Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Animist thinking in the elderly and in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Some patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) reveal low-level impairment in their concepts of living things (i.e., forgetting that zebras are striped). To test for more profound impairment, we investigated the concept alive—a “higher order” concept spanning every member of the domain. Many elderly controls were animists, attributing life to inanimates capable of self-generated activity (the sun, fire). Most AD patients were animists, with half even attributing life to inanimates whose activity is not self-generated (cars, lamps). Adult animists, like young children who have not yet acquired biological concepts, overattributed life to active inanimates. We believe this reflects an innate disposition to view active entities as agents, and that agency interferes with the biological concept alive. This interference, we suggest, reflects degradation of biological concepts in the face of spared perception of agents. It sheds light on the nature of fundamental questions concerning conceptual organization, innate endowment, and conceptual change.
The Confused Robot: Two-Year-Olds’ Responses to Breakdowns in Conversation

Preschool children at two ages conversed with a toy robot during a play session. During the conversations the robot inserted either general (e.g., What? ) or specific (e.g., Piggy is in what? ) contingent queries in response to selected utterances. The children’s replies to these breakdowns in conversation indicated they were sensitive to the pragmatic requirements of these different types of query. By 33 months of age, the children replied to general queries with complete repetitions of their prior misunderstood utterance, and replied to specific queries with only the required constituentinformation. At 27 months of age, the children’s predominant strategy was to reply to both forms of query with complete repetitions, although the data suggest some degree of sensitivity to these different forms is also present in this younger group. These results are interpreted in terms of children’s sensitivity to Grice’s (1975) quantity rule and the potential changes in social cognition underlying children’s compliance with this rule.
An empirical investigation of the effects of a microcounselling programme with social work students: The acquisition and transfer of component skills

Abstract Microcounselling has become widely used with various professional groups as a systematic approach to improving interviewing and counselling skills (Ivey & Authier, 1978). Although reviews of research largely attest to its effectiveness (Hargie & Saunders, 1983; Baker & Daniels, 1989), such conclusions have been based on outcome criteria which, for the most part, have been essentially second-order and proximal (Dickson, 1981). The present study, which utilized a multiple baseline design, was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of a programme of microcounselling, undertaken by social work students, in terms of both the initial acquisition and subsequent transfer of the interpersonal skills of non-verbal communication, questioning, reflecting, listening, explaining, set induction, and closure. While the training intervention was adjudged to have been successful with regard to the initial acquisition of skills, only limited evidence was found of performances generalizing from role-play to ‘real prob.
Interpersonal expectancy effects: the first 345 studies

Abstract The research area of interpersonal expectancy effects originally derived from a general consideration of the effects of experimenters on the results of their research. One of these is the expectancy effect, the tendency for experimenters to obtain results they expect, not simply because they have correctly anticipated nature's response but rather because they have helped to shape that response through their expectations. When behavioral researchers expect certain results from their human (or animal) subjects they appear unwittingly to treat them in such a way as to increase the probability that they will respond as expected. In the first few years of research on this problem of the interpersonal (or interorganism) self-fulfilling prophecy, the “prophet” was always an experimenter and the affected phenomenon was always the behavior of an experimental subject. In more recent years, however, the research has been extended from experimenters to teachers, employers, and therapists whose expectations for their pupils, employees, and patients might also come to serve as interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecies. Our general purpose is to summarize the results of 345 experiments investigating interpersonal expectancy effects. These studies fall into eight broad categories of research: reaction time, inkblot tests, animal learning, laboratory interviews, psychophysical judgments, learning and ability, person perception, and everyday life situations. For the entire sample of studies, as well as for each specific research area, we (1) determine the overall probability that interpersonal expectancy effects do in fact occur, (2) estimate their average magnitude so as to evaluate their substantive and methodological importance, and (3) illustrate some methods that may be useful to others wishing to summarize quantitatively entire bodies of research (a practice that is, happily, on the increase).
Long-term results of the S.M.A.R.T. Control(TM) stent for superficial femoral artery lesions, J-SMART registry.

BACKGROUND The use of a stent in the treatment of lesions of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) remains controversial. Although some reports have suggested that use of a nitinol stent in conjunction with aggressive medical management is effective for long SFA lesions, few long-term, large-scale studies have been done. METHODS AND RESULTS A retrospective analysis was conducted of data from a multicenter study in which the S.M.A.R. T. Control(TM) stent was used for treatment of de novo SFA lesions. A total of 528 lesions in 432 patients were included. Mean patient age was 72.5±9.1 years; mean stent length was 15.7±8.1cm; 259 lesions (49%) were classified as C/D according to the TransAtlantic Inter-Society Consensus (TASC) II classification. Primary and secondary patency at 4 years was 66% and 87%, respectively. No cilostazol administration (41% re-stenosis group vs. 29% no-restenosis group, P<0.01), female gender (42% vs. 26%, P<0.01), younger age (70.7±9.3 years vs. 72.9±9.0 years, P<0.05), and chronic total occlusion (CTO; 72% vs. 52%, P<0.01) were independent predictors of re-stenosis. CONCLUSIONS The S.M.A.R. T. Control(TM) stent provided good long-term durability in the treatment of SFA lesions, and no cilostazol administration, female gender, younger age and CTO were associated with re-stenosis.
Networked Control Over Noisy Channel With Time Delays

