Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A mobile telephone-based interactive self-care system improves asthma control

The self-management of asthma can improve clinical outcomes. Recently, mobile telephones have been widely used as an efficient, instant personal communication tool. This study investigated whether a self-care system will achieve better asthma control through a mobile telephone-based interactive programme. This was a prospective, controlled study in outpatient clinics. From 120 consecutive patients with moderate-to-severe persistent asthma, 89 were eventually recruited for the study, with 43 in the mobile telephone group (with a mobile telephone-based interactive asthma self-care system). In the mobile telephone group, mean±sem peak expiratory flow rate significantly increased at 4 (378.2±9.3 L·min−1; n = 43; p = 0.020), 5 (378.2±9.2 L·min−1; n = 43; p = 0.008) and 6 months (382.7±8.6 L·min−1; n = 43; p = 0.001) compared to the control group. Mean±sem forced expiratory volume in 1 s significantly increased at 6 months (65.2±3.2% predicted; n = 43; p<0.05). Patients in the mobile telephone group had better quality of life after 3 months, as determined using the Short Form-12® physical component score, and fewer episodes of exacerbation and unscheduled visits than the control group. Patients in the mobile telephone group significantly increased their mean daily dose of either systemic or inhaled corticosteroids compared with the control group. The mobile telephone-based interactive self-care system provides a convenient and practical self-monitoring and -management of asthma, and improves asthma control.
Poor Implementation of Learner-Centered Practices: A Cautionary Tale

Many school systems are adopting new curricula in response to more rigorous standards that require higher-order thinking skills. This article presents implementation findings from a randomized, controlled trial of the Cognitive Tutor Geometry curriculum. We found a significant negative effect on student achievement despite the curriculum's focus on learner-centered learning strategies that have previously been found to improve students’ ability to meet high mathematics standards. Our research confirms prior research that finds learner-centered instructional practices are correlated with higher student achievement. However, our findings also suggest that learner-centered curricula can actually do more harm than good when implemented poorly. We found that the cognitive demands of the curriculum coupled with teachers’ poor implementation of learner-centered instructional practices seemed to limit students’ ability to engage with the mathematical ideas. Teachers struggled to implement the curriculum because they lacked prior experience with learner-centered teaching strategies, had limited exposure to the curriculum, and were not provided with job-embedded support from principals or instructional leaders within their school. They also worked with students who were reluctant to collaborate and had low prior math achievement. Findings from this study suggest that curriculum adopters should be careful to ensure strong implementation of cognitively demanding curricula. In particular, districts and school leaders should provide intensive job-embedded professional development and support to assist teachers in achieving high implementation.
Memory and Successful Aging: A Conversation with Coach John Wooden

A few months ago, just before his 98th birthday, i had the unique opportunity to interview John Wooden in his home in encino, CA, about memory and successful aging. Wooden is the legendary former UClA basketball coach and educator (1948-1975), is in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, and in 2003, received the Presidential medal of Freedom. Successful aging can be an elusive process both in terms of definition and practice. As psychologists, we typically collect and examine data and attempt to draw conclusions based on large samples. However, one can also learn a lot by talking to older adults about their memory and life experiences. this is especially true when talking to a humble and energetic 97-year-old man from the midwest, who feels that he has been blessed with a wonderful wife, 2 children, 7 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren — and that’s not to mention 10 national collegiate basketball championships. many books have been devoted to the life of John Wooden (see Wooden & Jamison, 2005, Wooden & tobin, 2004), so the purpose of my interview was to talk to Coach (as he is still known) more specifically about memory and aging. As a cognitive psychologist who studies these topics, this was an opportunity i had been looking forward to ever since coming to UClA. Although i had never conducted research by interviewing single “case studies,” i thought someone who was a legendary coach for such a long period might also provide important insight regarding successful aging.
Autoantibodies in rheumatoid arthritis: rheumatoid factors and anticitrullinated protein antibodies

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory autoimmune disease, characterized by chronic, erosive polyarthritis and by the presence of various autoantibodies in serum and synovial fluid. Since rheumatoid factor (RF) was first described, a number of other autoantibodies have been discovered in RA patients. The autoantigens recognized by these autoantibodies include cartilage components, chaperones, enzymes, nuclear proteins and citrullinated proteins. However, the clinical significances and pathogenic roles of these antibodies are largely unknown except for RF and anticitrullinated protein antibodies (ACPAs), whose clinical usefulness has been acknowledged due to their acceptable sensitivities and specificities, and prognostic values. This review presents and discusses the current state of the art regarding RF and ACPA in RA.
Rhesus Factor Modulation of Effects of Smoking and Age on Psychomotor Performance, Intelligence, Personality Profile, and Health in Czech Soldiers

