Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Promoting Healthy Timing and Spacing of Births in India through a Community-based Approach FRONTIERS Program , Population Council

The Indian Family Welfare Program, though successful in increasing contraceptive use among couples who have achieved their desired family size, has failed in educating people about the importance and need of using contraceptive methods for spacing births. The concept of inter-pregnancy spacing and its advantages was never given serious attention as a program objective. The latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) results show that 77 percent of sterilized women did not use a family planning method before their sterilization (IIPS and Marco International 2007). Furthermore, available studies demonstrate that a birth interval of 3 to 5 years could increase chances of infant and maternal survival by 2.5 times more than children born at an interval of 2 years or fewer. Thus, Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancy (HTSP) is considered an important family planning intervention to improve maternal and child health. Population Council's Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program (FRONTIERS), Population Council undertook a study to test a model to increase use of postpartum contraception among young pregnant women with a parity of 0 or 1. The specific objectives were to (a) test a comprehensive Behavior Change Communication (BCC) model for its effectiveness to educate young couples and community members about healthy spacing and its advantages; and (b) increase the use of Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM) and postpartum contraception to expand the interval between pregnancies. The study used a quasi-experimental pre-post control group design. It was carried out in 48 villages of the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh, with 24 villages each in the experimental and control groups. Each study group recruited 600 women at 3 to 6 months pregnancy with parity of 0 or 1. The women were interviewed at recruitment, four months postpartum, and nine months postpartum. In addition, their husbands and one-third of the mothers-in-law were interviewed at recruitment and nine months postpartum. The key activities in the intervention comprised the following: An educational campaign by community workers (CWs) addressing pregnant women, their husbands, mothers-in-law, and community opinion leaders using Information Education and Communication (IEC) materials such as leaflets, posters, wall paintings, and a pocket booklet on HTSP. Before the campaign, CWs were trained on all educational topics. Three CWs from two different ministries complemented each other's educational efforts—the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), both from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), and the village-level Anganwadi Worker (AW) from the Integrated …
Die Apathy Evaluation Scale: Erste Ergebnisse zu den psychometrischen Eigenschaften einer deutschsprachigen Übersetzung der Skala

Apathy is a common feature of a variety of different psychiatric, neurological, and medical disorders. It can be defined as lack of motivation affecting cognitive, emotional, and overt behavioural aspects. Despite being associated with other clinical disorders, apathy can also occur as an independent syndrome (e.g., after brain injuries), now depicting a primary loss of motivation. However, apathy is predominantly assessed within the scope of superordinate psychiatric disorders. As a syndrome-independent scale, the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES) claims to assess levels of apathy in different disorders. The aim of the present study is to provide German speaking researchers with an authorized German translation of the AES (AES D ). The scale was evaluated in a sample of 217 subjects, consisting of patients suffering from dementia (n=120), remission-phase schizophrenia (n = 20), Parkinson's disease (n = 12), stroke (n = 28), as well as elderly healthy controls (n=37). Preliminary results concerning the factorial structure, item characteristics, reliability, and construct validity demonstrate favourable statistical properties and suggest that the AES D is comparable to its original. The scale seems well-suited to detect apathy in different clinical groups. Differences between informant sources (clinician interview, self-, and informant ratings) seem to be related to the severity of symptoms or expert practice.
A Theory of Preindustrial Population Dynamics Demography, Economy, and Well‐Being in Malthusian Systems1

This paper presents a simple model of preindustrial population dynamics, one that brings together the theoretical insights of Thomas Robert Malthus and Ester Boserup. Central to the model is the concept of well‐being, which refers to those aspects of physical condition that influence an individual's capacity to survive and reproduce. Changes in the mean and variance in well‐being are modeled, first, under a fixed system of food production and, second, in the face of subsistence change. Among other things, the model suggests that the long‐term effects of economic change on the distribution of well‐being are negligible, although both the mean and variance are likely to increase temporarily in the short run. The model is used to explore several issues of enduring importance to demographic anthropology, including the nature of population regulation, the relationship between population pressure and economic change, and the demographic consequences of the transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture.
The Role of Recruit Division Commanders in Graduation From U.S. Navy Recruit Training

We investigated the importance of the role of drill instructors (RDCs) on training and retention of new sailors (N = 34,000). Based on social support and group cohesion literatures, we hypothesized that social support from RDCs would influence completion rates of entry-level Navy training and retention intention of new sailors. We found that perceptions of social support from RDCs had a significant positive relationship with eventual graduation from basic training; encouragement to remain in the Navy was particularly strongly related to graduation when the source of the encouragement was RDCs. Further, those who attrited from training were especially likely to perceive RDCs as encouraging them to leave the Navy. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of theory, research and practice.
Borderline Personality Disorder in Major Depression

