Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE OCCURRENCE OF ANXIETY LEVELS IN CHILDHOOD AND COPING STRATEGIES

Anxiety disorders in childhood constitute a serious phenomenon nowadays, as they impede academic and social functioning, such as school performance, social-emotional development and interaction with the family environment. In order to minimize or overcome abnormal stress, children may develop several coping strategies. The current study examined the occurrence of anxiety disorders in childhood, as well as the use of coping strategies in relation to various demographic data. 461 students of 5th and 6th Primary School Grade participated in the study which was conducted in urban and suburban areas of Greece. Two scales were used: a) The Spence’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), which examines anxiety disorders in childhood and b) Brodzinsky’s Coping Scale for Children and Youth, which detects stress coping strategies. The results showed that gender and the educational level of the mother were significantly related to both of these concepts, whilst age was related to anxiety disorders. Article visualizations:
Black, White, and Biracial Students’ Engagement at Differing Institutional Types

Student engagement is “characterized as parti­ cipation in educationally effective practices, both inside and outside the classroom, which leads to a range of measurable outcomes” (Harper & Quaye, 2015, p. 2), such as college persistence (Astin, 1993; Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2008; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Stage & Hossler, 2000). Engagement involves both the time and effort students put into educationally effective practices, as well as the time and effort institu­ tions put into engaging students (Kuh, 2001; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007; Wolf­Wendel, Ward, & Kinzie, 2009). Student engagement, however, is not a monolithic phenomenon; there fore, researchers have begun to explore engagement for students with different racial identities across diverse institutional types, including minority serving institutions and predominantly White institu­ tions (PWIs; see Flowers, 2002; Nelson Laird, Bridges, Morelon­Quainoo, Williams, & Holmes, 2007; Outcalt & Skewes­Cox, 2002). Findings from these studies suggest that Black students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) may be more engaged than their Black peers at PWIs (Allen, 1992; Nelson Laird et al., 2007; Outcalt & Skewes­Cox, 2002). Some researchers have also studied differences in engagement between Black students and White students attending a PWI (DeSousa & King, 1992), between Black students attending PWIs and Black students attending HBCUs (Chen, Ingram, & Davis, 2014) and engagement for White students’ at HBCUs (Carter & Fountaine, 2012). While previous researchers explored Black students’ engagement and/or White students’ engagement within one institutional type, there remains a dearth in research comparing Black and White students’ engagement within multiple institutional types. Within this study, we are interested in engagement practices for Black students, White students, and the mixed­race college student population at HBCUs and non­ HBCUs. From 2010 to 2014, the mixed­race college student population enrolled in US postsecondary degree granting institutions nearly doubled (Snyder, de Brey, & Dillow, 2015). Detailed information on the enrollment trends for mixed­race students at HBCUs is difficult to find; however, the population of students at HBCUs who do not identify as Black continues to increase alongside a growing mixed­race college student population across institutional types (Gasman, 2013; Snyder et al., 2015). In preparing for this study, we could not locate any empirical research that explored engagement for mixed­ race students between or within HBCUs and non­HBCUs. In fact, we did not find any empirical studies that explicitly focused on mixed­race students’ engagement practices in higher education. This gap in research leaves the field under­informed about mixed­race
Symptom reduction and termination: client change and therapist identified reasons for saying goodbye

Abstract Empirical efforts have focused on predicting whether or not clients prematurely terminate therapy, with nonattendance of last session equated to premature termination. However, this fails to explore the relationship between clients’ distress reduction and reasons for termination. With this study, we aimed to understand how clients’ distress change relates to premature termination and examine clients’ distress change in conjunction with therapists’ perceptions of termination reasons. We collected data from 797 clients who prematurely terminated or attended termination but completed therapy a minimum of three individual sessions provided by 38 therapists. Clients completed an assessment of psychological symptoms before each session. At the end of treatment, therapists identified the reasons they believed termination occurred for all clients in the sample. Results demonstrate that total sessions attended and missed predict premature termination, whereas distress change does not. Additionally, clients who were believed to accomplish goals do show greater change. However, therapists’ indicated that over half of clients did not reach goals at termination and they did not perceive nonattendance at last session to equate to drop out in all cases. Implications are discussed with respect to understanding why clients’ terminate, therapeutic goal conceptualization, and review of goals during termination in time-limited psychotherapy.
Macrophage recruitment and epithelial repair following hair cell injury in the mouse utricle

