Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression Analysis of the Prostaglandin E2 Production Pathway in Human Pancreatic Cancers

Objectives: There is strong evidence for an important role of cyclooxygenase (COX) 2 and COX-2-generated PGE2 during pancreatic tumorigenesis. Cyclooxygenase 2 has therefore become a potential chemotherapeutic target for pancreatic cancer. However, recent studies raised concerns regarding the safety of selective COX-2 inhibitors. Although the benefits of COX-2 inhibition may eventually outweigh the associated cardiovascular risks, there are a number of alternative targets for inhibiting the formation of PGE2 in human tumors that may prove less harmful to the patient. This study aimed at analyzing the expression of various proteins involved in the generation of PGE2 in human pancreatic cancers. Methods and Results: Real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analyses demonstrated overexpression of cytoplasmic phospholipase A2, COX-2, cytoplasmic prostaglandin E synthase, and microsomal prostaglandin E synthases 1 and 2 in most human pancreatic cancers when compared with matched normal pancreas. Immunohistochemistry revealed expression of these proteins predominantly by pancreatic cancer cells. Variable expression of these proteins was also confirmed in several human pancreatic cancer cell lines. Conclusions: Our studies demonstrated for the first time that various proteins involved in the generation of PGE2 are overexpressed in human pancreatic cancers. These proteins may represent potentially novel targets for the therapy of pancreatic cancers.
Narcissistic Self-Esteem Management

This study examines the relationships among hostility, grandiosity, dominance, narcissism, and self-esteem in samples of 84,57, and 300 Ss. The intercorrelations among various self-report and observer ratings of these constructs suggest that (a) hostility, grandiosity, dominance, and narcissism are substantially intercorrelated and form a coherent system of constructs and (b) the common variance in this system of constructs significantly predicts variations in Ss' self-esteem. The notion that some people use grandiosity, dominance, and a more generalized narcissistic personality style to manage their hostility and maintain a sense of positive regard was evaluated using hierarchical analyses. The results of these analyses were consistent with this model. Raskin, Novacek, and Hogan (1991) studied the relationships among narcissism, defensive self-enhancement, and self-esteem. They found that (a) narcissism is positively related to selfesteem, (b) defensive self-enhancement consists of two components, grandiosity and social desirability, which represent different sources of variance in self-esteem, and (c) narcissism is related to grandiose self-enhancement rather than social desirability. These findings are consistent with the view that self-experience evolves in two parallel lines throughout the life cycle (Blatt, 1974; Freud, 1914/1957; Hogan, 1983; Kohut, 1977; Leary, 19 56). For example, Freud (1914/1957) distinguished between narcissistic and anaclitic object love. In narcissistic love, a person may love "(a) what he himself is (i.e., himself), (b) what he himself was, (c) what he himself would like to be, (d) someone who was once part of himself " (p. 90). Conversely, in anaclitic or attachment object love, a person may love "(a) the woman who feeds him, (b) the man who protects him, and the succession of substitutes who take their place" (p. 90). Despite the old-fashioned language, Freud proposes two primary interpersonal orientations. In the narcissistic orientation, a person is concerned with self-love and self-enhancement, whereas in the anaclitic orientation, a person is concerned with the enhancement and love of another. Freud^ two pathways of personality development also appear in Kohufs (1977) model of the bipolar self; Kohut describes self-development in terms of the aggrandizement of self and the idealization of others. The two-pathway model is also found in Blatt's (1974) theory of introjective and anaclitic depression. In addition, a sizable literature that is based on the interpersonal circumplex (Leary, 1956; Wiggins, 1979) suggests that dominance and affiliation are principal dimensions underlying so
Personality and Verbal Conditioning

The writer's theory of personality predicts greater conditionability in introverts than in extraverts; some support has been found for this hypothesis (Eysenck, 1957; in press). The present report deals with an experiment using verbal conditioning. From 137 adult male and female neurotics, given the Maudsley Personality Inventory (Eysenck, 1959), were then chosen an introverted group (E score of 16 or below) and an extraverted group (E score of 30 or above). Nineteen extraverts and 28 introverts were available for testing. They were presented seriatim with 100 cards containing the pronoun "They" and three verbs of roughly equal frequency of occurrence in the English language, one of which they were required to pronounce at their choice. One of the verbs always referred to a muscular activity, such as run, swim, hop, etc.; whenever S pronounced one of these verbs, he was reinforced by E's saying "Hm-mm. " Analysis showed that for both extraverts and introverts the second set of 50 cards produced more muscular activity verbs than did the first set. This difference is significant on a one-tail test and is mild evidence in favour of the success of the conditioning technique used. The increase from Set 1 to Set 2 was over twice as great for introverts (2.31 as compared with 0.81). This difference is just significant on a one-tail test, and to that extent supports the hypothesis under investigation. The mean number of muscular activity verbs elicited was 25.17 for extraverts and 19.98 for introverts. This difference is fully significant and may be related to the frequently observed greater activity of extraverts, who may have responded to the experiment as a projective test.
Cognitive advantage in children enrolled in a second-language immersion elementary school program for three years*

