Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vitamin D supplementation is associated with stabilization of cardiac autonomic tone in IgA nephropathy.

Vitamin D deficiency is a cardiovascular risk factor.1,2 Deficiency in both 25-hydroxy vitamin D, the barometer of vitamin D status, and the more biologically active 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D is associated with increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD),2–4 particularly in the chronic kidney disease (CKD) population.3,4 Studies have suggested that vitamin D supplementation may alter SCD risk by influencing activity of the cardiac autonomic nervous system, although this phenomenon has not been studied in the CKD population.5 Assessment of heart rate variability, including derivations of cardiac autonomic tone (CAT), provides predictive measures of cardiovascular risk, namely through quantification of the electric output of the cardiac autonomic nervous system.6 Patients with CKD show a marked withdrawal of parasympathetic tone,7 a strong indicator of loss of cardioprotective control and a risk factor for SCD.6 Alterations in CAT are attenuated by renin–angiotensin system (RAS)–interrupting medications, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.8 Given that vitamin D is a negative regulator of the RAS9 and supplementation with oral vitamin D3 is associated with improvements in CAT in healthy humans,10 we sought to determine whether oral vitamin D3 supplementation was associated with a similar improvement in CAT in humans with CKD due to IgA nephropathy. This study was approved by the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board at the University of Calgary, and all subjects provided written informed consent. Fifteen subjects (87% men, 41±4 years) with IgA nephropathy (estimated glomerular filtration rate: 101±7 mL/min per 1.73 m2; proteinuria: 1.03±0.3 g/d) were studied after an overnight fast in high-salt balance before and after 28 days of vitamin D3 supplementation (10 000 IU/d). CAT, quantified by spectral analysis of heart rate variability (low-frequency power [LF], high-frequency power [HF], and …
The Reconstruction of Merit Post-Proposition 209

This research addresses how Proposition 209 has altered access to University of California (UC), as represented by the changing profiles of admitted undergraduate students at three UC campuses. This research provides an analysis of changes that have occurred in undergraduate applicant and admit characteristics based on individual data from UC Los Angeles, UC Davis, and UC Riverside postaffirmative action. This study utilizes logistic regression to assess the likelihood of admission and employs temporal interactions across a consistent set of academic achievement and socioeconomic predictors. The quantitative findings illustrate admission based almost entirely on academic index, despite nominal changes and expansion of admissions criteria. Although the concepts of merit and equity remain loosely defined in public policy arenas, this research further examines the key admission factors that constitute merit in a post-209 environment and the implications of these altered standards for contributing to the social reconstruction of the concepts of equity and access.
Is there racial bias in clinicians' perceptions of the dangerousness of psychiatric patients? A review of the literature

The evidence for the assertion that racial stereotyping influences mental health professionals perceptions of the dangerousness of psychiatric patients is examined in this review. As there is very little literature which directly examines this, the review draws on studies examining the relationship between race and the use of coercion within the mental health system. The use of compulsory admission to hospital in Britain, and the use of seclusion and restraint in the US are examined. Alternative explanations of the over-representation of black men in the use of these procedures are discussed and the evidence of each explanation evaluated. The review concludes that there is some evidence in support of the assertion; that racial bias in perceptions of dangerousness influences patient management.
A Logical Framework for Monitoring and Evolving Software Components

We present a revision-based logical framework for modelling hierarchical assemblies of evolvable component systems. An evolvable component is a tight coupling of a pair of components, consisting of a supervisor and a supervisee, with the supervisor able to both monitor and evolve its supervisee. An evolvable component pair is itself a component so may have its own supervisor, or may be encapsulated as part of a larger component. Components are modelled as logical theories containing actions which describe state revisions. Supervisor components are modelled as theories which are logically at a meta-level to their supervisee. Revision actions at the meta-level describe theory changes in the supervisee at the object-level. These correspond to various evolutionary changes in the component. We present this framework and show how it enables us to describe the architecture and logical structure of evolvable systems.
The role of executive function and attention in gait

