Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Construct validity and internal consistency of the chronic fatigue syndrome activities and participation questionnaire (CFS-APQ)

Identifying patients' activity limitations is crucial for teaching Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patients to effectively manage their activity level. Therefore, a questionnaire to assess activity limitations/participation restrictions in CFS patients was recently constructed. In this study, the internal consistency, the discriminant validity, and the convergent validity of this measure, named the CFS-Activities and Participation Questionnaire (CFS-APQ), were investigated. Convergent and discriminant validity are considered two fundamental aspects of construct validity. An envelope containing the CFS-APQ and the Medical Outcomes Short Form 36 Health Status Survey (SF-36) was sent to 149 CFS patients. Eighty-eight out of 149 CFS patients (59.1%) filled in and returned the questionnaires. Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficients were > 0.87. The CFS-APQ total scores correlated statistically significant with six out eight SF-36 subscales (bodily functioning, physical role functioning, bodily pain, general health perception, vitality and social functioning), with Spearman Rank correlation coefficients ranging from − 0.34 to − 0.78. The highest correlation coefficients were obtained between the CFS-APQ total scores and the subscales ‘physical functioning’ and ‘social functioning’, no significant correlations were observed with the SF-36 subscales emotional role functioning and mental health. In conclusion, the items of the Dutch version of the CFS-APQ have been found to have good internal consistency, and these results substantiate both the convergent and the discriminant validity of the scores obtained with this questionnaire.
Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment

The ‘pains of imprisonment’ have been a longstanding concern within prison sociology. This article revisits the topic, suggesting that modern penal practices have created some new burdens and frustrations that differ from other pains in their causes, nature and effects. It notes that the pains of imprisonment can be divided up conceptually, and to some degree historically, into those deriving from the inherent features of incarceration, those resulting from deliberate abuses and derelictions of duty, and those that are consequences of systemic policies and institutional practices. Having described the latter in detail – focusing on the pains of indeterminacy, the pains of psychological assessment and the pains of self-government, the article explains the relevance of the concept of ‘tightness’, as well as ‘depth’ and ‘weight’, to the contemporary prison experience.
Challenging Emotional Memory

Emotional experiences tend to be very well remembered. The ability to recall the important events in life is crucial to adaptively respond to future situations. The strength of emotional memories may, however, also become harmful and maladaptive when it constraints daily functioning, such as in patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. From an evolutionary perspective, stability of our memory system is essential to recognize important predictors (i.e., stimulus or context) of imminent threat and reward. However, since it is unlikely that a stimulus or context will keep its predictive value forever, memories need to be malleable as well. Recently it has been shown that upon recall, memories can enter a labile state where they are sensitive to change before being restabilized again. This process is referred to as reconsolidation. In the current thesis, we aimed to gain more insight into the malleable nature of emotional memory. In five empirical chapters we experimentally challenged emotional memory using different experimental paradigms and pharmacological and behavioral manipulations to alter the strength of emotional memory. We showed that 1) there are certain boundary conditions under which reconsolidation does not occur and emotional memory cannot be weakened 2) stress exposure after memory reactivation can strengthen memory and enhance the contextual embedding of emotional memory. These findings indicate that the process of reconsolidation plays a key role in keeping our memories up to date.
Interpersonal relationships and task performance: An examination of mediation processes in friendship and acquaintance groups.

This study used multiple methods to examine group processes (information sharing, morale building, planning, critical evaluation, commitment, monitoring, and cooperation) that mediate the effect of relationship level on group performance. The study uses a 2 by 2 experimental design, crossing relationship (friendship vs. acquaintance) as a between-subjects variable and task type (decision making vs. motor) as a within-subject variable. Fifty-three 3-person groups participated in the study, and data from 4 types of measurement were used to analyze the mediating processes between relationship level and task performance. Friendship groups performed significantly better than acquaintance groups on both decision-making and motor tasks because of a greater degree of group commitment and cooperation. Critical evaluation and task monitoring also significantly increased decision-making performance, whereas positive communication mediated the relationship between friendship and motor task performance.
Work Avoidance as a Manifestation of Hostility, Helplessness, and Boredom

Work avoidance is a term that describes the behavior of students who seem to make little effort to understand or complete academic tasks. Although the condition has been described in earlier studies, the causes of work avoidance have not been explored. In this study, grades 5 and 6 students who were identified as work avoidant were interviewed to determine the causes of their work avoidance. It was hypothesized that boredom, hostility, and helplessness were three possible reasons for students not exerting effort. Students' protocols indicated that they do withdraw effort for several reasons: because they are bored, as an expression of hostility toward the teacher, or because of feelings of helplessness.
Long‐term safety and cognitive effects of galantamine in the treatment of probable vascular dementia or Alzheimer's disease with cerebrovascular disease

