Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of altered ultrasound parameters on the recovery of sciatic nerve injury.

BACKGROUND Initial studies have shown that low-energy ultrasound stimulates living tissue cells to reduce regeneration or speed up their recovery. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of various ultrasound parameters on the speed of recovery in injured sciatic nerves. METHODS NMRI mice (n = 200) with injured left paw, caused by crushing their sciatic nerves, were randomly selected. The animals were exposed to ultrasound radiation with various frequencies, intensities, and exposure time. They were allocated into 20 groups (19 treatment and 1 control groups). Sciatic functional index (SFI) test was used to evaluate the difference between the groups with respect to functional efficiency of the sciatic nerve and its recovery. RESULTS The results of SFI test obtained from the 14th day showed a significant difference among the groups (P<0.05). On the 14th day after treatment, one of the groups (US11) recovered up to 90%. CONCLUSION Altered ultrasound exposure parameters had more favorable outcomes compared with our previous work.
Rational volunteering: a benefit‐cost approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the perceived benefits and costs of volunteering affect participation. Based on this rational choice approach, the research tests a multivariate model of the determinants of volunteering.Design/methodology/approach – The database for the empirical analysis is the 2005 Americans' Time Use Survey. To estimate the model of participation in volunteer activity, this research uses the complementary log‐log technique.Findings – The findings support the central hypothesis that participation in volunteering decreases as the opportunity cost of volunteer activity increases. In addition, participation in volunteering increases as people perceive themselves as more embedded in their communities, thus suggesting that rational individuals make strategic assessments in their decisions to volunteer based on the level of trust in the exchange relationship.Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that policies that promote a sense of embeddedness in the .
Culture’s Consequences: Something Old and Something New

Since its publication in 1980, Geert Hofstede’s Culture’s consequences has had a profound influence on the development of cross-cultural studies within psychology, in organization studies and in the social sciences more generally. Although the approach to cross-cultural studies that Hofstede pioneered has been by no means universally endorsed, many contributors to the field have nonetheless oriented their work in terms of acceptance or rejection of the key elements within his approach. The publication of a greatly revised and substantially expanded second edition (Hofstede, 2001) to this landmark work is an event requiring detailed scrutiny. The new edition, like its predecessor, is a work of meticulous scholarship. Indeed the preparation of both editions has spanned six or seven years, entailing very extensive literature search and data analysis. The new edition follows a parallel structure to the first edition, with two introductory chapters, followed by four chapters focusing upon the culture-level dimensions identified earlier. There now follow two further chapters reflecting work that Hofstede (1991) first presented in more popular form in Cultures and organisations: the added dimension of Long Term Orientation, and work on organizational cultures. Finally there are two new concluding chapters. The amount of rewriting that has gone even into those chapters whose basic format is unchanged is substantial. Each chapter includes a separate section giving greater technical detail, as well as extensive footnotes. The extended title tells us of the broader relevance that Hofstede now finds in his IBM data. The book is of course a new edition, not a new study. The IBM databank remains the primary basis for the analyses that are presented. In the
Atividade Física e Bem-Estar na Velhice

Objective This work analysed senior citizens' perception of needs and social values involved in taking physical activity for their own benefit. This study's main aim was to investigate social representations of 3rd age physical activity. Methods This was a cross-sectional, interdisciplinary qualitative study, underpinned by theoretical-methodological social representation theory. A convenience, non-probabilistic, census-dependent method was used for obtaining the sam­ple of 62 people aged 50 to 78 from north-eastern Brazil. The data were collected by using the free word association technique and analysed by EVOC/2000 software. Results Analysing the replies led to three types of elements being identified which were related to the social representation of physical activity as attributed by the elderly: a psychological dimension (represented by happiness, well-being), a social dimension (dancing) and a biophysical dimension (gymnastics, water-gym­nastics and health). The term "happiness" stood out most in the word recall tests. When relating old age to the sample's social representation of physical activity, the study showed that physical activity assumed a preponderant role in the life of the elderly through cyclical appreciation-depreciation, social representation simultane­ously and gradually acquiring "life having more health and quality" from social representation. Conclusions The subjects reported a positive association between physical activity, social interaction and well-being. The elderly also believed in physical activity's effects on physical-motor aspects and health. The social representation of physical activity by the group being studied was close to the physical activity's biopsychosocial dimension.
Avian infectious bronchitis and deep pectoral myopathy—A case control study

