Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physical Activity in the Prevention and Treatment of Stroke

The role of physical activity in the prevention of stroke is of great interest due to the high mortality and significant impact of stroke-related morbidity on the individual and on healthcare resources. The use of physical activity as a therapeutic strategy to maximise functional recovery in the rehabilitation of stroke survivors has a growing evidence base. This narrative review examines the existing literature surrounding the use of exercise and physical therapy in the primary and secondary prevention of stroke. It explores the effect of gender, exercise intensities and the duration of observed benefit. It details the most recent evidence for physical activity in improving functional outcome in stroke patients. The review summaries the current guidelines and recommendations for exercise therapy and highlights areas in which further research and investigation would be useful to determine optimal exercise prescription for effective prevention and rehabilitation in stroke.
Bacteriophages and Diffusion of β-lactamase Genes

We evaluated the presence of various β-lactamase genes within the bacteriophages in sewage. Results showed the occurrence of phage particles carrying sequences of blaOXA-2, blaPSE-1 or blaPSE-4 and blaPSE-type genes. Phages may contribute to the spread of some β-lactamase genes.
Sublimal affect regulation: The moderating role of action versus state orientation

Past research has linked action orientation to intuitive affect regulation (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 1981). The present research examines whether action orientation can regulate subliminally activated affect. In an experimental study, action- vs. state-oriented participants were exposed to subliminal primes of schematic faces with an angry, neutral, or happy expression. Participants subsequently rated their affect on a basic affect measure. The results showed prime-congruent effects among state- oriented individuals: subliminal angry primes led to lower basic affect compared to subliminal happy primes. Action-oriented participants were not influenced by the subliminal priming in their basic affective reactions. The authors conclude that action orientation is a regulator of basic affective responses, even when these responses are triggered outside of conscious awareness.
Tibial slope after Medial Opening-Wedge High Tibial Osteotomy: Is plate positioning the biggest issue?

Objetive: One major cause of Medial Opening-Wedge High Tibial Osteotomy (MOW-HTO) failure is inadvertent Posterior Tibial Slope (PTS) increase. To avoid this complication, posterior placement of the wedge plate is traditionally recommended. However, in the attempt of achieving such positioning, surgeon may encounter some undesired consequences, like medial collateral ligament disruption, instability or neurovascular injury. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the correlation between plate position in the sagittal plane and posterior tibial slope, in patients undergoing MOW-HTO. Methods: Forty-three patients undergoing MOW-HTO were radiographically evaluated, before and after surgery, to determine posterior tibial slope changes and plate position. to 10.3 ± 4.9 degrees (p = 0.0005)-this was not influenced by position or size of the plate. High values of posterior slope before surgery were correlated with greater increases after surgery. Conclusion: Plate positioning and wedge size were not related to PTS change, but patients with high preoperative PTS values showed a significantly greater increase in postoperative PTS. Level of evidence: Level 4 – case series.
Attachment, Coping Style, and Perceived Stress in University Students

Attachment, Coping Style, and Perceived Stress in University Students Erin L. Higgenbotham Attachment theory suggests that previous experiences direct one’s interpretations of potentially stressful events and one’s reaction to these events. As university students interact with a novel environment and face new demands, they may experience elevated levels of stress. Dependent on what resources they feel are available to them, they might feel confident in addressing these challenges, or they may believe they cannot meet the demands of the college environment. This perception of ability or inability can affect personal and academic success. Using attachment theory as a foundation, this study investigated the relationships among students’ attachment dynamics, coping styles, and perceived stress in a sample 174 West Virginia University students. Based on attachment theory and previous research, it was expected that both students’ attachment dynamics and coping styles would explain variance in perceived stress. As predicted, using hierarchical multiple regression analyses, both attachment dynamics and coping styles were observed to explain a significant amount of variance (26.8 – 45.5% variance explained) in the perception of stress, after accounting for demographic variables. Results of this study are explored with regard to how they can inform clinical work and future research with the university student population.
Changes in self-rated health, disability and contact with services in a very elderly cohort: a 6-year follow-up study.

