Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of education and neuropsychological test performance

Neuropsychologists are becoming increasingly aware that there is a complex interplay of cognitive, personality, and socio-cultural factors that affect an individual's performance on neuropsychological tests. The current study investigated the relationship between quality of education and learners' performance on neuropsychological tests of executive function. The sample included 40 high school learners : Group A comprised 20 learners with a high quality of education and Group B comprised 20 learners with a low quality of education. Four tests of executive function were administered, namely : the Verbal Fluency Test, the Design Fluency Test, the Stroop Test, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The results indicated that quality of education significantly affected the participants' performance, with Group A performing significantly better than Group B on all the tests of executive function. These findings have implications for the interpretation of neuropsychological test performance in cross-cultural research and practice.
Active Learning of Constraints for Semi-Supervised Clustering

Semi-supervised clustering aims to improve clustering performance by considering user supervision in the form of pairwise constraints. In this paper, we study the active learning problem of selecting pairwise must-link and cannot-link constraints for semi-supervised clustering. We consider active learning in an iterative manner where in each iteration queries are selected based on the current clustering solution and the existing constraint set. We apply a general framework that builds on the concept of neighborhood, where neighborhoods contain "labeled examples" of different clusters according to the pairwise constraints. Our active learning method expands the neighborhoods by selecting informative points and querying their relationship with the neighborhoods. Under this framework, we build on the classic uncertainty-based principle and present a novel approach for computing the uncertainty associated with each data point. We further introduce a selection criterion that trades off the amount of uncertainty of each data point with the expected number of queries (the cost) required to resolve this uncertainty. This allows us to select queries that have the highest information rate. We evaluate the proposed method on the benchmark data sets and the results demonstrate consistent and substantial improvements over the current state of the art.
Aortic Wall Mechanics and Composition in a Transgenic Mouse Model of Marfan Syndrome

In Marfan syndrome, mutations of the fibrillin gene (FBN1) lead to aneurysm of the thoracic aorta, making the aortic wall more susceptible to dissection, but the precise sequence of events underlying aneurysm formation is unknown. We used a rodent model of Marfan syndrome, the mgR/mgR mouse (with mgR: hypomorphic FBN1 mutation), which underexpresses FBN1, to distinguish between a defect in the early formation of elastic fibers and the later disruption of elastic fibers. The content of desmosine plus isodesmosine was used as an index of early elastogenesis; disruption of elastic fibers was analyzed by histomorphometry. Because disruption of the medial elastic fibers may produce aortic stiffening, so amplifying the aneurysmal process, we measured thoracoabdominal pulse wave velocity as an indicator of aortic wall stiffness. Both mgR/mgR and wild-type (C57BL/6J-129SV) strains were normotensive, and wall stress was not significantly modified because the increase in internal diameter (0.80±0.06 vs 0.63±0.03 mm in wild type, P <0.05) was accompanied by increased medial cross-sectional area. The aortic wall stiffened (4-fold increase in the elastic modulus-to-wall stress ratio). Desmosine content was not modified (mgR/mgR 432±31 vs wild type 492±42 &mgr;g/mg wet weight, P >0.05). Elastic fibers showed severe fragmentation: the percentage of the media occupied by elastic fibers was 18±3% in mgR/mgR mice vs 30±1% in wild-type mice, with the number of elastic segments being 1.9±0.2 vs 1.4±0.1×10−6/mm2 in the wild type (both P <0.05). In conclusion, underexpression of FBN1 in mice leads to severe elastic network fragmentation but no change in cross-linking, together with aortic dilatation. This result suggests that fragmentation of the medial elastic network and not a defect in early elastogenesis is 1 of the determinants of aortic dilatation in Marfan syndrome.
Implementation of Co-Curricular Activities in Secondary School

The purpose of this study was to assess the status of implementation of co-curricular activities in secondary schools. The objective of this study was to assess the status of implementation of co-curricular activities in Secondary schools of Special Zone of Oromia Surrounding Finfine and to suggest the possible solutions for the problem that secondary schools encountered during implementation. This book may give insight idea on how much co-curricular activity can be implemented in Secondary schools of Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfine of Ethiopia. In doing so, it may also create an awareness of co-curricular activities in secondary schools, shows the strength and weakness of co-curricular program that has been implemented, contribute the better practices of co-curricular program, make beneficiary the policy makers in a way that they can simply design instruction of co-curricular activities and the school community and students benefit from the service provided from ongoing activities.
Regular and Modified Kernel-Based Estimators of Integrated Variance: The Case with Independent Noise

