Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High Cigarette and Poly-Tobacco Use Among Workers in a Dusty Industry: New Jersey Quarry Workers

Objective: Tobacco use is high among US extraction and construction workers, who can also incur occupational dust exposure. Information on different types of tobacco use among quarry/mine workers is sparse. Methods: During mandated training sessions, New Jersey quarry workers were surveyed about their tobacco use. Prevalence was calculated for single and multiple tobacco use by demographic and workplace characteristics; logistic regression was used to assess associations with smoking. Results: Two hundred forty (97.1%) workers completed surveys. Among respondents, 41.7% [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 35.4 to 48.3] currently used any tobacco product of whom 28.1% smoked cigarettes. In multivariate analysis, positive associations with smoking included working as a contractor versus mine employee (odds ratio 2.32, 95% CI 1.01 to 5.36) and a usual job title of maintenance (odds ratio 2.02, 95% CI 0.87 to 4.94). Conclusion: Industry-specific information may be helpful in developing targeted tobacco-cessation programs.
Future Elementary School Teachers' Conceptual Change Concerning Photosynthesis

The purpose of this study was to examine conceptual change among future elementary school teachers while studying a scientific text concerning photosynthesis. Students' learning goals in relation to their learning outcomes were also examined. The participants were future elementary school teachers. The design consisted of pre- and post-tests. The study revealed that student teachers have severe misconceptions concerning photosynthesis. However, the results indicated that a coherent expository text works as an effective support in the learning process. Further, results showed that students who express high-level learning goals are more likely to undergo conceptual change than students with low-level learning goals. The study highlights the importance of science education in teacher training at universities.
Expression of connexin36 mRNA in adult rodent brain

&NA; A new member of the connexin gene family, named Connexin36 (Cx36) has, recently, been identified in rodents and shown to be preferentially, if not exclusively, expressed in neurones of the adult CNS. In this study we present a detailed in situ hybridization analysis of the expression pattern of mouse Connexin 36 (mCx36) mRNA in the adult mouse brain, with particular regards to the correlation of mCx36 expression to specific neuronal cell classes and systems. We found that mCx36 was strongly and widely expressed in the brain, including areas where the presence of gap junctions was never detected before. Quantitative analysis of the hybridization signal indicated varying levels of expression in different areas. In particular mCx36 was highly expressed in the neurones at different levels of the motor pathway, the olfactory pathway, the hippocampus, and areas related to the generation of respiratory rhythm. On the contrary, mCx36 was more heterogeneously expressed in nuclei of the sensory pathways. These findings show that mCx36 is the first connexin specifically expressed in neuronal cells in the adult rodent brain. The profiles of expression clearly indicate that mCx36 might play specific roles within different neuronal systems.
A Review of the Applications of the REHAB Assessment System

In the last 10 years, as part of the push towards greater community provision of services for the psychiatrically disabled in the UK, assessment has assumed a prominent position. A variety of different assessment instruments have been employed, including assessment of patient attitudes and opinions, of the environment, social networks and basic living skills (Carson, 1991; TAPS, 1992). Amongst the differing assessment types, behaviour rating scales have a distinct contribution. They are particularly applicable to group settings such as hostels or hospital wards and have the advantage of being objective, behavioural, able to measure change in functioning over time or due to some intervention; and most importantly, they yield numerical scores which can be assessed against “hard data” in the form of norms or scores from other populations, especially those from other countries.
Trypanosoma brucei Metacaspase 4 Is a Pseudopeptidase and a Virulence Factor

Background: Metacaspases are multifunctional cysteine peptidases. Results: Trypanosoma brucei metacaspase 4 is a catalytically inactive metacaspase homologue required for parasite virulence, which interacts with an active parasite metacaspase during release from the cell. Conclusion: Metacaspase 4 is a pseudopeptidase virulence factor. Significance: Extracellular release and proteolytic processing provide novel insights into metacaspase function. Metacaspases are caspase family cysteine peptidases found in plants, fungi, and protozoa but not mammals. Trypanosoma brucei is unusual in having five metacaspases (MCA1–MCA5), of which MCA1 and MCA4 have active site substitutions, making them possible non-enzymatic homologues. Here we demonstrate that recombinant MCA4 lacks detectable peptidase activity despite maintaining a functional peptidase structure. MCA4 is expressed primarily in the bloodstream form of the parasite and associates with the flagellar membrane via dual myristoylation/palmitoylation. Loss of function phenotyping revealed critical roles for MCA4; rapid depletion by RNAi caused lethal disruption to the parasite's cell cycle, yet the generation of MCA4 null mutant parasites (Δmca4) was possible. Δmca4 had normal growth in axenic culture but markedly reduced virulence in mice. Further analysis revealed that MCA4 is released from the parasite and is specifically processed by MCA3, the only metacaspase that is both palmitoylated and enzymatically active. Accordingly, we have identified that the multiple metacaspases in T. brucei form a membrane-associated proteolytic cascade to generate a pseudopeptidase virulence factor.
The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge

Human action is built by actively and simultaneously combining materials with intrinsically different properties into situated contextual configurations where they can mutually elaborate each other to create a whole that is both different from, and greater than, any of its constitutive parts. These resources include many different kinds of lexical and syntactic structures, prosody, gesture, embodied participation frameworks, sequential organization, and different kinds of materials in the environment, including tools created by others that structure local perception. The simultaneous use of different kinds of resources to build single actions has a number of consequences. First, different actors can contribute different kinds of materials that are implicated in the construction of a single action. For example embodied visual displays by hearers operate simultaneously on emerging talk by a speaker so that both the utterance and the turn have intrinsic organization that is both multi-party and multimodal. Someone with aphasia who is unable to produce lexical and syntactic structure can nonetheless contribute crucial prosodic and sequential materials to a local action, while appropriating the lexical contributions of others, and thus become a powerful speaker in conversation, despite catastrophically impoverished language. One effect of this simultaneous, distributed heterogeneity is that frequently the organization of action cannot be easily equated with the activities of single individuals, such as the person speaking at the moment, or with phenomena within a single medium such as talk. Second, subsequent action is frequently built through systematic transformations of the different kinds of materials provided by a prior action. In this process some elements of the prior contextual configuration, such as the encompassing participation framework, may remain unchanged, while others undergo significant modification. A punctual perspective on action, in which separate actions discretely follow one another, thus becomes more complex when action is seen to emerge within an unfolding mosaic of disparate materials and time frames which make possible not only systematic change, but also more enduring frameworks that provide crucial continuity. Third, the distributed, compositional structure of action provides a framework for developing the skills of newcomers within structured collaborative action. Fourth, human tools differ from the tools of other animals in that, like actions in talk, they are built by combining unlike materials into a whole not found in any of the individual parts (for example using a stone, a piece of wood and leather thongs to make an ax). This same combinatorial heterogeneity sits at the heart of human action in interaction, including language use. It creates within the unfolding organization of situated activity itself the distinctive forms of transformative collaborative action in the world, including socially organized perceptual and cognitive structures and the mutual alignment of bodies to each other, which constitutes us as humans.
Zeno and the Art of Anthropology: Of Lies, Beliefs, Paradoxes, and Other Truths

The article assumes that the expression “comparative relativism”—the title of the Common Knowledge symposium in which the essay appears—is neither tautological nor oxymoronic. Rather, the author construes the term as an apt synthetic characterization of anthropology and illustrates that idea by means of four quotations, taken from authors as different as Richard Rorty and David Schneider, Marcel Mauss and Henri Michaux. The quotations can be said to “exemplify” anthropology in terms that are interestingly (and diversely) restrictive: some of them amount to extrinsic negations of anthropology that would paralyze it; others suggest intrinsic negativities that would propel it. All of the passages chosen evoke the idea of belief, which is profoundly implicated, in all possible senses (and especially the worse ones), in the majority of arguments that connect the themes of anthropology, comparison, and relativism.
Young Brazilian and Norwegian children’s concepts of strategies and goals for emotion regulation

Four-hundred-and-eighty children in the age groups of four and six years, 240 each from Brazil and Norway, were asked how their feelings of anger, sadness and fear were reduced in a recollected episode, to propose emotion regulation strategies for protagonists and to envisage the result of regulation strategies. A majority of even the youngest children could propose a strategy. Play, Social interaction, Entertainment and Situation change were the most frequent strategy types, and the Brazilians showed a higher frequency of Entertainment and Play, a lower frequency of Situation change, and proposed more frequent help from others than the Norwegians. The results also showed that strategies were related to emotion type. Play was, for instance, more frequently proposed as a strategy mainly to reduce anger and sadness, and motoric activities were proposed to reduce anger more frequently than sadness and fear. Children’s goals for emotion regulation were good feelings, a quiet environment, play and forgetting negative emotions.
Safety for Aboriginal Women in Couples Counseling Where There is a History of Intimate Partner Violence

Professionals in the field of family violence participated in telephone interviews that included the question: “How would you address safety with Aboriginal men in couple counseling who use abusive behavior toward their intimate partner? ” Four concepts emerged from the responses: personal responsibility, community involvement, mandatory reporting, and separate support for women. Results of the analysis were compared and contrasted with the available literature.
Representation of Block-Based Image Features in a Multi-Scale Framework for Built-Up Area Detection