Background Rhesus-positive and rhesus-negative persons differ in the presence-absence of highly immunogenic RhD protein on the erythrocyte membrane. This protein is a component of NH3 or CO2 pump whose physiological role is unknown. Several recent studies have shown that RhD positivity protects against effects of latent toxoplasmosis on motor performance and personality. It is not known, however, whether the RhD phenotype modifies exclusively the response of the body to toxoplasmosis or whether it also influences effects of other factors. Methodology/Principal Findings In the present cohort study, we searched for the effects of age and smoking on performance, intelligence, personality and self-estimated health and wellness in about 3800 draftees. We found that the positive effect of age on performance and intelligence was stronger in RhD-positive soldiers, while the negative effect of smoking on performance and intelligence was of similar size regardless of the RhD phenotype. The effect of age on four Cattell's personality factors, i.e., dominance (E), radicalism (Q1), self-sentiment integration (Q3), and ergic tension (Q4), and on Cloninger's factor reward dependency (RD) was stronger for RhD-negative than RhD-positive subjects, while the effect of smoking on the number of viral and bacterial diseases was about three times stronger for RhD-negative than RhD-positive subjects. Conclusions RhD phenotype modulates the influence not only of latent toxoplasmosis, but also of at least two other potentially detrimental factors, age and smoking, on human behavior and physiology. The negative effect of smoking on health (estimated on the basis of the self-rated number of common viral and bacterial diseases in the past year) was much stronger in RhD-negative than RhD-positive subjects. It is critically needed to confirm the differences in health response to smoking between RhD-positive and RhD-negative subjects by objective medical examination in future studies.
Dynamic R&D Competition under Uncertainty and Strategic Disclosure

We study a model of dynamic two-stage R&D competition where the competing firms are uncertain about the difficulty of the first stage. Staying in the competition is costly and a firm can also choose whether and when to quit. When a firm solves the first stage, it can choose whether and when to disclose the solution. We find that there exists a unique symmetric equilibrium, in which each firm will disclose the solution of the first stage if it arrives early, withhold the solution if it arrives neither too soon nor too late, and exit the competition if it has not arrived after a sufficiently long time. From a social welfare perspective, a competition is surprisingly not always optimal: in certain scenarios, it is socially more desirable to assign the R&D project to a single firm.
Blind Cooperative Diversity Using Distributed Space-Time Coding in Block Fading Channels

Mobile users with single antennas can still take advantage of spatial diversity through cooperative space-time encoded transmission. In this paper, we consider a scheme in which the relay chooses to cooperate only if the source-relay channel is of an acceptable quality and we evaluate the usefulness of relaying when the source acts blindly and ignores the decision of the relay whether it may cooperate or not. In our study, we consider a regenerative relay in which the decision to cooperate is based on a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold and consider the impact of the possible erroneously detected and transmitted data at the relay. We derive the end-to-end bit-error rate (BER) for binary phase-shift keying modulation and look at two power allocation strategies between the source and the relay in order to minimize the end-to-end BER at the destination for high SNR. Some selected performance results show that computer simulations based results coincide with our analytical results.
Cognition and Aging: A Highly Selective Overview of Event-Related Potential (ERP) Data

An overview of highly selected cognitive aging investigations of deviance detection, episodic memory and working memory reveals two primary themes: (1) when variability in elderly samples has been assessed, it has proven useful in understanding age-related changes in cognition; and (2) there is a frontal lobe contribution to at least some age-related changes in cognition. However, there are too few ERP age-related investigations of individual differences to determine whether the changes in patterns of ERP responding can be deemed “compensatory” or “inefficient. ” It is suggested that, to the extent possible, future electrophysiological investigations of cognitive aging (as well as other physiological measurement techniques) include individual difference measures that will enable the determination of the implication of a given neural pattern in the genesis of a given, age-related behavioral outcome pattern.
Multi-Locus Typing of Histomonas meleagridis Isolates Demonstrates the Existence of Two Different Genotypes