The sensory organs of the inner ear possess resident populations of macrophages, but the function of those cells is poorly understood. In many tissues, macrophages participate in the removal of cellular debris after injury and can also promote tissue repair. The present study examined injury-evoked macrophage activity in the mouse utricle. Experiments used transgenic mice in which the gene for the human diphtheria toxin receptor (huDTR) was inserted under regulation of the Pou4f3 promoter. Hair cells in such mice can be selectively lesioned by systemic treatment with diphtheria toxin (DT). In order to visualize macrophages, Pou4f3–huDTR mice were crossed with a second transgenic line, in which one or both copies of the gene for the fractalkine receptor CX3CR1 were replaced with a gene for GFP. Such mice expressed GFP in all macrophages, and mice that were CX3CR1GFP/GFP lacked the necessary receptor for fractalkine signaling. Treatment with DT resulted in the death of ∼70% of utricular hair cells within 7 days, which was accompanied by increased numbers of macrophages within the utricular sensory epithelium. Many of these macrophages appeared to be actively engulfing hair cell debris, indicating that macrophages participate in the process of ‘corpse removal’ in the mammalian vestibular organs. However, we observed no apparent differences in injury-evoked macrophage numbers in the utricles of CX3CR1+/GFP mice vs. CX3CR1GFP/GFP mice, suggesting that fractalkine signaling is not necessary for macrophage recruitment in these sensory organs. Finally, we found that repair of sensory epithelia at short times after DT-induced hair cell lesions was mediated by relatively thin cables of F-actin. After 56 days recovery, however, all cell-cell junctions were characterized by very thick actin cables.
Stability of Cohen-Grossberg Neural Networks with Impulsive and Mixed Time Delays

In this paper, the problem of stability analysis for a class of impulsive Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with mixed time delays is considered. The mixed time delays comprise both the time-varying and distributed delays. By employing a combination of the M -matrix theory and analytic methods, several sufficient conditions are obtained to ensure the global exponential stability of equilibrium point for the addressed impulsive Cohen-Grossberg neural network with mixed delays. The proposed method, which does not make use of the Lyapunov functional, is shown to be simple yet effective for analyzing the stability of impulsive neural networks with variable and/or distributed delays. Moreover, the exponential convergence rate is estimated, which depends on the system parameters. The results obtained generalize a few previously known results by removing some restrictions or assumptions. An example with simulation is given to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.
Putting down roots: the significance of technical adaptations in the therapeutic process with fostered and adopted children‡

Severely neglected and traumatised children have also suffered from a lack of the parental nurturing which is needed for ordinary emotional development to take place. Often their past experiences make them unable to utilise the nurturing that foster and adoptive families try to give them and they are delayed or stuck in their development. In therapy, when the early small signs of new emotional development start to emerge, they may be heralded by technical challenges to the therapist. Two examples are given in this paper, which are discussed in the context of Stern et al.’s ideas about moments of meeting, Winnicott’s concepts about transitional phenomena and playing, and Hurry and her colleagues’ thoughts about the therapist as a developmental object. It is argued that it is important for the therapist to be alert to the possible significance of these technical adaptations in terms of the child’s capacity for new emotional development. These often indicate that a watershed in the treatment has been reached and if positively responded to, that the patient is in the process of ‘putting down roots’ in the ground of the therapeutic relationship and starting to grow across a spectrum of developmental pathways.
Assessment of Dynamic Cerebral Autoregulation in Patients with Basilar Artery Stenosis

