Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Less-structured time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning

Executive functions (EFs) in childhood predict important life outcomes. Thus, there is great interest in attempts to improve EFs early in life. Many interventions are led by trained adults, including structured training activities in the lab, and less-structured activities implemented in schools. Such programs have yielded gains in children's externally-driven executive functioning, where they are instructed on what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. However, it is less clear how children's experiences relate to their development of self-directed executive functioning, where they must determine on their own what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. We hypothesized that time spent in less-structured activities would give children opportunities to practice self-directed executive functioning, and lead to benefits. To investigate this possibility, we collected information from parents about their 6–7 year-old children's daily, annual, and typical schedules. We categorized children's activities as “structured” or “less-structured” based on categorization schemes from prior studies on child leisure time use. We assessed children's self-directed executive functioning using a well-established verbal fluency task, in which children generate members of a category and can decide on their own when to switch from one subcategory to another. The more time that children spent in less-structured activities, the better their self-directed executive functioning. The opposite was true of structured activities, which predicted poorer self-directed executive functioning. These relationships were robust (holding across increasingly strict classifications of structured and less-structured time) and specific (time use did not predict externally-driven executive functioning). We discuss implications, caveats, and ways in which potential interpretations can be distinguished in future work, to advance an understanding of this fundamental aspect of growing up.
Academic Challenges for Children with ADHD: Policy Implications for School-Based Practice

While ADHD is primarily characterized by deficits in attention or inhibition, several other impairments have been found to be associated with ADHD. Risks including cognitive impairments and deficits in academic achievement have been well documented in comparison to controls. However, only a few studies have characterized ADHD using the most current DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria and examined subtype differences accordingly. This study examined elementary students diagnosed with ADHD-Combined Type (ADHD-C), ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Type (ADHD-IN), other clinicallyreferred children without ADHD (NON-ADHD REF), and non-referred control children (CONTROL). These groups of children were compared based on intellectual functioning as measured by performance on the WISC-IV, academic achievement as measured by performance on WIAT-II composites, and related academic enablers as measured by the ACES Academic Enablers scales. Results replicated findings in other studies indicating that children with ADHD generally display lower levels of overall cognitive functioning and academic achievement in comparison to normally-developing peers. The study further indicated that children with ADHD may exhibit weaker cognitive functioning specific to verbal and working memory skills, lower academic achievement in the areas of mathematics and written language, and weaker study skills as compared to other children with presenting behavioral or learning problems. Additionally, children with the ADHD-C subtype were found to exhibit lower reading abilities and lower levels of interpersonal skills and motivation in comparison to this group. Subtype differences between the ADHD groups were not found, except on a measure of interpersonal skills where the ADHD-C group scored significantly lower than the ADHD-IN group. In addition to accommodations and behavior modification programs implemented to promote on-task behaviors in the classroom, implications for school-based practice to address academic skill deficits for students with ADHD are discussed along with recommendations for future research.
Skills In Person Centred Counselling & Psychotherapy

The Theoretical Framework Empathy Empathic Understanding Congruence Congruence in Practice Unconditional Positive Regard Psychological Contact - Basic and Cognitive Contact Psychological Contact - Emotional and Subtle Contact The Therapeutic Process Beginnings and Endings Professional Issues Managing the Work in an Organization Ethical Practice Debates and Developments in Practice
PTEN/MMAC1 mutations correlate inversely with an altered p53 tumor suppressor gene in gynecologic tumors.

OBJECTIVE This study was conducted to evaluate the different mutations of p53 and compare p53 expression in gynecologic tumors in African American and Chinese women. METHOD Tumor samples were collected from Atlanta, Ga, hospitals and National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan. Samples were examined for different mutations using electrophoretic variants after single-stranded conformational analysis (SSCA). Cell lines obtained from the American Type Culture Collection were also used. RESULTS Mutations were identified in the gene for the tumor protein p53 at codons 156, 157, 176, 183, 246, and 248 at sites predicted to disrupt DNA binding. Collectively, an altered p53 status was found in about 28% of all tumors with similar frequencies observed between the African American and Chinese women. African American or Chinese women did not have common polymorphism. CONCLUSION This study showed that in mutations in the PTEN/MMAC1 gene correlated inversely with an altered p53 status. Similar findings were found in 2 tumor cell lines examined. As p53 changes are associated with late stage cancers, we favor the possibility that in certain tumor subtypes, PTEN/MMAC1 genes alteration may be useful clinically in the evaluation of the tumor.
Sequelae of acute myocardial infarction regarding cardiac structure and function and their prognostic significance as assessed by magnetic resonance imaging.

