Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Translation, adaptation and validation of instruments or scales for use in cross-cultural health care research: a clear and user-friendly guideline.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The diversity of the population worldwide suggests a great need for cross-culturally validated research instruments or scales. Researchers and clinicians must have access to reliable and valid measures of concepts of interest in their own cultures and languages to conduct cross-cultural research and/or provide quality patient care. Although there are well-established methodological approaches for translating, adapting and validating instruments or scales for use in cross-cultural health care research, a great variation in the use of these approaches continues to prevail in the health care literature. Therefore, the objectives of this scholarly paper were to review published recommendations of cross-cultural validation of instruments and scales, and to propose and present a clear and user-friendly guideline for the translation, adaptation and validation of instruments or scales for cross-cultural health care research. METHODS A review of highly recommended methodological approaches to translation, adaptation and cross-cultural validation of research instruments or scales was performed. Recommendations were summarized and incorporated into a seven-step guideline. Each one of the steps was described and key points were highlighted. Example of a project using the proposed steps of the guideline was fully described. CONCLUSIONS Translation, adaptation and validation of instruments or scales for cross-cultural research is very time-consuming and requires careful planning and the adoption of rigorous methodological approaches to derive a reliable and valid measure of the concept of interest in the target population.
Analysis of the movement of Chlamydomonas flagella:" the function of the radial-spoke system is revealed by comparison of wild-type and mutant flagella

The mutation uni-1 gives rise to uniflagellate Chlamydomonas cells which rotate around a fixed point in the microscope field, so that the flagellar bending pattern can be photographed easily. This has allowed us to make a detailed analysis of the wild-type flagellar bending pattern and the bending patterns of flagella on several mutant strains. Cells containing uni-1, and recombinants of uni-1 with the suppressor mutations, suppf-1 and suppf-3, show the typical asymmetric bending pattern associated with forward swimming in Chlamydomonas, although suppf-1 flagella have about one-half the normal beta frequency, apparently as the result of defective function of the outer dynein arms. The pf-17 mutation has been shown to produce nonmotile flagella in which radial spoke heads and five characteristic axonemal polypeptides are missing. Recombinants containing pf-17 and either suppf-2 or suppf-3 have motile flagella, but still lack radial-spoke heads and the associated polypeptides. The flagellar bending pattern of these recombinants lacking radial-spoke heads is a nearly symmetric, large amplitude pattern which is quite unlike the wild-type pattern. However, the presence of an intact radial-spoke system is not required to convert active sliding into bending and is not required for bend initiation and bend propagation, since all of these processes are active in suppfpf-17 recombinants. The function of the radial-spoke system appears to be to convert the symmetric bending pattern displayed by these recombinants into the asymmetric bending pattern required for efficient swimming, by inhibiting the development of reverse bends during the recovery phase of the bending cycle.
Reliable determination of sleep versus wake from heart rate variability using neural networks

Heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and sleep state are some of the common physiologic parameters used in studies of infants. HRV is easily derived from infant electrocardiograms (ECG), but sleep state scoring is a time consuming task using many physiological signals. We propose a technique to reliably determine sleep and wake using only the ECG. The method would be tested with simultaneous ECG and polysomnograph (PSG) determined sleep scores from the Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation (CHIME) study. The advantages include high accuracy, simplicity of use, and low intrusiveness, with design including rejection to increase reliability valuable for determining sleep-wake states in highly sensitive groups such as infants. Learning vector quantization and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks are tested as the predictors. The manual PSG scored test set has 38,121 (67.8%) sleep and 18,076 (32.2%) wake epochs for a total of 56,197 epochs. The MLP classification of the entire test set resulted in 77.7% agreement with the PSG sleep epochs and 79.0% with wake. The rejection scheme applied to the MLP resulted in 28.9% of sleep and wake epochs meeting the rejection criterion. Of the remaining 39,946 epochs 86.0% are in agreement with the PSG sleep epochs and 85.4% with wake. After systematic rejection of difficult to classify segments, this model can achieve 85%-86% correct classification while rejecting only 30% of the data. This is an improvement of about 7.8% over a traditional model without rejection
Evolution of the army ant syndrome: The origin and long-term evolutionary stasis of a complex of behavioral and reproductive adaptations