The precise interrelationship between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and major depression (MD) remains unclear. To elucidate this further, we studied the characteristics of BPD in an unselected sample of 103 depressed subjects. All subjects were evaluated with structured diagnostic instruments. We contrasted three groups (MD plus BPD, MD plus a non-BPD, and MD plus no personality disorder) across several domains (characteristics of the depressive disorder, psychometric scales, axes I and II comorbidity, early environmental indices, family psychiatric history, and treatment response). Depressed subjects with BPD had significantly earlier onset of depression, dense axes I and II comorbidity, and higher prevalence of conduct disorder, and were characterized by elevated psychoticism and anger-hostility scores. In most other respects, however, depressed subjects with BPD were not strikingly distinct from other groups of depressed subjects.
Network Error Correction for Unit-Delay, Memory-Free Networks Using Convolutional Codes

A single source network is said to be memory-free if all of the internal nodes (those except the source and the sinks) do not employ memory but merely send linear combinations of the symbols received at their incoming edges on their outgoing edges. In this work, we introduce network-error correction for single source, acyclic, unit-delay, memory-free networks with coherent network coding for multicast. A convolutional code is designed at the source based on the network code in order to correct network- errors that correspond to any of a given set of error patterns, as long as consecutive errors are separated by a certain interval which depends on the convolutional code selected. Bounds on this interval and the field size required for constructing the convolutional code with the required free distance are also obtained. We illustrate the performance of convolutional network error correcting codes (CNECCs) designed for the unit-delay networks using simulations of CNECCs on an example network under a probabilistic error model.
Instruments for Causal Inference: An Epidemiologist's Dream?

The use of instrumental variable (IV) methods is attractive because, even in the presence of unmeasured confounding, such methods may consistently estimate the average causal effect of an exposure on an outcome. However, for this consistent estimation to be achieved, several strong conditions must hold. We review the definition of an instrumental variable, describe the conditions required to obtain consistent estimates of causal effects, and explore their implications in the context of a recent application of the instrumental variables approach. We also present (1) a description of the connection between 4 causal models—counterfactuals, causal directed acyclic graphs, nonparametric structural equation models, and linear structural equation models—that have been used to describe instrumental variables methods; (2) a unified presentation of IV methods for the average causal effect in the study population through structural mean models; and (3) a discussion and new extensions of instrumental variables methods based on assumptions of monotonicity.
Expanding the Assessment of Attitude Components and Structure: The Benefits of Open-ended Measures

In this chapter, we describe open-ended measures for assessing the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of attitudes, and the use of these measures to assess a variety of properties relating to attitude structure. In describing the utility of these measures to assess both intergroup and more general attitudes, we highlight situations in which open-ended measures may have advantages over closed-ended measures, as well as identifying situations in which closed-ended measures may be preferable. We conclude by suggesting that researchers interested in fully assessing attitudes would do well to include both open-ended and closed-ended measures in pursuit of this endeavor.
Towards a theory of collective phenomena: Consensus and attitude changes in groups

This study presents the outline of a model for collective phenomena. A symmetry-breaking model combines a number of well-established social psychology hypotheses with recent concepts of statistical physics. Specifically we start out from the regularities obtained in studies on the polarization of attitudes and decisions. From a strictly logical point of view, it is immediately clear that aggregation effects must be analysed separately from group effects as such. The conceptual analysis of the assumed mechanisms reveals that when we deal with phenomena that have until now been designated as polarization phenomena, we are faced not with a single phenomenon, as was believed hitherto, but with a whole class of phenomena. For this reason it would be appropriate to deal with them differentially both from an empirical and from a theoretical point of view. It is possible to show, moreover, that in principle polarization is a direct function of interaction and, beyond a critical threshold an inverse function of the differentiation between group members. A certain number of verifiable conjectures are presented on the basis of physio-mathematical-psychological considerations. It is to be hoped that these theoretical outlines will make it possible to give a new lease on life to a field of research that has established solid facts, but that became trapped in a dead-end road, for lack of a sufficiently broad analysis.
Using imitation with congenitally deafblind adults: establishing meaningful communication partnerships