This paper investigates networked control problems for linear control systems, where the sensors and the controller are connected by a bandwidth-limited, noisy digital communication channel with time delays. For this case, we examine the role communication has on quantized feedback stabilization problems, present quantization, coding, and control schemes, and derive a sufficient condition on the data rate of stabilization of the unstable plant. It is shown in our results that, communication constraints have important effects on stabilization of networked control systems. An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. DOI : http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v12i2. 3816
Variational Generative Stochastic Networks with Collaborative Shaping

We develop an approach to training generative models based on unrolling a variational autoencoder into a Markov chain, and shaping the chain's trajectories using a technique inspired by recent work in Approximate Bayesian computation. We show that the global minimizer of the resulting objective is achieved when the generative model reproduces the target distribution. To allow finer control over the behavior of the models, we add a regularization term inspired by techniques used for regularizing certain types of policy search in reinforcement learning. We present empirical results on the MNIST and TFD datasets which show that our approach offers state-of-the-art performance, both quantitatively and from a qualitative point of view.
Persistence of Performance‐Approach Individuals in Achievement Situations: An application of the Rasch model

Research in goal theory has often relied on the general linear model, ignoring some central assumptions of the theoretical framework under investigation. The purpose of the two studies reported here was to illustrate how the Rasch model can supplement traditional statistical analyses when evaluating the effects of goal orientations on persistence. In Study 1, 41 adolescents participated in a series of insolvable puzzles. Means analyses failed to reveal differences between mastery‐approach and performance‐approach students. Application of the Rasch model, and in particular the differential item functioning procedure, indicated that mastery students were more severely challenged by the last puzzle, compared to performance approach students, with their probability of persisting being significantly lower. The findings of Study 1 were replicated in Study 2 with a sample of 37 college students who were also given a series of insolvable puzzles. The findings suggest that use of the Rasch model can be particularly fruitful for our understanding of the complex achievement‐goal relationship.
Th2-biased GATA-3 transgenic mice developed severe experimental peritoneal fibrosis compared with Th1-biased T-bet and Th17-biased RORγt transgenic mice

Encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis is one of the most serious complications of long-term peritoneal dialysis. The pathogenesis of encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis has not been elucidated, but several putative factors necessary for the development of peritoneum fibrosis (PF) have been reported. However, the roles of T helper (Th) cells in the progression of PF are unknown. The purpose of this study was to clarify the roles of Th1, Th2, and Th17 cells in the progression of PF. T-bet, GATA-3, and RORγt are Th1, Th2, and Th17 lineage commitment transcription factors, respectively. We previously generated Th1-biased (T-bet transgenic (Tg)) mice, Th2-biased (GATA-3 Tg) mice, and Th17-biased (RORγt Tg) mice. In this study, Th1, Th2, Th17-biased, and wild-type mice were administered chlorhexidine gluconate (CG) intraperitoneally and analyzed on day 21. CG-injected GATA-3 Tg mice showed a distended intestinal tract and developed marked thickening of the submesothelial space compared with the other groups. CG-injected GATA-3 Tg mice also showed significant expression of α-SMA positive cells, macrophages, and collagen III in the submesothelium. In contrast, CG-injected T-bet Tg mice only developed mild peritoneal fibrosis. Cytokines analysis in peritoneal fluid showed that IFN-γ was significantly increased in CG-injected T-bet Tg mice and that IL-13 was significantly increased in CG-injected GATA-3 Tg mice. Moreover, intraperitoneal administration of IFN-γ improved PF in GC-injected wild-type mice. Our results suggest that Th2 cells may play roles in the development of experimental PF and that Th1 cells may alleviate the severity of experimental PF.
Sweden: HIV/AIDS policy and the 'crisis' of multiculturalism

This article examines shifts in the ways that immigrants were framed and depicted within Swedish HIV/AIDS policy discourse from 1985 to 2005. In particular, it examines whether, when and how immigrants were linked to understandings of risk and safety in sexual relations. Whereas, at first, immigrants were rather marginal to this discourse, they later held a central position. Moreover, there was a shift in how ethnicity and 'race' were conceptualised by the Swedish authorities — a movement away from cultural pluralism towards neo-assimilationism. Throughout this time, cultural differences, often defined in terms of different attitudes to gender and sexuality, were focused on as defining the boundaries between 'immigrants' and 'Swedes'. But, whereas the pluralist approach favoured respect and tolerance for these differences, the neo-assimilationist approach that replaced it argued that immigrants ought to assimilate to the more enlightened sexual values of Swedishness, in order to better prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS infection.
Ampicillin and mononucleosis.