AIMS Because of its high spatial resolution and tissue contrast, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to assess cardiac structure and function in a large population of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred and ten patients were studied by MRI 6.1 +/- 2.2 days after AMI. Infarct size (IS), persistent microvascular obstruction (PMO), left and right ventricular (LV/RV) volumes, and functions were measured. The same MRI measurements were repeated in 89 patients after a mean follow-up period of 225 +/- 92 days. IS was 11.9 +/- 7.3% of total LV muscle mass. PMO was detected in 51/110 (46.4%) patients and comprised 15.6 +/- 8.5% of IS and 2.8 +/- 2.3% of LV muscle mass. Papillary muscle infarct was seen in 26%, RV infarction in 16%, pericarditis in 40%, and pericardial effusion in 66% of the patients. During follow-up, there were 16 major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including seven deaths. IS, PMO, and amount of transmural infarction were predictive for LV adverse remodelling defined as > 20% increase in LV end-diastolic volume. Multivariable analysis revealed LV end-diastolic volume, LV ejection fraction, and PMO as significant predictors for the occurrence of MACE. CONCLUSION MRI is a highly sensitive and reliable tool to detect morphologic and functional sequelae of AMI providing baseline MRI parameters with relevant predictive power for LV adverse remodelling and occurrence of MACE.
Primary stenting versus balloon angioplasty in occluded coronary arteries: the Total Occlusion Study of Canada (TOSCA).

BACKGROUND Balloon angioplasty (PTCA) of occluded coronary arteries is limited by high rates of restenosis and reocclusion. Although stenting improves results in anatomically simple occlusions, its effect on patency and clinical outcome in a broadly selected population with occluded coronary arteries is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS Eighteen centers randomized 410 patients with nonacute native coronary occlusions to PTCA or primary stenting with the heparin-coated Palmaz-Schatz stent. The primary end point, failure of sustained patency, was determined at 6-month angiography. Repeat target-vessel revascularization, adverse cardiovascular events, and angiographic restenosis (>50% diameter stenosis) constituted secondary end points. Sixty percent of patients had occlusions of >6 weeks' duration, baseline flow was TIMI grade 0 in 64%, and median treated segment length was 30.5 mm. With 95.6% angiographic follow-up, primary stenting resulted in a 44% reduction in failed patency (10.9% versus 19.5%, P=0.024) and a 45% reduction in clinically driven target-vessel revascularization at 6 months (15.4% versus 8.4%, P=0.03). The incidence of adverse cardiovascular events was similar for both strategies (PTCA, 23.6%; stent, 23.3%; P=NS). Stenting resulted in a larger mean 6-month minimum lumen dimension (1.48 versus 1.23 mm, P<0.01) and a reduced binary restenosis rate (55% versus 70%, P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Primary stenting of broadly selected nonacute coronary occlusions is superior to PTCA alone, improving late patency and reducing restenosis and target-vessel revascularization.
Energy-Aware Algorithms for IP Over WDM Optical Networks

To date, the main limitation to the development of telecom networks mainly depended on two factors, namely the cost of the network equipment and transmission. However, nowadays, the enormous spread and growth of the Internet has resulted in a significant increase in the energy consumption of the network equipment. Particularly, the rise in Internet traffic has led to both the increase of the amount of required equipment and the augmentation of energy consumption of such network devices. Consequently, CapEx and OpEx of modern telecommunication networks render the market penetration of such deployment laborious. This surge in power consumption may ultimately lead to an impediment to this continued growth. Since climate change and environmental protection are also of rising concern, many research efforts are being made to raise awareness of environmental issues and reduce the energy footprint of telecommunication networks. In this context, this study targets the reduction of the energy consumption of an IP over WDM backbone network. Already known lightpath bypass and traffic grooming strategies have been used. Although previously proposed schemes based on lightpath bypass approaches and traffic grooming capabilities have been implemented and consequently are able to reduce the overall power consumption of an optical core network, they do not bear in mind, first, the number of the established lightpaths in the virtual topology and second, the exploitation of the residual capacity of the existing lightpaths. This study overcomes the above drawbacks by introducing three novel heuristic schemes which manage to significantly lower the number of the established lightpaths in the virtual topology and take advantage of the remaining capacity of the optical paths by exploiting the lightpaths' resources in a more efficient way. These power-aware heuristics will focus on energy efficiency issues related to the planning and the operation phase of a WDM optical network. Extensive simulation results indicate a promising performance improvement in terms of power consumption when these proposed heuristics are compared to similar, already developed, techniques for energy saving.
A Comparison of Dag-Scheduling Strategies for Internet-Based Computing

A fundamental challenge in Internet computing (IC) is to efficiently schedule computations having complex inter job dependencies, given the unpredictability of remote machines, in availability and time of access. The recent IC scheduling theory focuses on these sources of unpredictability by crafting schedules that maximize the number of executable jobs at every point in time. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the key question: does IC scheduling yield significant positive benefits for real IC? To this end, we develop a realistic computation model to match jobs to client machines and conduct extensive simulations to compare IC-optimal schedules against popular, intuitively compelling heuristics. Our results suggest that for a large range of computation-dags, client availability patterns, and two quite different performance metrics, IC-optimal schedules significantly outperform schedules produced by popular heuristics, by as much as 10-20%.
A convergence scheme for over-erased flash EEPROM's using substrate-bias-enhanced hot electron injection

