Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Muscular strength and diameter as determinants of aerobic power and aerobic power response to exercise training in CAD patients

Objective Low exercise capacity and skeletal muscle strength are important predictors of all-cause mortality in healthy as well as diseased individuals. Compared to sedentary subjects, CAD patients have a decreased oxygen uptake (peakVO2) and show accompanying increased muscle fatiguability. Despite the known importance of oxygen extraction by peripheral muscles on improving peakVO2 and of the relationship between muscle strength and aerobic capacity, only few studies in CAD patients include measurements of muscle strength before and after cardiac rehabilitation. This study therefore aimed to evaluate how much of the variance in baseline peakVO2 and its response to exercise training can be explained by muscular parameters. Methods 260 CAD patients performed maximal incremental cycle ergometer testing and maximal knee muscle strength measurements. The rectus femoris diameter was measured using ultrasound. Zero order correlations were calculated and determinants of baseline and response in peakVO2 were analysed by multiple regression analysis. Results PeakVO2 and muscle strength and diameter increased signifi cantly after three months of cardiac rehabilitation (P < 0.0001). Zero order correlations showed signifi cant correlations between muscular parameters and baseline peakVO2 (P < 0.0001). 63% of the total variance in baseline peakVO2 could be explained by seven parameters with knee extensor muscular endurance as the strongest predictor (P < 0.0001). 32% of the variation in relative increase in peakVO2 could be explained by 5 determinants of which the increase in muscular endurance was the strongest determinant (P < 0.0001). Conclusions Knee extensor muscular endurance and its response after training are the strongest muscular predictors in explaining peakVO2 and its response in CAD patients.
Targeting indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma

ABSTRACT Introduction: Due to recent advancements in the understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of B-cell malignancies, there has been an explosion of innovative agents in development. The purpose of this review is to efficiently summarize novel therapies with activity in indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (iNHL) targeting surface antigens, signaling pathways, and the tumor microenvironment. Areas covered: A literature search was performed to identify preclinical data and clinical trials focused on the use of targeted therapies in iNHL subtypes including follicular lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma, small lymphocytic lymphoma, and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma/Waldenström macroglobulinemia. Classes reviewed include monoclonal antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, immunomodulatory agents, B-cell receptor pathway inhibitors, Bcl-2 inhibitors, checkpoint inhibitors, chromatin and epigenetic modulating agents, and CAR T-cells. Expert commentary: Opinions regarding strategies to address the prioritization of novel agents entering clinical development, the determination of rational combination therapy, the development of novel endpoints to expedite clinical development, and the movement towards novel consolidative approaches with immuno- and cellular therapy in an attempt to provide curative treatment options are provided. Also, the economic impact of indefinite therapy is discussed.
"The having of wonderful ideas" and other essays on teaching and learning

In this revised Third Edition of her indispensable classic on Piaget and teaching, renowned educator and scholar Eleanor Duckworth provides a new introduction to her wide-ranging writings and adds a chapter on critical exploration in the classroom. While touching on many subjects - from science, math, and language to thinking, teaching, learning, evaluation, and teacher education - each of these essays supports the author's deeply felt belief that "the having of wonderful ideas is the essence of intellectual development," and that the focus of education should be on the learner's point of view. Her constant concern is to encourage an approach to education that allows "occasions" for learners, whether children or teachers, to construct their own knowledge.
Exemplification 2.0

The Internet in general, and social network sites in particular, provide great potential for communicating health issues. Different forms of online social information, such as user comments and likes, might foster the effectiveness of these communication channels. However, it is unclear whether these types of information affect people’s perceptions and judgments of health issues. Combining exemplification theory with research into online social information, we conducted a 2 × 3 × 2 experiment to address this question. We presented our participants (N = 577) with a discussion of influenza vaccination on mock-up of a Facebook page and varied the direct social information (user comments) and additional indirect social information (comment likes and post likes) given, to assess the impact on individuals’ perceptions of public behavior and risk, and on their personal attitudes and behavioral intentions. Our results showed that the participants relied on direct but not indirect social information when forming j.
Purpose as a moral virtue for flourishing