Until recently, gait was generally viewed as a largely automated motor task, requiring minimal higher‐level cognitive input. Increasing evidence, however, links alterations in executive function and attention to gait disturbances. This review discusses the role of executive function and attention in healthy walking and gait disorders while summarizing the relevant, recent literature. We describe the variety of gait disorders that may be associated with different aspects of executive function, and discuss the changes occurring in executive function as a result of aging and disease as well the potential impact of these changes on gait. The attentional demands of gait are often tested using dual tasking methodologies. Relevant studies in healthy adults and patients are presented, as are the possible mechanisms responsible for the deterioration of gait during dual tasking. Lastly, we suggest how assessments of executive function and attention could be applied in the clinical setting as part of the process of identifying and understanding gait disorders and fall risk. © 2007 Movement Disorder Society
Self-Directed Learning

A widely advocated idea in education is that people learn better when the flow of experience is under their control (i.e., learning is self-directed). However, the reasons why volitional control might result in superior acquisition and the limits to such advantages remain poorly understood. In this article, we review the issue from both a cognitive and computational perspective. On the cognitive side, self-directed learning allows individuals to focus effort on useful information they do not yet possess, can expose information that is inaccessible via passive observation, and may enhance the encoding and retention of materials. On the computational side, the development of efficient “active learning” algorithms that can select their own training data is an emerging research topic in machine learning. This review argues that recent advances in these related fields may offer a fresh theoretical perspective on how people gather information to support their own learning.
Gravity and the standard model with neutrino mixing

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Perceived Creativity: Its Relationship to Social Status and Self-Concept Among Chinese High Ability Children

This study examined the connection between children's perceived creativity and their social status and self-concept. Results from a group of high ability Chinese grade school children showed that peer-perceived creativity tended to associate positively with sociability-leadership, but at the same time, also positively with aggressive-disruptive and sensitive-isolated. It was also found to relate positively with peer liking of Like-Least and social impact, but somewhat negatively with social preference. Surprisingly, peer-perceived creativity was associated negatively with self-concept. With respect to group leader-perceived creativity, a similar pattern of relationships was found. Results from regression analysis showed that sociability-leadership was more predictive of peer-perceived creativity, whereas aggressive-disruptive was more predictive of group leader perceived creativity. These contrasting associations seemed to unveil different characteristics of a creative child in terms of social and self-perception.
The universality of syntactic constraints on Spanish–English codeswitching in the USA

This study focuses on the syntactic properties of codeswitching within sentences uttered by bilingual speakers of Spanish and English in the USA or the so-called Spanglish, by analysing data based on examples cited in the existing literature. To that end, I will examine the definitions of this cultural and linguistic phenomenon, make a necessary distinction among the different language contact phenomena that take place in a bilingual context such as the Spanish and English background in the USA, and evaluate some of the most popular and influential approaches that have come out in the codeswitching literature over the last 30 years. These approaches can be broadly classified into two groups: first, those that are essentially descriptive or constraint-based, and second, the studies that are explanatory or constraint-free. Finally, I conclude that although there seems to be no definitive, universal model of codeswitching, formal linguistics research has comprehensively shown that codeswitching requires a strong command of the two languages and that it is not an unstructured phenomenon. This constitutes a sharp contrast with the relationship commonly established between Spanglish and illiteracy, marginality and chaos. This language choice simply reveals how bilinguals live in between two languages and two cultures.
Learning from data locally and globally

I mainly consider the task of learning classifiers from data in this thesis. In this context, I propose a common framework that combines two different and important paradigms in machine learning: global learning and local learning. Traditional global learning approaches focus on describing phenomena by attempting to estimate a distribution from data. Based on the estimated distribution, the global learning methods can then perform inferences, conduct marginalizations, and make predictions. Although enjoying a long and distinguished history and containing many good features, e.g., a relatively simple optimization, and the flexibility in incorporating global information such as structure information and invariance etc., these learning approaches usually have to assume a specific type of distribution a prior. Therefore, they are widely argued for lacking the generality. On the other hand, local learning methods do not estimate a distribution from data. Instead, they focus on extracting only the local information, which is directly related to the learning task, i.e., the classification in this thesis. Recent progress following this trend has demonstrated that local learning approaches, e.g., Support Vector Machines (SVM), outperform the global learning methods in many aspects. Despite of the success, local learning approaches actually discard plenty of important global information on data, e.g., the structure information. Therefore, this restricts the learning performance of this types of learning schemes. In this thesis, I thus develop a hybrid model named Maxi-Min Margin Machine (M4), which successfully combines two largely differently but complementary paradigms. Within this new framework, I propose a hybrid model named Maxi-Min Margin Machine (M4). This model is demonstrated to contain both appealing features in global learning and local learning. It not only captures the global structure information from data, but it also provides a task-oriented scheme for the learning purpose and inherits the superior performance from local learning. As a major contribution, M 4 successfully unifies many important learning models, including Support Vector Machines, Minimax Probability Machine (MPM), and Fisher Discriminant Analysis. Another compelling feature of M4 is that it can be cast as a Sequential Second Order Cone Programming problem, yielding a polynomial time complexity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
The Early ON School Readiness Project: A Preliminary Report

