Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From struggling to survive to a life based on values and choices: first-person experiences of participating in a Norwegian Housing First project

Introduction : Persons with concurrent substance-abuse and mental-health problems often lack permanent housing, and have a poorer quality of life and lower levels of functioning than persons who primarily have mental-health problems. A Housing First project (HF) began during the autumn of 2013 in a Norwegian city. The target group was persons who were struggling with substance-abuse and mental-health problems and who lacked housing. The HF model has a holistic health and social approach to help this group to establish themselves and to be able to remain in their own homes. Aim : Little is known about how the HF model works in Norway. The aim of this study was to explore, describe, and interpret clients’ experiences of partaking in this HF project. Method : The qualitative research interview was used as the method for the generation of data. Twelve participants were interviewed, and a phenomenological hermeneutic method was used to analyse the data. Results : The structured analysis revealed two themes, and the comprehensive understanding centred around these two interwoven themes: having an available professional companion and taking the lead in your own life . Discussion : This study shows that people with a dual diagnosis can begin to recover and obtain a better quality of life if they receive appropriate housing, support, and services of their choice on their own terms. The study confirms the importance of the participants’ active participation, control, and choice in planning and formulating specific services. The results show that if a person wishes and dares to change his or her life, then decisive conditions are having one’s own home, meeting professionals who inspire trust, and having one’s personal preferences and needs recognized.
Intensive Physical Activity and Alexithymia: Results from Swimmers' Discourse Analysis

The aim of this study was to describe and understand the relationship of swimmers' practice intensity and alexithymia features in discourse. This study investigated psychological processes in two groups of male swimmers training at different intensities. The first group was composed of 10 Expert amateurs (M age = 19.5 yr., SD=1.9), who were competing at the national or international level and trained 22 hours per week. The second group was composed of 10 Amateur swimmers (M age = 20.5 yr., SD =1.4), who competed at the regional level and trained 6 hours per week. The discourse of swimmers was analysed using the ALCESTE (Analyse de Lexèmes Coocurents dans les Enoncés Simples d'un Texte) method of discourse analysis. Discourse analysis was performed on speech samples produced by swimmers. All the swimmers showed alexithymic verbal behaviour as regards both the means of expression used and the feelings and emotions expressed. This lack of articulateness was more pronounced in the Expert than in the Amateur group. The difference of alexithymic features in correlation with the intensity of sport practice raises the question of the health benefits of intense sports practice and the need for psychological assessment of athletes.
Relativistic effects on the thermal expansion of the actinide elements.

The room-temperature linear thermal-expansion coefficient is calculated for the light actinides thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, and plutonium for the fcc crystal structure. The relativistic spin-orbit interaction is included in these calculations. We show that the spin-orbit splitting of the 5{ital f} band gives rise to a considerable increase of the thermal expansion and to a large extent explains the observed anomalously large thermal expansion for the neptunium and plutonium metals.
RhoA Is Essential for Maintaining Normal Megakaryocyte Ploidy and Platelet Generation

RhoA plays a multifaceted role in platelet biology. During platelet development, RhoA has been proposed to regulate endomitosis, proplatelet formation, and platelet release, in addition to having a role in platelet activation. These processes were previously studied using pharmacological inhibitors in vitro, which have potential drawbacks, such as non-specific inhibition or incomplete disruption of the intended target proteins. Therefore, we developed a conditional knockout mouse model utilizing the CRE-LOX strategy to ablate RhoA, specifically in megakaryocytes and in platelets to determine its role in platelet development. We demonstrated that deleting RhoA in megakaryocytes in vivo resulted in significant macrothrombocytopenia. RhoA-null megakaryocytes were larger, had higher mean ploidy, and exhibited stiff membranes with micropipette aspiration. However, in contrast to the results observed in experiments relying upon pharmacologic inhibitors, we did not observe any defects in proplatelet formation in megakaryocytes lacking RhoA. Infused RhoA-null megakaryocytes rapidly released platelets, but platelet levels rapidly plummeted within several hours. Our evidence supports the hypothesis that changes in membrane rheology caused infused RhoA-null megakaryocytes to prematurely release aberrant platelets that were unstable. These platelets were cleared quickly from circulation, which led to the macrothrombocytopenia. These observations demonstrate that RhoA is critical for maintaining normal megakaryocyte development and the production of normal platelets.
Combined One Sense Disambiguation of Abbreviations

A process that attempts to solve abbreviation ambiguity is presented. Various context-related features and statistical features have been explored. Almost all features are domain independent and language independent. The application domain is Jewish Law documents written in Hebrew. Such documents are known to be rich in ambiguous abbreviations. Various implementations of the one sense per discourse hypothesis are used, improving the features with new variants. An accuracy of 96.09% has been achieved by SVM.
South African Teachers’ Perception of Integrated Quality Management Systems: Mopani District Secondary Schools, Limpopo Province

