Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychometric Evaluation of the Greek Version of the Aggression Questionnaire

The study assesses the psychometric properties of the Greek version of the Aggression Questionnaire by Buss and Perry in a sample of 760 Greek high school students. This questionnaire has been widely used to study Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger, and Hostility. A confirmatory factor analysis of responses showed adequate fit for the original 4-factor model (total variance explained: 68.2%). The analysis also showed satisfactory internal consistency and temporal stability over 6 to 8 weeks. Also, the construct validity, extreme groups' validity, and predictive validity indices were adequate. Greek female students adopted more indirect forms of aggression (Hostility) than males, who applied more direct forms such as Physical Aggression. Findings supported the use of the Greek version of the questionnaire for assessment in high school students.
Radiation therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration

Antivascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapies represent the standard of care for most patients presenting with neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (neovascular AMD). Anti-VEGF drugs require repeated injections and impose a considerable burden of care, and not all patients respond. Radiation targets the proliferating cells that cause neovascular AMD, including fibroblastic, inflammatory, and endothelial cells. Two new neovascular AMD radiation treatments are being investigated: epimacular brachytherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery. Epimacular brachytherapy uses beta radiation, delivered to the lesion via a pars plana vitrectomy. Stereotactic radiosurgery uses low voltage X-rays in overlapping beams, directed onto the lesion. Feasibility data for epimacular brachytherapy show a greatly reduced need for anti-VEGF therapy, with a mean vision gain of 8.9 ETDRS letters at 12 months. Pivotal trials are underway (MERLOT, CABERNET). Preliminary stereotactic radiosurgery data suggest a mean vision gain of 8 to 10 ETDRS letters at 12 months. A large randomized sham controlled stereotactic radiosurgery feasibility study is underway (CLH002), with pivotal trials to follow. While it is too early to conclude on the safety and efficacy of epimacular brachytherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery, preliminary results are positive, and these suggest that radiation offers a more durable therapeutic effect than intraocular injections.
The Meaning of Mindfulness: A Second-Order Cybernetics of Stress, Metacognition, and Coping

Stress-related illness presents an ever-increasing burden to society, and thus has become the target of numerous complementary and integrative medicine interventions. One such clinical intervention, mindfulness meditation, has gained eminence for its demonstrated efficacy in reducing stress and improving health outcomes. Despite its prominence, little is known about the mechanics through which it exerts its treatment effects. This article details the therapeutic mechanisms of mindfulness with a novel causal model of stress, metacognition, and coping. Mindfulness is hypothesized to bolster coping processes by augmenting positive reappraisal, mitigating catastrophizing, and engendering self-transcendence. Reviews of stress and mindfulness are then framed by the perspective of second-order cybernetics, a transdisciplinary conceptual framework which builds on extant theory by highlighting the recursion between the individual and their environment.
Studies on the substrate specificity of a GDP-mannose pyrophosphorylase from Salmonella enterica

A series of methoxy and deoxy derivatives of mannopyranose-1-phosphate (Manp-1P) were chemically synthesized, and their ability to be converted into the corresponding guanosine diphosphate mannopyranose (GDP-Manp) analogues by a pyrophosphorylase (GDP-ManPP) from Salmonella enterica was studied. Evaluation of methoxy analogues demonstrated that GDP-ManPP is intolerant of bulky substituents at the C-2, C-3, and C-4 positions, in turn suggesting that these positions are buried inside the enzyme active site. Additionally, both the 6-methoxy and 6-deoxy Manp-1P derivatives are good or moderate substrates for GDP-ManPP, thus indicating that the C-6 hydroxy group of the Manp-1P substrate is not required for binding to the enzyme. When taken into consideration with other previously published work, it appears that this enzyme has potential utility for the chemoenzymatic synthesis of GDP-Manp analogues, which are useful probes for studying enzymes that employ this sugar nucleotide as a substrate.
Patterns of intracellular and intercellular Ca2+ waves in the longitudinal muscle layer of the murine large intestine In vitro