The accurate extraction and mapping of built-up areas play an important role in many social, economic, and environmental studies. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for built-up area detection from high spatial resolution remote sensing images, using a block-based multi-scale feature representation framework. First, an image is divided into small blocks, in which the spectral, textural, and structural features are extracted and represented using a multi-scale framework; a set of refined Harris corner points is then used to select blocks as training samples; finally, a built-up index image is obtained by minimizing the normalized spectral, textural, and structural distances to the training samples, and a built-up area map is obtained by thresholding the index image. Experiments confirm that the proposed approach is effective for high-resolution optical and synthetic aperture radar images, with different scenes and different spatial resolutions.
Polarization-mode dispersion of installed recent vintage fiber as a parametric function of temperature

We report the first polarization-mode dispersion measurement of installed 0.05-ps/km/sup 1/2/ fiber over 150-km span and 100-nm bandwidth. The apparent randomness of differential group delay (DGD) spectral components over time is removed when the DGD is considered as a function of temperature.
The Comprehension of Familiar and Novel Metaphoric Meanings in Schizophrenia: A Pilot Study

Miscomprehension of nonliteral (“figurative”) language like metaphors, proverbs, idioms, and ironic expressions by patients with schizophrenia is a phenomenon mentioned already in historical psychiatric descriptions. However, it was only recently that studies did differentiate between novel and conventional metaphors, a factor that is known to influence the difficulty of comprehension in healthy subjects. Further, familiarity with stimuli is an important factor for comprehension, which was not recommended in utmost previous studies. In this study, 23 patients with DSM IV schizophrenia and 19 healthy control subjects performed a newly-developed German metaphor comprehension test with three types of stimuli: novel metaphors, conventional German metaphors, and meaningless statements. During the test procedure, participants indicated familiarity with the stimulus and then matched the meaning with one out of four given alternatives. Familiarity rankings did not significantly differ between patients and control subjects. However, on descriptive level, there was a tendency for healthy controls to be more familiar with conventional metaphors than schizophrenic patients. Further, comprehension of conventional and novel metaphors differed significantly between the groups, with higher performance in healthy controls. Considering only those metaphors that had been ranked as familiar, patients only revealed significant lower performance opposed to controls regarding novel metaphors, while they did not differ in conventional metaphors. Taken together, the results indicate that patients with schizophrenia might show an altered way of comprehension in novel metaphors, leading to more misunderstandings. However, their previously reported impairments in conventional metaphors might rather be due to a lack of familiarity with the stimuli—making conventional metaphors to novel metaphors in the individual case.
DNA variants, plasma levels and variability of C-reactive protein in myocardial infarction survivors: results from the AIRGENE study.

AIMS C-reactive protein represents the classical acute-phase protein produced in the liver in response to inflammatory stimuli. This study evaluated the association of gene polymorphisms with differences in C-reactive protein concentrations and assessed its intra-individual variability as a marker of individual response. METHODS AND RESULTS One thousand and three myocardial infarction (MI) survivors were recruited in six European cities, and C-reactive protein concentrations were measured repeatedly during a 6-month period. We investigated 114 polymorphisms in 13 genes, all involved in the innate inflammatory pathway. We found two polymorphisms within the C-reactive protein (CRP) gene rs1800947 and rs1205, of which the minor alleles were strongly associated with lower levels of C-reactive protein (P < 10(-6)). A haplotype, identified by those two polymorphisms, was associated with the lowest C-reactive protein concentrations (P < 10(-6)). Additionally, the minor alleles of several variants were significantly associated with greater individual variability of C-reactive protein concentrations (P < 10(-3)). CONCLUSION The present study investigated the association of polymorphisms with inter- and intra-individual variability of C-reactive protein levels. Two minor alleles of C-reactive protein variants were associated with lower C-reactive protein concentrations. Regarding intra-individual variability, we observed associations with the minor alleles of several variants in selected candidate genes, including the CRP gene itself.
Comparative evaluation of molar distalization therapy using pendulum and distal screw appliances

Objective To compare dentoalveolar and skeletal changes produced by the pendulum appliance (PA) and the distal screw appliance (DS) in Class II patients. Methods Forty-three patients (19 men, 24 women) with Class II malocclusion were retrospectively selected for the study. Twenty-four patients (mean age, 12.2 ± 1.5 years) were treated with the PA, and 19 patients (mean age, 11.3 ± 1.9 years) were treated with the DS. The mean distalization time was 7 months for the PA group and 9 months for the DS group. Lateral cephalograms were obtained at T1, before treatment, and at T2, the end of distalization. A Mann-Whitney U test was used for statistical comparisons of the two groups between T1 and T2. Results PA and DS were equally effective in distalizing maxillary molars (4.7 mm and 4.2 mm, respectively) between T1 and T2; however, the maxillary first molars showed less distal tipping in the DS group than in the PA group (3.2° vs. 9.0°, respectively). Moreover, significant premolar anchorage loss (2.7 mm) and incisor proclination (5.0°) were noted in the PA group, whereas premolar distal movement (1.9 mm) and no significant changes at the incisor (0.1°) were observed in the DS group. No significant sagittal or vertical skeletal changes were detected between the two groups during the distalization phase. Conclusions PA and DS seem to be equally effective in distalizing maxillary molars; however, greater distal molar tipping and premolar anchorage loss can be expected using PA.
Normalization of DNA-Microarray Data by Nonlinear Correlation Maximization