We consider kernel-based estimators of integrated variances in the presence of independent market microstructure effects. We derive the bias and variance properties for all regular kernel-based estimators and derive a lower bound for their asymptotic variance. Further we show that the subsample-based estimator is closely related to a Bartlett-type kernel estimator. The small difference between the two estimators due to end effects, turns out to be key for the consistency of the subsampling estimator. This observation leads us to a modified class of kernel-based estimators, which are also consistent. We study the efficiency of our new kernel-based procedure. We show that optimal modified kernel-based estimator converges to the integrated variance at the optimal rate, m^1/4, where m is the number of intraday returns.
Moxonidine treatment of hypertensive patients with advanced renal failure

Objectives To compare safety and tolerability of moxonidine versus nitrendipine in hypertensive patients with renal failure. A secondary endpoint was to test whether the sympatholytic drug moxonidine slows decline of renal function when added to standard therapy with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or AT1 receptor antagonist plus loop diuretic. Design This prospective, randomized, double-blind, multicenter study recruited 177 patients with advanced renal failure receiving antihypertensive standard therapy at outpatient clinics in Germany and Hungary. Following a 2 week run-in, patients were randomized to 24 weeks of add-on treatment with 0.3 mg/day moxonidine or 20 mg/day nitrendipine. Results The incidence of pre-defined specific adverse events was 42% in the moxonidine (37/89 patients) and 46% in the nitrendipine group (38/82 patients) in intention-to-treat analysis. Intensity and multiplicity were comparable. The dropout rate due to adverse events was 12.4% in the moxonidine and 9.8% in the nitrendipine group. Creatinine clearance according to Cockcroft and Gault decreased by 0.5 ± 4.3 ml/min (mean ± standard deviation) in the moxonidine group and 2.3 ± 4.0 ml/min in the nitrendipine group. Serum creatinine increased by 12.7 ± 49.2 μmol/l in the moxonidine group and by 43.4 ± 71.3 μmol/l in the nitrendipine group. These differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion Add-on treatment with 0.3 mg/day moxonidine in hypertensive patients with renal failure is well tolerated and not inferior to 20 mg/day nitrendipine with respect to the incidence of specific adverse events. The idea of a sympatholytic drug to be renoprotective is appealing but needs further evaluation.
Significance of site of placental attachment in uterus.

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Authors Reply to Commentaries

W e welcome the opportunity to respond to the commentaries by Miller (1993) and Humphry and King-Thomas (1993). We begin our response by briefly restating our main arguments. • The Miller Assessment for Preschoolers (MAP) was designed to classify preschool children as at risk or not at risk; the predictive accuracy of these classifications is the test's most critical psychometric property. • To date, three longitudinal studies have examined this property of the MAP in relation to future school-related outcomes (Cohn, 1986; Lemerand, 1985; Miller, 1986); all three studies were originally reported in doctoral dissertations and therefore are not readily available to reviewers and potential test users. • Miller and her colleagues published three summaries of the MAP's predictive validity (Miller, 1987b; Miller, Lemerand, & Cohn, 1987; Miller & Sprong, 1987) which, we believe, painted an overly optimistic picture of the MAP by focusing on a few encouraging findings and ignoring a number of negative results. It is in this context that we set out to critically examine the three original longitudinal studies and to point out that the MAP's predictive validity is much less impressive than previous reviews would
Governor and course leaders’ reflections on HE in FE: strategic ambition and curriculum practice in two large colleges in England

In the turbulent ‘dog eat dog’ environment of the learning and skills sector in England the provision and expansion of higher education taught in further education colleges (HE in FE) offers potential opportunities for greater diversification of higher education. However, it also presents significant challenges, which include developing an HE culture, managing shifting partnerships, and ensuring the curriculum meets benchmarks for quality and standards of provision. This article uses principles of appreciative enquiry to explore the experience, potential and challenge of growing HE in FE in two large colleges, one located in an urban area and the other in a rural region of central England. Both colleges reflect similarities and differences in their strategy and delivery of HE in FE and neither uses the term ‘further’ to describe its provision. This shift in branding reflects the strategic ambitions of governors and senior leaders as the curriculum offer is no longer general ‘further education’ but much more diverse, and includes HE courses delivered in partnership with four universities. Using data from governing bodies, cross-college committees and course leaders we reflect on the spaces and places for growing HE in FE and the challenges it poses for governors, leaders, tutors and students.
Phytoremediation of an Arsenic-Contaminated Site Using Pteris vittata L.: A Two-Year Study