Positive psychology has significantly influenced studies in the fields of moral philosophy, psychology and education, and scholars in those fields have attempted to apply its ideas and methods to moral education. Among various theoretical frameworks, virtue ethics is most likely to connect positive psychology to moral educational studies because it pursues eudaimonia (flourishing). However, some virtue ethicists have been concerned about whether the current mainstream concept of positive psychology can apply directly to moral education because it focuses on subjective aspects of happiness, but not its objective and moral aspects. Thus, I will consider whether the concept of purpose, which was investigated recently by a group of psychologists and emphasizes both subjective and objective aspects of happiness, can address this issue. I will examine whether purpose is a moral virtue contributing to flourishing, consider if its nature is possibly a second-order virtue and whether it is distinguishable from other second-order virtues.
CLINICAL STUDY: The P300 event‐related potential and its possible role as an endophenotype for studying substance use disorders: a review

The concept of endophenotypes has gained popularity in recent years. This is because of the potential that endophenotypes provide of measuring objective trait markers that are simpler to access and assess than complex behavioral disease phenotypes themselves. The simplicity, ease of measurement and the putative links to the etiology of the disease in the study of an endophenotype has the potential promise of unraveling the genetic basis of the disease in question. Of the various proposed endophenotypes, the P300 component of the event‐related potential has been used in studies on alcoholism, schizophrenia and externalizing disorders. The current state of knowledge regarding the concept of endophenotypes, P300 and the validity of P300 as an endophenotype with special reference to substance use disorders is discussed in this review. The implications of the above are discussed.
Early Detection of Ecosystem Regime Shifts: A Multiple Method Evaluation for Management Application

Critical transitions between alternative stable states have been shown to occur across an array of complex systems. While our ability to identify abrupt regime shifts in natural ecosystems has improved, detection of potential early-warning signals previous to such shifts is still very limited. Using real monitoring data of a key ecosystem component, we here apply multiple early-warning indicators in order to assess their ability to forewarn a major ecosystem regime shift in the Central Baltic Sea. We show that some indicators and methods can result in clear early-warning signals, while other methods may have limited utility in ecosystem-based management as they show no or weak potential for early-warning. We therefore propose a multiple method approach for early detection of ecosystem regime shifts in monitoring data that may be useful in informing timely management actions in the face of ecosystem change.
Role of routine computed tomography in paediatric pleural empyema

Background: The incidence of empyema in children is increasing worldwide. While there are emerging data for the best treatment options, there is little evidence to support the imaging modalities used to guide treatment, particularly with regard to the role of routine CT scanning. The aims of this study were to develop a radiological scoring system for paediatric empyema and to assess the utility of routine CT scanning in this disease. Methods: Children with empyema were prospectively enrolled over a 3-year period into a randomised clinical trial of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery versus percutaneous chest drain insertion and urokinase. All children received a preoperative chest radiograph (CXR), pleural ultrasound scan (USS) and chest CT scan. In the urokinase arm the clinician inserted the drain with USS evidence only and did not have access to the CT scan at the time of insertion to reflect clinical practice. A scoring system was developed for each individual radiological modality and used to compare imaging characteristics of the pleural fluid collection and underlying parenchyma and to assess the utility of USS and CT to predict length of stay after the intervention. Results: Of the 60 subjects recruited, 46 had USS images available for review, 36 had a CT scan which met the inclusion criteria and 31 had all three radiological measurements (CT, USS and CXR) available for analysis. There was substantial interobserver agreement for USS grades (κ = 0.709) and moderate agreement for total CT scores (κ = 0.520). There were weak correlations between USS grade and total CT score as well as CT loculation and density scores. Of the 25 CXRs showing simple opacification of the underlying parenchyma only, CT demonstrated simple consolidation (n = 14), necrotising pneumonia (n = 7), cavitary necrosis (n = 3) and pneumatoceles (n = 1). No abnormality was detected on CT scanning which directly altered clinical management. Neither the USS score nor the CT score, nor a combination of the two, were able to predict length of hospital stay. Conclusions: CT scanning detects more parenchymal abnormalities than chest radiography. However, the additional information does not alter management and is unable to predict clinical outcome. This suggests that there is no role for the routine use of CT scanning in children if treated with urokinase and percutaneous chest drain. The omission of routine CT scanning in empyema will reduce the exposure of children to unnecessary radiation and reduce costs. Trial registration number: The trial is fully registered with clinicaltrials.gov (ID: NCT00144950).
Gas reservoir of a hyper-luminous quasar at z = 2.6