OBJECTIVES To study the relationships between global self-rated health, reported physical symptoms and depressive symptoms and the receipt of community services by very elderly people, and to examine changes in these variables over time. DESIGN Three-wave study with follow-up at 2.4 and 6 years after first interview. Structured interview, incorporating cognitive examination (Mini-Mental State Examination) and enquiring specifically about overall self-rated health, physical symptoms and depressive symptoms. SETTING Community setting in city of Cambridge, UK. PARTICIPANTS 2609 were initially recruited: all patients aged 75 years and over from lists of six general practices (and one in three from a seventh practice). At 2.4 years, 1173 individuals re-examined and at 6 years 628 individuals. MEASUREMENTS General health self-rated in comparison to others of similar age and individual physical and depressive symptoms self-rated as present or absent. Symptoms were added to produce physical health and depressive symptom scores. Data presented from cross-sectional analysis of 6-year sample; also examined longitudinal data from all three waves of study for ageing and cohort effects. Finally the effect of health variables on the receipt of services was examined. Statistics used included chi(2) and non-parametric statistics for continuous data, also odds ratios for likelihood of receiving services. RESULTS At 6 years, 70% rated their overall health as good or very good. Overall self-rated health showed both ageing and cohort effects, improving with increasing age and especially with more recent cohort. Reported physical symptoms increased with ageing. Depression scores also increased with ageing but the relationship between depressive symptoms and ageing was less clear-cut. Receipt of services was associated with poor self-rated health and reported physical symptoms as well as with ageing. Higher depression scores at 2.4 years were associated with increased service receipt at 6 years, indicating a lag between the symptoms and the service response. Individuals in the more recent cohort were less likely to receive services, but those who did so received more frequent contact. CONCLUSIONS Although very elderly people have a high prevalence of reported physical symptoms, they often rate their overall health as good. There was a stronger relationship between ageing and physical symptoms than with depressive symptoms. Symptoms of both kinds influenced the likelihood of receiving services, although there was a lag between depressive symptoms and service response. Cohort effects on service receipt may reflect changes in public service policy.
On the intrinsic reconstruction of shape from its symmetries

We address the issue of the use of symmetry-based representations, such as the medial axis and an augmented form of it, the shock structure, to regenerate shapes. First, we address pointwise reconstruction of the boundary from points of the medial axis. As classified into three generic types (A/sup 2//1 mid-branch, A/sub 3/ end point of a branch, and A/sub 1//sup 3/ junction). Second, we examine the intrinsic reconstruction of shape when differential properties of the axis are also available. We show the surprising result that the tangent and curvature of the medial axis, coupled with the speed and acceleration of the shock flowing along the's axis, i.e., first and second order properties, are sufficient to determine the boundary tangents and curvatures at corresponding points of the boundary. This implies that for a rather coarse sampling of the symmetry axis, the location together with its tangent, curvature: speed, and acceleration is sufficient to accurately regenerate a local neighborhood of shape at this point. Together with reconstruction properties at junction (A/sup 3//sub 1/) and end points (A/sub 3/), these results lead to the full intrinsic regeneration of a shape from a representation of it as a directed planar graph (where the links represent curvature and acceleration functions, and where the nodes contain tangent and speed information): a representation ideally suited for the design and manipulation of free-form shape.
EFL students' attitudes and preferences towards written corrective feedback

Knowing students’ attitudes towards a new language can be very useful for language teachers. If the techniques used to correct errors do not meet students’ preferences, subsequent negative attitudes may emerge. This is why teachers should take into consideration students’ preferences for being corrected (Hyland, 2003). Many studies centre on the effect of feedback on students’ writing, but they omit learners’ attitudes and preferences towards corrective feedback (Katayama, 2007). Needless to say, not all students have the same preferences when it comes to written correction. For this reason, a study was carried out (Modalitat 2) to analyse students’ attitudes and preferences towards written correction and to determine age and English proficiency level as possible factors affecting such attitudes and preferences. The main results of the present study point to a greater preference for having all errors corrected in older students. However, younger students feel more motivated when they are corrected, consider making errors more positive and are more willing to accept correction by a classmate. In addition, older students give more importance to content and grammar, whereas younger learners concede similar importance to content, grammar, organization and vocabulary. Results according to level of proficiency show that B2 students feel more motivated to go on learning with correction. The higher the students’ English level, the greater their preference for selfcorrection. Finally, students with a low level of English consider that errors not affecting the understanding of the message should not be corrected. In conclusion, age and proficiency level are variables which affect these attitudes and preferences, but other learners’ variables would have an impact on them as well. EFL Students’ Attitudes and Preferences towards Written Corrective Feedback
A view of the world from a split-brain perspective

The extent to which observed behavior in the complete commissurotomy patients is supported by only one hemisphere would depend on individual differences interacting with a variety of factors such as genetics, intelligence, and so on. The lesson imparted here is that there is sufficient functional redundancy in the neocortex so that the capacity to maintain a wide range of abilities is within the control of one hemisphere. And, yet, as seen in what is missing in the patients' behavior, one hemisphere is not quite enough. Nature seems to have intended that the two hemispheres complement each other, that the full range of human behavior be best accomplished through interaction between the left and right hemispheres.
Measurement of serum antibodies against NY-ESO-1 by ELISA: A guide for the treatment of specific immunotherapy for patients with advanced colorectal cancer

