Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nonmotor Features in Parkinson's Disease: What Are the Most Important Associated Factors?

Introduction. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the frequency and severity of nonmotor symptoms and their correlations with a wide range of demographic and clinical factors in a large cohort of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods. 268 PD patients were assessed using the validated Movement Disorders Society's Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39), the Hoehn and Yahr scale (HY), the Schwab and England Activities of Daily Living (SE-ADL) Scale, and the Minimental State Examination (MMSE). Results. Nonmotor symptoms had a strong positive relationship with depression and lower quality of life. Also, age, duration and severity of PD, cognitive impairment, daily dose, and duration of levodopa treatment correlated with the burden of nonmotor symptoms. Patients with postural instability and gait disorder (PIGD) dominance or with the presence of motor complications had higher MDS-UPDRS Part I scores expressing the load of nonmotor features, compared to participants with other disease subtypes or without motor complications. Conclusions. Though the severity of individual nonmotor symptoms was generally rated by PD patients as “mild” or less, we found a significant cumulative effect of nonmotor symptoms on patients' mood, daily activities, and quality of life.
The Relationship between Quality and Loyalty in Multi-Channel E-Services: An Empirical Investigation 1

Research in traditional (bricks-and-mortar) services has broadly supported the link between service quality and customer loyalty. Given the significance of customer loyalty for the profitability of eservices, it is important to ascertain whether the established role of service quality as a driver of loyalty in traditional services translates to e-service settings. An important feature which differentiates e-services from traditional services is the fact that e-services are typically offered as part of a broader multi-channel service package, combining the internet with other channels of service delivery, such as the phone and physical facilities. As a result, customers frequently engage in multi-channel behavior, using both online and traditional channels, and thus will exhibit different degrees of focus on the internet channel relative to other traditional channels. We argue that existing research examining the quality-loyalty relationship in e-services has not adequately recognized the multi-channel nature of these services. As such, the objective of this study is to increase our understanding of the relationship between quality and loyalty in multi-channel e-service settings. In this connection, we empirically test the quality-loyalty relationship in a multi-channel e-service; and examine whether a customer’s degree of focus on the internet (DFI) channel moderates this relationship. The study consisted of an online survey of customers registered with a commercial e-banking service which is part of a broader multi-channel service. Employing structural equation modelling, we found a strong and significant link between e-service (web site) quality and loyalty intentions, suggesting that this relationship also holds in e-services. In addition, we found that a customer’s DFI – defined as the proportion of the total number of transactions that were performed by a customer through the internet channel relative to the other available channels moderated this relationship. Specifically, we found that the relationship between e-service quality and loyalty was weaker for customers with a higher DFI. The implications for the research and management of multi-channel e-services are discussed.
Preschool Weight and Body Mass Index in Relation to Central Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome in Adulthood

Background If preschool measures of body size routinely collected at preventive health examinations are associated with adult central obesity and metabolic syndrome, a focused use of these data for the identification of high risk children is possible. The aim of this study was to test the associations between preschool weight and body mass index (BMI) and adult BMI, central obesity and metabolic alterations. Methods The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966) (N = 4111) is a population-based cohort. Preschool weight (age 5 months and 1 year) and BMI (age 2–5 years) were studied in relation to metabolic syndrome as well as BMI, waist circumference, lipoproteins, blood pressure, and fasting glucose at the age of 31 years. Linear regression models and generalized linear regression models with log link were used. Results Throughout preschool ages, weight and BMI were significantly linearly associated with adult BMI and waist circumference. Preschool BMI was inversely associated with high-density lipoprotein levels from the age of 3 years. Compared with children in the lower half of the BMI range, the group of children with the 5% highest BMI at the age of 5 years had a relative risk of adult obesity of 6.2(95% CI:4.2–9.3), of adult central obesity of 2.4(95% CI:2.0–2.9), and of early onset adult metabolic syndrome of 2.5(95% CI:1.7–3.8). Conclusions High preschool BMI is consistently associated with adult obesity, central obesity and early onset metabolic syndrome. Routinely collected measures of body size in preschool ages can help to identify children in need of focused prevention due to their increased risk of adverse metabolic alterations in adulthood.
How Fama-MacBeth Can Go Wrong – And an Informative Solution

We find that weak identification can lead to econometric problems with Fama-MacBeth regressions, including serious size distortions and biased point estimates. Two sources of weak identification are particularly important and have been little studied in the finance literature – small betas and collinearity in the beta matrix. We introduce a technique (RTP) to deal with weak identification and compare the new technique with Fama-MacBeth and other alternatives. RTP has correct size and very good power to reject misspecified models. RTP has two further useful properties: 1) it provides a warning of weak identification; 2) model rejections can be informative.
Exciting molecular hydrogen in the central galaxies of cooling flows

