Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emotion Regulation Therapy: A Mechanism-Targeted Treatment for Disorders of Distress

“Distress disorders,” which include generalized anxiety disorder and major depression are often highly comorbid with each other and appear to be characterized by common temperamental features that reflect heightened sensitivity to underlying motivational systems related to threat/safety and reward/loss. Further, individuals with distress disorders tend to utilize self-referential processes (e.g., worry, rumination, self-criticism) in a maladaptive attempt to respond to motivationally relevant distress, often resulting in suboptimal contextual learning. Despite the success of cognitive behavioral therapies for emotional disorders, a sizable subgroup of patients with distress disorders fail to evidence adequate treatment response. Emotion Regulation Therapy (ERT) is a theoretically derived, evidence based, treatment that integrates principles (e.g., skills training, exposure) from traditional and contemporary therapies with findings from basic and translational affective science to offer a framework for improving intervention by focusing on the motivational responses and corresponding regulatory characteristics of individuals with high levels of chronic distress. Open and randomized controlled trials have demonstrated preliminary support for the utility of ERT as reflected by strong effect sizes comparable to and exceeding established intervention approaches. In addition, pilot findings support the role of underlying proposed mechanisms in this efficacious response. This article presents the functional model associated with ERT and describes the proposed mechanisms of the treatment. Additionally, a clinical case is presented, allowing the reader to gain a greater applied understanding of the different components of the ERT model and treatment.
Using hierarchies to support non-visual access to relational diagrams

This paper describes an approach to support non-visual exploration of graphically represented information. We used a hierarchical structure to organize the information encoded in a relational diagram and designed two alternative audio-only interfaces for presenting the hierarchy, each employing different levels of verbosity. We report on an experimental study that assessed the viability of our proposed approach as well as the efficiency and learnability of each interface. Our results show that the relational information encoded in a diagram could be non-visually navigated and explored through a hierarchy, and that substituting verbal descriptions of parts of such information with nonverbal sounds significantly improve performance without compromising comprehension.
Comparison of Vasopressin and Oxytocin Expressions in the Hypothalamo-Neurohypophysial System of Patients with Chronic Heart Failure

The hypothalamic nonapeptide vasopressin is a known player in the pathogenesis of chronic heart failure. According to the large body of clinical evidence, vasopressin has an impact on salt and water imbalance, hyponatremia, and subsequent renal insufficiency - the most common and destructive co-morbidity of patients afflicted with chronic heart failure. Despite the well-documented elevated levels of vasopressin in the blood of such patients, its expression in the magnocellular hypothalamic nuclei and transport to the posterior pituitary has not yet been investigated. In addition, the literature almost lacks the information on the contribution of another member of nonapeptide family, oxytocin, in the pathogenesis of this disease. Here we present a postmortem analysis of vasopressin and oxytocin-immunoreactive neurons and their terminals in the posterior pituitary of 8 male patients (53.8+/-9.3 years) who had died from CHF and 9 male controls (54.6+/-11.8 years). In line with previous clinical reports, our study on hypothalami of chronic heart failure patients revealed a significant increase in the relative profile density (+29%) of vasopressin-positive neurons in the hypothalamic supraoptic nucleus. Consistently we found a significant increase in the relative optic density of vasopressin-immunoreactivity in the posterior pituitary (+33%) of these patients. In contrast, the similar analysis applied for oxytocin neurons revealed no statistically significant differences to controls. In conclusion, our study provides the morphological evidence for activation of vasopressin (but not oxytocin) expression and vasopressin transport to the posterior pituitary in patients with chronic heart failure.
Stock Market Prediction Based on Fundamentalist Analysis with Fuzzy-Neural Networks

In this article, we discuss the application of a combination of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic techniques to fundamentalist analysis of stock investment. Several researchers have used neural networks models in a variety of ways to predict short and long-term stock forecasting, but most of these models use technical indicators as inputs. This paper presents the results of the application of Fuzzy Neural Networks to predict the evolution of stock prices of Brazilian companies traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange. The network indicates if a trader would have to keep, sell or buy a stock using a combination of information extracted from balance sheets (released every three months) and market indicators. In our experiments, we concentrated on a segment of the Brazilian industry, companies from the textile sector. The results show that the network was able to deliver good results depending on the quality of the available data.
Hoof kick injuries in unmounted equestrians. Improving accident analysis and prevention by introducing an accident and emergency based relational database