The relationship between cholinergic dysfunction and cognitive and functional impairment in patients with vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) with cerebrovascular disease (CVD) suggests a potential role for cholinomimetic therapy. Initial studies of galantamine demonstrated cognitive, behavioral, and functional benefits in these populations. 326 patients with VaD or AD with CVD who completed an initial 12‐month trial were treated with galantamine 24 mg/day in a 24‐month, open‐label extension. This interim analysis was performed at month 12 of the open‐label extension (248 completed the trial). Galantamine (up to 24 months total) was well tolerated in both groups. The most frequently reported adverse events, characteristic of older dementia patients, included depression, agitation, and insomnia. Gastrointestinal adverse events were less common than initially, indicating declining incidence with long‐term therapy. Patients taking galantamine for the entire study demonstrated the least cognitive decline on AD Assessment Scale‐cog/11: 2.7 points vs. 3.1 points in those given placebo initially (P < 0.001 and P = 0.003, respectively). The long‐term benefits of galantamine were evident in both groups; cognitive baseline levels were maintained for approximaely 21 months in VaD patients and for 12 months in patients with AD with CVD. Long‐term (up to 24 months) galantamine therapy in patients with VaD and AD with CVD is well tolerated and associated with prolonged maintenance of cognitive function.
O'odua People's Congress and the Changes in Nigeria's Political and Security Structures

This article gives an overview of the origin, founders, memberships and geographical coverage of the O'odua People's Congress (OPC). Also addressed are the impact of the OPC on the political and security structures and why the OPC continues to wield power as an ethnic movement in southwest Nigeria. Even following the collapse of the Babangida and Abacha military regimes—due to protests, international pressure and the latter's death—the OPC retains a significant amount of social power in Yorubaland. Its support is maintained through the provision of informal ‘security services’ to individuals, groups and communities, who consider the Nigeria Police to be an ineffective body in the protection of lives and property of people. While the OPC influences the re-establishment of democratic governance, shifts in regional power and the security set-up in Nigeria, it also creates social disorder and abuses human rights.
Beyond Miami: The Ethnic Enclave and Personal Income in Various Cuban Communities in the United States 1

It is frequently noted that Cubans living in Miami are successful because they benefit from the formation of an enclave economy. Using the 1990 Census Public Use Microdata, this study broadens the examination beyond Miami to address the question of why Cubans living elsewhere have higher earnings than those in Miami. Specifically, I address the question of whether there is a relationship between Cuban ethnic enclave participation and Cuban income. Findings indicate that Cubans in Miami have the lowest personal income. Cubans living in areas with the lowest Cuban populations have the highest incomes. These findings are evidence against the enclave economy hypothesis.
Policy Considerations on Facebook: Agendas, Coherence, and Communication Patterns in the 2011 Danish Parliamentary Elections

ABSTRACT Given the importance of issue competition in a West European context and the growing use of Facebook in elections, this paper studies how politicians use Facebook to shape the campaign agenda. We analyze the issues addressed in 6,388 Facebook posts by candidates in the Danish 2011 parliamentary election. A limited share of Facebook updates is dedicated to issues. The Facebook agenda did not respond to standings in the polls, nor to the media agenda or public agenda. Comparing issue engagement of new candidates and rerunning candidates we find that the Facebook campaign agenda is not simply politics as usual.
Involvement of Inflammation, Degradation, and Apoptosis in a Mouse Model of Glaucoma*♦

Glaucoma is a common cause of blindness affecting at least 66 million people worldwide. Pigmentary glaucoma is one of the most common forms of secondary glaucoma, and its pathogenesis remains unclear. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is an important regulator of innate and acquired immune responses and plays an important role in inflammatory/autoimmunity diseases. Using the DBA/2J mouse as an animal model of human pigmentary glaucoma, we demonstrated for the first time that the expression of the IL-18 protein and gene in the iris/ciliary body and level of IL-18 protein in the aqueous humor of DBA/2J mice are dramatically increased with age. This increase precedes the onset of clinical evidence of pigmentary glaucoma, implying a pathogenic role of inflammation/immunity in this disease. We also observed that activated NF-κB and phosphorylated MAPK are increased in the iris/ciliary body of DBA/2J mice, suggesting that both signaling pathways may be involved in IL-18 mediated pathogenesis of pigmentary glaucoma in the eyes of DBA/2J mice. In addition, matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) expression in the iris/ciliary body and the activity of MMP-2 in the aqueous humor are increased whereas tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) expression in the iris/ciliary body is decreased, indicating that the degradation process is involved in this mouse model of pigmentary glaucoma. Furthermore, the expressions of apoptosis-related genes, caspase-8, Fas, FADD, FAP, and FAF, and the activity of caspase-3 are increased in the iris/ciliary body of DBA/2J mice. Elucidation of biochemical and molecular mechanisms of IL-18 participation in the pathogenesis of pigmentary glaucoma should provide approaches for developing improved and targeted treatments to ameliorate this blinding disease. The possibility that altered IL-18 expression in the eye of DBA/2J mice initiates and/or amplifies the pathogenesis of pigmentary glaucoma requires further investigation.
Neural Decision Trees