Background and Aims Previous studies have shown impaired cerebral autoregulation (CA) in carotid and middle cerebral artery (MCA) stenosis/occlusion. Little is known about CA in patients with basilar artery (BA) stenosis. We therefore investigated dynamic CA patterns in BA stenosis using transfer function analysis (TFA). Methods We measured spontaneous oscillations of blood flow velocity (CBFV) in the right posterior cerebral artery (PCA), and left MCA and mean arterial pressure (ABP) continuously in 25 patients with BA stenosis (moderate n=16 with 50-69% occlusion and severe n=9 with ≥70% occlusion) and 22 healthy volunteers in supine position during 6 circles per minute deep breath. Analysis was based on the ‘black-box’ model of transfer function deriving phase and gain in both PCA and MCA. Results Though changes of phase shift and gain between the patients and healthy controls were observed in MCA, the differences are however not significant. Phase shift in PCA was significantly decreased in severe stenosis when comparing with healthy controls and moderate stenosis (4.2±34.2° VS 41.1±40.4°, 4.2±34.2° VS 34.2±27.2°, both p<0.05), whilst the gain in PCA is increased for moderate BA stenosis and decreased for severe BA stenosis. Furthermore, we found that phase shift were almost abolished in patients with ischemic stroke who developed unfavorable clinical outcome (mRs>2) on the 90 days after stroke onset. Conclusion Dynamic CA in PCA reduces in patients with severe BA stenosis and those with ischemic stroke who present poor outcome in 90 days after stroke onset. Phase shift might be a sensitive index prompting impaired CA in posterior circulation.
Resource pooling and effective bandwidths in CDMA networks with multiuser receivers and spatial diversity

Much of the performance analysis on multiuser receivers for direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems is focused on worst case near-far scenarios. The user capacity of power-controlled networks with multiuser receivers are less well-understood. Tse and Hanly (see ibid., vol.45, p.541-657, 1999) have shown that under some conditions, the user capacity of an uplink power-controlled CDMA cell for several important linear receivers can be very simply characterized via a notion of effective bandwidth. We show that these results extend to the case of antenna arrays. We consider a CDMA system consisting of users transmitting to an antenna array with a multiuser receiver, and obtain the limiting signal-to-interference (SIR) performance in a large system using random spreading sequences. Using this result, we show that the SIR requirements of all the users can be met if and only if the sum of the effective bandwidths of the users is less than the total number of degrees of freedom in the system. The effective bandwidth of a user depends only on its own requirement. Our results show that the total number of degrees of freedom of the whole system is the product of the spreading gain and the number of antennas. In the case when the fading distributions to the antennas are identical, we show that a curious phenomenon of "resource pooling" arises: the multiantenna system behaves like a system with only one antenna but with the processing gain the product of the processing gain of the original system and the number of antennas, and the received power of each user the sum of the received powers at the individual antennas.
Powered by Netflix: speed test services and video-on-demand’s global development projects

This article examines three online tools that enable users of video-on-demand (VOD) platforms to check their Internet speeds: the ISP Speed Index and Fast.com, both developed by Netflix, and Google/YouTube’s Video Quality Report. In the context of VOD corporations’ aims of global market expansion, these sites are part of Netflix and YouTube’s broader initiatives to promote high-speed broadband and mobile Internet to users throughout the world. However, I argue that these speed test sites are ultimately less concerned with encouraging high-speed Internet as a broadly accessible public good and more invested in ensuring that consumers have quick and ready access to the one particular video platform owned by that stakeholder. Merging literature on media globalization, development communication, and digital infrastructures, this article shows that like many corporate global development projects, these speed test sites mask commercialized self-interest behind a seemingly humanitarian and philanthropic push for increased user participation in a modernized mediascape. Mundane as they may seem, Netflix’s and YouTube’s speed test services provide opportunities to critique how Silicon Valley and global entertainment industries position themselves jointly as benefactors of development.
Evaluation of Antimicrobial-Antibiofilm Activity of a Hydrogen Peroxide Decontaminating System Used in Dental Unit Water Lines