The origin of rovibrational H 2 emission in the central galaxies of cooling flow clusters is poorly understood. Here we address this issue using data from our near-infrared spectroscopic survey of 32 of the most line-luminous such systems, presented in the companion paper by Edge et al. We consider excitation by X-rays from the surrounding intracluster medium (ICM), ultraviolet (UV) radiation from young stars, and shocks. The v = 1-0 K-band lines with upper levels within 10 4 K of the ground state appear to be mostly thermalized (implying gas densities ≥ 10 5 cm - 3 ), with the excitation temperature typically exceeding 2000 K, as found earlier by Jaffe, Bremer & van der Werf. Together with the lack of strong v = 2-0 lines in the H-band, this rules out UV radiative fluorescence. Using the CLOUDY photoionization code, we deduce that the H 2 lines can originate in a population of dense clouds, exposed to the same hot (T ∼ 50 000 K) stellar continuum as the lower density gas which produces the bulk of the forbidden optical line emission in the Ha-luminous systems. This dense gas may be in the form of self-gravitating clouds deposited directly by the cooling flow, or may instead be produced in the high-pressure zones behind strong shocks. Furthermore, the shocked gas is likely to be gravitationally unstable, so collisions between the larger clouds may lead to the formation of globular clusters.
Immigrant Concentration and Domestic Migrant Dispersal: Is Movement to Nonometropolitan Areas “White flight”?

This article examines linkages between recent domestic out-migration from immigrant gateway metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan migration gains, based on data of the 1990 census, 1996 Current Population Survey, and population estimates for the 1990–1996 period from the Bureau of Census. Our analysis of these data suggests that there is a mirror image of migration patterns between high immigration metropolitan area losses and nonmetropolitan area gains. This is especially evident in the West with the relationship between Los Angeles and San Francisco areas' losses on the one hand, and the region's nonmetropolitan gains on the other. While pre-elderly and elderly retirees have contributed to these nonmetropolitan gains, much of it is attributable to the destination choices of suburban-like populations—Whites with children, not college educated, and with lower incomes—that have been leaving high immigration metropolitan areas. This new, more dispersed form of “White flight” holds the potential for reinvig.
Age-Specific Lipid and Fatty Acid Profiles of Atlantic Salmon Juveniles in the Varzuga River

The age-specific lipid and fatty acid profiles of juvenile Atlantic salmon at different ages (0+, 1+, and 2+ years) after hatching from nests located in the mainstream of a large Arctic River, the Varzuga River, and resettling to the favorable Sobachji shoal in autumn before overwinter are herein presented. The contemporary methods of the lipid analysis were used: thin layer chromatography and gas chromatography. The results show that the stability of the regulation of important functions in developing organisms is maintained through structural alterations in lipids. These alterations can be considered as a sequence of the modifications and changes in the ratios of certain lipid classes and fatty acids constituents. In general, changes in the lipids and fatty acids (FAs) maintained the physiological limits and controls through the adaptive systems of the organism. The mechanisms of juvenile fish biochemical adaptation to the environmental conditions in the studied biotope include the modification of the energy metabolism and anabolism, and here belongs to the energy characteristics of metabolic processes.
Characterization and replicase activity of double-layered and single-layered rotavirus-like particles expressed from baculovirus recombinants

Rotavirus has a capsid composed of three concentric protein layers. We coexpressed various combinations of the rotavirus structural proteins of single-layered (core) and double-layered (single-shelled) capsids from baculovirus vectors in insect cells and determined the ability of the various combinations to assemble into viruslike particles (VLPs). VLPs were purified by centrifugation, their structure was examined by negative-stain electron microscopy, their protein content was determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and GTP binding assays, and their ability to support synthesis of negative-strand RNAs on positive-sense template RNAs was determined in an in vitro replication system. Coexpression of all possible combinations of VP1, VP2, VP3, and VP6, the proteins of double-layered capsids, resulted in the formation of VP1/2/3/6, VP1/2/6, VP2/3/6, and VP2/6 double-layered VLPs. These VLPs had the structural characteristics of empty rotavirus double-layered particles and contained the indicated protein species. Only VPI/2/3/6 and VP1/2/6 particles supported RNA replication. Coexpression of all possible combinations of VPl, VP2, and VP3, the proteins of single-layered capsids, resulted in the formation of VP1/2/3, VP1/2, VP2/3, and VP2 single-layered VLPs. These VLPs had the structural characteristics of empty single-layered rotavirus particles and contained the indicated protein species. Only VP1/2/3 and VP1/2 VLPs supported RNA replication. We conclude that (i) the assembly of VP1 and VP3 into VLPs requires the presence of VP2, (ii) the role of VP2 in the assembly of VP1 and VP3 and in replicase activity is most likely structural, (iii) VP1 is required and VP3 is not required for replicase activity of VLPs, and (iv) VP1/2 VLPs constitute the minimal replicase particle in the in vitro replication system.
'The Business End': Perspectives on mental distress in the context of neoliberal restructuring of community mental health services