A field study was conducted to determine the efficiency of Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata L.), an arsenic hyperaccumulator, on removal of arsenic from soil at an arsenic- contaminated site. Chinese brake ferns were planted on a site previously used to treat wood with chromated copper arsenate (CCA). Arsenic concentrations in surface and profile soil samples were determined for 2000, 2001, and 2002. In both 2001 and 2002, senesced and senescing fronds only, as well as all fronds, were harvested. Frond arsenic concentrations were not significantly different between the three harvests. Compared to senesced fronds, live fronds resulted in the greatest amount of arsenic removal. There were no significant differences in soil arsenic concentrations between 2000, 2001, and 2002, primarily due to the extreme variability in soil arsenic concentrations. However, the mean surface soil arsenic was reduced from 190 to 140 mg kg−1. Approximately 19.3 g of arsenic were removed from the soil by Chinese brake fern. Therefore, this fern is capable of accumulating arsenic from the CCA-contaminated site and may be competitive, in terms of cost, to conventional remediation systems. However, better agronomic practices are needed to enhance plant growth and arsenic uptake to obtain maximum soil arsenic removal and to minimize remediation time.
Nutrition Knowledge, Dietary Attitudes, Dietary Habits and Awareness of Food-Nutrition Labelling by Girl's High School Students

This study was carried out to investigate the nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, and dietary habits of girl’s high school students in Kunsan, and to investigate their recognition of food-nutrition labeling. The results are summarized as follows. General nutrition knowledge is relatively low, with an average of 0.57. It was shown that high school female students skipped breakfast rather than lunch or dinner, with a skipping rate of 28.9% for breakfast, 0.7% for lunch, and 8.6% for dinner. Regarding snacks, 35.5% of all the surveyed students had 1 snack per day, with 31.9% having them between lunch and dinner. The most popular snacks include biscuits (22.3%), noodles (18.3%) and bakery (13.3%). The most popular response was that students ‘sometimes checked’ the food label of processed domestic and imported processed food. The level of satisfaction with food labels is moderate, with an average of 2.96, out of 5. The most satisfactory title about food labels was ‘helpful for food selection’ with 3.19. On the other hand, the least satisfactory title was ‘understands the label’ with 2.78. Regarding the identification of the nutrition labeling, the highest response was ‘sometimes watched, sometimes not,’ with 40.5%. Products which were most often checked were milk/milk products (3.44), snacks/bread (3.33), and soft drinks (3.07). Among nutrition labeling items, total calories was the most important, followed by fat, carbohydrate, cholesterol and calcium. The question regarding the knowledge of nutrition labeling rated an average of 0.58 (out of 1). There was a significant positive correlation between the degree of the nutrition label verification and the dietary attitude score, along with the nutrition labeling knowledge and the nutrition knowledge score of the subjects. On the other hand, the degree of the nutrition label verification and the knowledge on nutrition labeling had a significant negative correlation. Hence, it is of the opinion that education on properly reading nutrient information is necessary to enable adolescents to apply that in real life. Furthermore, labeling nutritional information on processed food through a more comprehensive method is deemed necessary as a supporting measure. (Korean J Community Nutrition 12(5) : 519~533, 2007)
A Local Genetic Algorithm for the Identification of Condition-Specific MicroRNA-Gene Modules

Transcription factor and microRNA are two types of key regulators of gene expression. Their regulatory mechanisms are highly complex. In this study, we propose a computational method to predict condition-specific regulatory modules that consist of microRNAs, transcription factors, and their commonly regulated genes. We used matched global expression profiles of mRNAs and microRNAs together with the predicted targets of transcription factors and microRNAs to construct an underlying regulatory network. Our method searches for highly scored modules from the network based on a two-step heuristic method that combines genetic and local search algorithms. Using two matched expression datasets, we demonstrate that our method can identify highly scored modules with statistical significance and biological relevance. The identified regulatory modules may provide useful insights on the mechanisms of transcription factors and microRNAs.
Identification of Body Image Problem. Implications for Promoting Body Image Resilience in Female College Students

The aim of this study was to describe and identify body image problems in non clinical female university students in Surabaya. Participants were female university students (N = 143) aged 18 to 21 years old, obtained through purposive sampling. This survey used Likert type scale (2 scales) and a pictorial scale as the research instruments. The data collected were analyzed with descriptive statistics and cross tabulation of demographic questionnaire. The results showed that there was a gap between the desired body perception and the real one. The prominent behavior was compulsive behavior. Body image problems, which comprised of body image dissatisfaction, cognitive distortion, and body image compulsive behavior were also experienced by some young women in normal population even when their body mass index were normal.
Normalized Iterative Hard Thresholding: Guaranteed Stability and Performance