Objective: To assess injury patterns attributable to horse kicks, to raise the issue of preventive measures, and to evaluate the role of modern accident and emergency department computer software. Methods: Data analysis using a new kind of full electronic medical record. Results: Seventeen kicked equestrians were unmounted at the time of injury. Eight of seventeen patients sustained contusions of the extremities, the back, and the trunk. In nine patients an isolated facial injury was diagnosed. Five of nine patients needed referrals to the department of plastic surgery because of the complexity of the facial soft tissue wounds. Three underwent maxillofacial surgery. Conclusion: Clinical: the equestrian community may underestimate the risk of severe injuries attribtuable to hoof kicks, especially while handling the horse. Educational lectures and the distribution of educational literature should be promoted. The introduction of additional face shields may be protective. Software related issue: the handling of an increasing amount of medical data makes a development in computerisation of emergency units necessary. Thus the increasing utilisation of new computer technology could have a significant influence on accident analysis and prevention and the quality of research in the future.
T cell receptor excision circles and HIV-1 2-LTR episomal DNA to predict AIDS in patients not receiving effective therapy

ObjectiveTo determine whether improved prediction of AIDS-free survival following HIV-1 seroconversion is achieved by measuring HIV-1 2-LTR episomal DNA (2-LTR) circles and T cell receptor rearrangement excision circles (TREC), reflecting HIV replication and lymphocyte emigration from the thymus, respectively. DesignSubanalysis of a cohort of 154 patients with hemophilia who became HIV positive between 1978 and 1985 and were followed prospectively. MethodsRelative hazards (RH) of AIDS, in the absence of highly effective anti-HIV therapy, were estimated for age, HIV-1 viral load, CD4 lymphocyte count and levels of HIV-1 2-LTR circles and TREC [per 106 peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)]. ResultsTREC correlated significantly with CD4 cell counts (r = 0.30) and age (r = −0.60). 2-LTR circles correlated significantly with HIV-1 viral load (r = 0.35). If viral load, CD4 lymphocytes and age were included in a proportional hazards model, the risk of AIDS during a median of 11.6 years of follow-up was increased significantly with fewer TREC (adjusted RH, 2.0 per log10 copies/106 PBMC) and more 2-LTR circles (RH, 1.7 per log10 copies/106 PBMC). AIDS prediction with TREC and 2-LTR circles held for most subgroups defined by median viral load, CD4 lymphocytes and age. ConclusionsPBMC that have high levels of HIV-1 replication and low levels of recent thymic emigrants are associated with a substantially increased risk of AIDS. It is not known if measurement of either TREC or 2-LTR circles will complement HIV-1 viral load as an estimation of the risk of AIDS for patients who are receiving highly effective anti-HIV therapy.
A stealth approach to usable security: helping IT security managers to identify workable security solutions

Recent advances in the research of usable security have produced many new security mechanisms that improve usability. However, these mechanisms have not been widely adopted in practice. In most organisations, IT security managers decide on security policies and mechanisms, seemingly without considering usability. IT security managers consider risk reduction and the business impact of information security controls, but not the impact that controls have on users. Rather than trying to remind security managers of usability, we present a new paradigm -- a stealth approach which incorporates the impact of security controls on users' productivity and willingness to comply into business impact and risk reduction. During two 2-hour sessions, 3 IT security managers discussed with us mock-up tool prototypes that embody these principles, alongside a range of potential usage scenarios (e.g. cloud-based password-cracking attacks and "hot-desking" initiatives). Our tool design process elicits findings to help develop mechanisms to visualise these tradeoffs.
Fault-tolerant controllers in Wireless Networked Control System using 802.11g

In this paper, the 802.11g standard is used without modification in a fault-tolerant networked control system with two or three cascaded workcells. Samples are sent by sensors to an 802.11g access point, which forwards this data, via Switched Ethernet, to the controller. The controller generates a control word, which is then delivered to the access point, via Switched Ethernet, and is forwarded to the corresponding wireless actuator. The effects of noise are also studied. OPNET simulations show that a two-cell system can tolerate the failure of one of its two controllers even in the presence of noise. For a three-cell system, up to two controllers can fail (in the presence of noise) and the remaining operational controller will be able to handle the load of all three cells. A performability model is then developed to simultaneously take into account controller failure data with the risk of not adhering to the required delay constraints. All OPNET delays are subjected to a 95% confidence analysis.
Impact of stroke etiology, lesion location and aging on post-stroke urinary incontinence as a predictor of functional recovery