All congenitally deafblind people are potential communication partners. The key question for practitioners is how to help them achieve that potential. Imitation offers a particularly powerful means of doing so because it allows both partners to occupy a joint dyadic space, where the process of repairing the damaged communication partnerships that many deafblind people have been forced to function within throughout their lives can begin. I will first outline a brief history of deafblind education over the last 150 years in order to provide a general account of changes in practice and theory and corresponding impacts on interventions. I will then describe some of the difficulties that congenitally deafblind people face in making contact with and being understood by other people before drawing on both practical examples and theoretical accounts on neonatal imitation to examine four key functions that imitation plays in facilitating communicative exchanges between deafblind individuals and their partners: it attracts attention, it stimulates turn-taking, it allows partners to recognize each other and it reveals the other as ‘just like me’. I will conclude that imitation is simply the starting place for a journey towards a ‘natural’ language for congenitally deafblind people, a language where meanings are jointly negotiated from the actions, gestures and vocalizations that develop between deafblind people and their communication partners. This starting place is the same for congenitally deafblind people as it is for all infants: a companion space where imitation acts a powerful and immediate source of feedback about your value as a fellow human being. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The quality of consumers' decision‐making in the environment of e‐commerce

It is very important that e-commerce practitioners leverage the technological power (e.g., information control) of the Internet in order to provide consumers with the information they need to make purchasing decisions. In this study, it is hypothesized that, to improve decision-making quality, the degree of information control should be matched to the degree of expertise of consumers. The experiment method was used to test the hypothesis, and 120 student subjects voluntarily participated in the experiment. The empirical results of the study show that experts perform better at decision making in high-information conditions, whereas novices perform better in low-control conditions. The results of this research strongly support the match hypothesis of information control. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Exploring the Determinants of Job Satisfaction of Civil Servants in Beijing, China

Chinese civil servants work in institutional and cultural contexts that are very different from those of their Western counterparts. Very little research has been done to study their job satisfaction. This paper attempts to fill the gap by analyzing data from a survey of 800 civil servants in Beijing. Fifteen independent variables are clustered into three categories: job characteristics, organizational-environmental factors, and personal characteristics. Ordinary least squares regression is used to analyze the relationship between job satisfaction and independent variables. Results show that all six job characteristics such as task variety and salary exert statistically significant influences over the dependent variable; two organizational-environmental factors, work environment safety and relations with coworkers, are also statistically significant in the model. Personal characteristics such as gender exert nominal effects. Implications for practice and further research are also discussed based on the results of regression analysis.
Investigations of heme distortion, low-frequency vibrational excitations, and electron transfer in cytochrome c

Significance To probe the effect of heme ruffling on electron transport, we studied three cytochromes that display wide variation in the heme ruffling distortion. Ruffling is characterized by a low-frequency heme mode in the region 45–60 cm−1 and by a photoreduction cross-section that displays strong variation as a function of the magnitude of the distortion. Given the similarity in the distance between the heme and the nearest aromatic amino acid for all three proteins, the order-of-magnitude changes in photoreduction rate demonstrate that the ruffling coordinate can serve as a control mechanism for electron transport in heme proteins. Major differences in heme ruffling are noted for cytochrome c when bound to the mitochondrial membrane compared with its solution structure. Cytochrome (cyt) c is an important electron transfer protein. The ruffling deformation of its heme cofactor has been suggested to relate to its electron transfer rate. However, there is no direct experimental evidence demonstrating this correlation. In this work, we studied Pseudomonas aeruginosa cytochrome c551 and its F7A mutant. These two proteins, although similar in their X-ray crystal structure, display a significant difference in their heme out-of-plane deformations, mainly along the ruffling coordinate. Resonance Raman and vibrational coherence measurements also indicate significant differences in ruffling-sensitive modes, particularly the low-frequency γa mode found between ∼50–60 cm−1. This supports previous assignments of γa as having a large ruffling content. Measurement of the photoreduction kinetics finds an order of magnitude decrease of the photoreduction cross-section in the F7A mutant, which has nearly twice the ruffling deformation as the WT. Additional measurements on cytochrome c demonstrate that heme ruffling is correlated exponentially with the electron transfer rates and suggest that ruffling could play an important role in redox control. A major relaxation of heme ruffling in cytochrome c, upon binding to the mitochondrial membrane, is discussed in this context.
What is Wrong with the ‘What-Went-Right’ Approach in Educational Policy?