A dental unit water line (DUWL) equipped with a device designed to automatically and continually flush a bacteriostatic solution of hydrogen peroxide (WHE) and a discontinuous disinfecting system (BIOSTER) was evaluated. In the first instance a preliminary sensitivity test on a large number of microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) was tried with a H2O2 range from 100 to 800 ppm. The bacteria frequently reported in DUWL (including Pseudomonas spp, Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., E. coli) and some periodontal pathogens showed a minimum inhibitory concentration from 100 to 300 H2O2 ppm (also including M. marinum and C. albicans). However, H2O2 did not show any inhibitory effects against: A. actinomycetemcomitans, C. glabrata C. parapsilos, F. nucleatum, M. micros. In a second step, the DUWL was experimentally infected with S. faecalis, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus. After disinfection steps with 3% H2O2, the inhibitory effect on planktonic forms and on sessile biofilm was measured. In a third step, the count of 16S rRNA gene copies by real time PCR at different points of the DUWL described an accrue of bacterial slime in “hot spot” regions characterized by irregular/slow water flux (valves, elbows). However these results suggest that hydrogen peroxide is not only able to inhibit bursts of planktonic bacteria inside the DUWL, but that it could also be effective against sessile biofilm containing heterotrophic microorganisms derived from domestic water line contamination. In addition some oral pathogens could be contaminating and surviving in DUWL.
Sex in the digital city: location-based dating apps and queer urban life

Abstract It is well established that digital technology and code mediate bodies in space. The collapse of any supposed physical/digital divide has been amply documented to the extent that everyday life is now widely theorised in terms of hybridisation. What is less clear is what comes next for those participating in this hybridisation. This article examines what Kitchin and Dodge term the ‘social contour of software’ via queer male locative media users who collectively negotiate digital hybridisation in their everyday lives. Using qualitative interviews with 36 non-heterosexual men using apps such as Grindr and Tinder in London, UK, I explore how locative media refigures conceptualisations of community, technological efficiency and boundaries between private and public space. The study finds that users express ambivalence about their membership of queer ‘communities’, and are also unconvinced by online sociality. Apps expedite searches for new partners but prove deceptively time-consuming. Public and private space are being hybridised by locative technology, but common codes of conduct are slower to develop, leaving users unsure of how to navigate physical encounter. This article concludes that schema for queer men’s lives are increasingly promulgated digitally but may be uneasily embodied in everyday practice.
RETROSPECTIVE: Bubble-Flux: Precise Online QoS Management for Increased Utilization in Warehouse Scale Computers