Signal data from DNA-microarray ("chip") technology can be noisy; i.e., the signal variation of one gene on a series of repetitive chips can be substantial. It is becoming more and more recognized that a sufficient number of chip replicates has to be made in order to separate correct from incorrect signals. To reduce the systematic fraction of the noise deriving from pipetting errors, from different treatment of chips during hybridization, and from chip-to-chip manufacturing variability, normalization schemes are employed. We present here an iterative nonparametric nonlinear normalization scheme called simultaneous alternating conditional expectation (sACE), which is designed to maximize correlation between chip repeats in all-chip-against-all space. We tested sACE on 28 experiments with 158 Affymetrix one-color chips. The procedure should be equally applicable to other DNA-microarray technologies, e.g., two-color chips. We show that the reduction of noise compared to a simple normalization scheme like the widely used linear global normalization leads to fewer false-positive calls, i.e., to fewer genes which have to be laboriously confirmed by independent methods such as TaqMan or quantitative PCR.
The Meaningful Activity Wants and Needs Assessment: A Perspective on Life Balance

The concept of life balance has received growing attention as a way to understand human well-being. Within this paper a novel subjective definition of life balance is proposed, such that persons should evaluate their ongoing occupations as meaningful while concurrently not perceiving a substantive need for more meaning in their occupations. The Meaningful Activity Wants and Needs Assessment (MAWNA) taps a need for meaningful occupation. It was introduced and tested in a sample of 250 university graduate and undergraduate students as a requisite assessment tool aimed at operationalizing this conceptual approach. The MAWNA demonstrated an anticipated three-factor structure composed of competence and goal achievement, pleasure and enjoyment, and social connectedness meanings associated with occupation. Further psychometric evidence in support of the MAWNA included very good internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities, in addition to discriminant and convergent validity identified through its correlations with meaningful activity and indicators of well-being. In regression models, both the MAWNA and a measure of meaningful occupation added statistically significant contributions towards explaining indicators of well-being thereby offering initial support for the definition of life balance proposed in this paper.
WATER QUALITY PROTECTION IN RURAL AREAS OF EGYPT

Egypt has limited water resources; it depends mainly on the Nile, which is considered the Egyptian life blood for the domestic, industrial and irrigation uses. The rapid increase in population and urbanization is a big challenge to the country in facing water scarcity. The economic development also puts a lot of stress on water demands since it affects water quality especially in rural areas. These areas are not included in the current plans of the country for wastewater treatment due to the lack of funds and availability of low cost wastewater treatment plants modules. This puts a lot of pressure on water resources from untreated or partially treated wastewater, which vigorously encourages not only the government but also the civil society to have wastewater collection and treatment facilities in one package that can be funded, operated and maintained by the beneficiaries themselves to ensure sustainable development. Wastewater characteristics and flow vary greatly from urban to rural areas and even from small to big rural areas. This work investigates the raw wastewater characteristics and the performance of low cost wastewater treatment plants in rural areas. Field data collection on population census and activity, water supply, sewage system and water and wastewater samples from water bodies, sewage network outlet and septic tank is available from a field survey. The data is being analyzed using statistical methods to evaluate wastewater characteristics for the design of low cost wastewater treatment plants. The results show the average wastewater characteristics and the performance of the low cost wastewater treatment plants, which proved to vary greatly in rural areas and depend mainly on the behavior of the society. It is thus recommended to have aside specific data for the design of low cost wastewater treatments plants for water quality protection.
Symmetry and Resonance in Hamiltonian Systems

In this paper we study resonances in two degrees of freedom, autonomous, Hamiltonian systems. Due to the presence of a symmetry condition on one of the degrees of freedom, we show that some of the resonances vanish as lower order resonances. After giving a sharp estimate of the resonance domain, we investigate this order change of resonance in a rather general potential problem with discrete symmetry and consider as an example the Henon--Heiles family of Hamiltonians. We also study a classical example of a mechanical system with symmetry, the elastic pendulum, which leads to a natural hierarchy of resonances with the 4:1-resonance as the most prominent after the 2:1-resonance and which explains why the 3:1-resonance is neglected.