This article critically examines how ‘what-went-right’ analyses are used to subsequently justify the transfer of reform packages or ‘best practices' from one country to another. Similar to evidence-based policy planning, the what-went-right approach needs to be criticized for being presumptuous. There are three fallacies of the what-went-right analysis that the article dismantles: rationality, precision and universality. The article focuses on the façade of universality and examines how the claim to universal solutions is methodologically sustained. First, the author shows how standardized or normative comparison has in recent years overshadowed the other two types of comparison: comparison across time (historical analyses) and comparison across contexts ('simple comparison’). Then, she elaborates on why the what-went-right approach requires policy analysts to downplay differences between educational systems in order to establish comparability between cases. The emphasis on comparability and similarity of cases is a prerequisite to importing ‘best practices' from vastly different educational systems. But what if transfer occurs regardless of difference? There is a curious phenomenon that the article addresses in greater detail: the retrospective definition of a local problem. Given the worldwide circulation of ‘best practices' and traveling reform packages, policy analysts sometimes are under pressure to align their analyses of local problems with already existing global solutions. The article ends with a reflection on policy borrowing and lending research and situates the what-went-right approach in the broader question of why and how policy analysts ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ reform packages that worked well in one context for transfer into another.
The Prevalence of Asthma and Declared Asthma in Poland on the Basis of ECAP Survey Using Correspondence Analysis

Results of epidemiological and public health surveys are often presented in the form of cross-classification tables. It is sometimes difficult to analyze data described in this way and to understand relations between variables. Graphical methods such as correspondence analysis are more convenient and useful. Our paper describes an application of correspondence analysis to epidemiological research. We apply the basic concepts of correspondence analysis like profiles, chi-square distance to medical data concerning prevalence of asthma. We aim at describing the relationship between asthma, region, and age. The data presented in this paper come from Epidemiology of Allergy in Poland (ECAP) survey in years 2006–2008. Correspondence analysis shows that there is a fundamental difference in the structure of age groups for people with symptoms compared to those who have declared asthma (regardless of the level of symptoms of asthma and the level of declaration). The variable which best differentiates declared asthma in all regions is “wheezing and whistling. ” Correspondence analysis also shows significant differences between locations. Our analyses are performed in the R package “ca”.
Appreciating emotion at work:paradigm tensions

This article sets out some of the tensions, dilemmas and possibilities for emotion research in organisations. It reviews different traditions that have informed emotion explorations, in particular the kinds of questions inspired by essentialist approaches – wedded to measurement and numbers – and interpretivist approaches, employing narrative means of knowing. Two recent developments – emotional intelligence and positive organisational psychology – illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of the different paradigms, as well as the pitfalls of overenthusiastic applications. The article concludes by making a case for the superiority of interpretive approaches in representing both the qualitative texture of emotion and its political contextualisation.
Janus Kinase 3 Down-Regulates Lipopolysaccharide-Induced IL-1β-Converting Enzyme Activation by Autocrine IL-101

ProIL-1β processing by IL-1β-converting enzyme (ICE) and the subsequent release of mature IL-1β are highly regulated events in the monocyte/macrophage response to pathogens. This process occurs in a controlled way through the activation of the constitutively expressed 45-kDa ICE precursor (proICE). To characterize the signaling pathways involved in ICE regulation in human monocytes/macrophages, we analyzed ICE activation in the presence of specific inhibitors of classic signaling pathways. Although LPS-induced ICE activity was not significantly affected by interruption of extracellular signal-regulated kinase, p38 kinase, or phosphoinositol 3-kinase, Janus kinase 3 (JAK3) inhibition produced a significant dose-dependent enhancement of LPS-induced ICE activity. Support for the inhibitory role of JAK3 was shown by the fact that IL-4 (which uses JAK1 and JAK3 signaling) suppressed LPS-induced ICE activity and by the finding that JAK3 knockout macrophages have increased LPS-induced ICE activation. To understand how JAK3 down-regulates LPS-induced ICE activity in monocytes, we hypothesized that JAK3 signaling enhances IL-10 production. In support of this model we show that LPS-induced IL-10 expression was synchronous with ICE deactivation, IL-4 induced the release of IL-10, exogenous IL-10 suppressed LPS-induced ICE activity, a neutralizing IL-10 Ab increased LPS-induced ICE activity, and, finally, JAK3 knockout macrophages displayed significantly reduced LPS-induced IL-10 production. These findings support a model in which JAK3 signaling enhances IL-10 production leading to down-regulation of ICE activation and suppression of IL-1β processing and release.
Finding out How Psychotherapies Help People Change

The central goal of psychotherapy research is to achieve an understanding of the change mechanisms giving rise to clients' clinical improvement. Efforts towards this goal have been thwarted by the paradox of demonstrably different methods yielding broadly similar outcomes. Four approaches to the resolution of this paradox are described, and illustrated with reference to the work of the Sheffield group. A multi-method approach to comparative process–outcome research is advocated, which is best implemented by collaboration amongst investigators.