Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Looking for patterns in OfStEd judgements about primary pupil achievement in design and technology

Respective English governments have placed considerable faith, political weight and not inconsiderable sums of money in a system of school inspection organised and led by the Office for Standards in Education (OfStEd). This article considers a so-called foundation subject, design and technology, and the extent to which we might meaningfully use OfStEd school and annual national subject summary reports over time to establish a clear picture about pupil achievement in design and technology. Change over time is almost certainly occurring but because of terminology and variation in information reported no clear picture emerges. If national school inspection is to be a vehicle for improving overall pupil achievement in subjects such as design and technology other approaches may be necessary.
A Genome-Wide Association Study of the Protein C Anticoagulant Pathway

The Protein C anticoagulant pathway regulates blood coagulation by preventing the inadequate formation of thrombi. It has two main plasma components: protein C and protein S. Individuals with protein C or protein S deficiency present a dramatically increased incidence of thromboembolic disorders. Here, we present the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for protein C and protein S plasma levels in a set of extended pedigrees from the Genetic Analysis of Idiopathic Thrombophilia (GAIT) Project. A total number of 397 individuals from 21 families were typed for 307,984 SNPs using the Infinium® 317 k Beadchip (Illumina). Protein C and protein S (free, functional and total) plasma levels were determined with biochemical assays for all participants. Association with phenotypes was investigated through variance component analysis. After correcting for multiple testing, two SNPs for protein C plasma levels (rs867186 and rs8119351) and another two for free protein S plasma levels (rs1413885 and rs1570868) remained significant on a genome-wide level, located in and around the PROCR and the DNAJC6 genomic regions respectively. No SNPs were significantly associated with functional or total protein S plasma levels, although rs1413885 from DNAJC6 showed suggestive association with the functional protein S phenotype, possibly indicating that this locus plays an important role in protein S metabolism. Our results provide evidence that PROCR and DNAJC6 might play a role in protein C and free protein S plasma levels in the population studied, warranting further investigation on the role of these loci in the etiology of venous thromboembolism and other thrombotic diseases.
Prophylactic iron supplementation after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass: a prospective, double-blind, randomized study.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether prophylactic oral iron supplements (320 mg twice daily) would protect women from iron deficiency and anemia after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. DESIGN Prospective, double-blind, randomized study in which 29 patients received oral iron and 27 patients received a placebo beginning 1 month after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. SETTING Tertiary care medical center. PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS Complete blood cell count and serum levels of iron, total iron binding capacity, ferritin, vitamin B12, and folate were determined preoperatively and at 6-month intervals postoperatively in 56 menstruating women who had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incidence of iron deficiency and other hematological abnormalities in each treatment group. RESULTS Hemoglobin, hematocrit, and vitamin B12 levels were significantly decreased compared with preoperative values in both groups. Conversely, folate levels increased significantly over time in both groups. Oral iron consistently prevented development of iron deficiency in the iron group. Ferritin levels did not change significantly in the iron group. However, in placebo-treated patients, ferritin levels 2 years postoperatively were significantly decreased compared with preoperative levels. There was no difference in the incidence of anemia between the 2 groups. However, the incidence of microcytosis was substantially greater (P=.07) in placebo-treated than iron-treated patients. CONCLUSIONS Prophylactic oral iron supplements successfully prevented iron deficiency in menstruating women after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass but did not consistently protect these women from developing anemia. On the basis of these results we now routinely recommend prophylactic iron supplements to menstruating women who have Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.
Needle and surgical biopsy techniques differentially affect adipose tissue gene expression profiles.