A novel convergence scheme using substrate-bias-enhanced hot electron injection is proposed to tighten the cell threshold voltage distribution after erasure for stacked gate flash EEPROM's. By lowering the drain voltage and increasing the magnitude of the negative substrate bias voltage, the substrate current is reduced but the hot electron gate current is enhanced significantly, and the convergence time is shown to be more than a hundred times shorter than the previous scheme. With the convergence operation performed near the ON-OFF transition region of the cells, the total drain current for all the converged cells is reduced and low power consumption is achieved. <<ETX>>
Fast Randomized Kernel Ridge Regression with Statistical Guarantees

One approach to improving the running time of kernel-based methods is to build a small sketch of the kernel matrix and use it in lieu of the full matrix in the machine learning task of interest. Here, we describe a version of this approach that comes with running time guarantees as well as improved guarantees on its statistical performance. By extending the notion of statistical leverage scores to the setting of kernel ridge regression, we are able to identify a sampling distribution that reduces the size of the sketch (i.e., the required number of columns to be sampled) to the effective dimensionality of the problem. This latter quantity is often much smaller than previous bounds that depend on the maximal degrees of freedom. We give an empirical evidence supporting this fact. Our second contribution is to present a fast algorithm to quickly compute coarse approximations to these scores in time linear in the number of samples. More precisely, the running time of the algorithm is O(np2) with p only depending on the trace of the kernel matrix and the regularization parameter. This is obtained via a variant of squared length sampling that we adapt to the kernel setting. Lastly, we discuss how this new notion of the leverage of a data point captures a fine notion of the difficulty of the learning problem.
Global Gene Expression Patterns of Nostoc punctiforme in Steady-State Dinitrogen-Grown Heterocyst-Containing Cultures and at Single Time Points during the Differentiation of Akinetes and Hormogonia

ABSTRACT The vegetative cells of the filamentous cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme can differentiate into three mutually exclusive cell types: nitrogen-fixing heterocysts, spore-like akinetes, and motile hormogomium filaments. A DNA microarray consisting of 6,893 N. punctiforme genes was used to identify the global transcription patterns at single time points in the three developmental states, compared to those in ammonium-grown time zero cultures. Analysis of ammonium-grown cultures yielded a transcriptome of 2,935 genes, which is nearly twice the size of a soluble proteome. The NH4+-grown transcriptome was enriched in genes encoding core metabolic functions. A steady-state N2-grown (heterocyst-containing) culture showed differential transcription of 495 genes, 373 of which were up-regulated. The majority of the up-regulated genes were predicted from studies of heterocyst differentiation and N2 fixation; other genes are candidates for more detailed genetic analysis. Three days into the developmental process, akinetes showed a similar number of differentially expressed genes (497 genes), which were equally up- and down-regulated. The down-regulated genes were enriched in core metabolic functions, consistent with entry into a nongrowth state. There were relatively few adaptive genes up-regulated in 3-day akinetes, and there was little overlap with putative heterocyst developmental genes. There were 1,827 differentially transcribed genes in 24-h hormogonia, which was nearly fivefold greater than the number in akinete-forming or N2-fixing cultures. The majority of the up-regulated adaptive genes were genes encoding proteins for signal transduction and transcriptional regulation, which is characteristic of a motile filament that is poised to sense and respond to the environment. The greatest fraction of the 883 down-regulated genes was involved in core metabolism, also consistent with entry into a nongrowth state. The differentiation of heterocysts (steady state, N2 grown), akinetes, and hormogonia appears to involve the up-regulation of genes distinct for each state.
Have Winter Spacing Patterns of Harlequin Ducks Been Partially Shaped by Sexual Selection?

Abstract Sexual selection can operate throughout the annual cycle and likely shapes the winter plumage and courtship displays of many northern waterfowl that choose mates during winter. Less conspicuous effects of sexual selection are likely and in this study I asked whether winter distribution patterns and grouping behavior of Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) are partially shaped by sexual selection. Harlequin Ducks are typically dispersed in small groups and observed grouping behavior supported the hypothesis that unpaired adult and immature birds will show sexually-selected changes in their spacing to facilitate courtship and mate sampling. Unpaired birds occurred in larger groups than paired birds during October-February, and group-related differences in the sex ratio and in the proportion of females that were unpaired indicated that unpaired birds were aggregating specifically for courtship. Behavior similar to lekking was observed at one site. Males gathered at this site at daybreak, unpaired females visited the site each apparently to attract a group of courting males, and these courting groups left the site without feeding. When herring spawn was available in March, unpaired birds were more likely to move to exploit it and gained both direct nutritional benefits as well as indirect benefits related to changes in time budgets and spacing behavior that facilitated courtship and mate sampling. Overall, results suggest that sexually-selected behaviors that affect the process of mate choice and the timing of pairing are important to consider if we are trying to explain winter spacing patterns of waterfowl.
A former amino terminal signal sequence engineered to an internal location directs translocation of both flanking protein domains