NY-ESO-1 has been identified as one of the most immunogenic antigens; thus, is a highly attractive target for cancer immunotherapy. The present study analyzed the expression of serum antibodies (Abs) against NY-ESO-1 in patients with advanced colorectal cancer (CRC), with the aim of guiding the treatment of NY-ESO-1-based specific-immunotherapy for these patients. Furthermore, the present study was the first to evaluate the kinetic expression of anti-NY-ESO-1 Abs and investigate the possible influencing factors. A total of 239 serum samples from 155 pathologically confirmed patients with advanced CRC (stages III and IV) were collected. The presence of spontaneous Abs against NY-ESO-1 was analyzed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results demonstrated that 24.5% (38/155) of the investigated patients were positive for NY-ESO-1-specific Abs. No statistically significant correlations were identified between the expression of anti-NY-ESO-1 Abs and clinicopathological parameters, including age and gender, location, grading, local infiltration, lymph node status, metastatic status and K-ras mutation status (P>0.05). In 59 patients, the kinetic expression of anti-NY-ESO-1 Abs was analyzed, of which 14 patients were initially positive and 45 patients were initially negative. Notably, 16/59 (27.1%) patients changed their expression status during the study period, and the initially positive patients were more likely to change compared with the initially negative patients (85.7 vs. 8.8%; P<0.001). Therefore, monitoring serum Abs against NY-ESO-1 by ELISA is an easy and feasible method. The high expression rate of NY-ESO-1-specific Abs in CRC patients indicates that measuring the levels of serum Abs against NY-ESO-1 may guide the treatment of NY-ESO-1-based specific immunotherapy for patients with advanced CRC.
Differentiation defects in primary motoneurons from a SMARD1 mouse model that are insensitive to treatment with low dose PEGylated IGF1

Muscle atrophy and diaphragmatic palsy are the clinical characteristics of spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress type 1 (SMARD1), and are well represented in the neuromuscular degeneration (Nmd2J) mouse, modeling the juvenile form of SMARD1. Both in humans and mice mutations in the IGHMBP2 gene lead to motoneuron degeneration. We could previously demonstrate that treatment with a polyethylene glycol-coupled variant of IGF1 (PEG-IGF1) improves motor functions accompanied by reduced fiber degeneration in the gastrocnemius muscle and the diaphragm, but has no beneficial effect on motoneuron survival. These data raised the question which cell autonomous disease mechanisms contribute to dysfunction and loss of Ighmbp2-deficient motoneurons. An analysis of primary Ighmbp2-deficient motoneurons exhibited differentiation deficits such as reduced spontaneous Ca2+ transients and altered axon elongation, which was not compensated by PEG-IGF1. This points to an IGF1 independent mechanism of motoneuron degeneration that deserves treatment approaches in addition to IGF1.
Gender-Dependent IL-12 Secretion by APC Is Regulated by IL-101

Female SJL mice preferentially mount Th1-immune responses and are susceptible to the active induction of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. By contrast, young adult male SJL are resistant to experimental allergic encephalomyelitis due to an APC-dependent induction of Th2 cells. The basis for this gender-dependent differential T cell induction was examined by analysis of macrophage APC cytokine secretion during T cell activation. APC derived from females secrete IL-12, but not IL-10, during T cell activation. By contrast, APC derived from males secrete IL-10, but not IL-12, during T cell activation. Activation of T cells with APC derived from the opposite sex demonstrated that these cytokines were derived from the respective APC populations. Furthermore, inhibition of IL-10, but not TGF-β, during T cell activation resulted in the secretion of IL-12 by male-derived APC. APC from naive male mice, in which IL-10 was reduced in vivo before isolation, also secrete IL-12, demonstrating altered APC cytokine secretion was due to an environment high in IL-10 before Ag encounter. Finally, APC derived from castrated male mice preferentially secrete IL-12 during T cell activation. These data demonstrate a link between gonadal hormones and APC activity and suggest that these hormones alter the APC, thereby influencing cytokine secretion during initial T cell activation.
Reasoning about Bayesian Network Classifiers

Bayesian network classifiers are used in many fields, and one common class of classifiers are naive Bayes classifiers. In this paper, we introduce an approach for reasoning about Bayesian network classifiers in which we explicitly convert them into Ordered Decision Diagrams (ODDS), which are then used to reason about the properties of these classifiers. Specifically, we present an algorithm for converting any naive Bayes classifier into an ODD, and we show theoretically and experimentally that this algorithm can give us an ODD that is tractable in size cvcn given an intractable number of instances. Since ODDS are tractable representations of classifiers, our algorithm allows us to efficiently test the equivalence of two naive Bayes classifiers and characterize discrepancies between them. We also show a number of additional results including a count of distinct classifiers that can be induced by changing some CPT in a naive Bayes classifier, and the range of allowable changes to a CPT which keeps the current classifier unchanged.
A heuristic for selecting the cycle length for FAIRIO