Early bilingualism acquired from home or community is generally considered to positively influence cognitive development. The purpose of the present study was to determine to what extent bilingualism acquired through a second-language immersion education has a similar effect. Participants included a total of 106 French-speaking eight-year-old children drawn from two language groups: 53 children enrolled in English immersion classes since the age of five years (the immersion group) and 53 children enrolled in monolingual French-speaking classes (the monolingual group). The two groups were matched for verbal and nonverbal intelligence and socioeconomic status (SES). They were administered a battery of tasks assessing attentional and executive skills. The immersion group's reaction times were significantly faster than those of the monolingual group on tasks assessing alerting, auditory selective attention, divided attention and mental flexibility, but not interference inhibition. These results show that, after only three years, a second-language immersion school experience also produces some of the cognitive benefits associated with early bilingualism.
Stability of Asynchronous Variational Integrators

The formulation of multiple-time-step integrators can provide substantial computational savings for mechanical systems with multiple time scales. However, the scope of these savings may be severely limited by the range of allowable time step choices. In this paper we have performed an exhaustive study of the linear stability of the fully asynchronous methods called AVI (asynchronous variational integrator), with two time steps, for essentially any combination of their values. We have obtained approximate analytical expressions for the time step ratios that may render the scheme unstable in the case of linear equations, and verified them with extensive numerical computations. Synchronous multiple time stepping schemes such as r-RESPA show resonances when the outer step is a multiple of the effective half period of one of the fast oscillators. An elegant generalization is derived in the fully asynchronous case of AVI.
Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures

Congressional choices about administrative procedures affect an agency's political responsiveness and the technical accuracy of its decisions. Legislators would like to design procedures so that agencies make technically sound decisions and balance the needs of competing interests in the way intended. In practice, agency procedures designed to promote technical competence often allow for political drift, and those that promote political control provide little new technical information about the consequences of policy decisions. The trade-off between technical competence and political control is captured in a model of a legislative coalition's decision about agency procedures. The choice variables are the agency's expected preferences and independence. Depending on exogenous levels of technical and political uncertainty, optimal agency procedures can maximize technical competence, maximize political control, or achieve a combination of the two.
Apolipoprotein E polymorphism and Alzheimer disease: The Indo-US Cross-National Dementia Study.

BACKGROUND The APOE*E4 allele of the gene for apolipoprotein E (APOE) has been reported as a risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD) to varying degrees in different ethnic groups. OBJECTIVE To compare APOE*E4-AD epidemiological associations in India and the United States in a cross-national epidemiological study. DESIGN Case-control design within 2 cohort studies, using standardized cognitive screening and clinical evaluation to identify AD and other dementias and polymerase chain reaction to identify APOE genotyping. PARTICIPANTS Rural community samples, aged 55 years or older (n=4450) in Ballabgarh, India, and 70 years or older (n=886) in the Monongahela Valley region of southwestern Pennsylvania. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Criteria of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association for probable and possible AD and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale for dementia staging. RESULTS Frequency of APOE*E4 was significantly lower (P<.001) in Ballabgarh vs the Monongahela Valley (0.07 vs 0.11). Frequency of probable or possible AD, with CDR of at least 1.0, in the Indian vs US samples, was as follows: aged 55 to 69 years, 0.1% (Indian sample only); aged 70 to 79 years, 0.7% vs 3.1%; aged 80 years or older, 4.0% vs 15.7%. Among those aged 70 years or older, adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for AD among carriers of APOE*E4 vs noncarriers were 3.4 (1.2-9.3) and 2.3 (1.3-4.0) in the Indian and US samples, respectively, and not significantly different between cohorts (P=. 20). CONCLUSION This first report of APOE*E4 and AD from the Indian subcontinent shows very low prevalence of AD in Ballabgarh, India, but association of APOE*E4 with AD at similar strength in Indian and US samples. Arch Neurol. 2000.
Booster Sessions after Cognitive-Behavioural Group Therapy for Panic Disorder: Impact on Resilience, Coping, and Quality Of Life

