Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between the serotonin 2A receptor gene and bipolar affective disorder in an Australian cohort

Objective The serotonin 2A receptor gene (HTR2A) is involved in serotonergic neurotransmission, and has been targeted as a functional candidate for mood disorders because of the extensive support for the involvement of serotonin in mood regulation. We previously reported linkage evidence for a bipolar affective disorder susceptibility locus on chromosome 13q, which harbours HTR2A, thus making the gene both a positional and functional candidate. We assessed HTR2A for association in an Australian bipolar disorder case–control cohort. Methods Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected across HTR2A exons and introns, and were investigated for association in an Australian cohort of 218 cases and 166 healthy controls. SNP haplotypes were also examined for association. Results Significant association of rs2224721 (P = 0.02) and borderline significance of rs1923886 (P = 0.05) were observed. The former remained significant after multiple testing corrections using the rough False Discovery Rate method, but did not exceed the more conservative Bonferroni's correction threshold. Haplotype association analysis suggests that the haplotype CCGCA (at SNPs rs3125, rs6314, rs1923886, rs2224721 and rs2770296) is protective against bipolar disorder (P = 0.021, odds ratio 0.63) and the rarer haplotype CCACG confers risk to the disorder (P = 0.0065, odds ratio 3.08). Conclusion We found that HTR2A is associated with bipolar disorder. The HTR2A gene should not be excluded as a potential susceptibility gene for bipolar disorder despite a number of conflicting association results.
Spatio-temporal coding for radar array processing

The aim of this paper is to present a new method allowing radar digital beamforming (DBF) with only one receiver channel. The key point is the use of a particular spatio-temporal waveform transmitted by an active phased array antenna. By properly choosing the temporal modulation applied on each of the transmission elements, one can transmit different signals in different directions, allowing (under certain hypotheses) angular localisation with only one receiver channel. The major advantage is the design of a low cost system providing DBF capabilities.
Interaction of ATF6 and serum response factor

Serum response factor (SRF) is a transcription factor which binds to the serum response element (SRE) in the c-fos promoter. It is required for regulated expression of the c-fos gene as well as other immediate-early genes and some tissue-specific genes. To better understand the regulation of SRF, we used a yeast interaction assay to screen a human HeLa cell cDNA library for SRF-interacting proteins. ATF6, a basic-leucine zipper protein, was isolated by binding to SRF and in particular to its transcriptional activation domain. The binding of ATF6 to SRF was also detected in vitro. An ATF6-VP16 chimera activated expression of an SRE reporter gene in HeLa cells, suggesting that ATF6 can interact with endogenous SRF. More strikingly, an antisense ATF6 construct reduced serum induction of a c-fos reporter gene, suggesting that ATF6 is involved in activation of transcription by SRF. ATF6 was previously partially cloned as a member of the ATF family. The complete cDNA of ATF6 was isolated, and its expression pattern was described.
Classroom Management: Students’ Perspectives, Goals, and Strategies

This paper presents an alternative viewpoint on classroom management. A field study was conducted to investigate classroom management from the perspective of high school students. Findings suggest that students use six strategies to achieve two major goals during classroom events and that the combination of strategies used by students is based on different context features of each classroom. The teacher’s clear expression of his or her academic and behavioral expectations to students and provision of a cooperative classroom environment for students to achieve their classroom goals are identified as important features affecting students’ views on classroom management.
The Self-Description Questionnaire II and Gifted Students: Another Look at Plucker, Taylor, Callahan, and Tomchin’s (1997) “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”

Plucker, Taylor, Callahan, and Tomchin concluded that confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of responses to the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ) II provided only limited support for construct validity with gifted students because of the modest fit of their CFA models. They acknowledged, however, that potential complications (e.g., their CFA models, treatment of missing data, and highly nonnormal data) meant that their conclusions may be premature. Here, the authors analyzed data from their original study (N = 376) and new data from another gifted-student program (N = 837), exploring alternative approaches to missing data and data normalization. The a priori model based on the design of the SDQII resulted in a good fit to the data for the total group, and the factor solution was invariant across the two samples of gifted students. The results strongly support the construct validity of responses to the SDQII by gifted adolescents.
Vieillissement démographique et immigration : un modèle de comptabilité générationnelle appliqué à la France