FAIRIO is a cycle-based I/O scheduling algorithm that provides differentiated service to workloads concurrently accessing a consolidated RAID storage system. FAIRIO enforces proportional sharing of I/O service through fair scheduling of disk time. During each cycle of the algorithm, I/O requests are scheduled according to workload weights and disk-time utilization history. There are several parameters in the FAIRIO scheduler that can affect its behavior. One parameter in particular, the length of a scheduling cycle, can affect the scheduler’s ability to react to and compensate for changes in workload access characteristics. Unfortunately, there is no cycle length that is optimal for all workloads and, thus, it must be chosen according to the workload environment. This technical report describes a heuristic that can be used to choose a favorable cycle length that promotes performance differentiation given a priori knowledge of workload access behavior. The heuristic is validated using simulations driven by several real and synthetic workload scenarios that represent a broad range of request types, sizes, and access characteristics. We show that when workload weights properly map to workload requirements, cycle lengths deduced by our heuristic promote differentiated disk-time sharing within 3.9% of perfect proportionality to workload weights.
A educação em Portugal: princípios e fundamentos constitucionais

A proposito da celebracao dos seus 40 anos, o artigo analisa o modo como a educacao e concebida na Constituicao da Republica Portuguesa, a luz de estudos sociologicos nacionais e internacionais de referencia. Discute-se o modo como a lei fundamental foi entendida e teve impactos no sistema educativo portugues, identificando-se algumas controversias, tensoes e areas de desenvolvimento futuro. Questoes como as relacoes publico-privado, o combate as desigualdades, a aprendizagem ao longo da vida, a gestao democratica ou a educacao para a cidadania sao afloradas. Em termos gerais, argumenta-se que a Constituicao teve um papel central na transformacao do sistema educativo e constitui, ainda hoje, um instrumento fundamental de estabilizacao, mas tambem de orientacao de politicas transformadoras.
Critical role of DEK and its regulation in tumorigenesis and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality globally. Therefore, it is quite essential to identify novel HCC-related molecules for the discovery of new prognostic markers and therapeutic targets. As an oncogene, DEK plays an important role in cell processes and participates in a variety of cellular metabolic functions, and its altered expression is associated with several human malignancies. However, the functional significance of DEK and the involved complex biological events in HCC development and progression are poorly understood. Here, combing the results from clinical specimens and cultured cell lines, we uncover a critical oncogenic role of DEK, which is highly expressed in HCC cells. DEK protein encompasses two isoforms (isoforms 1 and 2) and isoform 1 is the most frequently expressed DEK isoform in HCC cells. DEK depletion by using shRNA inhibited the cell proliferation and migration in vitro and suppressed tumorigenesis and metastasis in mouse models. Consistently, DEK overexpression regardless of which isoform produced the opposite effects. Further studies showed that DEK induced cell proliferation through upregulating cell cycle related CDK signaling, and promoted cell migration and EMT, at least in part, through the repression of β-catenin/E-cadherin axis. Interestingly, isoform 1 induced cell proliferation more efficiently than isoform 2, however, no functional differences existed between these two isoforms in cell migration. Together, our study indicates that DEK expression is required for tumorigenesis and metastasis of HCC, providing molecular insights for DEK-related pathogenesis and a basis for developing new strategies against HCC.
The development and validation of a job crafting measure for use with blue-collar workers

Abstract Job crafting describes a set of proactive behaviours in which employees may engage to shape their work in order to minimize hindering job demands and maximize resources and challenging demands. Such behaviours may be particularly important among blue-collar workers whose jobs are characterized by poor working conditions and low well-being. We present the development and adaptation of a job crafting measure that may be used among blue-collar workers, based on an existing scale by Tims, Bakker, and Derks (2012) that was not specifically developed for blue-collar workers. We test the validity and reliability of the measure in a longitudinal study based on multiple source information from mail delivery workers in Denmark (N=362 at Time 1; N=408 at Time 2). Results indicate the presence of five job crafting dimensions: increasing challenging demands, decreasing social job demands, increasing social job resources, increasing quantitative demands and decreasing hindering job demands. These can be reliably measured with 15 items. The measure shows acceptable discriminant and criterion validity, and test-retest reliability. The findings extend the application of the original questionnaire. They also add to knowledge of the job crafting behaviours in which blue-collar workers engage and link them to well-being outcomes.