Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuroradiology Can Predict the Development of Hand Function in Children With Unilateral Cerebral Palsy

Background. Much variation is found in the development of hand function in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (CP). Objective. To explore how anatomic brain abnormalities can be used to predict the development of hand function. Methods. A total of 32 children with unilateral CP (16 boys and 16 girls) were evaluated at least once a year by the Assisting Hand Assessment (AHA). The data collection covered an age range from 18 months to 8 years (mean time in study, 4 years and 6 months). Computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging of the brain were assessed for patterns of brain damage, including the location of gray and extent of white-matter damage. The children were divided into groups according to lesion characteristics, and a series of univariate models were analyzed with a nonlinear mixed-effects model. The rate and maximum limit of development were calculated. Results. The highest predictive power of better development of hand function was the absence of a concurrent lesion to the basal ganglia and thalamus, independent of the basic type of brain lesion. This model predicted both the rate of increasing ability and hand function at age 8 years. Hand function was also predicted by the basic pattern of damage and by the extent of white-matter damage. The presence of unilateral or bilateral damage had no predictive value. Conclusions. Neuroradiological findings can be used to make a crude prediction of the future development of the use of the affected hand in young children with unilateral CP.
Efficacy and Tolerability of Generic Mirtazapine (Mirtax) for Major Depressive Disorder: Multicenter, Open-label, Uncontrolled, Prospective Study

Objective Mirtax is a generic mirtazapine widely used since 2003. We conducted an open-label, uncontrolled 6-week study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Mirtax for major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods Ninety three MDD patients with the diagnosis of MDD and 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) score ≥14 were recruited. The HDRS, Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Clinical Global Impressions-Severity Scale (CGI-S) were administered at baseline, 1, 2, 4 and 6 weeks. Response (≥50% decrease in the HDRS or MADRS score), remission (absolute HDRS score ≤7 or MADRS score ≤10) and CGI-I score ≤2 were also calculated. Adverse event (AE) frequency and severity, weight, blood pressure, and pulse rate were checked to assess safety. Results The starting dosage was 11.5±6.4 mg/day, and the maintenance dosage was 23.1±9.4 mg/day. During 6 weeks, HDRS, MADRS and CGI-S scores decreased from 25.1±5.6 to 11.9±8.6 (mean change −13.1±8.3, p<0.001), from 30.2±6.3 to 13.73±10.40 (mean change −16.5±9.8, p<0.001), and from 5.0±0.8 to 2.5±1.3 (mean change −2.5±1.3, p<0.001), respectively. The percentages of responders, remitters by HDRS and patients with a CGI-I score ≤2 were 64.6%, 35.4% and 52.7%, respectively. Significant decreases in HDRS, MADRS and CGI-S scores were confirmed at week 1. The total rate of AEs was 32.3%; the most frequently reported AEs were sedation (4.3%) and constipation (4.3%). Weight was increased from 58.8±10.6 to 60.3±9.3 kg (mean change 0.7±1.7 kg, p=0.004). Conclusion This study, as the first clinical trial of generic mirtazapine, demonstrated the efficacy and tolerability of Mirtax for MDD using a single treatment design.
A cross-cultural study of users' craftsmanship perceptions in vehicle interior design

This paper investigates the user-perception of vehicle interior craftsmanship. A survey, involving subjects of two different nationalities (American and French), was conducted on a set of vehicles. Several tasks were asked of the subjects in order to study differences in craftsmanship perception, in particular, relative to the nationality of the subject. This paper proposes an interesting illustration of the use of social science techniques to investigate differences in the perception of products. Several analytic techniques such as Multidimensional Scaling (MDS), cluster analysis, analysis of variance, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and preference mapping are presented to scientifically study user-perceptions.
Controversies in using urine samples for Prostate Cancer detection: PSA and PCA3 expression analysis.

PURPOSE Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignancies in the world. Although PSA utilization as a serum marker has improved prostate cancer detection it still presents some limitations, mainly regarding its specificity. The expression of this marker, along with the detection of PCA3 mRNA in urine samples, has been suggested as a new approach for PCa detection. The goal of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of the urinary detection of PCA3 mRNA and PSA mRNA without performing the somewhat embarrassing prostate massage. It was also intended to optimize and implement a methodological protocol for this kind of sampling. MATERIALS AND METHODS Urine samples from 57 patients with suspected prostate disease were collected, without undergoing prostate massage. Increased serum PSA levels were confirmed by medical records review. RNA was extracted by different methods and a preamplification step was included in order to improve gene detection by Real-Time PCR. RESULTS An increase in RNA concentration with the use of TriPure Isolation Reagent. Despite this optimization, only 15.8% of the cases showed expression of PSA mRNA and only 3.8% of prostate cancer patients presented detectable levels of PCA3 mRNA. The use of a preamplification step revealed no improvement in the results obtained. CONCLUSION This work confirms that prostate massage is important before urine collection for gene expression analysis. Since PSA and PCA3 are prostate specific, it is necessary to promote the passage of cells from prostate to urinary tract, in order to detect these genetic markers in urine samples.
Hydrogen Sulfide Alleviates Postharvest Senescence of Grape by Modulating the Antioxidant Defenses