[fre] L’effet du vieillissement de la population sur les finances publiques represente un sujet de preoccupation pour l’ensemble des pays de l’OCDE. Recemment, l’idee a ete avancee de recourir a l’immigration afin d’attenuer les effets du vieillissement demographique. Dans cet article, nous utilisons la technique de la comptabilite generationnelle pour etudier l’impact de l’immigration sur la contrainte budgetaire intertemporelle de l’Etat. Nous montrons que la politique budgetaire n’est pas soutenable a long terme et necessite une augmentation de l’ensemble des taxes de 11,6 % ou une reduction de l’ensemble des transferts de 13,0 %. La contribution des migrants est relativement neutre et une modification des flux migratoires ne saurait faciliter un retour a l’equilibre. Par contre, la mise en place d’une politique selective visant a accroitre le niveau d’education des immigrants peut constituer un instrument complementaire aux instruments economiques traditionnels dans la perspective du vieillissement demographique. [eng] The impact of population aging on public finances is a matter of concern to all OECD countries. There have been recent suggestions that immigration could dampen the effects of population aging. In this article, we use generational accounting to study the impact of immigration on the central government’s intertemporal fiscal constraint. We show that French fiscal policy is unsustainable in the long term and requires a total 11.6 % increase in taxes or an overall 13 % reduction in transfers. The contribution of migrants is relatively neutral and would not help to restore equilibrium. By contrast, the introduction of a selective policy to raise immigrants’ educational attainment could complement traditional economic instruments in coping with population aging.
Implications of the self‐regulation model for treatment with sexual offenders with intellectual disabilities

Purpose – This paper aims to explore treatment implications of the self‐regulation model (SRM) for sexual offenders with an intellectual disability in an effort to provide practical applications that could be employed in treatment.Design/methodology/approach – The SRM of sexual offending proposes that difficulties in self‐regulation may lead to an increased risk of sexual offending; describing four potential pathways to sexual offending that are based on self‐regulation style and offence‐related goals. Research has focussed on the application and implications of this theoretical model for mainstream sexual offenders. However, more recently, there has been an increasing interest into the application and treatment implications for the SRM for sexual offenders with an intellectual disability. This paper reviews literature on both the SRM and related work on offenders with intellectual disability.Findings – The evidence reviewed supports the notion that the SRM is a valid theoretical model on which to base tr.
Pathways of Arab/ Palestinian Women in Israel to Crime and Imprisonment: An Intersectional Approach

Drawing on intersectionality theory, the article presents pathways of Arab/Palestinian in Israel to crime and imprisonment.The data base comprises of in-depth interviews of three groups: Arab/Palestinian women incarcerated in Israeli prisons for conventional offenses, law enforcement and corrections personnel, and Arab/Palestinian community leaders. Court and prison records were used to validate the interviews of the female offenders (N=10). The study identifies three pathways that lead Arab/Palestinian women to crime and imprisonment. They include: abusive homes and women’s attempts to resist gender oppression, association with criminal men or forbidden potential mates, and managing family-honor expectations. The interviewed Arab/Palestinian women offenders also emphasized how distinct and morally superior they are compared to their sisters who perpetrate security offenses or acts of terrorism. The implications of the study for theory and policy are drawn and discussed.
Adults at 12? Trends in puberty and their public health consequences