Abstract Infectious bronchitis is caused by a coronavirus, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV). Infectious bronchitis is an acute and highly contagious disease of economic importance due to the reduction in weight gain observed with infected broilers and the drop in egg quality and production associated with infected laying hens. The presence of deep pectoral myopathy has been associated with IBV variants. This lesion is detected at slaughterhouses and is characterized by paleness and atrophy of the deep pectoral muscle, including necrosis of the region, leading to condemnations of the breast muscle, a valuable meat cut in the market. This work aimed to study the relationship between deep pectoral myopathy and IBV by describing tracheal and muscle lesions and comparing the frequency of IBV detection via reverse-transcription (RT) PCR in muscle, tracheal, and cecal tonsil samples from broilers with and without myopathy. A case-control study was conducted in 40 broiler flocks vaccinated with the Massachusetts strain. The case group consisted of 23 flocks that presented myopathic lesions under sanitary inspection and a control group of 17 flocks without myopathic lesions. The tracheal, cecal tonsil, and supracoracoid muscle (with and without lesions) samples from the 40 broiler flocks were screened by RT-PCR to detect IBV. Histopathology of muscle and tracheal tissue was carried out. Upon microscopic examination, the muscle samples from the case group presented extensive necrosis, intense mononuclear inflammatory infiltration, muscle fiber fragmentation, and fibrotic tissue, confirming myopathy, whereas muscles from the control group showed no alterations. The tracheal samples presented a large number of infiltrated mononuclear inflammatory cells that in some areas formed submucosal nodules. A total of 25 flocks tested IBV positive by RT-PCR: 14 from the case group and 11 from the control group. The IBV was detected by RT-PCR directly in muscle samples. Despite that, the relationship between deep pectoral myopathy and IBV was not established. The higher positive IBV RT-PCR percentage noted in the cecal tonsil samples demonstrates how important the choice of organs is for diagnostic purposes.
Reasoning in Young Children: Fantasy and Information Retrieval

The present article examines 2 predictions concerning conditional reasoning in children derived from Markovits's model of conditional reasoning. The first claims that children under 12 years of age should be able to respond correctly to uncertain logical forms if the premises and context enable them to access pertinent counterexamples from memory. The second concerns the effect of reasoning in a fantasy context. Previous studies have established that young children can correctly respond to certain reasoning problems with empirically false premises when these are presented in a fantasy context. However, this model of reasoning predicts that presenting empirically true premises in a fantasy context should decrease performance on the 2 uncertain logical forms. In Study 1, a total of 48 8-year-olds, 78 10-year-olds, and 74 12-year-olds were given 4 reasoning problems involving familiar premises. These problems were embedded in either a fantasy or a realistic context and presented via video tape. Results were consistent with the predictions made. Study 2 attempted to determine whether these results could be due to context or problem formulation. A total of 40 7-year-olds and 46 8-year-olds were given reasoning problems with either no context or with a visual image preceding the problems. Results showed that children did equally well in these conditions, and that providing an image did not improve performance.
Heavy drinking trajectories among men who have sex with men: a longitudinal, group-based analysis.

BACKGROUND Heavy episodic drinking (HED) is associated with sexual risk behavior and HIV seroconversion among men who have sex with men (MSM), yet few studies have examined heavy drinking typologies in this population. METHODS We analyzed data from 4,075 HIV-uninfected MSM (aged 16 to 88) participating in EXPLORE, a 48-month behavioral intervention trial, to determine the patterns and predictors of HED trajectories. HED was defined as the number of days in which ≥5 alcohol drinks were consumed in the past 6 months. Longitudinal group-based mixture models were used to identify HED trajectories, and multinomial logistic regression was used to determine correlates of membership in each group. RESULTS We identified 5 distinct HED trajectories: nonheavy drinkers (31.9%); infrequent heavy drinkers (i.e., <10 heavy drinking days per 6-month period, 54.3%); regular heavy drinkers (30 to 45 heavy drinking days per 6 months, 8.4%); drinkers who increased HED over time (average 33 days in the past 6 months to 77 days at end of follow-up, 3.6%); and very frequent heavy drinkers (>100 days per 6 months, 1.7%). Intervention arm did not predict drinking trajectory patterns. Younger age, self-identifying as white, lower educational attainment, depressive symptoms, and stimulant use were associated with reporting heavier drinking trajectories. Compared to nonheavy drinkers, participants who increased HED more often experienced a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Over the study period, depressive symptomatology increased significantly among very frequent heavy drinkers. CONCLUSIONS Socioeconomic factors, substance use, depression, and CSA were associated with heavier drinking patterns among MSM. Multicomponent interventions to reduce HED should seek to mitigate the adverse impacts of low educational attainment, depression, and early traumatic life events on the initiation, continuation, or escalation of frequent HED among MSM.
Generalizations of the standard Artin representation are unitary