Context. Understanding the relationship between the formation and evolution of galaxies and their central super-massive black holes (SMBH) is one of the main topics in extragalactic astrophysics. Links and feedback may reciprocally affect both black hole and galaxy growth.Aims. Observations of the CO line at the main epoch of galaxy and SMBH assembly (z = 2−4) are crucial to investigating the gas mass, star formation, and accretion onto SMBHs, and the effect of AGN feedback. Potential correlations between AGN and host galaxy properties can be highlighted by observing extreme objects.Methods. We targeted CO(3–2) in ULAS J1539+0557, a hyper-luminous quasar (Lbol > 1048 erg/s) at z = 2.658, selected through its unusual red colour in the UKIDSS Large Area Survey (ULAS). Results. We find a molecular gas mass of 4.1 ± 0.8 × 1010 M⊙, by adopting a conversion factor α = 0.8 M⊙ K-1 km s-1 pc2, and a gas fraction of ~0.4−0.1, depending mostly on the assumed source inclination. We also find a robust lower limit to the star-formation rate (SFR = 250−1600 M⊙/yr) and star-formation efficiency (SFE = 25−350 L⊙/(K km s-1 pc2) by comparing the observed optical-near-infrared spectral energy distribution with AGN and galaxy templates. The black hole gas consumption timescale, M(H2) /Ṁacc, is ~160 Myr, similar to or higher than the gas consumption timescale.Conclusions. The gas content and the star formation efficiency are similar to those of other high-luminosity, highly obscured quasars, and at the lower end of the star-formation efficiency of unobscured quasars, in line with predictions from AGN-galaxy co-evolutionary scenarios. Further measurements of the (sub)mm continuum in this and similar sources are mandatory to obtain a robust observational picture of the AGN evolutionary sequence.
Application of item response theory to measures of verbal learning

APPLICATION OF ITEM RESPONSE THEORY TO MEASURES OF VERBAL LEARNING Indrani K Thiruselvam Marquette University, 2015 This study utilized item response theory (IRT) methods to investigate if item parameters of select trials in the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition (CVLTII; Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 2000) and the Logical Memory subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales – Fourth Edition (WMS-IV; Wechsler, 2009) vary as a function of the serial position effect. In addition, this study compared the effectiveness of CVLT-II and LM in quantifying verbal memory functioning, and determined if a weighted scoring approach improves the quantification of verbal memory. Archival data from 755 individuals (516 college students, 239 patients at a neuropsychology clinic) were utilized in this study. The serial position effect was only evident in Trials 1 and 5 of the CVLT-II. CVLT-II trials were more effective than LM trials in quantifying verbal memory, although LM trials had, on average, higher difficulty levels. The weighted scoring approach utilized in this study did not lead to improvements in the quantification of verbal memory. Nevertheless, findings indicate that some items or trials perform better than others in discriminating between examinees with low levels of memory ability, and that it is important to more closely evaluate item properties of tests used in clinical decision-making.
The velocity dispersion and mass-to-light ratio of the remote halo globular cluster NGC 2419