Adults at 12? Over the past 150 years, the age of puberty onset has fallen substantially across many developed countries. Although trends are apparent in both sexes,1 the evidence in females (where biological markers are clearer) suggests that, for instance, in northern Europe the age at menarche (first menstruation) fell during the 1800s, then further reduced by up to 3 years over the last century (fig 1). Factors contributing to this fall include a combination of public health successes and changes in social structures. Thus, successes such as improved childhood nutrition and health status through reduction in childhood infections have been major factors accelerating the onset of puberty.7 Figure 1 Secular trends in menarcheal age.11,12,13,14,15 Socially, however, stress is also a puberty accelerator, with familial disruption, including father absenteeism, being one of the most effective stressors, and levels of divorce as well as single-parent families have rapidly escalated in many countries (eg, England, 2005). 8,9 The sum effect of these changes has been relatively recent reductions in the age of puberty onset.7 However, these have not been matched by efforts to …
Sinonasal malignancies with neuroendocrine differentiation

Sinonasal neuroendocrine tumors are rare malignancies that are represented by a spectrum of histologies, including esthesioneuroblastoma (ENB), sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma (SNUC), neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC), and small cell carcinoma (SmCC). The authors reviewed their institutional experience to determine whether sinonasal neuroendocrine tumors of different histologies have distinct clinical characteristics that warrant individualized treatment approaches.
Short-term follow-up of severe bulimia nervosa after inpatient treatment

Objective: There are few follow-up studies on outcome for treatment-resistant bulimics with comorbid personality disorders. Inpatient treatment may be one option for patients who have not responded to outpatient therapy. The aim of this prospective study was to report on the 1-year follow-up of long-term severe bulimic patients treated in an inpatient eating disorder unit. Method: Fifty-four patients were treated in a 4-month specialized group treatment programme for bulimia nervosa. Patients were assessed using the Eating Disorder Examination interview (EDE), the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) and the Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R) at pre-treatment, post-treatment and at 1 year after the start of treatment. Fifty patients with a mean age of 31 years were available for the follow-up assessment. On admission 72 per cent of the patients had bulimia nervosa, 26 per cent had unspecified eating disorder (EDNOS) and 2 per cent had the bulimic subtype of anorexia nervosa. Results: Twenty-two (44 per cent) patients had good outcome at follow-up (i.e. reduction of binges and/or purging by more than 75 per cent). Fourteen (28 per cent) had intermediate outcome (i.e. 25–74 per cent reduction of binges and/or purging) and 14 (28 per cent) had poor outcome (i.e. less than 25 per cent reduction in binging and/or purging or a symptom increase). There were significant reductions in most EDE, EDI and SCL-90-R subscale scores from pre-treatment to follow-up. The improvement on all of these subscales occurred during inpatient treatment and there were no significant changes from post-treatment to follow-up. Conclusion: Bulimic symptoms and general psychiatric symptoms were substantially reduced during the 4-month inpatient treatment and these improvements were sustained at the follow-up. Inpatient treatment may thus be an option for treatment-resistant bulimia nervosa. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.
Assessing the Roles of Endogenous Retrovirus EAV-HP in Avian Leukosis Virus Subgroup J Emergence and Tolerance

ABSTRACT Avian leukosis virus (ALV) subgroup J is thought to have emerged through a recombination event between an unknown exogenous ALV and the endogenous retrovirus elements designated EAV-HP. All EAV-HP elements identified to date in the chicken genome show large deletions, including that of the entire pol gene. Here we report the identification of four segregating chicken EAV-HP proviruses with complete pol genes, one of which shows exceptionally high sequence identity and a close phylogenetic relationship with ALV-J with respect to the env gene. Embryonic expression of EAV-HP env has been suggested as a factor associated with immunological tolerance induction in a proportion of ALV-J-infected meat-type chickens. In support of this, env gene transcripts expressed from two of the four newly identified EAV-HP proviruses were demonstrated in chicken embryos. However, when ALV-J-infected outbred meat-type chickens were assessed, the presence of intact EAV-HP proviruses failed to directly correlate with ALV-J tolerance. This association was further examined using F2 progeny of two inbred lines of layer chicken that differed in EAV-HP status and immunological responses to ALV-J. Immunological tolerance developed in a small proportion of F2 progeny birds, reflecting the expected phenotypic ratio for inheritance of a double-recessive genotype; however, the status of tolerance did not show any direct correlation with the presence of the intact EAV-HP sequence. Nevertheless, identification of an intact chicken EAV-HP locus showing a uniquely close relationship to the ALV-J prototype clone HPRS-103 in the env region provides the strongest evidence of its contribution to the emergence of ALV-J by recombination.
Students' Learning Styles and Their Preferences for Online Instructional Methods