Background: Panic disorder (PD) has a chronic nature, especially as a result of maladaptive coping strategies to deal with stressful events. Aims: To evaluate the impact of booster sessions with cognitive techniques on coping strategies, resilience, and quality of life (QoL) in patients previously submitted to standard cognitive-behavioural group therapy (CBGT) for PD. Method: A controlled clinical trial with 44 patients with PD (intervention = 20; control = 24) who had previously completed a 12-week CBGT protocol. PD, anxiety, and depression severity symptoms were assessed at baseline and 1, 6, and 12 months after the booster sessions. Coping strategies, resilience, and QoL were assessed by Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI), Resilience Scale, and WHOQOL-BREF respectively. Results: Over time, a significant improvement in PD and depression symptoms was observed in both groups. A significant increase in the QoL social relations domain was found in the booster group, considering a time/group interaction. Coping and other QoL domains did not change after the booster sessions. Changes in resilience were dependent on the intensity of symptoms, with negative but non-significant correlations. Conclusions: The improvement in PD and depression symptoms for both groups may be a result of the group format of the intervention. Group booster sessions after CBGT are useful to maintain the benefits obtained with CBGT.
Privacy-Preserving Multi-agent Constraint Satisfaction

Constraint satisfaction has been a very successful paradigm for solving problems such as resource allocation and planning. Many of these problems pose themselves in a context involving multiple agents, and protecting privacy of information among them is often desirable. Secure multiparty computation (SMC) provides methods that in principle allow such computation without leaking any information. However, it does not consider the issue of keeping agents' decisions private from one another. In this paper, we show an algorithm that uses SMC in distributed computation to satisfy this objective.
Diffusion approximation for an input-queued switch operating under a maximum weight matching policy

For N ≥ 2, we consider an N × N input-queued switch operating under a maximum weight matching policy. We establish a diffusion approximation for a (2N − 1)-dimensional workload process associated with this switch when all input ports and output ports are heavily loaded. The diffusion process is a semimartingale reflecting Brownian motion living in a polyhedral cone with N2 boundary faces, each of which has an associated constant direction of reflection. Our proof builds on our own prior work [13] on an invariance principle for semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions in piecewise smooth domains and on a multiplicative state space collapse result for switched networks established by Shah and Wischik in [19].
The Influence of Socio-structural Variables on Identity Management Strategies

This chapter attempts to provide empirical support for some of the key predictions of social identity theory. This theory not only describes the psychological processes underlying the desire to establish positive social identity, it also identifies antecedent conditions to the use of different options to improve one's status position. On the basis of the theoretical statements provided by social identity theory, a research programme, designed to investigate conditions under which group members would be inclined to pursue status improvement individually or as a group, was set up. A theoretical analysis implies that status structures can be characterized with a limited number of variables and that such socio-structural variables are likely to be important determinants of people's preference to display individualist or collectivist behaviour when striving for higher status. The main variables in this respect seem to be: (1) the relative status position of one's group; (2) the permeability of group boundaries.
Black Political Representation in Southern Cities

Cities of the deep South are distinctive because they are at once influenced by a con sistently large black population and a history of discrimination. This study seeks to identify and measure the significant causal variables that affect black representation in cities of three southern states. Blacks are greatly underrepresented, but changes are occurring and black representation is increasing. This situation requires person-to-person data gathering for accuracy. The results show that equitable representation for black citizens in southern cities depends heavily on the method by which the city governing body is elected. The at-large selection systems used by two-thirds of the cities have a negative impact on black representation. The percentage of black population is highly significant as a positive causal variable. Socioeconomic variables appear less important but are difficult to evaluate. A speculative finding that election method affects southern black political participation makes this variable especially important to equitable representation of the black citizen in the southern city.
The influence of Confucianism: a narrative study of Hong Kong teachers’ understanding and practices of school guidance and counselling

ABSTRACT School guidance seeks to promote the whole person growth of students. It is regarded as an integral part of an educational programme. In Hong Kong secondary schools, a team of teachers are responsible for school guidance. This article examines how guidance teachers made sense of their caring work in general and specifically the counselling services they offered to students. With the use of a narrative analysis and personal experience methods, the study explores the experience of guidance teachers in counselling. Twelve in-service teachers who had enrolled in the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme at the Hong Kong Institute of Education were interviewed. The influence of the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism, emerging as a theme from the data, was prominent, as its key principles were incorporated into the teachers’ personal systems of counselling. The findings illuminate the influence of Chinese culture in Hong Kong schools. Implications for the promotion of culturally responsive approaches to counselling and culturally competent practices for helping are discussed.
Further Factorial Validity Assessment of Scores on the Quick Discrimination Index (Qdi)