used the discovery of staphylococcuskilling products of a fungus to make penicillin which saved millions of lives. Other scientists used the principle of atomic fission to make weapons and bombs. Two of these bombs were dropped in Japan, and killed over 2 million people, and horribly crippled many more, in seconds. Some of the machines invented or made by scientists now spew out pollutants into the air and waters. " This, I believe, is the greatest contribution leading scientists can make to the welfare of mankind-to admit failures as readily as they admit apparent successes. -I am, etc., C. DE F. W. GOONARATNA Dundee
The Web Pen Pals Project: Students' Perceptions of a Learning Community in an Online Synchronous Environment.

This paper draws on data gathered from a five-month phenomenological study of middle school students’ perceptions of the effects of computer-based technologies on a learning community in an online synchronous environment. Twenty-four eighth-grade students participated in the Web Pen Pals project, a university-secondary telecollaborative partnership which brings middle school students together with preservice teachers enrolled in an adolescent literature course in online chat rooms to discuss young adult literature. The complexities of creating a community are explored through interviews of the middle school participants, which reveal several themes affecting the development of a learning community: 1) obstacles to community-making, which include anonymity and lack of ease with technology; 2) establishing friendships; 3) an emergent language system; and 4) the symbolic inversion of traditional “teacher”
Assessing the Flynn Effect in the Wechsler Scales

The current study examined the Flynn Effect (i.e., the increase in IQ scores over time) across all editions of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI). By reverse engineering the correlation and scale score transformations from each Wechsler edition’s technical manual, we made a mean and covariance matrix using the subtests and age groups that were in common for all editions of a given instrument. The results indicated that when aggregated, there was a FE of 0.44 IQ points/year. This Wechsler instrument used, however, moderates the FE, with the WISC showing the largest FE (0.73 IQ points/year) and the WAIS showing a smallest FE (0.30 IQ points/year). Moreover, this study found that the amount of invariant indicators across instruments and age groups varied substantially, ranging from 51.53% in the WISC for the 7-year-old group to 10.00% in the WPPSI for the 5- and 5.5-year-old age groups.
Linking feeding inhibition with reproductive impairment in Gammarus confirms the ecological relevance of feeding assays in environmental monitoring

The in situ feeding bioassay in Gammarus fossarum is recognized as a reliable tool for monitoring the toxicity of freshwater contamination. However, whether recorded feeding inhibitions can potentially provoke population‐level adverse outcomes remains an open question. In the present study, the authors present an experimental study in G. fossarum, which contributes to the quantitative description of the links between feeding inhibitions and impacts on female reproductive performance. The authors studied the impacts of food deprivation on reproductive endpoints (i.e., fecundity, fertility, molt cycle) during 2 successive molting cycles. Among the main results, the authors found that food deprivation triggered a slowdown of the molting process and a reduction in fertility but no alteration to embryonic development. These reproductive impairments appeared for feeding inhibition values usually recorded in monitoring programs of environmental pollution. Using a population model translating Gammarus life‐history, the authors predicted that the observed reproductive alterations predict a strong degradation of population dynamics. The present study underlines the importance of feeding inhibition in population‐level risk assessment and discusses how establishing upscaling schemes based on quantitative mechanistic links between impacts at different levels of biological organization can be applied in environmental monitoring to propose an ecotoxicological assessment of water quality, which would be sensitive, specific, and ecologically relevant. Environ Toxicol Chem 2015;34:1031–1038. © 2015 SETAC
Associative analyses of reasoning-like behaviour in rats

This thesis examines how rats represent relationships in their environment. There are currently two broad classes of account of how animals learn about such relationships: The associative account offers a relatively simple mechanistic account of behaviour; while the second account proposes that animal behaviour, like human behaviour, is underpinned by the processes of causal and deductive reasoning, that are beyond associative analyses. Chapter 1 identifies three domains in which these two classes of account provide quite different analyses of animal behaviour, which are experimentally investigated in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapter 2 reports three experiments that investigated the accuracy of predictions derived from the claim that rats are capable of forming and using causal models involving their own interactions with their environment (interventions) and external events (Blaisdell, Sawa, Leising, & Waldmann, 2006). The results failed to confirm these predictions and were instead more consistent with the operation of simpler processes. The results from Chapter 2 left open two interpretations: either rats can represent causality but do not use such representations to reason, or they do not represent cause per se. Chapter 3 investigated these alternatives in three experiments using a timing task, which should be sensitive to whether rats are more likely to represent their actions as causal than external events (Buehner & Humphreys, 2009). The results provided no support for the view that causal binding occurs in rats. Chapter 3 examined the possibility that sensory preconditioning might reflect a form of deductive reasoning (Hall, 1990). However, taken together, the results from four experiments provided no support for such an analysis; but instead helped to inform the nature of the associative processes that underlie sensory preconditioning. In summary, while the results reported in this thesis provide no support for analyses of animal behaviour that rely on the processes of causal or deductive reasoning, they do help to inform the nature of the associative processes involved.
The Effects of Manipulating Verbal Suggestions on Physical Performance

