Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reciprocal Associations between Depressive Symptoms and Mastery among Older Adults; Black-White Differences

Purpose: Although higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of sense of mastery tend to be comorbid, limited information exists on racial differences in the longitudinal associations between the two over time. The current study compared Black and White American older adults for the longitudinal links between depressive symptoms and mastery in the United States. Methods: Using data from the Religion, Aging, and Health Survey, 2001–2004, this longitudinal cohort study followed 1493 Black (n = 734) and White (n = 759) elderly individuals (age 66 or more) for 3 years. Depressive symptoms [Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D), 8 items] and mastery (Pearlin Mastery Scale, 7 items) were measured in 2001 and 2004. Demographics, socio-economics, and physical health were covariates and race was the focal moderator. Multi-group structural equation modeling was used for data analysis, where groups were defined based on race. Results: Among White but not Black older adults, higher levels of depressive symptoms at baseline predicted a greater decline in sense of mastery over 3 years of follow-up. Similarly among Whites but not Blacks, individuals with lower mastery at baseline developed more depressive symptoms over time. Conclusion: Findings are indicative of Black-White differences in reciprocal associations between depressive symptoms and mastery over time. Race alters how depression is linked to changes in evaluation of self (e.g., mastery) over time.
Is the PASCAL®-Tonometer Suitable for Measuring Intraocular Pressure in Clinical Routine? Long- and Short-Term Reproducibility of Dynamic Contour Tonometry

Purpose Dynamic contour tonometry (DCT) is a new technique to measure intraocular pressure (IOP). In several studies no correlation between IOP values and corneal thickness was shown with DCT. This is in contrast to the gold standard, Goldmann applanation tonometry (GAT). The authors evaluated the reproducibility (RP) of DCT compared to GAT, a prerequisite for its introduction into clinical routine. Methods IOP was measured with both DCT and GAT in 50 subjects with normal cornea. To evaluate the short-term RP, four DCT and four GAT measurements were performed at day 1 in a randomized order. Long-term RP was determined by one additional measurement per method at day 2, 5, and 8. Results The short-term RP was defined as the mean value of all standard deviations (SD) of the individual measurements at day 1. Short-term RP was 1.1 mmHg for GAT and 1.2 mmHg for DCT. For long-term reproducibility, mean SD was 1.2 mmHg for GAT and 1.5 mmHg for DCT. Bland-Altman revealed a good agreement of the two methods. However, mean DCT values were on average 0.8±1.1 mmHg higher than GAT values. A significant correlation was observed between GAT and CCT (r2=0.15, p=0.006), but not between DCT and CCT (r2=0.032, p=0.21). Conclusions Short- and long-term reproducibility of DCT is comparable to that of GAT. GAT is more affected by CCT than DCT, measuring higher IOPs in eyes with higher central corneal thickness.
The square root law of steganographic capacity for Markov covers

It is a well-established result that steganographic capacity of perfectly secure stegosystems grows linearly with the number of cover elements-secure steganography has a positive rate. In practice, however, neither the Warden nor the Steganographer has perfect knowledge of the cover source and thus it is unlikely that perfectly secure stegosystems for complex covers, such as digital media, will ever be constructed. This justifies study of secure capacity of imperfect stegosystems. Recent theoretical results from batch steganography, supported by experiments with blind steganalyzers, point to an emerging paradigm: whether steganography is performed in a large batch of cover objects or a single large object, there is a wide range of practical situations in which secure capacity rate is vanishing. In particular, the absolute size of secure payload appears to only grow with the square root of the cover size. In this paper, we study the square root law of steganographic capacity and give a formal proof of this law for imperfect stegosystems, assuming that the cover source is a stationary Markov chain and the embedding changes are mutually independent.
Directing and facilitating distributed pedagogical leadership: best practices in early childhood education