This retrospective study aims to assess the relationship of age, gender, lesion location, stroke etiology and recurrence of stroke to post-stroke urinary incontinence, and to evaluate its impact on functional recovery in patient subgroups with different etiologies, lesion locations and ages. One-hundred-and-sixty-three stroke patients participated in the study. Among them, 141 had detailed imaging tests for the definition of lesion locations. Post-stroke urinary incontinence was defined as an inability to respond to questions regarding toilet needs, evidence of elevated post-stroke urinary incontinence and retention. Successful rehabilitation was described as a total functional independence measure score over 80 at discharge. Cerebrovascular lesion locations were categorized as cortical, subcortical and disseminated. The study found that post-stroke urinary incontinence had a significant negative impact on successful stroke rehabilitation. Post-stroke urinary incontinence was a better indicator of negative functional outcome in hemorrhagic versus ischemic stroke patients and patients with cortical versus subcortical lesions. The incidence of post-stroke urinary incontinence in patients aged over 75 years was higher than in patients under 75 years (P=0.031). In conclusion, post-stroke urinary incontinence was a strong negative predictor of poor outcome in all stroke subgroups. It was related to age, but not to any other pre-selected factor investigated in this study.
Cigarette pack design and adolescent smoking susceptibility: a cross-sectional survey

Objectives To compare adolescents’ responses to three different styles of cigarette packaging: novelty (branded packs designed with a distinctive shape, opening style or bright colour), regular (branded pack with no special design features) and plain (brown pack with a standard shape and opening and all branding removed, aside from brand name). Design Cross-sectional in-home survey. Setting UK. Participants Random location quota sample of 1025 never smokers aged 11–16 years. Main outcome measures Susceptibility to smoking and composite measures of pack appraisal and pack receptivity derived from 11 survey items. Results Mean responses to the three pack types were negative for all survey items. However, ‘novelty’ packs were rated significantly less negatively than the ‘regular’ pack on most items, and the novelty and regular packs were rated less negatively than the ‘plain’ pack. For the novelty packs, logistic regressions, controlling for factors known to influence youth smoking, showed that susceptibility was associated with positive appraisal and also receptivity. For example, those receptive to the innovative Silk Cut Superslims pack were more than four times as likely to be susceptible to smoking than those not receptive to this pack (AOR=4.42, 95% CI 2.50 to 7.81, p<0.001). For the regular pack, an association was found between positive appraisal and susceptibility but not with receptivity and susceptibility. There was no association with pack appraisal or receptivity for the plain pack. Conclusions Pack structure (shape and opening style) and colour are independently associated, not just with appreciation of and receptivity to the pack, but also with susceptibility to smoke. In other words, those who think most highly of novelty cigarette packaging are also the ones who indicate that they are most likely to go on to smoke. Plain packaging, in contrast, was found to directly reduce the appeal of smoking to adolescents.
Hydrogen peroxide acts as both vasodilator and vasoconstrictor in the control of perfused mouse mesenteric resistance arteries

Background Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) plays a key role in the control of resistance artery (RA) tone and is hypothesized as an endothelial-derived hyperpolarizing factor. Methods In this study, we investigated the effects of the same concentration of exogenous H2O2 on mouse mesenteric RA tone induced by intraluminal pressure, G-protein coupled receptor activation and KCl. RAs were cannulated in an arteriograph in the absence or presence of vasoconstrictors. Results RA developed myogenic tone (MT) in response to stepwise pressure increases. Under phenylephrine, H2O2 induced a dose-dependent (1–50 μmol/l) vasodilation with maximum dilation at 50 μmol/l. H2O2 at 50 μmol/l induced a full dilation of RA under MT or contraction by phenylephrine that was independent of nitric oxide synthase, cyclooxygenase, endothelium and potassium channels iberiotoxin and apamin sensitive. The Ca2+ channel inhibitor, nimodipine, significantly blocked MT and also the contraction to phenylephrine and KCl. Under these conditions, H2O2 had no effect on RA diameter. Under KCl, the same concentration of H2O2 induced a potent vasoconstriction. This contraction involved p38 mitogen-activated protein-kinase activation but not ERK1/2. Conclusions These findings provide the first evidence showing that the same and low concentrations of H2O2 can act as a relaxing factor but also as a vasoconstrictor under conditions in which hyperpolarization is compromised.
Phenotypic and Functional Heterogeneity of Macrophages and Dendritic Cell Subsets in the Healthy and Atherosclerosis-Prone Aorta