Precise radial velocity measurements from high-resolution echelle spectrometer on the Keck I telescope are presented for 40 stars in the outer halo globular cluster NGC 2419. These data are used to probe the cluster's stellar mass function and search for the presence of dark matter in this cluster. NGC 2419 is one of the best Galactic globular clusters for such a study due to its long relaxation time (T_r0 ≈ 10^10 yr) and large Galactocentric distance (R_GC ≈ 90 kpc) – properties that make significant evolutionary changes in the low-mass end of the cluster mass function unlikely. We find a mean cluster velocity of〈v_r〉= −20.3 ± 0.7 km s^−1 and an internal velocity dispersion of σ = 4.14 ± 0.48 km s^−1, leading to a total mass of (9.0 ± 2.2) × 10^5 M⊙ and a global mass-to-light ratio of M/L_V = 2.05 ± 0.50 in solar units. This mass-to-light ratio is in good agreement with what one would expect for a pure stellar system following a standard mass function at the metallicity of NGC 2419. In addition, the mass-to-light ratio does not appear to rise towards the outer parts of the cluster. Our measurements therefore rule out the presence of a dark matter halo with mass larger than ~10^7 M⊙ inside the central 500 pc, which is lower than what is found for the central dark matter densities of dSph galaxies. We also discuss the relevance of our measurements for alternative gravitational theories such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, and for possible formation scenarios of ultracompact dwarf galaxies.
Transactional model of subjective well-being

The paper presents assumptions and limitations of two – “bottom-up” and “top-down” – theories in research on subjective well-being (SWB). It offers a synthesis of them in the Transactional Model of Subjective WellBeing. Research has been conducted to examine whether at a given type of situations (at a new workplace) causal pathways between emotional and cognitive evaluations of life, job and health depend on reactivity. 97 workers at their new workplace were investigated with: Pavlovian Temperament Survey (reactivity), Time Sampling Diary (emotional evaluations of life, job and health), Work Description Inventory (satisfaction with life, job and job facets), Somatic Symptoms Checklist (cognitive evaluation of health). Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) are consistent with the theoretical assumptions and provide evidence that causalities between evaluations (the structures of SWB) are different in groups with high and low reactivity.
PRACTICAL FIRST-ORDER RELIABILITY COMPUTATIONS USING SPREADSHEET

ABSRACT: A practical procedure for reliability analysis involving correlated nonnormals was described in Low & Tang (1997), using object-oriented constrained optimization in the ubiquitous spreadsheet platform. Numerical derivatives and iterative search for the design point were automatic. The objective of this paper is to further illustrate the 1997 procedure for two geotechnical problems with relatively complicated performance functions, namely the bearing capacity of a rectangular foundation with eccentric and inclined loadings, and the stability of an anchored retaining wall. The results are compared with Monte-Carlo simulations.
LDA based compact and discriminative dictionary learning for sparse coding