This paper uses a hybrid leadership framework to examine how formal teacher leaders at the middle management level direct and facilitate staff resources for distributed pedagogical leadership. By conducting qualitative shadowing, involving video observation, field notes and stimulated recall interviews, and abductive analysis, this study demonstrates and discusses how formal teacher leaders step forward as hybrid leaders who integrate leadership into both interaction and their positional capacity. Building upon established leadership categories, the new category of leading knowledge development is discovered. The main finding is that hybrid leadership is illuminated in various leadership actions, which expand the understanding of leadership work. Conclusions drawn from the data and results suggest that hybrid leadership, in its exercise of both positional and distributed leadership, must be considered a move towards a new leadership identity. For policy and practice, this new hybrid leadership opens up a new conceptual space that is crucial to understanding how leaders recognize and contextualize their actions as a result of highly complex and dynamic work practices.
Studies in Interactive Communication: III. Effects of Similar and Dissimilar Communication Channels and Two Interchange Options on Team Problem Solving

16 teams of 2 college students each solved four credible “real world” problems for which computer systems have been or could be useful. Each of the 4 problems was solved on four successive days. A team member sent messages either by voice or by typewriter, and every team was tested with all 4 combinations of the 2 message channels assigned to individual team members. Half the teams could interrupt their partners at any time; half could not. Dependent measures were time to solution, number of messages exchanged, total number of words used per team, message length, messages communicated per minute of channel time, and words communicated per minute of channel time. The results show that communication by voice is much more rapid and wordy than is communication by typewriter. Giving Ss the freedom to interrupt had no effect on the time required to solve problems, on the number of words used in the solution of problems, or on the rate at which words were communicated. When Ss had the freedom to interrupt, they “packaged” their words differently: they exchanged more messages, messages were shorter, and messages were exchanged with greater frequency per unit time. Practice effects were almost entirely absent. A number of significant differences were attributable to the problems and the jobs assigned to the two communicators.
High Prevalence of Anemia in Children and Adult Women in an Urban Population in Southern Brazil

This population-based study was designed to detect the prevalence of anemia in a healthy population of children (18 months to 7 years) and women (14 to 30 years) tested in 2006–2007 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil as part of an effort to tackle this massive problem that still affects so many people in the XXI century. Anemia was defined according to the WHO. Capillary blood was measured and socioeconomic status was determined according to the Brazilian Association of Market Research Agencies. The median prevalence of anemia in 2198 children was 45.4% and in 1999 women 36.4%. Anemia decreased with age during childhood; although significantly more prevalent in lower classes individuals, it was also high in the upper classes. There are indirect evidences that the lack of iron supplementation and/or iron fortified food may play a role in it. Professionals and society wise measures of education have to be implemented in order to address possible biologic factors involved in childhood psychosocial development in southern Brazil.
Types of Music in Book Stores and Evaluating the Age and Gender of Customers

The spread of knowledge in today's society makes it necessary to provide strategies to acquire new experiences in all stages of human life. Research shows that music is one of the important elements in environment that can affect humans. This study tried to find ways to attract people towards cultural products with regard to the impact of music. This study by playing music (classical, traditional, pop) assessed age and gender of customers on arrival in bookstores in order to know that by playing which type of music what category of age and gender can be attracted to the cultural environments such as bookstores. To this end, in one of the book stores three types of classical, pop and traditional music were played in three days to evaluate the age and gender of customers. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey test were used to analyze the collected data. The results showed that in book stores classical music had the greatest impact on attracting women and pop music on attracting men. In evaluating the three age groups 18-30, 31-42 and 43-52 the results showed that pop music, classical music and traditional music were the most effective in attracting customers respectively.
RAGE (Yin) Versus LRP (Yang) Balance Regulates Alzheimer Amyloid &bgr;-Peptide Clearance Through Transport Across the Blood–Brain Barrier