In an attempt to serve online students' needs, several questions were asked: Is there a dominant learning style of students in online courses? Is there a preferred method of online instruction? Is there a relationship between learning styles and the preferred method of online instruction? A two-part survey was administered to all graduate students enrolled in SetonWorldWide. Part A consisted of the Gregorc Learning Styles Delineator (GSD) and Part B consisted of demographic questions and a Likert scale focusing on the rating of online instructional methods. Subjects (N = 96) displayed varied learning styles with dual learning styles (56.2%) representing the largest group. Subjects demonstrated strong preferences for asynchronous log-ons (99%), a high degree of interaction within the course, and noted a high degree of satisfaction with their online programs (95%). Convenience was the most frequent reason reported (92%) for selecting a Web course. The strongest preferences were noted for instructional activities emphasizing convenience, time management, and interactivity. Correlation analysis between students' learning styles scores and six online instructional methods revealed several significant relationships which were inconsistent with personality traits. It was found that students enrolled in online education because of the convenience, displayed a dual learning style, and favored individual assignments and threaded discussions.
The conclusion that ABI has inconclusive effects for children with autism may stem from the fact that there are few high quality studies

Abstracted from: Spreckley, M. , & Boyd, R. (2009). Efficacy of applied behavioral intervention in preschool children with autism for improving cognitive, language, and adaptive behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Journal of Pediatrics, 338–344. Source of funding: National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship (NHMRC 473849), and a Smart State Fellowship from the Department of Innovation, Queensland.
Adapting sampling interval of sensor networks using on-line reinforcement learning

Monitoring Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are composed of sensor nodes that report temperature, relative humidity, and other environmental parameters. The time between two successive measurements is a critical parameter to set during the WSN configuration because it can impact the WSN's lifetime, the wireless medium contention and the quality of the reported data. As trends in monitored parameters can significantly vary between scenarios and within time, identifying a sampling interval suitable for several cases is also challenging. In this work, we propose a dynamic sampling rate adaptation scheme based on reinforcement learning, able to tune sensors' sampling interval on-the-fly, according to environmental conditions and application requirements. The primary goal is to set the sampling interval to the best value possible so as to avoid oversampling and save energy, while not missing environmental changes that can be relevant for the application. In simulations, our mechanism could reduce up to 73% the total number of transmissions compared to a fixed strategy and, simultaneously, keep the average quality of information provided by the WSN. The inherent flexibility of the reinforcement learning algorithm facilitates its use in several scenarios, so as to exploit the broad scope of the Internet of Things.
Stemness Maintenance Properties in Human Oral Stem Cells after Long-Term Passage

Background. Neural crest-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from human oral tissues possess immunomodulatory and regenerative properties and are emerging as a potential therapeutic tool to treat diverse diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, myocardial infarction, and connective tissue damages. In addition to cell-surface antigens, dental MSCs express embryonic stem cell markers as neural crest cells originate from the ectoderm layer. In vitro passages may eventually modify these embryonic marker expressions and other stemness properties, including proliferation. In the present study, we have investigated the expression of proteins involved in cell proliferation/senescence and embryonic stem cell markers during early (passage 2) and late passages (passage 15) in MSCs obtained from human gingiva, periodontal, and dental pulp tissues. Methods. Cell proliferation assay, beta galactosidase staining, immunocytochemistry, and real-time PCR techniques were applied. Results. Cell proliferation assay showed no difference between early and late passages while senescence markers p16 and p21 were considerably increased in late passage. Embryonic stem cell markers including SKIL, MEIS1, and JARID2 were differentially modulated between P2 and P15 cells. Discussion. Our results suggest that the presence of embryonic and proliferation markers even in late passage may potentially endorse the application of dental-derived MSCs in stem cell therapy-based clinical trials.
Pipelined QR decomposition based multi-channel least square lattice adaptive filter architectures

