Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

With an ever-expanding understanding about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), it has been realized that it is a respiratory disease with systemic manifestations. Systemic effects of COPD lead to cardiovascular co-morbidities, muscle wasting and osteoporosis that in turn lead to inactivity and physical deconditioning. This development has a direct impact on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients suffering from this respiratory disease. Pharmacological therapy leads to improvement in shortness of breath and has limited effect on the physical deconditioning. Latest research has shown an additive effect of pulmonary rehabilitation on improving the inactivity and overall HRQoL in COPD patients. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a comprehensive multimodality program that includes strength and endurance training, nutritional education and psychosocial support. This leads to a holistic approach to management of COPD which results in symptom improvement in patients and decreased utilization of heath care resources. There are several barriers to widespread adoption of pulmonary rehabilitation as a standard treatment. This includes availability, insurance coverage and patient compliance. With inclusion of pulmonary rehabilitation in respiratory society guidelines, there has been a renewed interest among both pulmonary specialist and community physicians. This chapter aims to provide exhaustive evidence based knowledge regarding pulmonary rehabilitation and its beneficial effect on COPD patients.
Improving Content Knowledge and Comprehension for English Language Learners: Findings From a Randomized Control Trial

Supporting the reading comprehension and content knowledge acquisition of English language learners (ELs) requires instructional practices that continue beyond developing the foundational skills of reading. In particular, the challenges ELs face highlight the importance of teaching reading comprehension practices in the middle grades through content acquisition. We conducted a randomized control trial to examine the efficacy of a content acquisition and reading comprehension intervention implemented in eighth-grade social studies classrooms with English language learners. Using a within-teacher design, in which 18 eighth-grade teachers’ social studies classes were randomly assigned to treatment or comparison conditions. Teachers taught the same instructional content to treatment and comparison classes, but the treatment classes used instructional practices that included comprehension canopy, essential words, knowledge acquisition, and team-based learning. Students in the treatment group (n = 845) outperformed students in the comparison group (n = 784) on measures of content knowledge acquisition and content reading comprehension but not general reading comprehension. Both ELs and non-ELs who received the treatment outperformed those assigned to the BAU comparison condition on measures of content knowledge acquisition (ES = 0.40) and content-related reading comprehension (ES = 0.20). In addition, the proportion of English language learners in classes moderated outcomes for content knowledge acquisition.
The Impact of Trade on Organization and Productivity

A firm's productivity depends on how production is organized given the level of demand for its product. To capture this mechanism, we develop a theory of an economy where firms with heterogeneous demands use labor and knowledge to produce. Entrepreneurs decide the number of layers of management and the knowledge and span of control of each agent. As a result, in the theory, heterogeneity in demand leads to heterogeneity in productivity and other firms' outcomes. We use the theory to analyze the impact of international trade on organization and calibrate the model to the U.S. economy. Our results indicate that, as a result of a bilateral trade liberalization, firms that export will increase the number of layers of management and will decentralize decisions. The new organization of the average exporter results in higher productivity, although the responses of productivity are heterogeneous across these firms. In contrast, non-exporters reduce their number of layers, decentralization, and, on average, their productivity. The marginal exporter increases its productivity by about 1% and its revenue productivity by about 1.8%.
Music evokes vicarious emotions in listeners

Why do we listen to sad music? We seek to answer this question using a psychological approach. It is possible to distinguish perceived emotions from those that are experienced. Therefore, we hypothesized that, although sad music is perceived as sad, listeners actually feel (experience) pleasant emotions concurrent with sadness. This hypothesis was supported, which led us to question whether sadness in the context of art is truly an unpleasant emotion. While experiencing sadness may be unpleasant, it may also be somewhat pleasant when experienced in the context of art, for example, when listening to sad music. We consider musically evoked emotion vicarious, as we are not threatened when we experience it, in the way that we can be during the course of experiencing emotion in daily life. When we listen to sad music, we experience vicarious sadness. In this review, we propose two sides to sadness by suggesting vicarious emotion.
Altruistic and risk preference of individuals and groups

This study examines whether attitudes toward risk and altruism are affected by being in a group or being alone. Subjects in our experiment were requested only to show their faces to other members without any further communication, differing from previous studies. In experiments of both anonymous investments and donations, we found that subjects who made decisions in a group offered significantly lower amounts than individuals who made decisions alone, even controlling for individuals' risk and altruistic preferences. Our results indicate that people are more risk averse and self-interested when they are in a group.
Plant hybridization: the role of human disturbance and biological invasion