The army ant syndrome of behavioral and reproductive traits (obligate collective foraging, nomadism, and highly specialized queens) has allowed these organisms to become the premiere social hunters of the tropics, yet we know little about how or why these strategies evolved. The currently accepted view holds that army ants evolved multiple times on separate continents. I generated data from three nuclear genes, a mitochondrial gene, and morphology to test this hypothesis. Results strongly indicate that the suite of behavioral and reproductive adaptations found in army ants throughout the world is inherited from a unique common ancestor, and did not evolve convergently in the New World and Old World as previously thought. New Bayesian methodology for dating the antiquity of lineages by using a combination of fossil and molecular information places the origin of army ants in the mid-Cretaceous, consistent with a Gondwanan origin. Because no known army ant species lacks any component of the army ant syndrome, this group represents an extraordinary case of long-term evolutionary stasis in these adaptations.
Are the AAII stock screens a useful tool for investors

The American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) offers a variety of screening tools to help investors select stocks. We analyze the effectiveness of these tools. While we find support for AAII’s statement that 91% of their screened portfolios beat the S&P 500, we note that this overstates the effectiveness of their screens. Many of the return differences are not statistically significant, and their analysis ignores transactions costs and risk differences. Our analysis reveals that when transactions costs are considered, 32% significantly beat the S&P 500, and 26% of low transaction cost strategies significantly beat their best-fit indices. © 2008 Academy of Financial Services. All rights reserved.
Light-dependent ion influx into toad photoreceptors

To measure the influx of Na+ and other ions through the light-dependent permeability of photoreceptors, we superfused the isolated retina of the toad, Bufo marinus, with a low-Ca2+ (10(-8) M), low-Cl- Ringer's solution containing 0.5 mM ouabain. Under these conditions, the membrane potential of the rod is near zero and there is no light- induced potential change either in the rod or in more proximal neurons. The photoreceptors, however, continue to show a light-dependent increase in membrane resistance, which indicates that the light- sensitive channels still close with illumination. Dark-adapted retinas show a larger 22Na+ accumulation than do light-adapted retinas. The extra accumulation of 22Na+ into dark-adapted retinas can be removed if the retinas are washed in darkness with low-Ca2+ Ringer's solutions, or if the ionophore gramicidin D is present in the perfusate. The additional accumulation in dark retinas corresponds to a flux of at least 10(9) Na+ per receptor per second, which is close to the value of the photoreceptor dark current. The light-dependent uptake of 22Na+ can be prevented by exposing the retinas to Ca2+ during the incubation period, but is restored if the phosphodiesterase inhibitor IBMX is added to the perfusate. A significant light-dependent ion accumulation can be observed for the cations K+, Rb+, Cs+, and Tl+, in addition to Na+, but not for methylamine, choline, or tetraethylammonium.
Use of the micronucleus test to monitor the effect of vitamin A, beta‐carotene and canthaxanthin on the buccal mucosa of betel nut/tobacco chewers

The frequency of exfoliated cells with micronuclei in buccal swabs was used to estimate the protective effect of vitamin A, beta‐carotene and canthaxanthin (4,4′‐diketo‐beta‐carotene) on the buccal mucosa of betel (areca) nut/tobacco chewers. Micronuclei were scored on exfoliated cells taken by swabbing and stained with the Feulgen reaction and fast green. The betel (areca) nut/tobacco chewers served as their own controls. Prior to the administration of vitamin A and beta‐carotene, the examined betel quid chewers had elevated frequencies of micronucleated buccal mucosa cells, averaging 4.03% ± 1.24 sd (n = 26) and 3.43% ± 1.22 sd (n = 25), respectively. The frequency of micronucleated buccal mucosa cells in non‐chewers and non‐smokers was 0.51% (n = 52). Following a 9‐week ingestion of vitamin A (150,000 IU/week) and beta‐carotene (180 mg/week in 6 capsules), the frequency of micronucleated cells decreased significantly (p<0.001) to 1.70% and 1.16%, respectively. No significant shift in the frequencies of micronucleated cells was observed following the intake of canthaxanthin (180 mg/week in 6 capsules) for 9 weeks or that of a placebo. The lack of protective activity of canthaxanthin, which is a good trapper of oxygen singlets but cannot be converted into vitamin A, suggests that vitamin A and beta‐carotene exert their inhibitory effect on the formation of micronuclei by a mechanism not involving the scavenging of free radicals. The efficacy of beta‐carotene as an inhibitor of micronucleated cell formation, the lack of toxicity, and its availability from a multitude of dietary sources should focus attention on this carotenoid as a promising chemopreventive agent.
Towards a Provenance-Preserving Trust Model in Agent Networks

Social networks in which users or agents are connected to other agents and sources by trust relations are an important part of many web applications where information may come from multiple sources. Trust recommendations derived from these social networks are supposed to help agents develop their own opinions about how much they may trust other agents and sources. Despite the recent developments in the area, most of the trust models and metrics proposed so far tend to lose trust-related knowledge. We propose a new model in which trust values are derived from a bilattice that preserves valuable trust provenance information including partial trust, partial distrust, ignorance and inconsistency. We outline the problems that need to be addressed to construct a corresponding trust learning mechanism. We present initial results on the first learning step, namely trust propagation through trusted third parties (TTPs).
Mechanical restitution curves reflect post-ischemic stunning in pigs