The dictionary response usually affects the recognition results directly as it represents the original data and usually serves as the input of the classifier. However, the over-complete dictionary usually results in high dimensional response and redundancy. The application of the linear discriminant analysis (LDA)-based mapping method transforms the original dictionary response to be more discriminative for compact dictionary learning, resulting in high intra-class similarity and high inter-class dissimilarity in the response domain for better classification. By analyzing the recognition rate, the compactness and the purity, the proposed method can learn a small size of compact and discriminative dictionary with global optimization, and it can get a comparable or even better performance than the over-complete dictionary with much less computation cost. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach also outperforms several recently proposed compact dictionary learning methods on human action recognition and object classification.
B-cell compartment as the selective target for the treatment of immune thrombocytopenias.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Rituximab is a chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody active against normal and malignant B cells. Treatment with rituximab is associated with the development of a severe (even if transient) B-cell depletion from peripheral blood and lymphatic tissues. These effects could be useful in autoimmune diseases in order to interfere with the production of pathologic antibodies. DESIGN AND METHODS To investigate this, we treated 20 patients with rituximab 375 mg/m2 i.v. every 7 days for 4 times. These 20 patients all had active and symptomatic autoimmune thrombocytopenia that had relapsed or was refractory to standard therapies (15 had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, 1 idiopathic thrombocytopenia and neutropenia, 2 thrombocytopenia and concomitant undifferentiated connective tissue disease, and 2 had thrombocytopenia and concomitant B-cell lymphoprolipherative disorders). Only treatment with steroids, if strictly necessary to maintain a safe number of platelets, was allowed during the period of rituximab administration, but only patients who reached steroid discontinuation (previously not possible) were considered responders. RESULTS Treatment was well tolerated and no acute or delayed toxic events were recorded. Rituximab proved to be active in 13/20 patients, with 9 complete and 4 partial responses. In 10/13 (77%) the response (platelet level > 50x10(9)/L) was prompt, being achieved already after the first of the four planned infusions. After a median follow-up of 180 days (range: 60-480) 4 patients had relapsed. Age < or = 60 years was correlated with a better response rate (p=0.03). No correlation was observed between response and gender, time from diagnosis to treatment (< 12 vs > 12 months), total and CD20+ lymphocyte count, level of CD20 expression on B cells before the therapy and pharmacokinetics of the drug. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS Rituximab appears to be a promising immunotherapeutic agent for the treatment of autoimmune thrombocytopenias.
Electric- and Magnetic-Field Measurements in an Outdoor Electric Power Substation

This paper investigates the electric and magnetic fields values in the area of an outdoor electric power substation 2 times 50 MVA, 150/20 kV, in Xanthi, Greece. Results of previous relevant measurements and calculations, as well as the reference levels in force for safe general public and occupational exposure, are presented first. Basic data for the examined substation along with a brief description of the field measurement instruments used follow. The main results of the field measurements in the area of the aforementioned substation are presented in relevant tables and diagrams. Final conclusions, concerning safe public and occupational exposure to these fields, according to the international guidelines, are set out.
[A study of methicillin -- resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a burn unit with repetitive -- DNA -- sequence -- based PCR fingerprinting].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the distribution and spread of MRSA in a burn ward, so as to explore the measures of the prevention, surveillance and control of hospital infection in a burn ward. METHODS Five hundred and four specimens were isolated from the wounds and nasal vestibules of burn patients, the hands and nasal vestibules of medical staffs and lay attendants and the surfaces of various equipments. From these specimens, 58 strains of MRSA and 43 methicillin -- sensitive staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) were isolated. The genome DNA of isolated MRSA strains was analyzed by repetitive DNA -- sequence -- based PCR analysis. RESULTS MRSA strains were isolated from the burn wounds in 22 of 41 (53.7%) patients, and 5 from the nasal vestibules. Moreover, among 19 medical staffs, MRSA strains were isolated from the hands of 9 persons, but not from the nasal vestibules. From the hands in 9 of 43 lay attendants and the nasal vestibules in 2 MRSA strains were found. Thirteen MRSA strains were isolated from 193 specimens from the surrounding items. It was indicated by repetitive DNA -- sequence -- based PCR analysis of the genome DNA of isolated MRSA strains that there existed homologous strains around the patients' wounds, in the burn wounds, on the skin of medical staffs and lay attendants and also surrounding equipments. CONCLUSION (1) There was wide spread presence of MRSA homologous strains in the burn ward. (2) It was indicated by repetitive DNA -- sequence -- based PCR analysis of the genome DNA of isolated MRSA strains that there was cross infection among burn patients. The source of the infection of MRSA in burn ward was burn patients, and the route of the infection was hands of medical staffs and lay attendants. (3) MRSA is wide -- spread. The contamination of the hands and the environment was potential risk factor of MRSA outbreak in the burn unit.