Anderson & Stebbins (1954, Evolution, 8, 378–388) posited that human activities promote species hybridizations by creating opportunities for hybridization and new habitats for hybrids to persist through disturbances (i.e. the ‘disturbance hypothesis’). While the first part of this hypothesis appears to be well supported, the second part has not been corroborated with empirical evidence, probably because of the lack of appropriate data. In this study, I (1) document the richness and distribution of hybrid plants in the United States; (2) examine the relationships between hybrids of different origins and between hybrid plants and native or exotic plants; and (3) examine possible mechanisms for these relationships and test the disturbance hypothesis.
Do labor market conditions affect the strictness of employment protection legislation

We provide a theoretical microfoundation for the negative relationship between firing costs and labor market tightness and its effects on labor market performance. The optimal level of firing costs is chosen by the employed worker i.e. the insider by maximizing her human capital. Performing a comparative statics exercise, we analyze the effects of labor market tightness on the optimal choice of firing costs. The results are clear cut and allow to obtain a decreasing firing costs function in the labor market tightness. Moreover, we show that this negative relationship can give rise to a labor market configuration characterized by multiple equilibria: prolonged average duration of unemployment will produce a labor market with low flows and high strictness of employment protection, and vice versa.
M5-brane in three-form flux and multiple M2-branes

We investigate the Bagger-Lambert-Gustavsson model associated with the Nambu-Poisson algebra as a theory describing a single M5-brane. We argue that the model is a gauge theory associated with the volume-preserving diffeomorphism in the three-dimensional internal space. We derive gauge transformations, actions, supersymmetry transformations, and equations of motions in terms of six-dimensional fields. The equations of motions are written in gauge-covariant form, and the equations for tensor fields have manifest self-dual structure. We demonstrate that the double dimensional reduction of the model reproduces the non-commutative U(1) gauge theory on a D4-brane with a small non-commutativity parameter. We establish relations between parameters in the BLG model and those in M-theory. This shows that the model describes an M5-brane in a large C-field background.
Nonlinear relaxation of zero-dimension-trapped microcavity polaritons

We study the emission properties of confined polariton states in shallow zero-dimensional traps under nonresonant excitation. We evidence several relaxation regimes. For slightly negative photon-exciton detuning, we observe a nonlinear increase of the emission intensity, characteristic of carrier-carrier scattering assisted relaxation under strong-coupling regime. This demonstrates the efficient relaxation toward a confined state of the system. For slightly positive detuning, we observe the transition from strong to weak coupling regime and then to single-mode lasing.
Overexpression of BUB1B contributes to progression of prostate cancer and predicts poor outcome in patients with prostate cancer

BUB1 mitotic checkpoint serine/threonine kinase B (BUB1B) is a member of the spindle assembly checkpoint protein family, which has been proven to be associated with many kinds of cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate whether BUB1B was correlated with progression and prognosis in patients with prostate cancer (PCa) and how BUB1B regulated the proliferation, migration, and invasion of PCa cell lines. Compared to benign prostate cells and tissues, both messenger RNA and protein expressions of BUB1B were statistically increased in PCa cell lines and tumor tissues. In vitro studies revealed that BUB1B overexpression enhanced the proliferation, migration, and invasion ability of PCa cell lines, whereas depletion of BUB1B did not affect the cell functions. Microarray analysis showed the positive staining of BUB1B was upregulated in the higher Gleason score group, which also correlated with advanced clinicopathological stage, higher serum prostate-specific antigen, metastasis, overall survival, and prostate-specific antigen failure. Furthermore, the survival analysis indicated that high expression of BUB1B was an independent predictor for shorter biochemical recurrence-free survival, which had no effect on overall survival. BUB1B plays an important role in tumor growth and progression, which can lead to its use as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of PCa.
Dietary habits, nutrient intake and biomarkers for folate, vitamin D, iodine and iron status among women of childbearing age in Sweden

Abstract Background: Dietary intake and nutritional status are important for pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. Dietary advice on folate, targeted to women of childbearing age, aims at preventing neural tube defects in the offspring. Aim: To describe food and nutrient intake and nutritional status among women of childbearing age in Sweden in relation to current nutrition recommendations. Methods: Dietary intake was assessed using a web-based four-day consecutive food record among adults aged 18–80 years—‘Riksmaten 2010–11 adults’. In a subsample, biomarkers of folate, vitamin D, iodine, and iron status were assessed. Results: Women of childbearing age had lower intakes of fruit and vegetables, fish, and whole grains, but higher intakes of soft drinks. Macronutrient composition was generally in line with the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, except for a lower intake of fibre, a higher intake of saturated fatty acids, and added sugars. Mean intakes of vitamin D, folate, and iron were below recommended intakes (RI). Median urinary iodine concentration (UIC) was 74 μg/L, 20% had insufficient vitamin D status, and 3% low folate concentrations with no age differences. Furthermore, 29% of women 18–44 years of age had depleted iron stores. Conclusions: The dietary pattern among women of childbearing age (18–44 years) was less favourable compared to older women. Intakes of some micronutrients were below RI, but no differences in vitamin D, folate, or iodine status between age groups were observed. However, improvements of folate and iodine status among women of childbearing age are warranted. This can be achieved by following dietary guidelines including use of folic acid-containing supplements.
Removing the 'gag' : Involving people with dementia in research as advisers and participants