Atherosclerosis continues to be the leading cause of cardiovascular disease. Development of atherosclerosis depends on chronic inflammation in the aorta and multiple immune cells are involved in this process. Importantly, resident macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs) are present within the healthy aorta, but the functions of these cells remain poorly characterized. Local inflammation within the aortic wall promotes the recruitment of monocytes and DC precursors to the aorta and micro-environmental factors direct the differentiation of these emigrated cells into multiple subsets of macrophages and DCs. Recent data suggest that several populations of macrophages and DCs can co-exist within the aorta. Although the functions of M1, M2, Mox, and M4 macrophages are well characterized in vitro, there is a limited set of data on the role of these populations in atherogenesis in vivo. Recent studies on the origin and the potential role of aortic DCs provide novel insights into the biology of aortic DC subsets and prospective mechanisms of the immune response in atherosclerosis. This review integrates the results of experiments analyzing heterogeneity of DCs and macrophage subsets in healthy and diseased vessels and briefly discusses the known and potential functions of these cells in atherogenesis.
Dynamics of Stimulus-Evoked Spike Timing Correlations in the Cat Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

Precisely synchronized neuronal activity has been commonly observed in the mammalian visual pathway. Spike timing correlations in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) often take the form of phase synchronized oscillations in the high gamma frequency range. To study the relations between oscillatory activity, synchrony, and their time-dependent properties, we recorded activity from multiple single units in the cat LGN under stimulation by stationary spots of light. Autocorrelation analysis showed that approximately one third of the cells exhibited oscillatory firing with a mean frequency ∼80 Hz. Cross-correlation analysis showed that 30% of unit pairs showed significant synchronization, and 61% of these pairs consisted of synchronous oscillations. Cross-correlation analysis assumes that synchronous firing is stationary and maintained throughout the period of stimulation. We tested this assumption by applying unitary events analysis (UEA). We found that UEA was more sensitive to weak and transient synchrony than cross-correlation analysis and detected a higher incidence (49% of cell pairs) of significant synchrony (unitary events). In many unit pairs, the unitary events were optimally characterized at a bin width of 1 ms, indicating that neural synchrony has a high degree of temporal precision. We also found that approximately one half of the unit pairs showed nonstationary changes in synchrony that could not be predicted by the modulation of firing rates. Population statistics showed that the onset of synchrony between LGN cells occurred significantly later than that observed between retinal afferents and LGN cells. The synchrony detected among unit pairs recorded on separate tetrodes tended to be more transient and have a later onset than that observed between adjacent units. These findings show that stimulus-evoked synchronous activity within the LGN is often rhythmic, highly nonstationary, and modulated by endogenous processes that are not tightly correlated with firing rate.
Boredom , Hallucination-proneness and Hypohedonia in Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder

Studies of boredom and boredom proneness in non-psychiatric and clinical populations have demonstrated that trait and state boredom are associated with depressive mood and a number of other untoward outcomes, many of which are potentially relevant to the care of patients with a severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). For example, in a recent study conducted with college students, it was found that the impact of boredom on the quality of life and degree of unpleasantness attributed to boredom were positively correlated with a measure of hallucination-proneness (Todman, 2007). The present study replicated and extended these findings in a small sample of SPMI patients. As predicted, anhedonia (i.e., expectancies of diminished positive reinforcement from future environments and activities), hallucination-proneness, a history of auditory hallucinations, and feelings of depression within last 14 days were all found to have significant positive correlations with various aspects of the State Boredom Measure (SBM). The findings also underscore the importance of boredom as a potential marker for current substance use and suggest that the attributions made by patients with schizoaffective disorder about their experience with boredom are different to those made by patients with schizophrenia or bipolar illness. *Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: McWelling Todman, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research, The New School, 65 Fifth Ave., Room 335, New York, NY 10003; e-mail: Todmanm @Newschool.edu
Education and Career Aspirations of Palestinian and U.S. Youth

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ education and career aspirations have been the focus of numerous studies, particularly in the United States. Aspirations can serve as indicators of later education attainment (Anderson, 1980). Among variables thought to influence aspirations are gender (Arap-Maritam, 1984; Danziger, 1983), socioeconomic status (SES; Sewell & Shah, 1968), family support and parental expectations (Anderson), and cultural values (Dillard & Campbell, 1981). Such studies have shown that female students tend to have lower aspirations than male students; for both groups, aspiration levels have been positively related to family support and socioeconomic variables. Because the bulk of these findings has involved primarily U.S. cohorts, I assessed the external validity of available evidence (Herr & Cramer, 1984) by comparing a group of U.S. high school students with a similar group of Palestinian students. In contrast to the U.S. youths’ wide range of education and career interests (Slocum & Bowles, 1968). Palestinian youths tend strongly to favor academic education and to choose a narrower range of mostly prestigious occupations (Tahir, 1985). Thus, I expected that the Palestinian high schoolers, compared with their U.S. counterparts, would more likely aspire to higher academic goals and a nar-