Abstract The present paper intends to uncover the truth about teacher’s perception of the introduction and use of Integrated Quality Management System in South African public schools for teacher development. The South African education system has a notorious history of providing education of doubtful quality to its citizens. The history of the quality of its education is traceable from the missionary and throughout the Bantu and the current system of education. The study adopted a qualitative research approach and semi-structured interview questionnaire instrument was developed for data collection to determine the perception of the school managers and the teachers about the implementation of the Integrated Quality Management system in district schools. The authors therefore propose that only provision of sufficient resources by the Department of Education should ensure the successful implementation of Integrated Quality Management System in South African schools.
Accuracy of the Five-Factor Model in Predicting Perceptions of Daily Social Interactions

The present study examined whether individuals' personality ratings on dimensions of the five-factor model (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness) predicted their immediate perceptions of themselves and others during daily social interactions. Participants completed personality measures at an initial session and recorded and evaluated their interactions over a 1-week period. Participants' immediate perceptions were predicted strongly by their extraversion scores, moderately by their agreeableness and neuroticism scores, and only weakly by their openness to experience score. These findings suggest that at least three of the five factors accurately represent individuals' thoughts and feelings during their daily lives.
DCDC2 gene polymorphisms are associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese Uyghur children

Developmental dyslexia is a complex reading and writing disorder with strong genetic components. In previous genetic studies about dyslexia, a number of candidate genes have been identified. These include DCDC2, which has repeatedly been associated with developmental dyslexia in various European and American populations. However, data regarding this relationship are varied according to population. The Uyghur people of China represent a Eurasian population with an interesting genetic profile. Thus, this group may provide useful information about the association between DCDC2 gene polymorphisms and dyslexia. In the current study, we examined genetic data from 392 Uyghur children aged 8–12 years old from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Participants included 196 children with dyslexia and 196 grade-, age-, and gender-matched controls. DNA was isolated from oral mucosal cell samples and fourteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs6456593, rs1419228, rs34647318, rs9467075, rs793862, rs9295619, rs807701, rs807724, rs2274305, rs7765678, rs4599626, rs6922023, rs3765502, and rs1087266) in DCDC2 were screened via the SNPscan method. We compared SNP frequencies in five models (Codominant, Dominant, Recessive, Heterozygote advantage, and Allele) between the two groups by means of the chi-squared test. A single-locus analysis indicated that, with regard to the allele frequency of these polymorphisms, three SNPs (rs807724, rs2274305, and rs4599626) were associated with dyslexia. rs9467075 and rs2274305 displayed significant associations with developmental dyslexia under the dominant model. rs6456593 and rs6922023 were significantly associated with developmental dyslexia under the dominant model and in the heterozygous genotype. Additionally, we discovered that the T-G-C-T of the four-marker haplotype (rs9295619-rs807701-rs807724-rs2274305) and the T-A of the two-marker haplotype (rs3765502-1087266) were significantly different between cases and controls. Thus, we conclude that DCDC2 gene polymorphisms are associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese Uyghur children.
Platelet Recruitment Promotes Keratocyte Repopulation following Corneal Epithelial Abrasion in the Mouse

Corneal abrasion not only damages the epithelium but also induces stromal keratocyte death at the site of injury. While a coordinated cascade of inflammatory cell recruitment facilitates epithelial restoration, it is unclear if this cascade is necessary for keratocyte recovery. Since platelet and neutrophil (PMN) recruitment after corneal abrasion is beneficial to epithelial wound healing, we wanted to determine if these cells play a role in regulating keratocyte repopulation after epithelial abrasion. A 2 mm diameter central epithelial region was removed from the corneas of C57BL/6 wildtype (WT), P-selectin deficient (P-sel-/-), and CD18 hypomorphic (CD18hypo) mice using the Algerbrush II. Corneas were studied at 6h intervals out to 48h post-injury to evaluate platelet and PMN cell numbers; additional corneas were studied at 1, 4, 14, and 28 days post injury to evaluate keratocyte numbers. In WT mice, epithelial abrasion induced a loss of anterior central keratocytes and keratocyte recovery was rapid and incomplete, reaching ~70% of uninjured baseline values by 4 days post-injury but no further improvement at 28 days post-injury. Consistent with a beneficial role for platelets and PMNs in wound healing, keratocyte recovery was significantly depressed at 4 days post-injury (~30% of uninjured baseline) in P-sel-/- mice, which are known to have impaired platelet and PMN recruitment after corneal abrasion. Passive transfer of platelets from WT, but not P-sel-/-, into P-sel-/- mice prior to injury restored anterior central keratocyte numbers at 4 days post-injury to P-sel-/- uninjured baseline levels. While PMN infiltration in injured CD18hypo mice was similar to injured WT mice, platelet recruitment was markedly decreased and anterior central keratocyte recovery was significantly reduced (~50% of baseline) at 4–28 days post-injury. Collectively, the data suggest platelets and platelet P-selectin are critical for efficient keratocyte recovery after corneal epithelial abrasion.
Creating virtual ARDS patients