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has been identified as an important gaseous signal in plants. Here, we investigated the mechanism of H2S in alleviating postharvest senescence and rotting of Kyoho grape. Exogenous application of H2S released from 1.0 mM NaHS remarkably decreased the rotting and threshing rate of grape berries. H2S application also prevented the weight loss in grape clusters and inhibited the decreases in firmness, soluble solids, and titratable acidity in grape pulp during postharvest storage. The data of chlorophyll and carotenoid content suggested the role of H2S in preventing chlorophyll breakdown and carotenoid accumulation in both grape rachis and pulp. In comparison to water control, exogenous H2S application maintained significantly higher levels of ascorbic acid and flavonoid and total phenolics and reducing sugar and soluble protein in grape pulp. Meanwhile, H2S significantly reduced the accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and superoxide anion (O2 ∙−) in grape pulp. Further investigations showed that H2S enhanced the activities of antioxidant enzymes ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and catalase (CAT) and decreased those of lipoxygenase (LOX) in both grape peels and pulp. In all, we provided strong evidence that H2S effectively alleviated postharvest senescence and rotting of Kyoho grape by modulating antioxidant enzymes and attenuating lipid peroxidation.
Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance: The Politics of Nature from Place to Planet

Of the issues wrestled with in social science scholarship on the environment over the past two decades, the following three are among the most important. First, at what level (local, national, international) is environmentalism most effective? Second, what level and source ofgovernance most effectively addresses environmental issues, and what spe cific role should official government bodies play? Third, how does one analyze problems of governance within a framework that treats interpretations ofnature, the environ ment, or environmental problems as socially constructed entities? That is, how do we develop general principles of governance over the environment when the very object of governance is extensively shaped by cultural and social forces that can be highly contextual, linked to specific inter ests, and subject to flexible interpretations? These three issues form central themes in the book. Lipschutz's book is an extensive to layout the meaning of global civil society and its role in environmental governance. It draws upon diverse literatures and weaves· them together into a rather sophisticated and organized argument. The is worth a read for anyone interested in environmental governance. Also, it might be useful in graduate courses on environmental policy or, pos international relations.
Imaging Extracellular Waves of Glutamate during Calcium Signaling in Cultured Astrocytes

A growing body of evidence proposes that glial cells have the potential to play a role as modulators of neuronal activity and synaptic transmission by releasing the neurotransmitter glutamate (Araque et al., 1999). We explore the spatial nature of glutamate release from astrocytes with an enzyme-linked assay system and CCD imaging technology. In the presence of glutamate,l-glutamic dehydrogenase (GDH) reduces NAD+ to NADH, a product that fluoresces when excited with UV light. Theoretically, provided that GDH and NAD+ are present in the bathing saline, the release of glutamate from stimulated astrocytes can be optically detected by monitoring the accumulation of NADH. Indeed, stimuli that induce a wave of elevated calcium among astrocytes produced a corresponding spread of extracellular NADH fluorescence. Treatment of cultures either with thapsigargin, to deplete internal calcium stores, or with the membrane-permeant calcium chelator BAPTA AM significantly decreased the accumulation of NADH, demonstrating that this fluorometric assay effectively monitors calcium-dependent glutamate release. With a temporal resolution of 500 msec and spatial resolution of ∼20 μm, discrete regions of glutamate release were not reliably resolved. The wave of glutamate release that underlies the NADH fluorescence propagated at an average speed of ∼26 μm/sec, correlating with the rate of calcium wave progression (10–30 μm/sec), and caused a localized accumulation of glutamate in the range of 1–100 μm. Further analysis of the fluorescence accumulation clearly demonstrated that glutamate is released in a regenerative manner, with subsequent cells that are involved in the calcium wave releasing additional glutamate.
On the use of wireless networks at low level of factory automation systems

Wireless communication systems are rapidly becoming a viable solution for employment at the lowest level of factory automation systems, usually referred to as either "device" or "field" level, where the requested performance may be rather critical in terms of both transmission time and reliability. In this paper, we deal with the use of wireless networks at the device level. Specifically, after an analysis of the communication requirements, we introduce a general profile of a wireless fieldbus. Both the physical and data link layers are taken directly from existing wireless local area networks and wireless personal area networks standards, whereas the application layer is derived from the most popular wired fieldbuses. We discuss implementation issues related to two models of application layer protocols and present performance results obtained through numerical simulations. We also address some important aspects related to data security and power consumption.
DEMAND ELASTICITIES: A COMMENT

