Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experiences of spouses caring for their Dementia of Alzheimer's Type partners : a South African perspective

Dementia of Alzheimer‟s Type is a degenerative neurocognitive disease accounting for majority of Dementia‟s. It affects millions of people worldwide and thousands of people in South Africa. Apart from the economic burden this illness places on the country, it has detrimental effects for those who provide care for individuals with this illness, who are mostly spouses. The spousal caregivers bears great financial, social and emotional burden which worsens as the disease progresses. The aim of this study is to phenomenologically explore and describe the lived experiences of spousal caregivers in caring for the spouses with Dementia of Alzheimer‟s Type. This South African study was therefore qualitative in nature and was conducted in the province of KwaZuluNatal, in the city of Pietermaritzburg. Eight participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The main findings of this study are the negative emotional affects that the caregiving role creates. Caregiver stress and strain is experienced as well as the experiences of various losses including lack of intimacy and ruined expectations for the future as the disease progresses. The caregiving role also created negative implications for the social lives of caregivers and coping mechanisms were seen to be very important.
Las preferencias de los adolescentes sobre los personajes televisivos de ficción seriada

Los adolescentes, en pleno proceso de construccion de su propia identidad, encuentran en los personajes televisivos modelos a traves de los cuales ampliar su mundo social y encontrar su lugar en la sociedad. El objetivo de este articulo es explorar las preferencias de los ado­lescentes sobre los personajes de ficcion seriada. Se analizan las redacciones personales sobre su personaje preferido elaboradas por 464 estudiantes de ulti­mo curso de educacion secundaria obli­gatoria de Vizcaya (Espana). A traves del analisis de contenido se identifican los argumentos y los elementos comu­nes que proporcionan los adolescentes en dichas redacciones. Los resultados muestran que la identificacion con los personajes emerge como una categoria importante a la hora de elegir un perso­naje como favorito. En general, valoran el humor y la personalidad del persona­je asi como su sana relacion con la fa­milia y los amigos, y, tanto chicos como chicas, prefieren personajes masculinos mayores que ellos. Se concluye que la metodologia cualitativa permite avan¬zar en la comprension de la compleja relacion entre los adolescentes y los personajes de ficcion seriada y que, por tanto, es relevante seguir trabajando en esta linea. Adolescents, who are in the process of forming their own identity, find role models in television characters through which to expand their social horizons and find their place in society. The aim of this article is to explore adolescents’ preferences regarding characters in serialized fiction. This study analyzes personal essays about the favorite tele­vision character of 464 students in their final year of compulsory secondary edu­cation in Biscay (Spain). Through con­tent analysis, common arguments and elements discussed by the teens in their texts are identified. The results show that identification with a character emerges as an important factor in ado­lescents’ choice of a character as their favorite. In general, teens appreciate the humor and personality of the cha­racter as well as his or her healthy re­lationship with family and friends, and both boys and girls prefer male charac­ters that are older than them. The study concludes that qualitative methodology allows for the advancement of unders­tanding of the complex relationship between adolescents and characters in serialized fiction, and, therefore, it is im­portant to continue working with these techniques.
Environmental adaptation based on first order approximation

We propose an algorithm that compensates for both additive and convolutional noise. The goal of this method is to achieve an efficient environmental adaptation to realistic environments both in terms of computation time and memory. The algorithm described in this paper is an extension of an additive noise adaptation algorithm. Experimental results are given on a realistic database recorded in a car. This database is further filtered by a low pass filter to combine additive and channel noise. The proposed adaptation algorithm reduces the error rate by 75 % on this database, when compared to our baseline system without environmental adaptation.
Semi-scale production of PHAs from waste frying oil by Pseudomonas fluorescens S48

The present study aimed at developing a strategy to improve the volumetric production of PHAs by Pseudomonas fluorescens S48 using waste frying oil (WFO) as the sole carbon source. For this purpose, several cultivations were set up to steadily improve nutrients supply to attain high cell density and high biopolymer productivity. The production of PHAs was examined in a 14 L bioreactor as one-stage batch, two-stage batch, and high-cell-density fed-batch cultures. The highest value of polymer content in one-stage bioreactor was obtained after 60 h (33.7%). Whereas, the two-stage batch culture increased the polymer content to 50.1% after 54 h. High-cell-density (0.64 g/L) at continuous feeding rate 0.55 mL/l/h of WFO recorded the highest polymer content after 54 h (55.34%). Semi-scale application (10 L working volume) increased the polymer content in one-stage batch, two-stage batch and high cell density fed-batch cultures by about 12.3%, 5.8% and 11.3%, respectively, as compared with that obtained in 2 L fermentation culture. Six different methods for biopolymer extraction were done to investigate their efficiency for optimum polymer recovery. The maximum efficiency of solvent recovery of PHA was attained by chloroform–hypochlorite dispersion extraction. Gas chromatography (GC) analysis of biopolymer produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens S48 indicated that it solely composed of 3-hydrobutyric acid (98.7%). A bioplastic film was prepared from the obtained PHB. The isolate studied shares the same identical sequence, which is nearly the complete 16S rRNA gene. The identity of this sequence to the closest pseudomonads strains is about 98–99%. It was probably closely related to support another meaningful parsiomony analysis and construction of a phylogenetic tree. The isolate is so close to Egyptian strain named EG 639838.
Hematobiochemical profile in Surti goats during post-partum period