This paper presents the methodology used in patient-specific calibration of a novel highly integrated model of the cardiovascular and pulmonary pathophysiology associated with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). We focus on data from previously published clinical trials on the static and dynamic cardio-pulmonary responses of three ARDS patients to changes in ventilator settings. From this data, the parameters of the integrated model were identified using an optimization-based methodology in multiple stages. Computational simulations confirm that the resulting model outputs accurately reproduce the available clinical data. Our results open up the possibility of creating in silico a biobank of virtual ARDS patients that could be used to evaluate current, and investigate novel, therapeutic strategies.
Hemodynamic Response to Interictal Epileptiform Discharges Addressed by Personalized EEG-fNIRS Recordings

Objective: We aimed at studying the hemodynamic response (HR) to Interictal Epileptic Discharges (IEDs) using patient-specific and prolonged simultaneous ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG) and functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (fNIRS) recordings. Methods: The epileptic generator was localized using Magnetoencephalography source imaging. fNIRS montage was tailored for each patient, using an algorithm to optimize the sensitivity to the epileptic generator. Optodes were glued using collodion to achieve prolonged acquisition with high quality signal. fNIRS data analysis was handled with no a priori constraint on HR time course, averaging fNIRS signals to similar IEDs. Cluster-permutation analysis was performed on 3D reconstructed fNIRS data to identify significant spatio-temporal HR clusters. Standard (GLM with fixed HRF) and cluster-permutation EEG-fMRI analyses were performed for comparison purposes. Results: fNIRS detected HR to IEDs for 8/9 patients. It mainly consisted oxy-hemoglobin increases (seven patients), followed by oxy-hemoglobin decreases (six patients). HR was lateralized in six patients and lasted from 8.5 to 30 s. Standard EEG-fMRI analysis detected an HR in 4/9 patients (4/9 without enough IEDs, 1/9 unreliable result). The cluster-permutation EEG-fMRI analysis restricted to the region investigated by fNIRS showed additional strong and non-canonical BOLD responses starting earlier than the IEDs and lasting up to 30 s. Conclusions: (i) EEG-fNIRS is suitable to detect the HR to IEDs and can outperform EEG-fMRI because of prolonged recordings and greater chance to detect IEDs; (ii) cluster-permutation analysis unveils additional HR features underestimated when imposing a canonical HR function (iii) the HR is often bilateral and lasts up to 30 s.
A randomized clinical trial of autologous platelet-rich plasma in the treatment of mandibular degree II furcation defects.

AIM A combined technique using a platelet-rich plasma (PRP)/bovine porous bone mineral/guided tissue regeneration membrane was found to be an effective modality for the treatment of mandibular grade II furcation defects. To elucidate the role played by each component, the present randomized, double-blind study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of autologous PRP alone in the treatment of mandibular degree II furcation defects compared with open flap debridement (OFD). MATERIAL AND METHODS Using a split-mouth design, 40 mandibular degree II furcation defects were treated either with autologous PRP or OFD. Plaque index, sulcus bleeding index, vertical probing depth, relative vertical and horizontal clinical attachment level and gingival marginal level were recorded at baseline and 6 months post-operatively. Vertical and horizontal defect depths were also recorded using spiral computed tomography. RESULTS A statistically significant difference was observed in all the clinical and radiographic parameters at the sites treated with PRP as compared with those with OFD. However, all the furcation defects retained their degree II status. CONCLUSION Despite a significant improvement, lack of complete closure of furcation defects implies a limited role of autologous PRP as a regenerative material in the treatment of furcation defects, necessitating further long-term studies.
The eucalypt leaf blight pathogen Kirramyces destructans discovered in Australia

Kirramyces destructans is a serious pathogen causing a leaf, bud and shoot blight disease of Eucalyptus species in plantations of the subtropics and tropics of South East Asia. This pathogen was first discovered in Indonesia in 1995 and has subsequently spread to Thailand, China and Vietnam. Kirramyces destructans is not known to occur in Australia and has been considered a major biosecurity threat. During the course of the past four years, surveys have been conducted in existing eucalypt trials in tropical Australia. Several Kirramyces spp. were detected in these surveys, including isolates with morphological and cultural characteristics resembling those of K. destructans. In this study, DNA sequences of three gene regions were used to compare isolates of Kirramyces spp. emerging from the surveys and these were compared with those of K. destructans and the closely related K. eucalypti and K. viscidus. Results have shown, for the first time, that K. destructans is present in northern Australia (Melville Island, Northern Territory and Derby, Western Australia). The observed sequence variation among a small number of isolates also strongly suggests K. destructans is endemic to Northern Australia.
Lignin characteristics and ecological interactions of PtCOMT-modified silver birch