Contemporary neoliberal reconfigurations of statutory mental health services involve significant organisational changes. Based on findings from twelve months fieldwork within a community mental health team, the thesis examines the effects of this new service landscape on the way conceptualisations of mental distress are utilised and articulated. The thesis combines critical realist epistemology and reflexive ethnographic method to produce a contextually situated understanding of the field capturing the dynamic relationships between concepts, agents and the context of action. This draws on and extends Rhodes’ ‘pentimento’ (1993) as a conceptual framework for understanding mental health practice. It argues the mental health team is a ‘differentially sedimented structural institution’ in which practitioners and service users navigate a field of contradictions defined by four strata: the custodial system of the asylum; the biomedical treatment system of the hospital; community care within the Keynesian welfare state; and neoliberal welfare reconfigurations. These are conceptualised as ideological positions that coexist within practitioners as alternative modes of thinking and operate in a relationship of mutual tension. Practice should be understood as a process shaped by mechanisms at different levels of scale from micro to macro, and involving movement between these overlapping and co-existing strata of historically sedimented meaning.
Strengthening the enabling environment for women and girls: what is the evidence in social and structural approaches in the HIV response?

There is growing interest in expanding public health approaches that address social and structural drivers that affect the environment in which behaviour occurs. Half of those living with HIV infection are women. The sociocultural and political environment in which women live can enable or inhibit their ability to protect themselves from acquiring HIV. This paper examines the evidence related to six key social and structural drivers of HIV for women: transforming gender norms; addressing violence against women; transforming legal norms to empower women; promoting women’s employment, income and livelihood opportunities; advancing education for girls and reducing stigma and discrimination. The paper reviews the evidence for successful and promising social and structural interventions related to each driver. This analysis contains peer‐reviewed published research and study reports with clear and transparent data on the effectiveness of interventions. Structural interventions to address these key social and structural drivers have led to increasing HIV‐protective behaviours, creating more gender‐equitable relationships and decreasing violence, improving services for women, increasing widows’ ability to cope with HIV and reducing behaviour that increases HIV risk, particularly among young people.
People as carriers of experience and sources of commitment: information seeking in a software design project

Engineers in co -operative work settings must engage in a variety of information -seeking activities to accomplish their tasks, and they often turn to other people for information. This study investigates the role of people as information sources during software design, the early stages of software engineering. The purpose is to analyse how information seeking is woven into co-operative work and to inform the design of systems for assisting engineers with finding informed colleagues as well as informing documents. Based on a field stud y of a software design project, it is found that the involved software engineers are often looking for (1) practical experience as opposed to hard facts and (2) commitment as opposed to information. Few organisational mechanisms are in place to manage the flow of experience among projects. This leaves people as the primary carriers of experience, and they are the sole sources of commitment. Further, the engineers need a synthesis of the new system and use situation and are only analysing the present as a way of getting at the future. The ability to transcend current practice and envision the future is specific to people – though they find it difficult.
Do Pension-Related Business Ties Influence Mutual Fund Proxy Voting? Evidence from Shareholder Proposals on Executive Compensation

Abstract We examine the relation between mutual fund votes on shareholder executive compensation proposals and pension-related business ties between fund families and the firms. In unconditional tests, we find that fund families support management when they have pension ties to the firm. We find no relation when we stratify by fund family in conditional tests, which suggests that fund families with pension ties vote with management at both client and nonclient firms. We confirm this result in an analysis of nonclient firms. Overall, our results suggest that pension-related business ties influence fund families to vote with management at all firms.
Impact of trisomy on fertility and meiosis in male mice.