This note considers the possibility of 'non-symmetric' or 'irreversible' price effects or 'hysteresis' in the transport demand relationship. The hysteresis hypothesis proposes that consumers, instead of responding similarly to rising and falling prices as is traditionally assumed, respond in a more complex manner. This response depends on the direction and size of previous price changes, and indeed on previous price history. Recent attempts to test the hypothesis include two studies of specific interest to the transport sector, concerned with estimates of the long-run price elasticity of fuel consumption. The results of these studies are presented in a table. Although the models used there may be oversimplified, they show that the response to prices is far more complex than would be predicted by traditional demand models. The author concludes that there will be a better basis for understanding the past and anticipating the future, by recognising that demand relationships and elasticities are the result of historical processes.
Galactose toxicity in the rat as a model for premature ovarian failure: an experimental approach readdressed.

BACKGROUND The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying premature ovarian failure (POF) are largely unknown. Our objective was to develop a working animal model to explore the pathogenesis of POF. Since galactosaemic women eventually develop POF, we evaluated the potential of experimental galactose toxicity as the proposed model. METHODS Pregnant rats were fed pellets supplemented with or without 35% galactose from day 3 of conception continuing through weaning of the litters. Female offspring were evaluated for serum levels of galactose and galactose-1-phosphate, growth rate, onset of puberty, reproductive cyclicity, ovarian complement of follicles, hypothalamo-pituitary-ovarian function and follicular response to gonadotrophins. RESULTS Galactose toxicity delayed the onset of puberty and developed a state of hypergonadotrophic hypoestrogenism. The characteristic low FSH levels at weaning followed by pubertal spurts of gonadotrophins and estradiol (E(2)) secretion of the controls was replaced by a sustained high level of FSH and a low level of E(2) under galactose toxicity. The ovary developed with apparently normal or deficient complement of follicles. Ovarian response to exogenous gonadotrophin stimulation was blunted, but the response improved significantly when the stimulation was preceded by pituitary desensitization. CONCLUSION Experimental galactose toxicity may serve as a model for exploring some of the basic tenets of POF.
An Approach for Secure Role Assignment

One of the key characteristics of pervasive computing applications is their ability to adapt to their environment. One possible approach to simplify the development of such adaptive applications is to use middleware to automate adaptation decisions. However, in many application scenarios, adaptation decisions can have critical security implications. Thus, when designing middleware to support adaptation it is necessary to take security constraints into account. In previous work, we presented generic role assignment as a middleware abstraction to support adaptation. In contrast to other approaches, role assignment enables adaptation within a single and across multiple smart environments in a flexible, application-overarching manner. In this paper, we extend the concept to support security constraints. Furthermore, we describe the necessary modifications to our existing role assignment system. Finally, we evaluate our approach showing resulting benefits and limitations. In comparison with existing approaches, the proposed approach is more flexible and does not introduce a single point of trust.
Bargaining over output and effort - a dynamic model of sponsor-bureau

This thesis included five essays studying the performance of local governments in Norway. Four of the essays address variation in resource allocation and efficiency between the local governments, the fifth analyses variation in service level. The thesis has mainly an empirical orientation. One essay, presented in Chapter 4, provides a theoretical contribution to the study of efficiency variation in public sector service production. The empirical analyses concentrate on two spending components local government administration and long-term care. Chapter 2 and 3 study variation in the size of local government administration. Administration is a necessary input in both service provision and in the political decision-making process, and administrative spending competes with the welfare services for resources. The size of the administrative component determines the amount of resources available for the production of welfare services. Cost efficiency and service level within long-term care are the topics of Chapter 5 and 6 respectively. Long-tem care for elderly and disabled persons is, besides primary education, the major expenditure component of the municipalities.
“Slow” and Fast Rotators among Hypervelocity Stars

We measure the projected rotational velocities of the late B-type hypervelocity stars HVS 7 and HVS 8 from high-resolution spectroscopy to be 60 ± 17 km s−1 and 260 ± 70 km s−1. The “slow” rotation of HVS 7 is in principle consistent with having originated in a binary system, assuming a high inclination angle of the stellar rotation axis. However, the fast rotation of HVS 8 is more typical of single B-type stars. HVS 8 could have therefore been ejected by a mechanism other than that proposed by Hills. We also estimate the effective temperatures and surface gravities for HVS 7 and HVS 8 and obtain an additional measurement of their radial velocities. We find evidence in support of a blue horizontal branch nature for HVS 7 and a main-sequence nature for HVS 8.
Chinese Irony Corpus Construction and Ironic Structure Analysis

Non-literal expression recognition is a challenging task in natural language processing. An ironic expression implies the opposite of the literal meaning, causing problems in opinion mining and sentiment analysis. In this paper, ironic messages are collected from microblogs to form an irony corpus based on the use of emoticons, linguistic forms, and sentiment polarity. Five linguistic patterns are mined by using the proposed bootstrapping approach. We also analyze the linguistic structure and elements used to convey irony. Based on our observations, ironic words/phrases and contextual information are the necessary elements in irony, while the contextual information can be hidden in linguistic forms. A rhetorical element, which is optional in irony, can also be used to help strengthen the effects and understandability of an ironic expression. The ironic elements in each instance of our irony corpus are labelled based on this structure. This corpus can be used to study the usage of ironic expressions and the identification of ironic elements, and thus improve the performance of irony recognition.
A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation.