Abstract The Early ON School Readiness Project is an emerging community-based model aimed at promoting the school readiness of 3- to 5-year-old children in a metropolitan area with a predominantly Latino (Mexican-American) population. Using an ecological approach, the multi-component program seeks to enhance school readiness opportunities for children at various levels. Key program components aim to improve community awareness, parent education, professional development for child care teachers, quality of child care environments, and transition to school. The model evolved through a community partnership initiated by the local government, involving nonprofit agencies and a university partnership. Child care environmental quality was measured by administration of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ECERS-R; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998). To measure children's progress, the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Third Edition (DIAL-3; Mardell-Czudnowski & Goldenberg, 1998) was administered in the fall and spring of two consecutive school years. A sample of children was screened to gain insight regarding the developmental status of children in the project compared to a matched sample of children not involved in the project. Preliminary findings show the progress of children in key developmental areas during the initial and second year of program implementation in selected child care centers. In the baseline year, standard scores of children at the comparison sites were unchanged from fall to spring in all of the developmental areas measured by the DIAL-3; scores at the intervention sites, however, were higher at a statistically significant level for two subtests and the composite score. During the second year, all subtest scores and the composite scores were higher at the intervention sites in the spring as compared to the fall. Although additional research is needed, preliminary results suggest the emerging model shows promise for increasing children's developmental skills and abilities associated with school readiness.
Seasonal variation in metazoan parasites of Trichiurus lepturus ( Perciformes : Trichiuridae ) of Rio de Janeiro ,

This work aimed to study the temporal variation of metazoan parasites of Trichiurus lepturus from the coastal zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Between July 2006 and June 2007, there were four seasonal quarterly samples of 30 specimens of T. lepturus. In addition to a group composed of anisakid larvae, we collected a total of 14 species of metazoan parasites: five digenean; five monogenean, two cestode larvae, one acanthocephalan larvae; and one copepod. With the exception of Lecithochirium microstomum and Lecithochirium sp. , all species showed peaks of prevalence and abundance especially those fishes collected in summer, which may indicate a seasonal variation of these parasites in T. lepturus from the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
The incongruities of the NPI−Q score obtained by the caregiver versus that obtained directly from the non−demented patient with Parkinson's disease

Este trabajo (transversal analitico) exploro al Neuropsychiatric Inventory en su version corta (NPI–Q) en setenta pacientes consecutivos. Determinar si la informacion del cuidador principal (CP) se correlaciona con la que proporciona el paciente. Valorar en que medida esta herramienta desarrollada para evaluar sujetos dementes puede aplicarse a enfermos con Parkinson no demenciados (PND). Metodos: Empleamos la NPI–Q (version validada al espanol), en primer lugar con el CP a solas y, subsecuentemente, de forma exclusiva con el enfermo PND por otro investigador que desconocia los resultados de la entrevista previa. Obtuvimos el estadistico Kappa ponderado (coeficiente de correlacion que mide la consistencia, fiabilidad y reproducibilidad inter-evaluadores (una medida de la estabilidad del instrumento); valores de 0,7 o superiores se aceptan como significativos. En vista de que los resultados fueron insignificantes, se procedio a realizar un analisis por hoc. Estudiamos la validez convergente (validez relacionada con el constructo, que incluye las relaciones logicas que debe mostrar frente a otras mediciones) para ellos empleamos el estadistico de Spearman, cuyos valores de: (r<0.29 son correlaciones debiles; r <0.3–0.58 son correlaciones moderadas; y, r < 0.59 son elevadas correlaciones de validez convergente). Resultados: La consistencia inter-evaluador (CP–PND), no mostro ninguna concordancia significativa; las correlaciones inter-item con mejores valores provinieron de los pacientes; y, las correlaciones de Spearman (una medida de la validez convergente) fueron mas significativas en los PND. Conclusiones: Nosotros podemos asumir que los PND son la mejor fuente de informacion y consideramos que el NPI–Q (reportado por el CP) no es una herramienta adecuada para evaluar la sintomatologia neuropsiquiatrica en PND
EGO THREAT ELICITS DIFFERENT SOCIAL COMPARISON PROCESSES AMONG HIGH AND LOW SELF-ESTEEM PEOPLE: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTIONS

Abstract Two studies examined the effect of self-image threat on the use of social comparisons by those who have high and low trait self-esteem. In the absence of threat, trait high and low self-esteem people engaged in similar social comparison processes. When threatened, however, trait high self-esteem people made more downward social comparisons and trait low self-esteem people made more upward social comparisons. In Study 1, these effects were found for comparisons against an interaction partner and against generalized others. Study 1 also showed that state self-esteem rose among high self-esteem participants because they made downward social comparisons. Study 2 linked social comparisons to interpersonal likability and found that people with high trait self-esteem were liked less by perceivers when they made downward comparisons, whereas those with low trait self-esteem were liked more when they made upward comparisons. Discussion focuses on the interrelations among trait self-esteem, self-concept, a.
Criminal justice processing of sexual assault cases. Highlights.

This article discusses the processing of criminal justice on sexual assault cases in Canada. To begin with, in 1983, Bill C-127 abolished the offense of rape and indecent assault and created three new crimes of sexual assault and three parallel offenses of assault. This legislation also introduced a number of important changes to the way crimes of sexual aggression are processed by the criminal justice system. In 1991, the Supreme Court struck down provisions of the sexual assault legislation preventing a defendant from introducing evidence regarding complainant's previous sexual conduct. As a result, Bill C-49 was introduced to provide a test to determine whether a complainant's sexual history could be admitted at trial. This bill also addresses the issue of consent and the defense of mistaken beliefs in consent. The focus of the Juristat is the criminal justice processing of the three levels of sexual assault, which are elaborated in this article. In order to distinguish between the different levels, body harm relates only to physical injury and does not include psychological harm. Drawing on the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, the Sentence Study, the Adult Criminal Court Survey and the Youth Court Survey, the Juristat summarizes recent trends relating to the processing of sexual assault and assault by the police and the courts. Canada's Violence Against Women Survey provides a profile of sexual assault incidents among adult women in Canada.
Factors Predictive of Voice and Swallowing Outcomes after Anterior Approaches to the Cervical Spine

Objective To quantify the incidence of postoperative voice, swallowing, and other problems, including time to resolution following anterior transcervical approaches to the cervical spine, and to assess surgical factors associated with outcomes. Study Design Historical cohort study. Setting Academic medical center. Subjects and Methods One hundred eighty-eight consecutive patients with cervical spine disease who underwent an anterior transcervical approach to the spine by a single head and neck surgeon over a 4-year time period. Rather than primary, single-level approaches, all patients in this study had multilevel, high-cervical (above C4), low-cervical (below C6), and/or revision approaches. Postoperative voice, swallowing, and other complaints were measured as well as time to resolution using Kaplan-Meier method. Surgical factors related to outcomes were analyzed using regression analysis. Results Follow-up was available for 129 patients, with average and median time of 35 months. Seventy-seven patients (60%) had a postoperative issue, including 35 patients (27%) with postoperative voice complaint, 62 patients (48%) with postoperative swallowing complaint, and 16 patients (12%) with other problems. Swallowing and voice complaints persisted beyond 1 year in 28% and 9% of patients, respectively. Approaching spinal levels above C4 and exposing more than 3 spinal levels were 2 factors significantly related to voice and swallowing problems. Conclusion There is a high incidence of subjective voice and swallowing complaints following transcervical anterior approaches to the spine, and such complaints can persist beyond 1 year in many patients. Exposure of more than 3 spinal levels or above level C4 are 2 factors significantly associated with outcome.