BACKGROUND Chromosomal abnormalities frequently are associated with impairment or arrest of spermatogenesis in mammals but are compatible with fertility in female carriers of the same anomaly. In the case of trisomy, mice have extra genomic DNA as well as the chromosomal abnormality, usually present as an extra, unpaired chromosome. Thus, impairment of spermatogenesis in trisomic males could be due to the presence of extra genomic material (i.e. triplicated genes) or due to the chromosomal abnormality and presence of an unpaired chromosome in meiosis. METHODS In this study, fertility and chromosomal pairing configurations during meiotic prophase were analysed in male mice trisomic for different segments of the genome. Four have an extra segmental or tertiary trisomic chromosome--Ts(17(16))65Dn, Ts(10(16))232Dn, Ts(12(17))4Rk and Ts(4(17))2Lws--and one has the triplicated segment attached to another chromosome--Ts(16C-tel)1Cje. Ts(17(16))65Dn and Ts(16C-tel)1Cje have similar gene content triplication and differ primarily in whether the extra DNA is in an extra chromosome or not. RESULTS The presence of an intact extra chromosome, rather than trisomy per se, is associated with male sterility. Additionally, sterility is correlated with a high frequency of association of the unpaired chromosome with the XY body, which contains the largely unpaired X and Y chromosomes. CONCLUSIONS Intact extra chromosomes disrupt spermatogenesis, and unpaired chromosomes establish a unique chromatin territory within meiotic nuclei.
Public involvement in Local Agenda 21 : the impact of local authority policy processes

The signing of Agenda 21 by the UK government committed local authorities in England to drawing up local action plans for sustainable development in partnership with their citizens. This Local Agenda 21 (LA21) initiative appeared to provide the opportunity for radical changes in the trajectory of development and in the nature of local governance. This research set out to explain why this did not take place and what happened instead. It investigated how the nature of public involvement in LA21 was shaped by the local authority policy making processes through which it was developed, based on the premise that these involved the working out of the ambiguous and contested concepts of public involvement and sustainable development in a complex policy and institutional environment. Two contrasting LA21 processes were studied in detail, primarily through interviews with key policy actors, supplemented by observation and documentary evidence. The research showed that public involvement in LA21 was the outcome of contestation between actors with differing interpretations of the key concepts, who also had a range of other policy and institutional goals which affected their attitudes towards the initiative. Outcomes were determined by which interpretations were present and the ability of actors to control policy making processes to promote their goals. This explains both the variation within the LA21 initiative as a whole and the absence of 'radical' impacts: such goals were simply not present or they were suppressed by more powerful actors. The thesis develops more practically adequate characterisations of both sustainable development and public involvement. It also challenges Agenda 21's concept of a consensual participative planning process for sustainable development. It concludes by suggesting that policy making for sustainable development is inherently conflictive, and that public involvement in it is both a tool for policy makers and a channel for democratic input into policy making.
An approach of optimal path generation using ant colony optimization

Software Testing is one of the indispensable parts of the software development lifecycle and structural testing is one of the most widely used testing paradigms to test various software. Structural testing relies on code path identification, which in turn leads to identification of effective paths. Aim of the current paper is to present a simple and novel algorithm with the help of an ant colony optimization, for the optimal path identification by using the basic property and behavior of the ants. This novel approach uses certain set of rules to find out all the effective/optimal paths via ant colony optimization (ACO) principle. The method concentrates on generation of paths, equal to the cyclomatic complexity. This algorithm guarantees full path coverage.
A distributed protocol for query execution in sensor networks

The paper proposes an efficient distributed protocol to find a subset of connected sensor nodes to cover the queried region. Each node determines whether to be a sensing node to sense the queried region according to its priority, which is represented by the remaining power or sensing area within the queried region. The proposed protocol can efficiently construct a subset of connected sensing nodes and respond the query request to the sink node. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol is more efficient and has a lower communication overhead than the existing protocol.
Decentring and distraction reduce overgeneral autobiographical memory in depression

Background. Increased recall of categorical autobiographical memories is a phenomenon unique to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and is associated with a poor prognosis for depression. Although the elevated recall of categorical memories does not change on remission from depression, recent findings suggest that overgeneral memory may be reduced by cognitive interventions and maintained by rumination. This study tested whether cognitive manipulations could influence the recall of categorical memories in dysphoric participants. Methods. Forty-eight dysphoric and depressed participants were randomly allocated to rumination or distraction conditions. Before and after the manipulation, participants completed the Autobiographical Memory Test, a standard measure of overgeneral memory. Participants were then randomized to either a ‘decentring’ question (Socratic questions designed to facilitate viewing moods within a wider perspective) or a control question condition, before completing the Autobiographical Memory Test again. Results. Distraction produced significantly greater decreases in the proportion of memories retrieved that were categorical than rumination. Decentring questions produced significantly greater decreases in the proportion of memories retrieved that were categorical than control questions, with this effect independent of the prior manipulation. Conclusions. Elevated categorical memory in depression is more modifiable than has been previously assumed; it may reflect the dynamic maintenance of a cognitive style that can be interrupted by brief cognitive interventions.