Expectation induced by verbal suggestions is known to be a central mechanism in the generation of the placebo response in different physiological and pathological conditions. Here, we analyze the impact of different verbal suggestions in an experimental setting, measuring work performed, and rate of perceived exertion in healthy subjects undergoing strenuous exercise. A double protocol is used, with different probabilities of receiving what is believed to be an ergogenic substance (in fact, a placebo), with or without an associated conditioning procedure. We show that while high verbal suggestions of motor improvement can work alone, low verbal suggestions produce a response only after conditioning, and that in the absence of verbal suggestions (open-label placebo) no response can ever be elicited. These results can be useful for the design of both clinical trial and sports training protocols.
Reduced Sodium Channel Nav1.1 Levels in BACE1-null Mice*

The Alzheimer BACE1 enzyme cleaves numerous substrates, with largely unknown physiological consequences. We have previously identified the contribution of elevated BACE1 activity to voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.1 density and neuronal function. Here, we analyzed physiological changes in sodium channel metabolism in BACE1-null mice. Mechanistically, we first confirmed that endogenous BACE1 requires its substrate, the β-subunit Navβ2, to regulate levels of the pore-forming α-subunit Nav1.1 in cultured primary neurons. Next, we analyzed sodium channel α-subunit levels in brains of BACE1-null mice at 1 and 3 months of age. At both ages, we found that Nav1.1 protein levels were significantly decreased in BACE1-null versus wild-type mouse brains, remaining unchanged in BACE1-heterozygous mouse brains. Interestingly, levels of Nav1.2 and Nav1.6 α-subunits also decreased in 1-month-old BACE1-null mice. In the hippocampus of BACE1-null mice, we found a robust 57% decrease of Nav1.1 levels. Next, we performed surface biotinylation studies in acutely dissociated hippocampal slices from BACE1-null mice. Hippocampal surface Nav1.1 levels were significantly decreased, but Nav1.2 surface levels were increased in BACE1-null mice perhaps as a compensatory mechanism for reduced surface Nav1.1. We also found that Navβ2 processing and Nav1.1 mRNA levels were significantly decreased in brains of BACE1-null mice. This suggests a mechanism consistent with BACE1 activity regulating mRNA levels of the α-subunit Nav1.1 via cleavage of cell-surface Navβ2. Together, our data show that endogenous BACE1 activity regulates total and surface levels of voltage-gated sodium channels in mouse brains. Both decreased Nav1.1 and elevated surface Nav1.2 may result in a seizure phenotype. Our data caution that therapeutic BACE1 activity inhibition in Alzheimer disease patients may affect Nav1 metabolism and alter neuronal membrane excitability in Alzheimer disease patients.
High Prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in Biopsies from Sarcoidosis Patients from Catalonia, Spain

Background: Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatous disease of unknown etiology. The presence of mycobacterial nucleic acid components in patients with sarcoidosis has been demonstrated with varying degrees of success. Objectives: The aim of this study was to estimate the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in tissues from sarcoidosis patients, in Catalonia, Spain, as well as to assess the long-term clinical course in these patients. Methods: Fifty-eight paraffin-embedded tissue biopsies corresponding to cases of sarcoidosis (n = 23), lung neoplasm (n = 23), and lung tuberculosis (n = 12) available in 1996 were analyzed in a retrospective study by means of a nested polymerase chain reaction using primers corresponding to the insertion element IS6110 of M. tuberculosis complex. For greater sensitivity, Southern blot hybridization was performed. Clinical data were recorded prior to and after PCR analysis (follow-up reported until 2002). Results:M. tuberculosis DNA was present in 9 out of 23 sarcoidosis biopsies (39%), in 1 out of 23 control patients (4%) (p < 0.01), and in all tissue samples from the 12 control patients with tuberculosis. To date, none of these sarcoidosis patients has developed tuberculosis over a mean (±SD) follow-up period of 11 (±3.4) years. Conclusion: In our setting, M. tuberculosis DNA is present in tissue biopsies of significantly more sarcoidosis patients than controls. However, these results do not demonstrate causality, although they may suggest a link between M. tuberculosis infection and sarcoidosis in some cases. Follow-up of these patients suggests that M. tuberculosis-DNA-positive sarcoidosis patients are not at greater risk of developing tuberculosis than M. tuberculosis-DNA-negative patients.