BACKGROUND Adipose tissue gene expression analysis in humans now provides a tremendous means to discover the physiopathologic gene targets critical for our understanding and treatment of obesity. Clinical studies are emerging in which adipose gene expression has been examined in hundreds of subjects, and it will be fundamentally important that these studies can be compared so that a common consensus can be reached and new therapeutic targets for obesity proposed. OBJECTIVE We studied the effect of the biopsy sampling methods (needle-aspirated and surgical) used in clinical investigation programs on the functional interpretation of adipose tissue gene expression profiles. DESIGN A comparative microarray analysis of the different subcutaneous adipose tissue sampling methods was performed in age-matched lean (n = 19) and obese (n = 18) female subjects. Appropriate statistical (principal components analysis) and bioinformatic (FunNet) functional enrichment software were used to evaluate data. The morphology of adipose tissue samples obtained by needle-aspiration and surgical methods was examined by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS Biopsy techniques influence the gene expression underlying the biological themes currently discussed in obesity (eg, inflammation, extracellular matrix, and metabolism). Immunohistochemistry experiments showed that the easier to obtain needle-aspirated biopsies poorly aspirate the fibrotic fraction of subcutaneous adipose tissue, resulting in an underrepresentation of the stroma-vascular fraction. CONCLUSIONS The adipose tissue biopsy technique is an important caveat to consider when designing, interpreting, and, most important, comparing microarray experiments. These results will have crucial implications for the clinical and physiopathologic understanding of human obesity and therapeutic approaches.
Evidence for an automatic orthographic code in the processing of visually novel word forms

Some psycholinguistic theorists contend that lexical representations are intrinsically phonological, and that visual word recognition requires the matching of orthographic information to core phonological representations, while others postulate that in skilled readers orthographic and phonological representations attain a more equivalent status. We provide evidence for the latter position, showing that an automatically accessible orthographic representation for a phonologically familiar word can be established prior to any visual encounter with that word. We trained subjects with the phonology of unfamiliar words and then included them in orthographic form among the targets in a masked-priming lexical decision task. We showed a pattern of priming for these words at the first visual encounter consistent with under-specified orthographic representations. Repeated presentation in the lexical decision context did not change this pattern of priming, suggesting that a more detailed or semantic analysis might be necessary for these representations to become as specific as those for familiar words.
SHORT-TERM OUTCOMES AFTER INTRAVITREAL INJECTIONS OF CONBERCEPT VERSUS RANIBIZUMAB FOR THE TREATMENT OF RETINOPATHY OF PREMATURITY

Purpose: Intravitreal injection of conbercept (IVC) is the latest applied treatment that could be used in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) patients. The structural outcomes and recurrence of ROP among patients treated with IVC or intravitreal injection of ranibizumab (IVR) were compared. Methods: A consecutive case series of ROP treated with IVC or IVR were retrospectively studied. The primary outcome was treatment success defined as regression of plus disease. The secondary outcomes were recurrence of plus, times of injection, and the final regression of disease. Results: A total of 48 eyes (24 patients) with ROP were included. Twenty eyes (10 patients) received IVC, and 28 eyes (14 patients) received IVR. For the IVC group, 18 eyes had Zone II 3+ ROP and 2 eyes had aggressive posterior ROP. Among the 28 eyes treated with IVR, 6 eyes had Zone I 2/3+ ROP, 6 eyes had aggressive posterior ROP, and 16 eyes had Zone II 3+ ROP. For the IVC group, the mean gestational age, birth weight, postmenstrual age at initial treatment, and follow-up period for the infants were 29.49 ± 1.37 weeks, 1,369.0 ± 161.9 g, 38.47 ± 2.72 weeks, and 52.6 ± 21.4 weeks, respectively. And for the infants who received IVR, these were 28.35 ± 1.62 weeks, 1,171.4 ± 279.9 g, 38.53 ± 3.54 weeks, and 42.9 ± 9.8 weeks, respectively. For the IVC group, 17 (85%) of 20 eyes received the injection only once, and the regression of plus disease occurred 4.3 ± 2.08 weeks later. Three eyes (15%) did not healed with one injection received a second IVC, and the regression of plus disease occurred within 3 weeks. For the IVR group, 15/28 (53.6%) eyes received a second IVR. Among them, 10 recurrent eyes and 5 eyes did not recover with one injection. No retinal detachment was observed in both group infants. Conclusion: Both conbercept and ranibizumab are effective choice for the treatment of ROP. Conbercept is a novel effective treatment strategy for ROP providing a new treatment option for ophthalmologists.
A psychological perspective on the development of caring in children and youth: the role of the family