In this paper we propose a synergistic melting of neural networks and decision trees (DT) we call neural decision trees (NDT). NDT is an architecture a la decision tree where each splitting node is an independent multilayer perceptron allowing oblique decision functions or arbritrary nonlinear decision function if more than one layer is used. This way, each MLP can be seen as a node of the tree. We then show that with the weight sharing asumption among those units, we end up with a Hashing Neural Network (HNN) which is a multilayer perceptron with sigmoid activation function for the last layer as opposed to the standard softmax. The output units then jointly represent the probability to be in a particular region. The proposed framework allows for global optimization as opposed to greedy in DT and differentiability w.r. t. all parameters and the input, allowing easy integration in any learnable pipeline, for example after CNNs for computer vision tasks. We also demonstrate the modeling power of HNN allowing to learn union of disjoint regions for final clustering or classification making it more general and powerful than standard softmax MLP requiring linear separability thus reducing the need on the inner layer to perform complex data transformations. We finally show experiments for supervised, semi-suppervised and unsupervised tasks and compare results with standard DTs and MLPs.
Expressing Compassion in the Face of Crisis: Organizational Practices in the Aftermath of the Brisbane Floods of 2011

Compassion is almost universally acknowledged as an important issue in the crisis management literature. The dominant perspective, however, approaches compassion instrumentally. The findings of this study on the compassionate support offered (or not) to employees during and after the Brisbane flood crisis of January 2011 provide insight into crisis management as a continuous process rather than a reactionary response when disaster arises. Three significant policy implications are generated: First, compassionate discourses and categorization schemas should be clearly articulated within the organization before crisis. Second, compassionate policies and practices need to be embedded in ongoing organizational routines and policies. Third, initiatives framed as compassion responses should not be assumed to necessarily create positive outcomes; rather, outcomes should be assessed on an ongoing basis.
Leishmania major infection in interleukin‐4 and interferon‐γ depleted mice

The outcome of experimental Leishmania major infection in mice is closely correlated with the type of CD4+ helper T cell (Th) response. Whereas a Th1 response is host protective, a Th2 response leads to a disseminated, fatal course of disease. Previous studies in this murine model have shown, that the two prominent Th1 and Th2 cytokines, interferon (IFN)‐γ and interleukin (IL)‐4, themselves play a major role in the determination of the resulting Th response. Treatment of susceptible mouse strains (BALB/c) with anti‐IL‐4 induces a Th1 response, allowing the animals to cure the infection. Treatment of resistant strains (e.g. C3H/HeN) with anti‐IFN‐γ induces a Th2 response with dissemination of the disease. In this report, we investigated the course of infection and Th response in susceptible and resistant mice treated with anti‐IL‐4 and anti‐IFN‐γ simultaneously. Both mouse strains showed an initial exacerbation of the disease and an overall reduced cytokine response early after infection. Later during infection both strains had a strong Th1 response that was resulting in cure of disease in C3H/HeN mice. BALB/c mice however, could not control the spread of infection despite the strong Th1 response.
Persistence of acute rheumatic fever in a tertiary children's hospital

Aim: To identify and describe all children admitted with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) to a tertiary paediatric hospital in Sydney over a 9‐year period and to describe their demographic and clinical characteristics, management and short‐term outcomes. Delays in diagnosis, recurrence of ARF and use of secondary prophylaxis were also documented.
Impaired killing of HCMV-infected retinal pigment epithelial cells by anti-pp65 CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells.