Accumulation of amyloid &bgr;-peptide (A&bgr;) in the central nervous system (CNS) may initiate pathogenic cascades mediating neurovascular and neuronal dysfunctions associated with the development of cerebral &bgr;-amyloidosis and cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and with related familial cerebrovascular disorders. Whether A&bgr;-related pathology in the CNS is reversible or not and what key therapeutic targets are controlling A&bgr;/amyloid levels in the aging brain remain debatable. In this article, we summarize recent evidence why the receptor for advanced glycation end products and low-density lipoprotein receptor related protein 1 in the vascular CNS barriers are critical for regulation of A&bgr; homeostasis in the CNS and how altered activities in these 2 receptors at the blood–brain barrier may contribute to the CNS A&bgr; accumulation resulting in neuroinflammation, disconnect between the cerebral blood flow and metabolism, altered synaptic transmission, neuronal injury, and amyloid deposition into parenchymal and neurovascular lesions. We briefly discuss the potential of advanced glycation end products and low-density lipoprotein receptor related protein 1–based therapeutic strategies to control brain A&bgr; in animal models of AD and ultimately in patients with AD and related familial cerebrovascular &bgr;-amyloidoses.
COMBINING MULTIPLE CLASSIFIERS USING DEMPSTER'S RULE FOR TEXT CATEGORIZATION

In this paper we investigate the combination of four machine learning methods for text categorization using Dempster's rule of combination. These methods include Support Vector Machine (SVM), kNN (Nearest Neighbor), kNN model-based approach (kNNM), and Rocchio. We first present a general representation of the outputs of different classifiers, in particular, modeling it as a piece of evidence by using a novel evidence structure called focal element triplet. Furthermore, we investigate an effective method for combining pieces of evidence derived from classifiers generated by a 10-fold cross-validation. Finally, we evaluate our methods on the 20-newsgroup and Reuters-21578 benchmark data sets and perform the comparative analysis with majority voting in combining multiple classifiers along with the previous result. Our experimental results show that the best combined classifier can improve the performance of the individual classifiers and Dempster's rule of combination outperforms majority voting in combining multiple classifiers.
Evaluation of Five Chromogenic Agar Media and the Rosco Rapid Carb Screen Kit for Detection and Confirmation of Carbapenemase Production in Gram-Negative Bacilli

ABSTRACT An efficient workflow to screen for and confirm the presence of carbapenemase-producing Gram-negative bacilli was developed by evaluating five chromogenic screening agar media and two confirmatory assays, the Rapid Carb screen test (Rosco Diagnostica A/S, Taastrup, Denmark) and the modified Hodge test. A panel of 150 isolates was used, including 49 carbapenemase-producing isolates representing a variety of β-lactamase enzyme classes. An evaluation of analytical performance, assay cost, and turnaround time indicated that the preferred workflow (screening test followed by confirmatory testing) was the chromID Carba agar medium (bioMérieux, Marcy l'Étoile, France), followed by the Rapid Carb screen test, yielding a combined sensitivity of 89.8% and a specificity of 100%. As an optional component of the workflow, a determination of carbapenemase gene class via molecular means could be performed subsequent to confirmatory testing.
On the capacity region of the degraded Z channel

In this paper, we consider the two-user Z Channel (ZC). There are two senders and two receivers in the model. One of the senders transmits information to its intended receiver, while the other sender transmits information to both receivers. We establish a new achievable rate region for the ZC, using Marton's binning technique. At the receivers, we use joint decoding strategy. To illustrate the tightness of the proposed inner bound, we consider the degraded ZC which was first introduced by Chong et. al. We then characterize the capacity region of this type of degraded ZC.
Endothelial Endothelin B Receptor-Mediated Prevention of Cerebrovascular Remodeling Is Attenuated in Diabetes Because of Up-Regulation of Smooth Muscle Endothelin Receptors