Abstract The construct of "caring" has not been a top priority as a programmatic line of research, field of inquiry, or way of thinking about youth. While the study of caring is a newly emerging field within psychology, a number of related areas of research enable us to develop a definition and draw conclusions about how families promote the development of caring individuals. By pulling together diverse literatures, the construct of caring here is used to answer the question, "how do families engender caring in children and youth? ". First, the precursors to caring in adolescence are examined through the emergence of psychological components during infancy, early, and middle childhood. Families are instrumental in the promotion of caring through processes such as attachment, peer relationships, prosocial behavior, empathy, agency, and self-control. Second, caring behavior in adolescence is explored focusing on the influence of parenting styles, gender differences, and caring on adolescent well-being. At this stage, family patterns that have promoted caring should continue, yet they should be transformed so that adolescents emerge as separate young adults with reciprocal and close affectional ties with their families. Last, risk and protective factors in the development of caring care discussed. Obstacles to caring include poverty, marital distress, and parental psychopathology that can result in emotional disorders, problem behaviors, failure in school, isolation and rejection from peers, and disaffection from society. Despite these stressors, numerous adolescents develop into caring individuals. Protective factors include temperament, cognitive abilities, self-efficacy, as well as close relationships within the family and social support. A model of the processes underlying caring and the associations among processes is proposed.
Compressive sampling for streaming signals with sparse frequency content

Compressive sampling (CS) has emerged as significant signal processing framework to acquire and reconstruct sparse signals at rates significantly below the Nyquist rate. However, most of the CS development to-date has focused on finite-length signals and representations. In this paper we discuss a streaming CS framework and greedy reconstruction algorithm, the Streaming Greedy Pursuit (SGP), to reconstruct signals with sparse frequency content. Our proposed sampling framework and the SGP are explicitly intended for streaming applications and signals of unknown length. The measurement framework we propose is designed to be causal and implementable using existing hardware architectures. Furthermore, our reconstruction algorithm provides specific computational guarantees, which makes it appropriate for real-time system implementations. Our experimental results on very long signals demonstrate the good performance of the SGP and validate our approach.
Response Inhibition in Borderline Personality Disorder: Performance in a Go/Nogo Task

Background: Borderline personality disorder is associated with subtle neuropsychological deficits. A potential impairment of response inhibition is of major interest, since it could be related to impulsivity as a clinical feature of borderline personality disorder. Sampling and Methods: Response inhibition was studied in an auditory Go/Nogo paradigm in a sample of 20 female inpatients with borderline personality disorder and 18 healthy controls. The main measures of interest were general task performance, errors and reaction times. Results: Patients with borderline personality disorder performed worse in the Nogo task but not in the Go task. In the Nogo task, when response inhibition was essential, patients made more errors of commission, revealing problems to inhibit a prepotent response. Additionally, the borderline group was characterized by significantly shorter reaction times in both tasks compared to the nonclinical control group. The results for errors of commission in the Nogo task remained significant even after controlling for reaction time. Conclusions: The present results suggest a double impairment on this response inhibition task. First, borderline personality disorder patients have inadequately fast reaction times and a speed-accuracy tradeoff. Second, they show a genuine deficit of response inhibition. These results are discussed in the context of the conflicting literature on response inhibition and executive control in borderline personality disorder.
Parenting, Identity Formation, and College Adjustment: A Mediation Model with Longitudinal Data