Aim: The study was undertaken to find out the changes in hematobiochemical profile in post-partum Surti goats. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted on 40 Surti goats out of which 20 goats who had undergone recent parturition acted as treatment group and 20 non-pregnant animals comprised control group. Blood samples were collected from the treatment group on 0, 7, 14, 21, 30, and 45 days post kidding and once from the control group. Blood samples were analyzed for hematological parameters such as hemoglobin (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV), total erythrocyte count (TEC), total leukocyte count (TLC), differential leukocyte count, and biochemical metabolites such as total protein (TP), albumin, globulin, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA), glucose, and urea. Results: Hb level was the highest on the 45th day and lowest on the day of parturition. Significantly low level of Hb, PCV, and lymphocyte was found on 0 day and significantly high level was found on the 45th day. TEC was also low on the 0 day and high on the 45th day post kidding, but the difference was non-significant. Mid-sized cells and granulocyte percentage decreased significantly from 0 to 45th day post-partum. TP, albumin, and urea were found to be lowest on 0 day and highest on 45th day post-partum. Urea concentration increased parallel to TP indicating an increase in urea production with catabolism of protein. The globulin concentration also increased from 0 to 45th day post-partum, but the difference was non-significant. TC, TG, and NEFA were the highest on 0 day and lowest on the 45th day post-partum. Decrease in TC and TG from 0 to 45th day post-partum indicates that the animals utilized the lipids for the supply of energy for milk production. High level of NEFA acts as an indicator of negative energy status but in the present study, the high glucose level on 0 day indicates that the animals were in positive energy status. The glucose concentration decreased up to 14th day post-partum and then started increasing from 21st day onward. Conclusion: Hematobiochemical parameters are indicative of health status of animals. Significantly low values of Hb, PCV, and TLC during first 2 weeks post-partum are indicative of stress. Catabolism of protein occurred during 2 weeks post-partum, as observed from increase in urea concentration. Decrease TGs and high level of NEFA during the transition period are suggestive of utilization of lipids for the supply of energy. High glucose level on 0 day indicates that the animals were in positive energy status.
Efficacy of Cognitive Enrichment for Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): Evaluation of Planning Abilities Through the Use of a Novel Problem Solving Task

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iv DEDICATION . v LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . xi CHAPTER I – PLANNING IN THE BOTTLENOSE DOLPHIN (TURSIOPS TRUNCATUS): AN EXAMINATION OF ABILITY, PARTICIPATION, PREFERENCE, AND STRATEGY .
Self-ordered pointing performance in Huntington's disease patients

The ability to organize, perform, monitor, and remember sequences of movements is typically ascribed to the frontal cortex. In this study, 13 Huntington's disease (HD) patients and 13 healthy control subjects (NC) were examined on a modified version of the Petrides and Milner self-ordered pointing task. HD patients made more errors in every task condition relative to NC subjects. However, task manipulations, including variations in list length, verbal versus nonverbal materials, and concrete versus abstract stimuli, affected HD patients in the same way as they did the NC subjects. Among the patients, disease severity correlated with performance in the most difficult condition only. The HD patients' impaired performance on this task is most likely attributable to disruption of frontal-subcortical circuits stemming from striatal neuronal loss.
Selected Cytokines in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer: A Preliminary Report