We consider the Magnus representation of the image of the braid group under the generalizations of the standard Artin representation discovered by M. Wada. We show that the images of the generators of the braid group under the Magnus representation are unitary relative to a Hermitian matrix. As a special case, we get that the Burau representation is unitary, which was known and proved by C. C. Squier.
Iranian Women: Rising Expectations

Since the 1960s the economic, political, and social positions of Iranian women have changed in accordance with the development perspectives of the time. Women, who used to be marginalized in political and social relations and whose economic role was ignored, have found the key to their empowerment by raising their awareness through education. By the early 2000s, Iranian women were demanding a greater share in the management of the family and in society and expected to accorded a higher status. Ten years before the 1979 revolution, such expectations were limited to a small class of elite women. Now, with the presence of women in diverse social and political spaces and the absorption of a noticeable number of girls from more traditional and lower socio-economic classes into higher classes, these expectations have evolved into a relatively widespread desire. The expansion of these demands, along with changes in attitudes, is leading to the emergence of a different value system and social behaviors in Iranian culture. Although, the future of social changes is not easy to predict, it is possible to expect more convergence in cultural attitudes on gender issues in Iranian society. Since there are no longitudinal data on the changes in women’s positions, the discussion in this article is based on available recent data and personal observations and case studies carried out in different parts of the country since 1989. My aim is to provide an overview of the past changes and how they have evolved up to the present. However, I acknowledge the difficulty of demonstrating the process of cultural and social evolution with the limited information base available for the pre-revolutionary period. With this caveat in mind, the article divides the time period, roughly 1960 to the present, into three periods, each one of which is distinguished by development perspectives and policies implemented specifically for women. For each period, I explain the impact of the policies and cultural changes in the society. Some of these changes are by-products of economic variables while others are dominated by the governing ideology on gender. However, the available data do not allow one to separate the variables and it is not the intention of this article to do so. Rather, this is an exploratory study in which I try to discuss three questions. First, in each period and with the relevant development perspective and selected strategies, which economic or social sector has had a leading role, and in this context what changes occurred in women’s situation? Second, with respect to the cultural and socio-economic inequalities in society
A general psychopathology factor in early adolescence

Background Recently, a general psychopathology dimension reflecting common aspects among disorders has been identified in adults. This has not yet been considered in children and adolescents, where the focus has been on externalising and internalising dimensions. Aims To examine the existence, correlates and predictive value of a general psychopathology dimension in young people. Method Alternative factor models were estimated using self-reports of symptoms in a large community-based sample aged 11–13.5 years (N= 23 477), and resulting dimensions were assessed in terms of associations with external correlates and future functioning. Results Both a traditional two-factor model and a bi-factor model with a general psychopathology bi-factor fitted the data well. The general psychopathology bi-factor best predicted future psychopathology and academic attainment. Associations with correlates and factor loadings are discussed. Conclusions A general psychopathology factor, which is equal across genders, can be identified in young people. Its associations with correlates and future functioning indicate that investigating this factor can increase our understanding of the aetiology, risk and correlates of psychopathology.
Subcutaneous Achilles tendon rupture in an eighty-year-old female with an absence of risk factors

Achilles tendon ruptures rarely occur in patients over 80 years of age. However, it is unclear what treatment, surgical or conservative, is suitable for such an Achilles tendon rupture in the elderly. In addition, the clinical results of an Achilles tendon rupture in the elderly are disappointing. We report here the case of a subcutaneous Achilles tendon rupture in an eighty-year-old, healthy female, who returned to her previous level of activity following surgical treatment. Additional case reports of other instances of successful treatment are needed to help establish the optimal treatment protocol for an Achilles tendon rupture in the elderly.
A Magnetic Stimulation Examination of Orthographic Neighborhood Effects in Visual Word Recognition

The split-fovea theory proposes that visual word recognition is mediated by the splitting of the foveal image, with letters to the left of fixation projected to the right hemisphere (RH) and letters to the right of fixation projected to the left hemisphere (LH). We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left and right occipital cortex during a lexical decision task to investigate the extent to which word recognition processes could be accounted for according to the split-fovea theory. Unilateral rTMS significantly impaired lexical decision latencies to centrally presented words, supporting the suggestion that foveal representation of words is split between the cerebral hemispheres rather than bilateral. Behaviorally, we showed that words that have many orthographic neighbors sharing the same initial letters (lead neighbors) facilitated lexical decision more than words with few lead neighbors. This effect did not apply to end neighbors (orthographic neighbors sharing the same final letters). Crucially, rTMS over the RH impaired lead-, but not end-neighborhood facilitation. The results support the split-fovea theory, where the RH has primacy in representing lead neighbors of a written word.
Correlates of coping behaviours: Internal and external resources