Structure and function of the cerebrovasculature is critical for ischemic stroke outcome. We showed that diabetes causes cerebrovascular remodeling by activation of the endothelin A (ETA) receptors. The goal of this study was to test the hypotheses that vasculoprotective endothelial ETB receptors are decreased and pharmacological inhibition of the ETB receptor augments vascular remodeling of middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) in type 2 diabetes. MCA structure, matrix metalloprotease (MMP) activity, and matrix proteins as well as ETA and ETB receptor profiles were assessed in control Wistar and diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats treated with vehicle, the ETB receptor antagonist (2R,3R,4S)-4-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-1-[2-[(2,6-diethylphenyl)amino]-2-oxoethyl]-2-(4-propoxyphenyl)pyrrolidine-3-carboxylic acid (A192621) (30 mg/kg/day), or the dual ET receptor antagonist bosentan (100 mg/kg/day) for 4 weeks. Diabetes increased vascular smooth muscle (VSM) ETA and ETB receptors; the increase was prevented by chronic bosentan treatment. MCA wall thickness was increased in diabetes, and this was associated with increased MMP-2 activity and collagen deposition but reduced MMP-13 activity. Because of up-regulation of VSM ET receptors in diabetes, selective ETB receptor antagonism with A192621 blunts this response, and combined ETA and ETB receptor blockade with bosentan completely prevents this response. On the other hand, A192621 treatment augmented remodeling in control animals, indicating a physiological protective role for this receptor subtype. Attenuation of changes in ET receptor profile with bosentan treatment suggests that ET-1 has a positive feedback on the expression of its receptors in the cerebrovasculature. These results emphasize that ET receptor antagonism may yield different results in healthy and diseased states.
Stress and Coping Among Ugandan Nurses

This study set out to assess the stress levels among the nurses, assess the personal and organisational factors that influence stress, and ways of coping with the stress among the nurses in Kampala hospitals. In all, 92 female nurses filled in a questionnaire (alpha = 0.82) that measured, sources of stress, and ways of coping with it. Stressors at the personal, organisational (immediate work environment, nature of job, poor human relations, poor welfare, and poor policies); and extra-organisational levels were identified under quantitative and qualitative procedures. Coping ways used by the nurses included praying, perseverance, discussing with co-workers, improvising and discussing with managers most of which were emotion focused. Recommendations included development of corporate policies to deal with the stress, coping-effectiveness training; job evaluation and redesign, human relations training for supervisors, retooling, developing of policies about salary and benefits, and sensitising the public about the nurses' jobs.
Plan, Repair, Execute, Explain - How Planning Helps to Assemble your Home Theater

In various social, work-related, or educational contexts, an increasing demand for intelligent assistance systems can be observed. In this paper, we present a domain-independent approach that combines a number of planning and interaction components to realize advanced user assistance. Based on a hybrid planning formalism, the components provide facilities including the generation, execution, and repair as well as the presentation and explanation of plans. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by means of a system that aims to assist users in the assembly of their home theater. An empirical evaluation shows the benefit of such a supportive system, in particular for persons with a lack of domain expertise.
Sever's injury; treat it with a heel cup: a randomized, crossover study with two insole alternatives

Sever's injury (apophysitis calcanei) is considered to be the dominant cause of heel pain among children. Common advice is to reduce physical activity. However, our previous study showed that application of insoles reduced pain in Sever's injury without having to reduce physical activity. The purpose of this study was to test which of the two insoles, the heel wedge or the heel cup, provided best pain relief during sport activity in boys with Sever's injury (n=51). There was a crossover design in the first randomized part of the study. In the second part, the boys, 9–14 years, chose which insole they preferred. There was a reduction in odds score for pain to a fifth (a reduction of 80%) for the cup compared with the wedge (P<0.001). When an active choice was made, the heel cup was preferred by >75% of the boys. All boys maintained their high level of physical activity throughout. At 1‐year follow‐up, 22 boys still used an insole and 19 of them reported its effect on pain as excellent or good (n=41).
Eye injuries in the U.S. Armed Forces.