Histomonas meleagridis is the aetiological agent of histomonosis or “blackhead disease”. Histomonosis is of special importance today, because there is no effective treatment to prevent its occurrence with considerable losses for the poultry industry. Despite its importance only a few molecular studies have yet been performed to investigate the degree of genetic diversity between different isolates of this parasite. In the present study a collection of well defined samples, previously shown positive for the DNA of H. meleagridis, was used to investigate genetic relatedness of the parasite. Samples originated from 25 turkey flocks collected in France between 2007 and 2010. Additionally, diagnostic samples, collected at our Clinic in Vienna, from different European countries and Azerbaijan, during 2010 to 2013 were included in the analyses. For the analysis three different genetic loci were analyzed: 18S rRNA, α-actinin1 and rpb1 genes. To amplify partial sequences of α-actinin1 and rpb1 genes, primers specifically targeting H. meleagridis were designed. Following PCR, the sequences of 18S rRNA, α-actinin1 and rpb1 loci were analyzed. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated separation of H. meleagridis isolates in two different clusters. The majority of isolates grouped within the cluster 1 and originated from different European countries. The cluster 2 was rare and predominantly found in samples originating from France. Considering that the genetic variability of clusters can be seen as two distinct genetic types we propose the term genotype instead of cluster.
Singularities of parallel manipulators: a geometric treatment

A parallel manipulator is naturally associated with a set of constraint functions defined by its closure constraints. The differential forms arising from these constraint functions completely characterize the geometric properties of the manipulator. In this paper, using the language of differential forms, we provide a thorough geometric study on the various types of singularities of a parallel manipulator, their relations with the kinematic parameters and the configuration spaces of the manipulator, and the role redundant actuation plays in reshaping the singularities and improving the performance of the manipulator. First, we analyze configuration space singularities by constructing a Morse function on some appropriately defined spaces. By varying key parameters of the manipulator, we obtain homotopic classes of the configuration spaces. This allows us to gain insight on configuration space singularities and understand how to choose design parameters for the manipulator. Second, we define parametrization singularities which include actuator and end-effector singularities (or other equivalent definitions) as their special cases. This definition naturally contains the closure constraints in addition to the coordinates of the actuators and the end-effector and can be used to search a complete set of actuator or end-effector singularities including some singularities that may be missed by the usual kinematics methods. We give an intrinsic classification of parametrization singularities and define their topological orders. While a nondegenerate singularity poses no problems in general, a degenerate singularity can sometimes be a source of danger and should be avoided if possible.
Plausible megathrust tsunamis in the eastern Mediterranean Sea

Tsunamis have occurred at rates of about one to two per century in the Mediterranean Sea, on average, over the past 2000 years. However, most of these events have been of small amplitude and quantification of tsunami hazards in the eastern Mediterranean Sea remains difficult. Simulations were performed for a series of plausible Mw ≥ 8 seismic events originating along the Hellenic subduction zone and NW Cyprian Arc. Their locations and source characteristics represent events that are similar to the largest historical events, including the AD 365 and AD 1303 events, and in consideration of potential future events. The hydrodynamic simulations used the numerical model are known as the method of splitting tsunami (Most). Reported results include simulated wave amplitudes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, specifically in the western Nile Delta region near the Rosetta promontory and Egypt's largest coastal city, Alexandria.
Statistics of Giant Arcs in Galaxy Clusters

We study the expected properties and statistics of giant arcs produced by galaxy clusters in a ΛCDM (cold dark matter) universe and investigate how the characteristics of CDM clusters determine the properties of the arcs they generate. Because of the triaxiality and substructure of CDM halos, the giant-arc cross section for individual clusters varies by more than an order of magnitude as a function of viewing angle. In addition, the shallow density cusps and triaxiality of CDM clusters cause systematic alignments of giant arcs that should be testable with larger samples from forthcoming lensing surveys. We compute the predicted statistics of giant arcs for the ΛCDM model and compare them with results from previous surveys. The predicted arc statistics are in excellent agreement with the numbers of giant arcs observed around low-redshift (0.2 ≲ z ≲ 0.6) clusters from the Extended Medium-Sensitivity Survey sample; however, there are hints of a possible excess of arcs observed around high-redshift (z ≳ 0.6) clusters. This excess, if real, appears to be due to the presence of highly massive or concentrated clusters at high redshifts.
High interindividual variability in dose-dependent reduction in speed of movement after exposing C. elegans to shock waves