People with dementia are often excluded from taking part in research because of perceived difficulties in consent, capacity and communication. We argue that involving people with dementia in research is important, and describe how we involved people with dementia as both advisers and participants in research about the use of life story work. Researchers worked in partnership with Innovations in Dementia, who supported a network of advisers with dementia. Focus groups were arranged to ensure meaningful contributions by people with dementia. It was difficult to use standardised quality-of-life measures, and we describe the challenges faced with capacity and consent, recruitment and selection, and data collection. We suggest there is a need for (a) new tools for measuring quality of life of people with dementia which do not require participants to respond in prescribed ways, and (b) ethics and consent processes which are appropriate for non-medical research and which facilitate the involvement of people with dementia.
Lateralized deficit of response inhibition in early-onset schizophrenia

Background. The ability to inhibit inappropriate or unwanted actions is a key element of executive control. The existence of executive function deficits in schizophrenia is consistent with frontal lobe theories of the disorder. Relatively few studies have examined response inhibition in schizophrenia, and none in adolescent patients with early-onset schizophrenia (EOS). Methods. Twenty-one adolescents with the onset of clinically impairing psychosis before 19 years of age and 16 matched controls performed a stop-signal task to assess response inhibition. The patients with EOS were categorized as paranoid (n=10) and undifferentiated subtypes (n=11). The undifferentiated group had higher levels of negative symptomatology. Stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and go-signal reaction time (Go-RT) were analysed with respect to hand of response. Results. The undifferentiated early-onset patients had significantly longer SSRTs, indicative of poor response inhibition, for the left hand compared to the paranoid early-onset patients and control participants. No differences existed for inhibitory control with the right hand. The three groups did not differ in Go-RT. Conclusions. Our results indicate a specific lateralized impairment of response inhibition in patients with undifferentiated, but not paranoid, EOS. These findings are consistent with reports of immature frontostriatal networks in EOS and implicate areas such as the pre-motor cortex and supplementary motor area (SMA) that are thought to play a role in both voluntary initiation and inhibition of movement.
A test of the Suyama–Yamaguchi inequality from weak lensing

We investigate the weak lensing signature of primordial non-Gaussianities of the local type by constraining the magnitude of the weak convergence bi- and trispectra expected for the EUCLID weak lensing survey. Starting from expressions for the weak convergence spectra, bispectra and trispectra, whose relative magnitudes we investigate as a function of scale, we compute their respective signal to noise ratios by relating the polyspectra's amplitude to their Gaussian covariance using a Monte-Carlo technique for carrying out the configuration space integrations. In computing the Fisher-matrix on the non-Gaussianity parameters f_nl, g_nl and tau_nl with a very similar technique, we can derive Bayesian evidences for a violation of the Suyama-Yamaguchi relation tau_nl>=(6 f_nl/5)^2 as a function of the true f_nl and tau_nl-values and show that the relation can be probed down to levels of f_nl~10^2 and tau_nl~10^5. In a related study, we derive analytical expressions for the probability density that the SY-relation is exactly fulfilled, as required by models in which any one field generates the perturbations. We conclude with an outlook on the levels of non-Gaussianity that can be probed with tomographic lensing surveys.
Increased permeability of the glomerular basement membrane to ferritin after removal of glycosaminoglycans (heparan sulfate) by enzyme digestion