Past research showed the importance of parenting towards adolescent identity formation, which, in turn, has been related to numerous indicators of adjustment. However, no study to date has tested an integrated mediation model that traces how parenting affects adjustment through processes of identity formation. The present study tested such a model using three-wave longitudinal data in a sample of college students and focused specifically on the domain of education. Consistent with expectations, the influence of parenting (i.e., the autonomy support vs. psychological control dimension) on academic adjustment was mediated by the level of identification with a chosen college major, the latter being an important aspect of emerging adults' identity formation. Practical implications are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.
On Generating Monte Carlo Samples of Continuous Diffusion Bridges

Diffusion processes are widely used in engineering, finance, physics, and other fields. Usually continuous-time diffusion processes can be observed only at discrete time points. For many applications, it is often useful to impute continuous-time bridge samples that follow the diffusion dynamics and connect each pair of the consecutive observations. The sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method is a useful tool for generating the intermediate paths of the bridge. The paths often are generated forward from the starting observation and forced in some ways to connect with the end observation. In this article we propose a constrained SMC algorithm with an effective resampling scheme guided by backward pilots carrying the information of the end observation. This resampling scheme can be easily combined with any forward SMC sampler. Two synthetic examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the resampling scheme.
Effects of Coping Skills Training on Quality of Life, Disease Biomarkers, and Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Heart Failure: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background— Heart failure (HF) is a chronic disease that compromises patients’ quality of life (QoL). Interventions designed to reduce distress and improve disease self-management are needed. We evaluated the efficacy of a telephone-based coping skills training (CST) intervention. Methods and Results— This randomized clinical trial involved 180 HF outpatients with reduced ejection fraction. Participants ranged in age from 29 to 87 years (mean=58 years); 27% were women, and 47% were nonwhite. Participants were randomized to either a CST intervention or heart failure education, both delivered over 16 weeks. The primary outcomes were (1) postintervention effects on QoL and HF disease biomarkers (both with &agr;=0.01), and (2) a composite measure of time to death or first hospitalization (with &agr;=0.03) over a median follow-up period of 3 years. CST resulted in greater improvements in QoL compared with heart failure education (P<0.01), including the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (P=0.009), depressive symptoms (P=0.027), and the 6-minute walk test (P=0.012). However, it did not differentially improve HF disease biomarkers or reduce risk of all-cause hospitalizations or death (hazard ratio=0.84 [95% confidence interval, 0.59–1.12]). Interestingly, exploratory analyses showed that participants randomized to CST experienced a reduction in the composite end point of worsening HF hospitalization or death during the 3-year follow-up period (hazard ratio=0.65 [95% confidence interval, 0.44–0.98]; P=0.040). Conclusions— CST improved QoL in patients with HF. Monitoring and improving QoL is emerging as an important aspect of the clinical management of HF that can reduce disease burden and may help improve clinical outcomes in this vulnerable patient population. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: https://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00873418.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio Fundamental Limitations in Continuous-Time Linear Output Feedback Control

In the present technical note we study the fundamental limitation on stability that arise when an additive coloured Gaussian noise (ACGN) channel is explicitly considered over either the control or measurement paths of a linear time invariant (LTI) feedback loop. By considering a linear setting we can naturally express the fundamental limitation as a lower bound on the channel signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required for stabilisability. We start by first obtaining a closed-form expression for the squared L 2 norm of a partial fraction expansion with repeated poles in the Laplace domain. We then use the squared L 2 norm result to obtain the closed-form expression for the infimal SNR required for stabilisability. The proposed closed-form includes the case of repeated unstable plant poles and non minimum phase (NMP) zeros.
In vitro and in vivo evaluation of 111In-DTPAGlu-G-CCK8 for cholecystokinin-B receptor imaging.