This study examined the factorial validity of scores on the Quick Discrimination Index (QDI) across three geographically dispersed samples. A multisample LISREL analysis, incorporating Bagozzi and Heatherton’s recommended aggregate procedure, indicated that the QDI three-factor oblique model was relatively stable across three geographically divergent samples. Coefficient alphas across factors and samples were satisfactory. The Lix Readability Index for the QDI items fell at the ninth-grade level.
Is Bigger Always Better? Potential Biases of Big Data Derived from Social Network Sites

This article discusses methodological challenges of using big data that rely on specific sites and services as their sampling frames, focusing on social network sites in particular. It draws on survey data to show that people do not select into the use of such sites randomly. Instead, use is biased in certain ways yielding samples that limit the generalizability of findings. Results show that age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, online experiences, and Internet skills all influence the social network sites people use and thus where traces of their behavior show up. This has implications for the types of conclusions one can draw from data derived from users of specific sites. The article ends by noting how big data studies can address the shortcomings that result from biased sampling frames.
The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise

Abstract Both physical activity and exposure to nature are known separately to have positive effects on physical and mental health. We have investigated whether there is a synergistic benefit in adopting physical activities whilst being directly exposed to nature (‘green exercise’). Five groups of 20 subjects were exposed to a sequence of 30 scenes projected on a wall whilst exercising on a treadmill. Four categories of scenes were tested: rural pleasant, rural unpleasant, urban pleasant and urban unpleasant. The control was running without exposure to images. Blood pressure and two psychological measures (self-esteem and mood) were measured before and after the intervention. There was a clear effect of both exercise and different scenes on blood pressure, self-esteem and mood. Exercise alone significantly reduced blood pressure, increased self-esteem, and had a positive significant effect on 4 of 6 mood measures. Both rural and urban pleasant scenes produced a significantly greater positive effect on self-esteem than the exercise-only control. This shows the synergistic effect of green exercise in both rural and urban environments. By contrast, both rural and urban unpleasant scenes reduced the positive effects of exercise on self-esteem. The rural unpleasant scenes had the most dramatic effect, depressing the beneficial effects of exercise on three different measures of mood. It appears that threats to the countryside depicted in rural unpleasant scenes have a greater negative effect on mood than already urban unpleasant scenes. We conclude that green exercise has important public and environmental health consequences.
Efficacy and toxicity of decitabine versus CHG regimen (low-dose cytarabine, homoharringtonine and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor) in patients with higher risk myelodysplastic syndrome: a retrospective study

Abstract Decitabine and CHG regimen (low-dose cytarabine and homoharringtonine with G-CSF) have been used for treating higher risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). In this study, we retrospectively compared the efficacy and toxicity of the two regimens in 132 MDS patients. Complete remission (CR) was not significantly different between the groups (27.1% with decitabine vs. 30.6% with CHG, p = 0.657). The CR rate with decitabine (58.8%) was significantly higher than that with CHG (7.7%) (p = 0.007) among the patients with poor karyotypes. Five of 23 (21.7%) patients who failed to respond to decitabine achieved CR with CHG, while one of two patients achieved CR with decitabine after failure with CHG. Overall and relapse-free survival were not different between the groups. In conclusion, both decitabine and CHG regimen are effective for higher risk MDS; there is no cross resistance between the regimens. Decitabine might be a better choice for patients with poor karyotypes.
Energy efficient streaming applications with guaranteed throughput on MPSoCs

In this paper we present a design space exploration flow to achieve energy efficiency for streaming applications on MPSoCs while meeting the specified throughput constraints. The public domain simulators Sim-Panalyzer and Cacti are used to estimate the energy dissipations of the parameterized architectural components. As the main contributions, we schedule the streaming applications on a multi-clock synchronous modeling framework, guarantee the application timing properties by throughput analysis, and customize both processor voltage-frequency levels and memory sizes in the design space to optimize the application pipeline parallelism for energy efficiency. Two widely used heuristic algorithms (i.e., greedy and taboo search) are used during the design optimization process. Our experiments show an energy reduction of 21% without any loss in application throughput compared with an ad-hoc approach.