRI) paradigms that account for both overlapping and extraneous regions of activation. METHODS Eight right-handed volunteers were imaged with fMRI by using a word-generation paradigm and a forward-backward text-listening paradigm. The paradigms were performed twice in the session and repeated 1 week later. Reproducibility indices for the four repeated studies were determined on the basis of pair-wise computation of the ratio of the probability-weighted intersection volume divided by the union volume of surviving activation clusters. The intersection volume was determined by using several iterations of the morphologic dilatation operator with additional voxels accrued in the intersection weighted by an exponential function. Computed indices included global reproducibility, language area reproducibility, extraneous activation reproducibility, and laterality. RESULTS The word-generation paradigm had reproducibility values that were significantly greater than those of the forward-backward text-listening paradigm (global reproducibility, 0.75 vs 0.5, P <.005; language area reproducibility, 0.85 vs 0.6, P <.008; mean extraneous activation reproducibility, 0.68 vs 0.41, P <.002). The forward-backward text-listening paradigm demonstrated more focal activations, whereas the word-generation demonstrated larger activations outside the dominant language areas that were highly reproducible. CONCLUSION For clinically relevant language paradigms, multiple reproducibility indices should be taken into account in selecting an appropriate paradigm. Compared with a forward-backward text-listening task, a word-generation task has higher reproducibility indices at the expense of localizing ability. The forward-backward paradigm demonstrates more focal activations with less extraneous activation.
Consumer adoption of e-service: Integrating technology readiness with the theory of planned behavior

Increases in labor costs and innovations in technology have contributed to the growth of Internet-based e-service. Customers use the new technologies to produce and consume services without direct personal contact with companies. The trends of e-service technologies will continue as e-service are increasingly implemented in customer-firm interactions. This study devoted effort for developing an integrated model designed to predict and explain an individual’s continuous use of e-service based on the concepts of Technology Readiness (TR) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The participants were from undergraduate student, selected 405 responses as the sample finally. We applied Structural Equation Model (SEM) to demonstrate the stability of the proposed model and the results of hypotheses testing. Overall, the research findings showed that the effect of attitude and perceived behavioral control are very important but that subjective norm does not influence an individual’s continued usage intention of e-service. Besides, technology readiness has significantly influence on attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. This research represented the initial study to empirically examine and discuss the relationships among TR and TPB. The integrated model can fully reflect the spirit of TPB and take advantage of technology readiness. Implications of the empirical findings and future research are also discussed.
Multi-informant perspective on psychological distress among Ghanaian orphans and vulnerable children within the context of HIV/AIDS

Background There is little knowledge about the psychosocial distress of children affected by human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in Ghana, to aid the planning of services. This study investigated mental health problems among children affected by HIV/AIDS, compared with control groups of children orphaned by other causes, and non-orphans. Method The study employed a cross-sectional survey that interviewed 291 children and their caregivers. Both children and caregivers completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire that measured children's psychosocial wellbeing. Verbal autopsy was used to identify whether children lost one or both parents from AIDS. Results The results indicated that controlling for relevant sociodemographic factors, both children's self-reports and caregivers’ reports indicate that both children living with HIV/AIDS-infected caregivers and children orphaned by AIDS were at heightened risk for mental health problems than both children orphaned by other causes and non-orphans. The findings further indicated that a significant proportion of orphaned and vulnerable children exhibited symptoms for depression and other psychiatric disorders (approximately 63%) compared with 7% among the non-orphaned group. Caregivers gave higher ratings for children on externalizing problems and lower on internalizing problems, and vice versa when the children's self-reports were analysed. Conclusions The findings suggest that both children and their informants have diverse yet complementary perspectives on psychological outcomes. The study discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and urgently calls for necessary intervention programmes that target all children affected by HIV/AIDS to effectively alleviate psychological distress and enhance the mental health of these children.
PROGRAM ON THE GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHY OF AGING Working Paper Series The Long-Run Determinants of Fertility : One Century of Demographic Change 1900-1999

We examine the long-run relationship between fertility, mortality, and income using panel cointegration techniques and the available data for the last century. Our main result is that mortality changes and growth of income per capita account for a major part of the fertility change characterizing the demographic transition. The fertility reduction triggered by falling mortality, however, is not enough to overcompensate the positive effect of falling mortality on population growth. This means that growth of income per capita is essential to explain the observed secular decline of population growth. These results are robust against alternative estimation methods, potential outliers, sample selection, different measures of mortality, and the sample period. In addition, our causality tests suggest that fertility changes are both cause and consequence of economic development.
Officially Solicited Petitions: The Cahiers de Doléances as a Historical Source

The cahiers de doléances of 1789 have generally been regarded as unique historical documents. In convening the Estates General, the royal government followed centuries-old precedent in asking the nation not only to elect representatives to an assembly, but to provide them with lists of the demands, wishes, and grievances of their constituents as well. One could hardly describe these documents as resources unknown to historians. Apart from a very few who have seen these documents essentially as fraudulent, historians have generally seen them as uniquely vox populi. Tocqueville, for example, described them as “an authentic account” of the ideas and feelings of the nation drawn up “in perfect freedom”. More recently, Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret saw them as “the truest sampling of opinion ever realized in the France of the Old Regime”.
Examining the Push—Pull Method of Blood Sampling From Central Venous Access Devices

The placement of a central venous access device (CVAD) has revolutionized supportive care for pediatric cancer patients. The CVAD is used to administer chemotherapy/biotherapy, blood products, total parenteral nutrition, antibiotics, and many other supportive medications. CVADs also provide the ability to obtain blood samples without the trauma associated with venipuncture. Frequent blood sampling is often needed to monitor the side effects and response of the cancer treatment. Unfortunately, the most common method requires discarding blood (0.5-10 mL, depending on the institution's protocol) with each lab draws, for various reasons. For pediatric oncology patients, this can result in a large volume of blood being discarded and subsequently increase the need for blood transfusions. Repeated exposure to allogeneic (donor) blood products can put this patient population at additional risk for alloimmunization and febrile reactions. The purpose of this study is to test the limits of agreement between laboratory values (chemistry panel 18 and complete blood count) obtained using the push—pull and standard methods of blood sampling from CVADs in pediatric oncology patients.