Ca2+ wave activity was monitored in the longitudinal (LM) layer of isolated murine caecum and proximal colon at 35 °C with fluo‐4 AM and an iCCD camera. Both intracellular (within LM cells) and intercellular (also spreading from cell to cell) Ca2+ waves were observed. Intracellular Ca2+ waves were associated with a lack of muscle movement whereas intercellular Ca2+ waves, which were five times more intense than intracellular waves, were often associated with localized contractions. Several intracellular Ca2+ waves were present at the same time in individual LM cells. Waves in adjacent LM cells were not coordinated and were unaffected by TTX (1 μM) but were blocked by IP3 receptor antagonists xestospongin‐C (Xe‐C; 2 μM) or 2‐aminoethyl diphenylborate (2‐APB; 25 μM), and by ryanodine (10 μM). Caffeine (5 mm) restored wave activity following blockade with Xe‐C. NiCl2 (1 mm) blocked intracellular Ca2+ waves, and nicardipine (2 μM) reduced their frequency and intensity, but did not affect their velocity, suggesting the sarcoplasmic reticulum may be fuelled by extracellular Ca2+ entry. Intercellular Ca2+ waves often occurred in bursts and propagated rapidly across sizeable regions of the LM layer and were blocked by heptanol (0.5 mm). Intercellular Ca2+ waves were dependent upon neural activity, external Ca2+ entry through L‐type Ca2+ channels, and amplification via calcium‐induced calcium release (CICR). In conclusion, intracellular Ca2+ waves, which may reduce muscle excitability, are confined to individual LM cells. They depend upon Ca2+ release from internal Ca2+ stores and are likely to be fuelled by extracellular Ca2+ entry. Intercellular Ca2+ waves, which are likely to underlie smooth muscle tone, mixing and propulsion, depend upon neural activity, muscle action potential propagation and amplification by CICR.
Social Reality and Self-Construction: A Case of "Bounded Irrationality?"

Recent work on social comparison has focused on the motivated construction of social reality, particularly in beliefs about others. We build on Festinger's (1954) early formulations in showing that social comparison may also involve reconstruction of the self. We predicted that to maintain favorable perceptions of their own comparative abilities, people who were given information about the number of specific ability-related (and morality-related) behaviors that others state they can or will perform would come to believe that they themselves can or will perform more such behaviors. Two studies are presented that provide robust support for this hypothesis across a broad range of intellectual, athletic, moral, and creative behaviors varying in difficulty, controllability, ambiguity, social desirability, and importance to self. Study 2 suggests that this self-reconstruction is bounded and is not easily attributed to anchoring-adjustment or use of a "better-than-average" rule. Results are discussed in the context of research on social comparison, perceptions of consensus, and the self.
Asymptomatic bacterascites: Is it spontaneous bacterial peritonitis?

Asymptomatic bacterascites is defined as the presence of bacteria in ascitic fluid without clinical features of peritonitis or increased ascitic fluid polymorphonuclear cells. Asymptomatic bacterascites is a controversial entity, and little information is available regarding its spontaneous evolution. Clinical features, bacteriological data and outcome in 22 cirrhotic patients with asymptomatic bacterascites are reported and are compared with those of a group of 36 cirrhotic patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. Eleven patients had gram‐negative bacteria and 11 had one gram‐positive bacteria. Only in three patients (13.6%) did peritonitis develop. Twelve patients received no antibiotic therapy, and in none did peritonitis develop. At 1 month, 27% of patients with asymptomatic bacterascites had died. Patients with asymptomatic bacterascites had less‐severe liver disease; they more frequently had gram‐positive bacteria in ascitic fluid and had a lower 1‐mo mortality rate than did patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis.
A FOUNDING PROGRAM ON ROBUSTNESS IN SOCIAL PROCESSES 1 Program Statement

In a world of uncertainty, rapid change, and increasing complexity, it might be thought that failure of social processes should prove the rule rather than the exception. And yet both the past and the present provide many examples of social processes that we instinctively label as robust to failure, whether because of the agility with which they have responded to changing circumstances, or because of their record of surviving deliberate internal or external attack, or merely because they have proved so longlived. Robustness is a term that captures our intuitive sense of one of the key determinants of longterm success or failure, but what do we mean by robustness, and what specific features of a social process contribute to its robustness or fragility? In the past few years, the concept of robustness has been the subject of growing interest in the natural and engineering sciences. Building on traditional fields such as stability, reliability, and control theory, the study of robustness has focused on the ability of a system to maintain specified features when subject to assemblages of perturbations either internal or external (see, e.g., [19, 13] and the web site http://discuss.santafe.edu/robustness). The system of interest in robustness is typically not in equilibrium, and the perturbations are typically such that it is unrealistic to attempt estimations of their supports and distributions. Preliminary progress has been made in the understanding of general principles of robustness especially in the context of evolutionary and developmental biology, ecology, and computer network design (see the next section “Relation to Other Work” for more discussion). The insights have stimulated a rich set of research programs, and, even more importantly, are contributing to new ways of thinking on issues ranging from the architecture of regulatory control, through the relation between performance and flexibility, to the evolution of general-purpose information-processing algorithms in these contexts. In social contexts, however, the study of robustness has thus far not emerged as an explicit focus of research. Potential interest is enormous however. Examples of the questions that motivate the study of social robustness include:
Reducing the Contention Experienced by Real-Time Core-to-I/O Flows over a Tilera-Like Network on Chip