In blast-related mild traumatic brain injury (br-mTBI) little is known about the connections between initial trauma and expression of individual clinical symptoms. Partly due to limitations of current in vitro and in vivo models of br-mTBI, reliable prediction of individual short- and long-term symptoms based on known blast input has not yet been possible. Here we demonstrate a dose-dependent effect of shock wave exposure on C. elegans using shock waves that share physical characteristics with those hypothesized to induce br-mTBI in humans. Increased exposure to shock waves resulted in decreased mean speed of movement while increasing the proportion of worms rendered paralyzed. Recovery of these two behavioral symptoms was observed during increasing post-traumatic waiting periods. Although effects were observed on a population-wide basis, large interindividual variability was present between organisms exposed to the same highly controlled conditions. Reduction of cavitation by exposing worms to shock waves in polyvinyl alcohol resulted in reduced effect, implicating primary blast effects as damaging components in shock wave induced trauma. Growing worms on NGM agar plates led to the same general results in initial shock wave effect in a standard medium, namely dose-dependence and high interindividual variability, as raising worms in liquid cultures. Taken together, these data indicate that reliable prediction of individual clinical symptoms based on known blast input as well as drawing conclusions on blast input from individual clinical symptoms is not feasible in br-mTBI.
Low voltage performance improvement of a doubly fed wind generator through SMES

Variable speed doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) are preferred in wind generation systems because they offer several advantages in terms of control and aerodynamic efficiency. While it is generally a stable machine, its converter systems may not work properly under severe grid fault conditions. This article presents a strategy of riding through the low voltage conditions through control of superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) system. The reactive power supplied by the SMES helps the voltage recovery, while the real power improves the damping properties of the post disturbance system. Simulation studies show that the proposed SMES control strategy restores normal operation of the wind system in reasonably short period of time.
Radio-Optical Alignment and Recent Star Formation Associated with Ionized Filaments in the Halo of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)

We used a direct CCD camera at the Magellan I telescope at Las Campanas Observatory and the Focal Reducer/Low Dispersion Spectrograph (FORS1) at the Antu Very Large Telescope (VLT) ESO Paranal Observatory to image fields centered on the inner and outer optical filaments in the halo of NGC 5128. In the V versus U-V color-magnitude diagrams we have identified young blue supergiants associated with these line-emitting filaments located between the inner radio lobe and the northern middle lobe. Around the outer filament, stars as young as 10 Myr were detected. They are principally aligned with the direction of the radio jet, but a vertical north-south alignment along the edge of the H I cloud is also present. Young stars in the inner filament field are found inside the bright knots of photoionized gas and are strongly aligned in the direction of the center of the galaxy at the same position angle as the inner radio jet. Fitting the Padova isochrones on UV color-magnitude diagrams, we find that blue stars around the inner filaments have ages similar to the ones around the outer filaments ~10-15 Myr and the same abundance of Z = 0.004. The presence of young blue supergiants clearly shows that the bright blue knots in the northeastern halo of NGC 5128 are associations of young stars with photoionized gas. The temperature of the brightest stars is T~12,000-16,000 K, insufficient to account alone for the high excitation lines observed in the surrounding ionized gas. Thus, the optical emission jet is principally seen due to its alignment with the radio structure of the active galactic nucleus (AGN). The highly collimated star formation is present only in the northeastern halo of the galaxy, suggesting interaction of the jet with the gas clouds deposited during the last accretion event as the preferred triggering mechanism. From these observations, we infer a lower limit for the age of the NGC 5128 jet at 107 yr. The triggering of the star formation in the dense clouds in the halo of the galaxy by the jet supports the alignment effect observed in high-redshift radio galaxies. It also suggests that radio galaxies should have higher than normal star formation rates.
The Effect of Victimization on Women’s Health: Does the Victim-Offender Relationship Matter?

The study of violence against women has slowly begun to gain momentum in the last two decades. Empirical research from various disciplines such as criminology, sociology, psychology, and medicine has demonstrated that violence against women is a pervasive social problem affecting women of all ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses. Despite criticism of the field for a lack of national-level data and problems with differing terminology and definitions, the violence against women research has made great progress towards demonstrating the scope and extent of violence women experience. Using the National Violence Against Women Study (NVAWS), the present research seeks to expand what is known about violence against women by exploring the impact of the victim-offender relationship on psychological and physical health and wellbeing for the crimes of rape, stalking, and physical assault. Specifically, this research hypothesizes that using a general strain theory (GST) lens would lead one to expect differences in health outcomes depending on the perpetrator committing the violence. Two research questions are tested in this current study: 1) what is the prevalence of violence against women by victim-offender relationship? and 2) what is the effect of the victim-offender relationship on a woman’s psychological and physical health, and overall wellbeing? Findings indicate that across three types of violence against women, a variety of perpetrator types are responsible for violence against women, and that no single group can be ignored. Additionally, it appears that while victimization is related to negative health outcomes, the victim-offender relationship does not significantly contribute to increasing the odds of experiencing negative health outcomes. These findings are discussed in relation to previous empirical research and the future of violence against women research.