QR decomposition based multi-channel least square lattice (QRD-MLSL) algorithm possesses a good numerical property and regularity which are attractive for VLSI implementation. However, due to the presence of a local recursive loop in its implementation, the algorithm's speed is limited to the computation time of each computation cell. In this paper, a novel approach for pipelining the QRD-MLSL adaptive filtering algorithm is developed. The proposed architecture is pipelined at fine-grain level, thus it can be operated at arbitrarily high speed. Furthermore, it provides an exact least square solution, so there is no performance degradation. Computer simulations are presented to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed pipelining methodology.
Treatment of congestive heart failure. Its effect on pleural fluid chemistry.

The proper classification of pleural effusions into transudates and exudates has great clinical significance. It is believed that the treatment of congestive heart failure may convert an associated transudative pleural effusion into a "pseudoexudate. " We studied eight patients with congestive heart failure during nine episodes of decompensation with pleural effusion, which was bilateral in five and right-sided in three. Thoracocentesis was done on identification of the patient and at 6 +/- 2 days after treatment of heart failure resulting in diuresis and a mean weight loss of 5.8 +/- 3.2 kg. The mean protein level of the pleural fluid was 2.2 +/- 0.7 g/dL at the initial study and increased to 3.2 +/- 1.08 g/dL at the final study (p less than 0.01). The LDH level of the pleural fluid increased from 116 +/- 69 to 183 +/- 117 units/L (p less than 0.01). The fluid/serum ratio for protein increased from 0.34 +/- 0.09 to 0.47 +/- 0.13 (p less than 0.01) and for LDH from 0.39 +/- 0.16 to 0.64 +/- 0.28 (p less than 0.01). In three patients, pleural fluid was classified as a transudate at the initial study but met the criteria for an exudate after treatment of heart failure. Effectiveness of diuresis was measured by weight loss; a significant correlation between weight loss per day and change in the protein level of the pleural fluid was noted (r = 0.715; p less than 0.05). We conclude that the treatment of congestive heart failure causes significant changes in the pleural fluid's chemistry; in some cases, a transudate may be converted into a "pseudoexudate. "
Pars plana vitrectomy for vitreoretinal complications of ocular toxoplasmosis

Purpose Ocular toxoplasmosis is associated with vitreoretinal complications that can potentially cause severe visual loss. The aim of this study is to report the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative outcomes of vitreous surgery in eyes with vitreoretinal complications secondary to ocular toxoplasmosis. Methods This retrospective study included 15 eyes of 15 patients (8 men, 7 women; mean age at surgery, 37.2 years, range 18–57 years) who had undergone vitreoretinal surgery for vitreoretinal complications secondary to ocular toxoplasmosis. Visual acuity was compared between the last preoperative visit and the most recent follow-up visit. Intraoperative and postoperative complications were also analyzed. Results Indications for surgery were retinal detachment in 8 eyes (53.3%), epiretinal membrane in 2 eyes (13.3%), persistent vitreous opacities in 2 eyes (13.3%), choroidal neovascularization in 1 eye (6.6%), vitreous hemorrhage secondary to vasoproliferative retinal tumor in 1 eye (6.6%), and hemorrhagic vasculitis with premacular hemorrhage in 1 eye (6.6%). At last examination, visual acuity improved in 11 eyes (73.3%) by 2 lines or more. Postoperative events that might be related to the surgery included 1 localized retinal detachment, 2 cataracts, and 1 glaucoma. Conclusions Pars plana vitrectomy for treatment of vitreoretinal complications secondary to ocular toxoplasmosis can be safely performed and may result in improved visual acuity.