Many-core architectures are promising hardware to design real-time systems. However, the worst-case behavior of the Network-on-Chip (NoC) for both core-to-core and core-to-Input/Output (I/O) communications of critical applications must be established. The mapping over the NoC of both critical and non-critical applications has an impact on the network contention these critical communications exhibit. So far, all existing mapping strategies have focused on core-to-core communications. However, many-cores in embedded real-time systems will be integrated within backbone Ethernet networks, as they mostly provide Ethernet controllers as I/O interfaces. In a previous work we have shown that Ethernet packets can be dropped due to an internal congestion in a Tilera-like NoC. In this work, we describe and evaluate a mapping strategy for such Tilera-like NoCs that minimizes the contention of core-to-I/O critical flows in order to solve this problem. Experimental results on real avionics applications show significant improvements of core-to-IO flows transmission delays, without significantly impacting transmission delays of core-to-core flows.
Spices in a Product Affect Emotions: A Study with an Extruded Snack Product †

Food commonly is associated with emotion. The study was designed to determine if a spice blend (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves) high in antioxidants can evoke changes in consumer emotions. This was an exploratory study to determine the effects of these four spices on emotions. Three extruded, dry snack products containing 0, 4, or a 5% spice blend were tested. One day of hedonic and just-about-right evaluations (n = 100), followed by three days of emotion testing were conducted. A human clinical trial (n = 10), using the control and the 4% samples, measured total antioxidant capacity and blood glucose levels. The emotion “Satisfied” increased significantly in the 5% blend, showing an effect of a higher spice content. The 4% blend was significantly higher in total antioxidant capacity than the baseline, but blood glucose levels were not significantly different.
Cholesterol paradox: Is high total or low HDL cholesterol level a risk for Alzheimer's disease?

Cholesterol is an essential component of membranes for maintaining their structure and functions. The discovery that possession of apolipoprotein E (apoE), allele ϵ4 is a strong risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) leads us to focus on the role of cholesterol in the pathogenesis of AD. Accumulating epidemiological and biological evidence suggests the link between the serum cholesterol level and the development of AD, and the potential therapeutic effectiveness of statins for AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), whereas other lines of evidence show controversial results. Cholesterol is known to interact with amyloid β‐protein (Aβ) in a reciprocal manner: cellular cholesterol levels modulate Aβ generation, whereas Aβ alters cholesterol dynamics in neurons, leading to tauopathy. In this review, the relationship between the cholesterol levels in serum or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and the induction of AD is discussed. The mechanism(s), if this is the case, of how cholesterol in the central nervous system (CNS) is involved in the induction of pathologies of AD including Aβ generation and tauopathy, and how statins prevent it are also discussed. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Games and the Development of Perspective Taking

It is widely acknowledged that perspective taking is fundamental to the development of the self, the development of the individual’s ability to interact meaningfully with other people, and to the successful functioning of society. Attempts to articulate the mechanisms underlying perspective taking have relied upon internal cognitive mechanisms; the child can imitate (or internally simulate) the perspective of others by virtue of identifying with the other or internalizing the perspective of the other. However, as Martin argues, any explanation relying solely upon cognitive mechanisms is unsatisfying and potentially circular: it assumes, as an internal ability, that which the theory is meant to explain. A satisfactory explanation must have recourse to social interaction, either to the interaction context in which the innate ability was selected for, or to the social interactions that extend these innate, but very rudimentary abilities, into elaborate forms of perspective taking. To this end, Martin makes two contributions: fi rstly, he uses Mead to identify one type of social interaction that may be particularly important for the development of perspective taking, and secondly, he proposes a program of research that will differentiate this theory from alternative theories. I will expand upon each of these contributions in turn, fi rstly drawing out ‘position exchange’ as a novel dimension of social interaction, and secondly, illustrating why Martin’s suggested research should study the children’s game of hide-and-seek.
Meta-Analysis of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treating PTSD and Co-occurring Depression Among Children and Adolescents

We evaluated the effectiveness of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for treating posttraumatic stress disorder and co-occurring depression symptoms across 21 between-group studies representing the data of 1,860 children and adolescents (1,106 girls and 754 boys). Separate meta-analytic procedures were conducted for studies that implemented wait-list/no treatment and alternative treatment comparisons to estimate aggregated treatment effect of TF-CBT and moderators of effect size magnitude. Limitations of our findings and implications for counselors are discussed.
Patterns in childhood sports injury