PURPOSE Host defense against infection by human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is ensured in great part by cytotoxic CD8(+) T lymphocytes (CTLs) directed against the tegument protein pp65. The hyperimmediate release of incoming pp65 into the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I pathway after fusion of the virus with the cell membrane provides a very early mechanism of defense. In retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells HCMV is known to enter through endocytosis. This study was conducted to determine whether this means of penetration into the cells would allow the virus to elude immune surveillance. METHODS Infection of RPE cells with HCMV AD169 was performed for 6 hours, 48 hours, and 8 days. Expression of intracellular pp65 in RPE cells and in the astrocytoma reference cell line U373MG was evaluated by flow cytometry, fluorescence microscopy, and Western blot analysis. Killing of both HCMV-infected cell lines by HLA-A2-restricted CD8(+) CTLs directed against pp65 was monitored by (51)Cr-release assays. RESULTS RPE cells were not lysed by CTLs directed against incoming pp65, contrary to U373MG. Moreover, both cell lines were not killed by anti-pp65 CTLs later after infection, because of the MHC class-I-downregulating effect of HCMV unique short (US2-11) proteins. CONCLUSIONS In RPE cells, both HCMV entry through endocytosis and the immunosuppressive effect of US proteins could allow the virus to evade immune surveillance at any stage of infection, which could promote viral spreading within the retina.
The auditory event related potentials in episodic and chronic pain sufferers

To examine the cognitive processing differences in chronic and episodic pain sufferers, auditory event‐related potentials (P300 or P3) were recorded in two consecutive trials from 23 chronic lower back pain patients, 22 episodic tension‐type headache sufferers, and from 23 age‐and sex‐matched healthy persons. P3 latency and amplitude showed no difference between groups at first trial. Considering P3 latency habituation, healthy controls and episodic tension‐type headache sufferers showed a significant change of P3 latency whereas lower back pain sufferers failed. Comparing the amount of habituation lower back pain sufferers stood clearly apart from healthy controls. Although there was a remarkable increase of P3 latency in episodic tension‐type headache sufferers, the amount of habituation was not statistically different than it was in lower back pain sufferers. Significant P3 amplitude habituation was observed only in healthy controls. Actually, episodic tension‐type headache sufferers also showed some degree of habituation, which was not statistically remarkable. The amount of amplitude habituation was not different between groups. No correlation was observed between P3 habituation and age, disease duration and symptom severity. These results may point to a disturbed attentional processing in chronic pain sufferers. Our findings suggest that in spite of a similar cortical information processing, the neurocognitive networks related with decision making and memory processing seem to work differently in chronic pain sufferers from those in episodic pain sufferers in repeating tasks. Taking into consideration the reported P3 habituation abnormalities in chronic migraine patients we can say that not the location of pain but rather its temporal pattern may have a role in disturbed attentional processing. © 2002 European Federation of Chapters of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa serotype O12 outbreak studied by arbitrary primer PCR

A total of 16 colonizing and infecting ofloxacin-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains and two strains isolated from ventilation equipment fluids, all with similar colonial morphologies and with minor but distinct susceptibility differences, were suspected of belonging to a single outbreak and were studied by arbitrary primer (AP) PCR. Thirteen nonrelated strains were included to evaluate the discriminatory capacity of the technique. AP PCR fingerprinting was compared with serotyping, phage typing, and antibiotic susceptibility testing. AP PCR was performed independently with three different primers. The different AP PCR typing systems yielded almost identical patterns for the epidemic strains and enabled us to differentiate most of the nonrelated strains from each other and from the outbreak strains. The combination of AP PCR typing and the phenotyping techniques that we used enabled us to conclude that an outbreak was occurring. In general, the typeability of AP PCR was greater than those of phage typing and serotyping, while the discriminatory powers of the three methods were comparable.
Design of frequency domain A/D conversion based UWB receiver in the presence of quantization noise

The recent rapid development of digital UWB wireless communications has led to the need for ultra-high rate A/D converters (ADCs). In this paper, the design algorithms for digital UWB receiver based on A/D conversion in the frequency domain have been presented, which can obviously reduce the ADCs speed requirements compared with conventional time-domain ADC. Important issues in the frequency domain A/D converters, such as quantization noise, optimal bit allocation, are discussed in detail. Frequency domain frame synchronization, channel estimation and demodulation algorithms are also proposed.
Approximating the maximum of Gaussians by a Gaussian mixture model for statistical designs

In statistical approaches such as statistical static timing analysis, the distribution of the maximum (or the minimum) of plural distributions is needed, and is computed by repeating a statistical maximum operation of two distributions (2Max operation). Since each distribution is represented by a linear combination of several explanatory random variables (RVs) so as to handle correlations efficiently, covariance between the maximum and an explanatory RV must be calculated in every 2Max operation. If Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is used for representing non-Gaussian distribution of the maximum, then it is not always possible to generate a GMM such that both variance and covariance are the same as those of the maximum. We propose a new algorithm to determine optimal covariance values without deteriorating the accuracy of variance, and show its performance. Moreover, we demonstrate effectiveness of reducing the number of components of GMM in every 2Max operation.