UNLABELLED Regulatory peptides and their analogs are being extensively investigated as radiopharmaceuticals for cancer imaging and therapy. Receptors of the cholecystokinin family have been shown to be overexpressed in different types of neuroendocrine tumors. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the cholecystokinin octapeptide amide (CCK8) peptide tagged with a diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid derivative (DTPAGlu) and to test whether a (111)In-labeled conjugate ((111)In-DTPAGlu-G-CCK8, a derivative containing the chelating agent DTPAGlu bound through a glycine linker at the N-terminal end of the bioactive peptide CCK8) is suitable for cholecystokinin-B receptor (CCKBR) imaging. METHODS CCK8 was synthesized by solid-phase techniques and covalently coupled to DTPAGlu through a glycine linker at its amino terminus. The compound was labeled with (111)In. The radiochemical purity and stability of the compound were assessed by chromatographic methods. NIH-3T3 and A431 cells overexpressing CCKBR were used to characterize the in vitro properties of the compound. Nude mice bearing control and CCKBR-overexpressing A431 xenografts were used as an in vivo model. RESULTS DTPAGlu-G-CCK8 showed rapid and efficient labeling with (111)In. The radiolabeled conjugate showed specific binding to both cell lines overexpressing CCKBR. Binding was saturable, with a dissociation constant of approximately 20 nmol/L in both cell systems. Both cell lines showed internalization of the ligand after interaction with the receptor. Biodistribution studies showed rapid localization of (111)In-DTPAGlu-G-CCK8 on CCKBR-overexpressing A431 xenografts that was severalfold higher than that on control tumors at all time points tested. Unbound activity showed rapid clearance of over 80% through the kidneys by 30 min after injection. The labeled peptide conjugate was very stable in serum but showed a rapid breakdown after injection. Incubation with kidney homogenates suggested that most breakdown occurred in the kidneys, favoring the clearance of unbound activity. CONCLUSION Our findings indicate that the in vitro and in vivo characteristics of (111)In-DTPAGlu-G-CCK8 are favorable for CCKBR imaging, as the peptide shows high-affinity binding to the receptor, is internalized in CCKBR-expressing cells, and shows avid uptake in CCKBR-overexpressing xenografts, with rapid clearance of unbound radioactivity through the kidneys. Furthermore, the ease of synthesis, high labeling efficiency, and chemical stability of DTPAGlu make this chelating moiety an ideal candidate for widespread use in peptide radiolabeling for nuclear medicine applications.
Multiculturalism and Education in Malaysia

Malaysian multicultural society is typified by three major ethnic groups, namely Malays, Chinese and Indians. In the Malaysian context, ethnicity is important in the identification of one's religion as well as giving a clue of their affiliated political parties. This paper discusses the meaning of multiculturalism that emphasises the different cultural communities and the governing strategies and policies practised by the government. Particular attention is given to the issues and cases from the education system which are examined in the light of post-colonialism and the globalisation era. The discussion in this paper demonstrates how multiculturalism in Malaysia has undergone a long process of negotiation between the various ethnic groups represented by their respective political parties. The main aim of managing multiculturalism in Malaysia is to maintain national integration in which all these various cultural communities could live alongside each other while maintaining their own original identities.
Development of the CRISPR/Cas9 System for Targeted Gene Disruption in Aspergillus fumigatus

ABSTRACT Low rates of homologous recombination have broadly encumbered genetic studies in the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. The CRISPR/Cas9 system of bacteria has recently been developed for targeted mutagenesis of eukaryotic genomes with high efficiency and, importantly, through a mechanism independent of homologous repair machinery. As this new technology has not been developed for use in A. fumigatus, we sought to test its feasibility for targeted gene disruption in this organism. As a proof of principle, we first demonstrated that CRISPR/Cas9 can indeed be used for high-efficiency (25 to 53%) targeting of the A. fumigatus polyketide synthase gene (pksP), as evidenced by the generation of colorless (albino) mutants harboring the expected genomic alteration. We further demonstrated that the constitutive expression of the Cas9 nuclease by itself is not deleterious to A. fumigatus growth or virulence, thus making the CRISPR system compatible with studies involved in pathogenesis. Taken together, these data demonstrate that CRISPR can be utilized for loss-of-function studies in A. fumigatus and has the potential to bolster the genetic toolbox for this important pathogen.