When 2 targets are presented among distractors in rapid serial visual presentation, correct identification of the 1st target results in a deficit for a 2nd target appearing within 200-500 ms. This attentional blink (AB; J.E. Raymond, K.L. Shapiro, & K.M. Arnell, 1992) was examined for categorically defined targets (letters among nonletters) in 7 experiments. AB was obtained for the 2nd letter target among digit distractors (Experiment 1) and also for a 3rd target (Experiment 2). Results of Experiments 3-5 confirmed that AB is triggered by local interference from immediate posttarget stimulation (Raymond et al., 1992) and showed that AB is modulated by the discriminability between the 1st target and the immediately following distractor. Experiments 5-7 further examined the effects of both local interference and global discriminability. A 2-stage model is proposed to account for the AB results.
Rapid Growth in the CIS: Is It Sustainable?

This paper analyses some of the main factors behind the recent rapid growth in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the prospects for its continuation. Two approaches are used. The first approach uses growth accounting exercises to estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of all transition economies and compare them with other fast-growing economies. The second approach uses panel regression to estimate the determinants of per capita and TFP growth for 90 countries. Both short-run and long run coefficients are estimated using fixed effects, random effects, and two stage least squares (2SLS) econometric techniques. The central conclusion of the study is that the rapid growth of the CIS countries over the past six years has been driven primarily by improvement in labour productivity, increases in capacity utilization, recovery of previously lost output, favourable commodity prices, and large increases in remittances. This strong growth may continue over the next few years. Why? First, the still relatively low real GDP base and low average per capita means that there is more catch-up potential. Second, the recent trend of faster capital accumulation is expected to play a more important role in the medium-term growth. Third, education levels are relatively much higher than in other regions. There is a downside risk, however, arising from the high concentration of exports in a few commodities. The undiversified export structure and the terms-of-trade gains may expose the CIS countries to considerable external risks. The challenge, therefore, will be to improve the investment climate in the non-primary sectors. Improving the investment climate will require further progress in implementing structural reform and strengthening institutional development. The undiversified export structure and the terms-of-trade gains may expose the CIS countries to considerable external risks. As time passes, the share of growth derived from improved resource allocation may diminish gradually and long-term rapid growth will be increasingly dependent on physical and human capital accumulation.
Prices versus Quantities for Common Pool Resources

In Weitzman (1974) the choice between price and quantity regulation under imperfect information is analysed. It is shown that the choice between the two regulatory instruments depends on the sign of the sum of the curvatures of the cost and benefit functions. If the marginal benefit function is steep and the marginal cost function is flat quantity regulation is preferred over price regulation, while price regulation is preferred over quantity regulation if the marginal benefit function is flat and the marginal cost function is steep. The results in Weitzman (1974) are sometimes quoted in studies of fisheries management. In this paper an analysis of conditions for generalising the Weitzman result to fisheries economics is presented. It is shown that the result can be generalised if the cost function is additively separable in stock size and catches. This leads to the conclusion that the results hold for a schooling fishery. However, for a search fishery the condition that the cost function must be additively separable is seldom fulfilled and quotation of the classical article is therefore not reasonable. A further result is that for a schooling fishery, taxes are likely to be preferred over individual transferable quotas in the case where there is imperfect information about costs. The reason is that the marginal cost function is likely to be steeper than the demand function. In the light of this result, the fact that individual quotas regulate over 55 fisheries while taxes regulate none is surprising.
TACI and BAFF-R mediate isotype switching in B cells

The tumor necrosis factor family members BAFF and APRIL induce Ig isotype switching in human B cells. We analyzed the ability of BAFF and APRIL to induce isotype switching in murine B cells to IgG1, IgA, and IgE. APRIL and BAFF each engage two receptors, transmembrane activator and calcium-modulator and cytophilin ligand interactor (TACI) and B cell maturation antigen (BCMA), on B cells. In addition, BAFF engages a third receptor on B cells, BAFF-R. To determine the role of these receptors in isotype switching, we examined B cells from mice deficient in TACI, BCMA, and BAFF-R. The results obtained indicate that both TACI and BAFF-R are able to transduce signals that result in isotype switching.