Sparse signal models are used in many signal processing applications. The task of estimating the sparsest coefficient vector in these models is a combinatorial problem and efficient, often suboptimal strategies have to be used. Fortunately, under certain conditions on the model, several algorithms could be shown to efficiently calculate near-optimal solutions. In this paper, we study one of these methods, the so-called Iterative Hard Thresholding algorithm. While this method has strong theoretical performance guarantees whenever certain theoretical properties hold, empirical studies show that the algorithm's performance degrades significantly, whenever the conditions fail. What is more, in this regime, the algorithm also often fails to converge. As we are here interested in the application of the method to real world problems, in which it is not known in general, whether the theoretical conditions are satisfied or not, we suggest a simple modification that guarantees the convergence of the method, even in this regime. With this modification, empirical evidence suggests that the algorithm is faster than many other state-of-the-art approaches while showing similar performance. What is more, the modified algorithm retains theoretical performance guarantees similar to the original algorithm.
Prehospital Systolic Hypertension and Outcomes in Patients with Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Background It is well known that hematoma volume and expansion is associated with poor outcomes in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH). The factors associated with hematoma volume and possible expansion include the use of anticoagulant medications, autoimmune or bacterial diseases that reduce platelet production, and genetic defects of Von Willebrand factor causing inhibition or reduction of platelet aggregation. However, little is known about the role of elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) on hematoma volume and its ultimate role on sICH when identified in the prehospital setting. Our objectives were to determine the prevalence of elevated SBP among diagnosed sICH patients transported by emergency medical services (EMS), and to explore possible associations between prehospital elevated SBP and hematoma volume. Methods This is a hypothesis-generating study for which we used a retrospective observational design. The subjects included 243 adult patients who were seen and treated for sICH in an emergency department serving a county hospital in a large metropolitan city. Elevated SBP in the setting of sICH was defined as ≥140 mm Hg. A univariate analysis was performed to investigate associations between patient demographics, elevated SBP, and sICH characteristics with the pre-determined outcome of hematoma volume. We then performed a multivariable logistic regression model to determine if elevated prehospital SBP remained associated with hematoma volume. Results The number of subjects with a hospital-based diagnosis of sICH was 243. Of those, 193 (79%) were transported by an ambulance. Among those transported by ambulance, 180 (93%) had a documented prehospital SBP; out of those patients with a documented SBP, 173 (96%) showed an elevated SBP of ≥140 mm Hg, and 82 (46%) had a hematoma volume of ≥30 mL. Our univariate analysis showed that sICH patients with an elevated prehospital SBP of ≥140 mm Hg were associated with hematoma volume. The multivariable regression model showed that elevated prehospital SBP (≥140 mm Hg) was associated with larger hematoma volumes (odds ratio (OR) 3.86 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02-4.60). Conclusions Prehospital elevated SBP is associated with larger hematoma volume in patients with sICH. Future studies should confirm these findings in a larger cohort of patients.
Dendritic Nonlinearities Reduce Network Size Requirements and Mediate ON and OFF States of Persistent Activity in a PFC Microcircuit Model

Technological advances have unraveled the existence of small clusters of co-active neurons in the neocortex. The functional implications of these microcircuits are in large part unexplored. Using a heavily constrained biophysical model of a L5 PFC microcircuit, we recently showed that these structures act as tunable modules of persistent activity, the cellular correlate of working memory. Here, we investigate the mechanisms that underlie persistent activity emergence (ON) and termination (OFF) and search for the minimum network size required for expressing these states within physiological regimes. We show that (a) NMDA-mediated dendritic spikes gate the induction of persistent firing in the microcircuit. (b) The minimum network size required for persistent activity induction is inversely proportional to the synaptic drive of each excitatory neuron. (c) Relaxation of connectivity and synaptic delay constraints eliminates the gating effect of NMDA spikes, albeit at a cost of much larger networks. (d) Persistent activity termination by increased inhibition depends on the strength of the synaptic input and is negatively modulated by dADP. (e) Slow synaptic mechanisms and network activity contain predictive information regarding the ability of a given stimulus to turn ON and/or OFF persistent firing in the microcircuit model. Overall, this study zooms out from dendrites to cell assemblies and suggests a tight interaction between dendritic non-linearities and network properties (size/connectivity) that may facilitate the short-memory function of the PFC.