Background/Aims Recent experimental studies have suggested that various cytokines may be important players in the development and progression of pancreatic cancer. However, these findings have not yet been verified in a clinical setting. Methods In this study, we examined the levels of a broad panel of cytokines, including interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-17, and IL-23, as well as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (n = 43), other pancreatic malignancies (neuroendocrine [n = 10] and solid pseudopapillary tumors [n = 3]), and healthy individuals (n = 41). Results We found that there were higher levels of IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNFα in patients with pancreatic cancer compared to healthy controls (for all, at least p<0.03). Cancer patients had lower IL-23 concentrations than healthy individuals and patients diagnosed with other types of malignancies (for both, p = 0.002). Levels of IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-23 were significantly associated with the direct number of circulating bone marrow (BM)-derived mesenchymal or very small embryonic/epiblast-like stem cells (SCs) in patients with pancreatic cancer. Moreover, our study identified a potential ability of IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-23, and TNFα levels to enable discrimination of pancreatic cancer from other pancreatic tumors and diseases, including acute and chronic pancreatitis and post-pancreatitis cysts (with sensitivity and specificity ranging between 70%–82%). Conclusions Our study i) supports the significance of selected cytokines in the clinical presentation of pancreatic cancer, ii) highlights numerous associations between selected interleukins and intensified BMSCs trafficking in patients with pancreatic cancer, and iii) preliminarily characterizes the diagnostic potential of several cytokines as potential novel clinical markers of pancreatic cancer in humans.
Clinical Activity and Tolerability of a 14-Day Infusional Ifosfamide Schedule in Soft-Tissue Sarcoma

Background. Soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) are a heterogeneous group of diseases with lack of effective treatments in most cases. Previous data suggest that continuous infusional ifosfamide regimens might improve cytotoxicity and tolerability compared to standard schedules. Methods. We retrospectively report the outcome of 35 patients affected by STS treated with a 14-day infusional ifosfamide regimen (1000 mg/m2/day) in our institution. Predictive factors for toxicity were also explored. Results. Median age was 53 years. There were 16 males and 19 females. Classification by histology was dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLPS): 22 (62.8%), synovial sarcoma: 7 (20%), myxoid/round-cell liposarcoma: 3 (8.5%), and others: 3 (8.5%). Overall, 7 patients (20%) achieved partial response (PR) and 10 patients (29%) achieved stable disease (SD). DDLPS showed special sensitivity: 5 patients (22.7%) had PR, 7 patients (31.8%) had SD, and disease control rate was 54.5%. Median progression-free survival and overall survival were 4.2 and 11.2 months, respectively. The most common toxicities were fatigue, nausea, and vomiting (all grades: 85.7%, 83%, and 54.3%, resp.). Neither hypoalbuminaemia nor gender was found to predict toxicity, although encephalopathy predominantly affected females. Conclusion. Ifosfamide administered as a 14-day continuous infusion is a safe regimen in STS with notable activity in DDLPS.
Relationship of Facebook usage and Facebook belongingness to emerging adulthood's self-esteem and social identity

RELATIONSHIP OF FACEBOOK USAGE AND FACEBOOK BELONGINGNESS TO EMERGING ADULTHOOD’S SELF-ESTEEM AND SOCIAL IDENTITY Mary Schufreider, M.S. School of Family, Consumer, and Nutrition Sciences Northern Illinois University, 2015 Dr. J. Elizabeth Miller, Director The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between emerging adults’ involvement with Facebook and their sense of social identity and level of self-esteem. Based on the results that measured Facebook belongingness, self-esteem, Facebook identity, and social comparison, there were significant findings that suggested there is a relationship between the amount of time spent on Facebook and one’s level of self-esteem, amount of time spent on Facebook and Facebook belongingness, as well as Facebook belongingness and Facebook identity. Further research needs to be done to evaluate differences in gender, race, and sexual orientation. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS
Extracellular Acidification Acts as a Key Modulator of Neutrophil Apoptosis and Functions

In human pathological conditions, the acidification of local environment is a frequent feature, such as tumor and inflammation. As the pH of microenvironment alters, the functions of immune cells are about to change. It makes the extracellular acidification a key modulator of innate immunity. Here we detected the impact of extracellular acidification on neutrophil apoptosis and functions, including cell death, respiratory burst, migration and phagocytosis. As a result, we found that under the acid environment, neutrophil apoptosis delayed, respiratory burst inhibited, polarization augmented, chemotaxis differed, endocytosis enhanced and bacteria killing suppressed. These findings suggested that extracellular acidification acts as a key regulator of neutrophil apoptosis and functions.
Sharing with caution: Managing parking spaces in vehicular networks

By exchanging events in a vehicular ad hoc network VANET, drivers can receive interesting information while driving. For example, they can be informed of available parking spaces in their vicinity. A suitable protocol is needed to disseminate the events efficiently within the area where they are relevant. Moreover, in such a competitive context where each vehicle may be interested in a resource, it is crucial not to communicate that resource to each driver in the vicinity. Otherwise, those drivers would waste time trying to reach a parking space and only one of them would be fulfilled, which would lead to a poor satisfaction in the system. To solve this problem, we detail in this paper a reservation protocol that efficiently allocates parking spaces in vehicular ad hoc networks and avoids the competition among the vehicles. We have integrated our protocol within VESPA, a system that we have designed for vehicles to share information in VANETs. An experimental evaluation is provided, which proves the usefulness and benefits of our reservation protocol in both parking lots and urban scenarios. Besides, we present an in-depth study of the state of the art on this topic, that shows the interest and the originality of our approach.
Measures for Assessing Subjective Effects of Potential Reduced-Exposure Products