Abstract This study examined some possible factors that were expected to influence choices of coping strategies. They were demographic variables (age, sex, marital status, education, and family income), personality traits (extroversion, neuroticism and locus of control), perceived life stress, and received social support. Five hundred and eighty one randomly selected community adults living in Kaohsiung city were interviewed and completed questionnaires measuring the above variables. Multivariate analyses had shown that: (a) higher income and education were related to more use of ‘Seeking social resources’ and ‘Planning & hoping’ coping; (b) higher extroversion was related to more use of ‘Seeking social resources’, ‘Planning & hoping’ and ‘Emotional suppression’ coping, whereas the last was also related to higher neuroticism; (c) people with higher internal locus of control favoured ‘Planning & hoping’, but not ‘Emotional suppression’ coping; (d) perceived life stress was not related to any use of coping .
The Plastidial 2-C-Methyl-d-Erythritol 4-Phosphate Pathway Provides the Isoprenyl Moiety for Protein Geranylgeranylation in Tobacco BY-2 Cells[C][W]

Protein farnesylation and geranylgeranylation are important posttranslational modifications in eukaryotic cells. We visualized in transformed Nicotiana tabacum Bright Yellow-2 (BY-2) cells the geranylgeranylation and plasma membrane localization of GFP-BD-CVIL, which consists of green fluorescent protein (GFP) fused to the C-terminal polybasic domain (BD) and CVIL isoprenylation motif from the Oryza sativa calmodulin, CaM61. Treatment with fosmidomycin (Fos) or oxoclomazone (OC), inhibitors of the plastidial 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway, caused mislocalization of the protein to the nucleus, whereas treatment with mevinolin, an inhibitor of the cytosolic mevalonate pathway, did not. The nuclear localization of GFP-BD-CVIL in the presence of MEP pathway inhibitors was completely reversed by all-trans-geranylgeraniol (GGol). Furthermore, 1-deoxy-d-xylulose (DX) reversed the effects of OC, but not Fos, consistent with the hypothesis that OC blocks 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate synthesis, whereas Fos inhibits its conversion to 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate. By contrast, GGol and DX did not rescue the nuclear mislocalization of GFP-BD-CVIL in the presence of a protein geranylgeranyltransferase type 1 inhibitor. Thus, the MEP pathway has an essential role in geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) biosynthesis and protein geranylgeranylation in BY-2 cells. GFP-BD-CVIL is a versatile tool for identifying pharmaceuticals and herbicides that interfere either with GGPP biosynthesis or with protein geranylgeranylation.
Treatment of Idiopathic Clubfoot by Ponseti Technique of Manipulation and Serial Plaster Casting and Its Critical Evaluation

Background Clubfoot has from long been an unsolved clinical challenge for the orthopedic surgeons. It is one of the commonest congenital deformities in children. More than 100,000 babies are born worldwide each year with congenital clubfoot. Around 80% of the cases occur in developing nations. Methods Fifty three feet [mean Pirani score (total) 5.6] in 40 children were treated by the Ponseti method from June 2006 to December 2010. A prospective follow-up for a mean duration of 19.5 months (range 6–30 months) was undertaken. Evaluation of the deformity by Pirani score and goniometry was performed, before and after the treatment and the results were assessed through Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results The average number of casts applied before full correction was 4.9. The duration of casts for more than 85% feet was <7 weeks. 94.3% patients needed tenotomy before full correction. There was a significant difference in the pre-treatment and the post-treatment Pirani score and goniometry values. Conclusion Ponseti method of manipulation and plaster casting is very effective in correcting clubfoot deformity. It is especially important in developing countries and well-trained physicians and health personnel can manage the cases effectively by manipulation and cast application.
Shaping learner contributions in an EFL classroom: Implications for L2 classroom interactional competence

This study investigated the interactional patterns for shaping learner contributions in an EFL classroom with reference to Walsh’s classroom interactional competence (CIC). In doing so, an EFL class at an English preparatory school in a Turkish state university was both videotaped and audiotaped in the course of six classroom hours. Conversation analytic methodology was adopted for the data analysis. The analysis revealed various interactional patterns in post-expansion sequences for shaping learner contributions both in the form-and-accuracy and meaning-and-fluency contexts. There was evidence in the data for repeating, translating, extending, clarifying, summarising, modelling and paraphrasing learner contributions. In addition, there were instances when the teacher used clarification requests and confirmation checks, asked elaboration questions and used the board to shape learner responses and, hence, to construct learning opportunities. As well as revealing parallel findings with those of Walsh’s stud.