To determine whether a functional amino terminal signal sequence can be active at an internal position, a hybrid gene was constructed in which the entire coding region of bovine preprolactin cDNA was inserted into chimpanzee alpha-globin cDNA 109 codons downstream from the initiation codon of globin. When RNA synthesized in vitro from this plasmid (pSPGP1) was translated in the rabbit reticulocyte cell-free system, a 32-kD protein was produced that was both prolactin and globin immunoreactive. When microsomal membranes were present during translation (but not when added posttranslationally), a 26-kD and a 14- kD product were also observed. By immunoreactivity and electrophoretic mobility, the 26-kD protein was identical to mature prolactin, and the 14-kD protein appeared to be the globin domain with the prolactin signal sequence attached at its carboxy terminus. From (a) posttranslational proteolysis in the presence and absence of detergent, (b) sedimentation of vesicles in the presence and absence of sodium carbonate pH 11.5, and (c) N-linked glycosylation of the globin- immunoreactive fragment after insertion of an Asn-X-Ser N-linked glycosylation site into the globin coding region of pSPGP1, it appears that all of the 26-kD and some of the 14-kD products, but none of the 32-kD precursor, have been translocated to the lumen of the membrane vesicles. Thus, when engineered to an internal position, the prolactin signal sequence is able to translocate both flanking protein domains. These data have implications for the understanding of translocation of proteins across the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum.
Median regression for longitudinal data

We review and compare three estimators of median regression in linear models with longitudinal data. The estimators are constructed based on well‐known ideas of weighting, decorrelating, and the working assumption of independence. Both asymptotic efficiency calculations and finite‐sample Monte Carlo studies are used to assess the performance of these estimators. We find that their relative performances depend on the nature of covariates. The estimator under the working assumption of independence is computationally simple and yet has good relative performance when the covariates are invariant over time or when the within‐subject correlations are small. Its relative performance in finite samples is also found to be more favourable than suggested by the asymptotic comparisons. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Radical prostatectomy or watchful waiting in early prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND Radical prostatectomy reduces mortality among men with localized prostate cancer; however, important questions regarding long-term benefit remain. METHODS Between 1989 and 1999, we randomly assigned 695 men with early prostate cancer to watchful waiting or radical prostatectomy and followed them through the end of 2012. The primary end points in the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group Study Number 4 (SPCG-4) were death from any cause, death from prostate cancer, and the risk of metastases. Secondary end points included the initiation of androgen-deprivation therapy. RESULTS During 23.2 years of follow-up, 200 of 347 men in the surgery group and 247 of the 348 men in the watchful-waiting group died. Of the deaths, 63 in the surgery group and 99 in the watchful-waiting group were due to prostate cancer; the relative risk was 0.56 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.41 to 0.77; P=0.001), and the absolute difference was 11.0 percentage points (95% CI, 4.5 to 17.5). The number needed to treat to prevent one death was 8. One man died after surgery in the radical-prostatectomy group. Androgen-deprivation therapy was used in fewer patients who underwent prostatectomy (a difference of 25.0 percentage points; 95% CI, 17.7 to 32.3). The benefit of surgery with respect to death from prostate cancer was largest in men younger than 65 years of age (relative risk, 0.45) and in those with intermediate-risk prostate cancer (relative risk, 0.38). However, radical prostatectomy was associated with a reduced risk of metastases among older men (relative risk, 0.68; P=0.04). CONCLUSIONS Extended follow-up confirmed a substantial reduction in mortality after radical prostatectomy; the number needed to treat to prevent one death continued to decrease when the treatment was modified according to age at diagnosis and tumor risk. A large proportion of long-term survivors in the watchful-waiting group have not required any palliative treatment. (Funded by the Swedish Cancer Society and others.).
Do Cyanobacterial Lipids Contain Fatty Acids Longer Than 18 Carbon Atoms?

Fatty acids of twelve species of cyanobacteria grown under different photoautotrophic conditions were studied and their composition was compared with literature data of many other species. We have come to the conclusion that the lipids of cyanobacteria do not contain fatty acids with a chain longer than 18 carbon atoms. In our opinion, omission of an analytical procedure, i.e. purification of fatty acid methyl esters before gas chromatography, leads to incorrect interpretation of the results. Absence or presence of fatty acids was suggested as a useful taxonomic marker and a proper diagnostic indicator in the commercial application of cyanobacterial biomass.