Objective The purpose of this epidemiologic study is twofold: first, to determine the relative frequency of sports-related injuries compared with all musculoskeletal injuries in patients 5 to 21 years of age presenting to the emergency department (ED), and second, to evaluate the sports-specific and anatomic site–specific nature of these injuries. Methods Patterns of injury in patients 5 to 21 years of age presenting to four pediatric EDs with musculoskeletal injuries in October 1999 and April 2000 were prospectively studied. Information collected included age, sex, injury type, anatomical injury site, and cause of injury (sports-related or otherwise). Information about patient outcome and disposition was also obtained. Results There were a total of 1421 injuries in 1275 patients. Musculoskeletal injuries were more common in male patients (790/62%) than in female patients. The mean age of the patients was 12.2 years (95% CI, 12.0–12.4). Sprains, contusions, and fractures were the most common injury types (34, 30, and 25%, respectively). Female patients experienced a greater percentage of sprains (44% vs 36%) and contusions (37% vs 33%) and fewer fractures (22% vs 31%) than male patients. Sports injuries accounted for 41% (521) of all musculoskeletal injuries and were responsible for 8% (495/6173) of all ED visits. Head, forearm, and wrist injuries were most commonly seen in biking, hand injuries in football and basketball, knee injuries in soccer, and ankle and foot injuries in basketball. Conclusions Sports injuries in children and adolescents were by far the most common cause of musculoskeletal injuries treated in the ED, accounting for 41% of all musculoskeletal injuries. This represents the highest percentage of sports-related musculoskeletal injuries per ED visit reported in children to date. As children and adolescents participate in sports in record numbers nationwide, sports injury research and prevention will become increasingly more important.
Short-Term Load Forecasting Based on LS-SVM Optimized by Bacterial Colony Chemotaxis Algorithm

Aiming at improving the accuracy and speed of short-term load forecasting (STLF), the proposed BCC-LS-SVM model is presented, among which bacterial colony chemotaxis (BCC) optimization algorithm is used to determine hyper-parameters of least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM). BCC is a novel category of bionic algorithm, which takes advantage of the bacterium's reaction to chemoattractants to find the optimum. The algorithm not only has strong global search capability, but also is easy to implement. Thus, BCC is suitable to determine parameters of LS-SVM. Finally, load forecasting examples are used to illustrate the performance of proposed model. The experimental results indicate that the BCC-LS-SVM method can achieve higher forecasting accuracy and faster speed than artificial neural network and LS-SVM with gird search. Therefore, the BCC-LS-SVM model is suitable for short-term load forecasting.
ATPP: A Pipeline for Automatic Tractography-Based Brain Parcellation

There is a longstanding effort to parcellate brain into areas based on micro-structural, macro-structural, or connectional features, forming various brain atlases. Among them, connectivity-based parcellation gains much emphasis, especially with the considerable progress of multimodal magnetic resonance imaging in the past two decades. The Brainnetome Atlas published recently is such an atlas that follows the framework of connectivity-based parcellation. However, in the construction of the atlas, the deluge of high resolution multimodal MRI data and time-consuming computation poses challenges and there is still short of publically available tools dedicated to parcellation. In this paper, we present an integrated open source pipeline (https://www.nitrc.org/projects/atpp), named Automatic Tractography-based Parcellation Pipeline (ATPP) to realize the framework of parcellation with automatic processing and massive parallel computing. ATPP is developed to have a powerful and flexible command line version, taking multiple regions of interest as input, as well as a user-friendly graphical user interface version for parcellating single region of interest. We demonstrate the two versions by parcellating two brain regions, left precentral gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, on two independent datasets. In addition, ATPP has been successfully utilized and fully validated in a variety of brain regions and the human Brainnetome Atlas, showing the capacity to greatly facilitate brain parcellation.
Integrative Effects of Feeding Aspergillus awamori and fructooligosaccharide on Growth Performance and Digestibility in Broilers: Promotion Muscle Protein Metabolism

This study was conducted to show the effect of Aspergillus awamori (AA), fructooligosaccharide (FOS), and combined Aspergillus awamori and fructooligosaccharide (AA + FOS) on growth, digestibility, blood parameters, and expression of some growth-related genes. A total of 60 broiler chicks at the age of 15 d were divided into a control group (n = 15) and 3 treatment groups. The control group was fed a basal diet, and the treatment groups were fed basal diets supplemented with 0.05% AA, 0.05% FOS, and combined of 0.05% AA and 0.05% FOS. Results from measurement of growth performance and digestibility revealed a significant increase in the body weight gain with improved feed conversion rate in the experimental groups. Interestingly, dry matter digestibility (DMD) and crude protein utilization (CPU) were improved. In addition, plasma total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) were decreased, while plasma high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) was increased by feeding AA, FOS, and AA + FOS. Expressions of growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) were increased in experimental groups. In conclusion, the supplementation of either Aspergillus awamori or fructooligosaccharide or both improves digestibility and growth performance probably by promoting skeletal muscle protein metabolism.