Potential reduced-exposure products (PREP) may reduce toxicant exposure and thereby may possibly reduce health risks associated with conventional tobacco use. However, lessened health risk to the individual or harm to the population through the use of PREPs is unknown. Research is being conducted to evaluate the possible health effects associated with PREP use. As part of this evaluation, it is critical to provide sound measures of subjective responses to PREPs to determine the use and the abuse potential of a product, that is, the likelihood that the product will lead to addiction. The goal of this paper is to conduct a systematic review of scales that have been used to measure the subjective responses to PREPs and examine their characteristics. In this article, scales are identified and the items on the scales are described. Scales are also examined to determine whether they are sensitive in testing PREPs. Furthermore, scales to assess PREPs are recommended to investigators. Where no scales exist, items that may be critical for the development and validation of new scales are identified. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(12):3209–24)
Experiential Teaching May Lead To Experiential Learning

This paper discusses an old issue at ABSEL, whether we are really dealing with experiential learning or whether we may be guilty of straying into experiential teaching. We assert that many, if not most, ABSEL papers take the instructorâ€™s perspective in terms of design and implementation, and ignore the maxim that â€œall that is taught is not learned. â€ Acknowledging one of our earlier presidentâ€™s philosophies (â€œIf it feels good, do itâ€), we attempt to provide justification for our frequent emphasis on â€œexperiential teaching. â€
Historical Development of Research Methods in the Information Systems Discipline

In this article, we report on an investigation that integrated the results from twenty meta-studies on research methods as identified by a thorough literature review. By conducting this investigation, we seek to reconstruct the historical development of research methods in the Information Systems (IS) discipline. Major results of the investigation are: Only the classical empirical methods (survey, case study, laboratory experiment, and field experiment) have been the subject of intensive discussion. Survey, case study, and laboratory experiment demonstrate an upward tendency in their historical development during the past forty years (1968-2006), whereas the field experiment does not. The investigation reveals an average adoption rate of 24 percent for the survey, 13 percent for the case study, 10 percent for the laboratory experiment, and 3 percent for the field experiment. Finally, we have not observed radical methodological changes in the IS discipline. Key findings and their implications for the future development of the IS discipline are discussed.
A multi-transition submillimeter water maser study of evolved stars. Detection of a new line near 475 GHz

Context. Maser emission from the H 2 O molecule probes the warm, inner circumstellar envelopes of oxygen-rich red giant and supergiant stars. Multi-maser transition studies can be used to put constraints on the density and temperature of the emission regions. Aims. A number of known H 2 O maser lines were observed toward the long period variables R Leo and W Hya and the red supergiant VY CMa. A search for a new, not yet detected line near 475 GHz was conducted toward these stars. Methods. The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope was used for a multi-transition observational study of submillimeter H 2 O lines. Results. The 5 33 –4 40 transition near 475 GHz was clearly detected toward VY CMa and W Hya. Many other H 2 O lines were detected toward all three target stars. Relative line intensity ratios and velocity widths were found to vary significantly from star to star. Conclusions. Maser action is observed in all but one line for which it was theoretically predicted. In contrast, one of the strongest maser lines, in R Leo by far the strongest, the 437 GHz 7 53 –6 60 transition, is not predicted to be inverted. Some other qualitative predictions of the model calculations are at variance with our observations. Plausible reasons for this are discussed. Based on our findings for W Hya and VY CMa, we find evidence that the H 2 O masers in the AGB star W Hya arise from the regular circumstellar outflow, while shock excitation in a high velocity flow seems to be required to excite masers far from the red supergiant VY CMa.
Detection of splice junctions from paired-end RNA-seq data by SpliceMap

Alternative splicing is a prevalent post-transcriptional process, which is not only important to normal cellular function but is also involved in human diseases. The newly developed second generation sequencing technique provides high-throughput data (RNA-seq data) to study alternative splicing events in different types of cells. Here, we present a computational method, SpliceMap, to detect splice junctions from RNA-seq data. This method does not depend on any existing annotation of gene structures and is capable of finding novel splice junctions with high sensitivity and specificity. It can handle long reads (50–100 nt) and can exploit paired-read information to improve mapping accuracy. Several parameters are included in the output to indicate the reliability of the predicted junction and help filter out false predictions. We applied SpliceMap to analyze 23 million paired 50-nt reads from human brain tissue. The results show at this depth of sequencing, RNA-seq can support reliable detection of splice junctions except for those that are present at very low level. Compared to current methods, SpliceMap can achieve 12% higher sensitivity without sacrificing specificity.