OBJECTIVE To develop prevention and treatment modalities for eye injuries, ophthalmologists require epidemiological data on the various types of eye injuries. This study sought to define eye injury patterns in the U.S. armed forces. METHOD Data on patterns of eye injury in the armed forces were obtained through voluntary reporting by U.S. military ophthalmologists throughout the world. The reporting format was standardized with the U.S. Eye Injury Registry initial and follow-up report forms. The data were analyzed for significant injury patterns. RESULTS Data on 112 patients were submitted, representing a broad range of the military population. Data on a total of 96 patients with a 6-month follow-up were analyzed in this study. Immediately after injury, 43% of the patients were noted to have poor vision (worse than 20/200). After treatment, only 20% were noted to have poor vision. Patients lost an average of 21.6 days of work after a severe eye injury. CONCLUSION An eye injury is a traumatic and potentially debilitating event. The loss of visual acuity can be drastic, resulting in an extensive recovery period.
Anthropometric assessment of the nutritional status of children and adolescents residing in selected Polish orphanages based on their energy intake and physical activity level.

BACKGROUND Actions to the prevention of overweight and obesity should be first addressed to the youngest population and their parents, guardians as well as teachers. The major objectives of prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity programme should be focused on modification of nutritional habits and promotion of physical activity. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional status, intake of energy and macronutrients as well as the physical activity of students from orphanages in Krakow. MATERIAL AND METHODS Study was performed in 5 orphanages located in Krakow (Poland), which were under control of Social Welfare Centre in Krakow. The study involved 153 students, 67 girls and 86 boys, aged from 7 to 20 years. Nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric measurements. The protein and total fat content in diets was measured by chemical analyses and carbohydrates were calculated by difference. Physical activity level of children and adolescents was assessed by questionnaire. RESULTS Over 80% of boys and about 90% of girls had a normal body mass. Students have spent their free time on additional physical activity from 1h 34 min/day to 5 h 12 min/day. They also have spent their free time on sedentary activities on average 4 h/day. Daily diets of students did not met recommendations for energy, carbohydrates and fats. Intake of protein was too high and exceeded the estimated average requirement even over three times. CONCLUSIONS Despite the insufficient intake of fat and carbohydrates, students generally showed a proper BMI value. This suggests that excess intake of protein was used for maturation process and was additional source of energy. Reported additional physical activity was satisfactory.
A Division Algorithm for Signed-Digit Arithmetic

Abstract—The application of a fast division algorithm, particu-larly suitable for floating-point arithmetic, to signed-digit number systems is described. This method, based on the method of A. Svo-boda, is performed in two steps: 1) the divisor is adjusted to be of the form (1+e) where e is a fractional quantity, while the dividend is adjusted accordingly, and 2) the generation of each quotient digit is determined by only one digit in the partial remainder together with the transfer digit (or carry/borrow) emanating from it. A working example of radix 16 is given.
Treatment of Acanthamoeba Keratitis by Corneal Cross-linking

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of corneal cross-linking (CXL; riboflavin/ultraviolet A) as a simple therapy for Acanthamoeba keratitis. Methods: Twenty rabbits were systemically anesthetized and the stroma of their right corneas was inoculated with a suspension of Acanthamoeba. Rabbits were divided into 2 groups: one group was treated with corneal CXL 3 days after infection and the other did not receive any treatment (control). All eyes in both groups were examined before (days 0 and 3) and after (day 7) CXL treatment. On day 7, the eyes were enucleated; 18 corneal buttons (9 of each group) were sent for microbiological examination and 2 (1 of each group) for histopathologic examination. Results: All animals developed Acanthamoeba keratitis. There was no statistically significant difference between groups before treatment (day 0, P = 1, and day 3, P = 0.684). The treated corneas had a higher score (3.48 ± 0.30) at the time of enucleation compared with control corneas (2.60 ± 0.26). This difference was statistically significant (P = 0.008). Microbiological analysis revealed that the treated corneas had a higher protozoal count (2.86 ± 0.09) compared with the control corneas (2.18 ± 0.07); this difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Treatment of Acanthamoeba keratitis by corneal CXL (riboflavin/ultraviolet A) did not prove effective in decreasing the intensity and severity of Acanthamoeba keratitis.