The 35Sand UbB1-PtCOMT genes were transferred by biolistic bombardment into silver birch, Betula pendula Roth, and the effects on syringyl (S) lignin unit synthesis were investigated. The transgenes were stably integrated into the B. pendula genomes, and their variable expression was observed. In the 35S-PtCOMT lines, a reduced syringyl/guaiacyl (S/G) ratio and incorporation of abnormal 5-OH-G units into lignin were found. This was apparently due to the RNA interference (RNAi)-based suppression of the COMT gene, leading to reduced S lignin content in stems, leaves and roots. This work supports the essential role of COMT for S unit synthesis and the current view on lignin biosynthesis in woody angiosperms. The unchanged morphology and growth characteristics of the 35S-PtCOMT modified B. pendula lines also indicate that plants are able to tolerate a large variation in the lignin S/G ratio. PtCOMT-promoter-GUS (β-glucuronidase) modified B. pendula lines were produced in order to investigate the expression pattern of the PtCOMT gene. The main activity during the growing season was present in the new xylem and lignified phloem fibres. Our results also suggest that COMT plays a role in tension wood formation but not in the response to wounding. In in vitro studies focusing on the potential ecological interactions between PtCOMTmodified B. pendula lines and insect herbivores and ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM), the role played by birch clone or transgenic line was found to be important. The preferential leaf quality to insect herbivores was not directly related to the PtCOMT-modified lignin, but resulted potentially from indirect factors such as a changed growth rhythm. All PtCOMT lines were able to form ECM with P. involutus, but the specific ECM characteristics, e.g. formation of a Hartig net (HN), differed from those of the control. The extent to which the different ECM characteristics of specific PtCOMT lines are related to lignin modification or unintended effects of transgenes remains to be solved.
Seeing 3D surfaces: neural stimulation, learning and masking

In the present dissertation, I assessed the visual hierarchy stages that support the visual perception of three-dimensional (3D) surfaces. In the first experimental chapter, I used fMRI-guided rTMS to probe the cortical areas involved in the perception of slanted surfaces. Results hint at a functional contribution of the dorso-parietal visual stream (posterior parietal cortex; PPC) to slant estimation, however, further work is needed to fully understand the nature of its involvement. I then showed that fMRI-guided rTMS-induced disruption of the ventral stream (area LO) eliminates the facilitation observed, in 3D surface discrimination, when disparity and motion cues congruently inform depth. This finding indicates that LO encodes signals for the integration of depth cues. Then, I showed rTMS evidence that disparity and orientation signal-in-noise discriminations causally relate to PPC’s function. Interestingly, this relation diminishes after training on a visual feature other than the one employed during rTMS testing. This finding indicates that training, even across visual features, can influence neuronal organization. Finally, I used backward masking to show that brightness masking incorporates the 3D information of disparity-defined slant. This finding suggests that brightness estimation is mediated by mid-level neuronal mechanisms, at a cortical stage where binocular signals have been combined.
Short-Term Physical and Mental Health Outcomes for Combat Amputee and Nonamputee Extremity Injury Patients

Objectives: The present study: (1) reports the early physical health complications, mental health outcomes, and outpatient health care utilization of patients with serious extremity injuries sustained during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars and (2) compares clinical outcomes between amputee and nonamputee extremity injury groups. Method: This was a retrospective review of clinical records in military health databases for patients injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Health outcomes of amputee (n = 382, injured 2001–2005) and nonamputee patients (n = 274, injured 2001–2007) with serious extremity injuries (abbreviated injury score ≥ 3) were followed up to 24 months post injury. This study was performed at Naval Health Research Center, San Diego. Results: Amputee and nonamputee groups had similar injury severity scores. Amputees had nearly double the risk of certain adverse complications (infections, anemia, septicemia, and thromboembolic disease), but other complications (osteomyelitis and nonhealing wound) were similar between the 2 groups. Amputees had significantly greater odds of certain mental health disorders including mood, sleep, pain, and postconcussion syndrome. However, amputees had significantly reduced odds of posttraumatic stress disorder compared with nonamputees. Amputees used various outpatient clinics significantly more than nonamputees. Conclusions: Patients with serious combat extremity injuries showed high rates of adverse health outcomes in the short term. Amputees had higher rates of many but not all clinically important physical and mental health outcomes compared to nonamputees. These results are important for military orthopaedic surgeons and allied providers who care for and counsel these patients and clinicians and researchers who seek to understand and improve health outcomes in patients with extremity war injuries. Level of Evidence: Prognostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.