The Bubble-Flux paper, published at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) in 2013, sought to address the challenge of microarchitectural resource contention between co-located applications and its effect on Quality of Service in data centers. During this period, the field of data center computing was in its nascent stages, with a particular focus on holistic Warehouse-Scale Computers (WSCs) architecture and design. Indeed, this was a time when technologies that have since become the norm in this domain, such as Kubernetes, were in their experimental phase and largely restricted to in-house operations at tech giants like Google. During this era, the new performance indicator known as quality of service (QoS) had emerged in the realm of datacenter computing and was swiftly recognized as the key metric for evaluating performance in this domain. Ensuring the QoS for latency-sensitive applications was critical for optimizing server utilization and curtailing costs, especially when considering multiple user-facing applications run on the same server in WSCs. Bubble-Flux aimed to precisely predict contention and QoS at scale and in real time. The conceptualization of Bubble-Flux, along with its predecessor Bubble-Up [1], was driven by Jason Mars over the course of two summers. Initially, as a research intern at Google, Mars formulated Bubble-Up, which was later published at Micro 2011 and was selected as a MICRO Top Picks in the community. Bubble-up represented a proof of concept the provided a controlled static profiling analysis for precise prediction. The technique was evaluated using production Google workloads. However Mars then developed the idea further into Bubble-Flux during a subsequent summer as a visiting scholar at Google after his appointment as an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Bubble-Flux was an real-time scale out solution that continuously ran on 1000s of machines as a service reporting contention and forecasting QoS as workloads change over the diurnal pattern in data-centers. Historically, performance predictability in the context of microarchitectural resource contention had been an academic focal point since 2008 through a variety of techniques spanning compiler and OS solutions for isolation, among others. However, the distinguishing feature and key insight of BubbleFlux and Bubble-Up was the recognition of the intractability of precise predictions using the modeling approach the community had been working on, given the inherent complexity of real world microarchitecture. Multiple applications can contend for numerous disparate microarchitectural resources, and these resources change every generation of processor released. In response to this, Jason Mars, in collaboration with Lingjia Tang and colleagues, developed a range of novel techniques that are capable of operating at scale across thousands of machines, saving companies like Google millions of dollars in practice.
Natural progression of diabetic peripheral neuropathy in the Zenarestat study population.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to report the baseline and natural progression of diabetic peripheral neuropathy over 12 months in a large mild-to-moderate neuropathy population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Patients from a multicentered trial of zenarestat, an aldose reductase inhibitor, had serial measures of neurologic function, including nerve conduction studies (NCSs), quantitative sensory testing (QST), and clinical neuropathy rating scores at baseline and at 12 months. Baseline population descriptors and changes in neurologic function in placebo-treated patients were analyzed. RESULTS Sural sensory velocity (P = 0.0008 [95% CI -1.04 to -0.27]), median sensory amplitude (P = 0.0021 [-1.3 to -0.29]), median distal motor latency (P = 0.002 [0.09-0.28]), cool thermal QST (P = 0.0005 [0.27-0.94]), and Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrument results (P = 0.0087 [0.04-0.30]) declined significantly from baseline in the placebo population. NCS changes from baseline were independent of baseline HbA1c stratification. CONCLUSIONS The neurologic decline over 12 months is evident when measured by NCS and cool thermal QST. Other measures (vibration QST, neuropathy rating scores, monofilament examination) are insensitive to changes over 12 months in a mild-to-moderate affected population of this size.
Regulation of PTEN/Akt Pathway Enhances Cardiomyogenesis and Attenuates Adverse Left Ventricular Remodeling following Thymosin β4 Overexpressing Embryonic Stem Cell Transplantation in the Infarcted Heart

Thymosin β4 (Tβ4), a small G-actin sequestering peptide, mediates cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis. Whether embryonic stem (ES) cells, overexpressing Tβ4, readily differentiate into cardiac myocytes in vitro and in vivo and enhance cardioprotection following transplantation post myocardial infarction (MI) remains unknown. Accordingly, we established stable mouse ES cell lines, RFP-ESCs and Tβ4-ESCs, expressing RFP and an RFP-Tβ4 fusion protein, respectively. In vitro, the number of spontaneously beating embryoid bodies (EBs) was significantly increased in Tβ4-ESCs at day 9, 12 and 15, compared with RFP-ESCs. Enhanced expression of cardiac transcriptional factors GATA-4, Mef2c and Txb6 in Tβ4-EBs, as confirmed with real time-PCR analysis, was accompanied by the increased number of EB areas stained positive for sarcomeric α-actin in Tβ4-EBs, compared with the RFP control, suggesting a significant increase in functional cardiac myocytes. Furthermore, we transplanted Tβ4-ESCs into the infarcted mouse heart and performed morphological and functional analysis 2 weeks after MI. There was a significant increase in newly formed cardiac myocytes associated with the Notch pathway, a decrease in apoptotic nuclei mediated by an increase in Akt and a decrease in levels of PTEN. Cardiac fibrosis was significantly reduced, and left ventricular function was significantly augmented in the Tβ4-ESC transplanted group, compared with controls. It is concluded that genetically modified Tβ4-ESCs, potentiates their ability to turn into cardiac myocytes in vitro as well as in vivo. Moreover, we also demonstrate that there was a significant decrease in both cardiac apoptosis and fibrosis, thus improving cardiac function in the infarcted heart.