Objectives The time constant of mechanical restitution (T(MRC)), proposed to reflect changes in calcium release and uptake, has been shown to increase in left ventriculariz (LV) failure. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that T(MRC) also can identify post-ischemic, reversible LV dysfunction (stunning). Design Stunning was induced by a series of left main coronary artery occlusions in eight anesthetized open chest pigs. Left ventricular pressure–volume relations were assessed using a pressure–volume catheter during right atrial pacing. Mechanical restitution curves (MRCs) were constructed using two different measures of contractile response: maximal first derivative of pressure (CR(dP/dtmax)) and stroke work (CR(SW)). Results Mean arterial pressure, stroke volume and dP/dtmax were decreased 30 min after stunning. Slopes of end-systolic pressure volume relation and preload recruitable stroke work, however, showed no significant changes after stunning. For MRCs based on CR(dP/dtmax), T(MRC) increased in all eight animals. Using CR(SW), T(MRC) increased in seven out of eight pigs. Conclusions Ischemia–reperfusion induce changes in MRCs based on CR(dP/dtmax) and CR(SW). The MRC concept may have potential as a clinical left ventricular performance index.
Adaptive scheduling of computations and communications on distributed memory systems

Compile-time scheduling is one approach to extract parallelism which proved to be effective when the execution behavior is predictable. Unfortunately, the performance of most priority-based scheduling algorithms is computation dependent. Scheduling by using earliest-task-first (ETF) produces reasonably short schedules only when available parallelism is large enough to cover the communications. A priority-based decision is much more effective when parallelism is low. We propose a scheduling in which the decision function combines: (1) task-level as global priority, and (2) earliest-task-first as local priority. The degree of dominance of one of the above concepts is controlled by a computation profile factor such as task parallelism and communication. An iterative scheduler (forward and backward) is proposed for tuning the solution. In each iteration, the new schedule is used to sharpen the task-levels. This contributes in finding shorter schedules in next iteration. Evaluation is carried out by using synthetic task-graphs for computations with communications times for which optimum schedules are known. It is found that finish time of pure local scheduling (like ETF) and static priority-based scheduling significantly deviate from optimum when task parallelism is low in presence of relatively large communication. Our approach to adapting the scheduling decision to computation profile was able to produce near-optimum solutions through much less number of iterations than other approaches.
On The Tradeoff Between Two Types of Processing Gain

One of the features characterizing almost every multiple access (MA) communication system is the processing gain. Through the use of spreading sequences, the processing gain of Random CDMA systems (RCDMA), is devoted to both bandwidth expansion and orthogonalization of the signals transmitted by different users. Another type of multiple access system is Impulse Radio (IR). In many aspects, IR systems are similar to time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, and the processing gain of IR systems represents the ratio between the actual transmission time and the total time between two consecutive ransmissions (on-plus-off to on ratio). While CDMA systems, which constantly excite the channel, rely on spreading sequences to orthogonalize the signals transmitted by different users, IR systems transmit a series of short pulses and the orthogonalization between the signals transmitted by different users is achieved by the fact that most of the pulses do not collide with each other at the receiver. In this paper, a general class of MA communication systems that use both types of processing gain is presented, and both IR and RCDMA systems are demonstrated to be two special cases of this more general class of systems. The bit error rate (BER) of several receivers as a function of the ratio between the two types of processing gain is analyzed and compared under the constraint that the total processing gain of the system is large and fixed. It is demonstrated that in non inter-symbol interference (ISI) channels there is no tradeoff between the two types of processing gain. However, in ISI channels a tradeoff between the two types of processing gain exists. In addition, the sub-optimality of RCDMA systems in frequency selective channels is established.
Segmentation of Single- or Multiple-Touching Handwritten Numeral String Using Background and Foreground Analysis