Glomerular basement membranes (GBM's) were subjected to digestion in situ with glycosaminoglycan-degrading enzymes to assess the effect of removing glycosaminoglycans (GAG) on the permeability of the GBM to native ferritin (NF). Kidneys were digested by perfusion with enzyme solutions followed by perfusion with NF. In controls treated with buffer alone, NF was seen in high concentration in the capillary lumina, but the tracer did not penetrate to any extent beyond the lamina rara interna (LRI) of the GBM, and litte or no NF reached the urinary spaces. Findings in kidneys perfused with Streptomyces hyaluronidase (removes hyaluronic acid) and chondroitinase-ABC (removes hyaluronic acid, chondroitin 4- and 6-sulfates, and dermatan sulfate, but not heparan sulfate) were the same as in controls. In kidneys digested with heparinase (which removes most GAG including heparan sulfate), NF penetrated the GBM in large amounts and reached the urinary spaces. Increased numbers of tracer molecules were found in the lamina densa (LD) and lamina rara externa (LRE) of the GBM. In control kidneys perfused with cationized ferritin (CF), CF bound to heparan- sulfate rich sites demonstrated previously in the laminae rarae; however, no CF binding was seen in heparinase-digested GBM's, confirming that the sites had been removed by the enzyme treatment. The results demonstrated that removal of heparan sulfate (but not other GAG) leads to a dramatic increase in the permeability of the GBM to NF.
Lifestyle and Outcomes of Assisted Reproductive Techniques: A Narrative Review

Background: Studies reveal that lifestyles such as physical activity patterns, obesity, nutrition, and smoking, are factors that affect laboratory test results and pregnancy outcomes induced by assisted fertility techniques in infertile couples. The present study is a narrative review of studies in this area. Methods: In this study, researchers conducted their computer search in public databases Google Scholar general search engine, and then more specific: Science Direct, ProQuest, SID, Magiran, Irandoc, Pubmed, Scopus, cochrane library, and Psych info; Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) keywords: infertility (sterility, infertility), lifestyle (life behavior, lifestyle), Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART), antioxidant and infertility, social health, spiritual health, mental health, Alcohol and drug abuse, preventive factors, and instruments. , and selected relevant articles to the study subject from 2004 to 2013. Firstly, a list of 150 papers generated from the initial search. Then reviewers studied titles and abstracts. Secondly, 111 papers were included. Finally, quality assessment of full text studies was performed by two independent reviewers. Researchers reviewed summary of all articles sought, ultimately used data from 62 full articles to compile this review paper. Results: Review of literature led to arrangement of 9 general categories of ART results’ relationship with weight watch and diet, exercise and physical activity, psychological health, avoiding medications, alcohol and drugs, preventing diseases, environmental health, spiritual health, social health, and physical health. Conclusion: The following was obtained from review of studies: since lifestyle is among important, changeable, and influential factors in fertility, success of these methods can be greatly helped through assessment of lifestyle patterns of infertile couples, and design and implementation of healthy lifestyle counseling programs, before and during implementing assisted fertility techniques.
Determining Term Subjectivity and Term Orientation for Opinion Mining

Opinion mining is a recent subdiscipline of computational linguistics which is concerned not with the topic a document is about, but with the opinion it expresses. To aid the extraction of opinions from text, recent work has tackled the issue of determining the orientation of “subjective” terms contained in text, i.e. deciding whether a term that carries opinionated content has a positive or a negative connotation. This is believed to be of key importance for identifying the orientation of documents, i.e. determining whether a document expresses a positive or negative opinion about its subject matter. We contend that the plain determination of the orientation of terms is not a realistic problem, since it starts from the nonrealistic assumption that we already know whether a term is subjective or not; this would imply that a linguistic resource that marks terms as “subjective” or “objective” is available, which is usually not the case. In this paper we confront the task of deciding whether a given term has a positive connotation, or a negative connotation, or has no subjective connotation at all; this problem thus subsumes the problem of determining subjectivity and the problem of determining orientation. We tackle this problem by testing three different variants of a semi-supervised method previously proposed for orientation detection. Our results show that determining subjectivity and orientation is a much harder problem than determining orientation alone.
From Rhythm Patterns to Perceived Tempo

There are manyMIR applications for which we would like to be able to determine the perceived tempo of a song automatically. However, automatic tempo extraction itself is still an open problem. In general there are two tempo extraction methods, either based on the estimation of interonset intervals or based on self similarity computations. To predict a tempo the most significant time-lag or the most significant inter-onset-interval is used. We propose to use existing rhythm patterns and reformulate the tempo extraction problem in terms of a nearest neighbor classification problem. Our experiments, based on three different datasets, show that this novel approach performs at least comparably to state-of-the-art tempo extraction algorithms and could be useful to get a deeper insight into the relation between perceived tempo and rhythm patterns.
Exploring the net impact of internet business solution adoption on SME performance

This study explores the post-adoption effect of internet business solutions (IBS) on business value creation, as measured by firm revenues, direct and indirect costs, and investment satisfaction for a sample of 254 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the study tests how well the much-discussed Revolutionary and Evolutionary views of e-business strategy fit the data. The results of the study show that business value can be significantly enhanced by the adoption of internet business solutions. Furthermore, benefits are not mutually exclusive to either view – the surveyed organisations experienced post-IBS adoption benefits by pursuing both strategies concurrently.