An approach of segmenting a single- or multiple-touching handwritten numeral string (two-digits) is proposed. Most algorithms for segmenting connected digits mainly focus on the analysis of foreground pixels. Some concentrated on the analysis of background pixels only and others are based on a recognizer. We combine background and foreground analysis to segment single- or multiple-touching handwritten numeral strings. Thinning of both foreground and background regions are first processed on the image of connected numeral strings and the feature points on foreground and background skeletons are extracted. Several possible segmentation paths are then constructed and useless strokes are removed. Finally, the parameters of geometric properties of each possible segmentation paths are determined and these parameters are analyzed by the mixture Gaussian probability function to decide the best segmentation path or reject it. Experimental results on NIST special database 19 (an update of NIST special database 3) and some other images collected by ourselves show that our algorithm can get a correct rate of 96 percent with rejection rate of 7.8 percent, which compares favorably with those reported in the literature.
Aerostructural Optimization of Nonplanar Lifting Surfaces

to findoptimalnonplanarliftingsurfacesandtoexplainthevariousfactorsandtradeoffsatplay.Apanelmethodand anequivalentbeam finite-elementmodelareusedtoexplorenonplanarliftingsurfaces,whiletakingintoaccountthe coupling and design tradeoffs between aerodynamics and structures. Both single-discipline aerodynamic optimization and multidisciplinary aerostructural optimization problems are investigated. The design variables are chosen to give the lifting-surface arrangement as much freedom as possible. This is accomplished by allowing a number of wing segments to vary their area, taper, twist, sweep, span, and dihedral, with the constraint that they must not intersect each other. Because of the complexity of the resulting design space and the presence of multiple localminima, anaugmentedLagrangianparticle swarmoptimizer isusedto solvethe optimizationproblems.When only aerodynamics are considered, closed lifting-surface configurations, such as the box wing and joined wing, are found to be optimal. When aerostructural optimization is performed, a winglet configuration is found to be optimal when the overall span is constrained, and a wing with a raked wingtip is optimal when there is no such constraint.
Fermentation, Purification, and Characterization of Protective Antigen from a Recombinant, Avirulent Strain ofBacillus anthracis

ABSTRACT Bacillus anthracis, the etiologic agent for anthrax, produces two bipartite, AB-type exotoxins, edema toxin and lethal toxin. The B subunit of both exotoxins is an Mr83,000 protein termed protective antigen (PA). The human anthrax vaccine currently licensed for use in the United States consists primarily of this protein adsorbed onto aluminum oxyhydroxide. This report describes the production of PA from a recombinant, asporogenic, nontoxigenic, and nonencapsulated host strain of B. anthracis and the subsequent purification and characterization of the protein product. Fermentation in a high-tryptone, high-yeast-extract medium under nonlimiting aeration produced 20 to 30 mg of secreted PA per liter. Secreted protease activity under these fermentation conditions was low and was inhibited more than 95% by the addition of EDTA. A purity of 88 to 93% was achieved for PA by diafiltration and anion-exchange chromatography, while greater than 95% final purity was achieved with an additional hydrophobic interaction chromatography step. The purity of the PA product was characterized by reversed-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-capillary electrophoresis, capillary isoelectric focusing, native gel electrophoresis, and SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The biological activity of the PA, when combined with excess lethal factor in the macrophage cell lysis assay, was comparable to previously reported values.
Progression of Cisplatin-Induced Nephrotoxicity in a Carnitine-Depleted Rat Model

Background: This study has been initiated to investigate whether endogenous carnitine depletion and/or carnitine deficiency is an additional risk factor and/or a mechanism in cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity and to gain insights into the possibility of a mechanism-based protection by L-carnitine against this toxicity. Methods: 60 male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into six groups of 10 animals each and received one of the following treatments: The first three groups were injected intraperitoneally with normal saline, L-carnitine (500 mg/kg), and D-carnitine (750 mg/kg), respectively, for 10 successive days. The 4th, 5th, and 6th groups were injected intraperitoneally with the same doses of normal saline, L-carnitine and D-carnitine, respectively, for 5 successive days before and after a single dose of cisplatin (7 mg/kg). Six days after cisplatin treatment, the animals were sacrificed, and serum as well as kidneys were isolated and analyzed. Results: A single dose of cisplatin resulted in a significant increase in blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine, malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO) and a significant decrease in total carnitine, reduced glutathione (GSH) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content in kidney tissues. Interestingly, L-carnitine supplementation attenuated cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity manifested by normalizing the increase of serum creatinine, BUN, MDA and NO and the decrease in total carnitine, GSH and ATP content in kidney tissues. In the carnitine-depleted rat model, cisplatin induced a progressive increase in serum creatinine and BUN as well as a progressive reduction in total carnitine and ATP content in kidney tissue. Histopathological examination of kidney tissues confirmed the biochemical data, i.e. L-carnitine supplementation protected against cisplatin-induced kidney damage, whereas D-carnitine aggravated cisplatin-induced renal injury. Conclusion: Data from this study suggest that: (1) oxidative stress plays an important role in cisplatin-induced kidney damage; (2) carnitine deficiency should be viewed as an additional risk factor and/or a mechanism in cisplatin-induced renal dysfunction, and (3) L-carnitine supplementation attenuates cisplatin-induced renal dysfunction.