Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Students' and their parents' attributional style, trait anxiety, and socio-demographic factors as predictors of teachers' perceptions of a academic performance in late childhood

The purposes of this thesis were to investigate the relationships between attributional style, trait anxiety and academic performance with some key demographic and family factors. The thesis consisted of two parts. The purpose of Part One was to investigate the relationships between trait anxiety, attributional style and academic performance of students enrolled in 18 primary public schools in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. In each of these schools one class of students in grade 4, 5, and 6 were included (N= 554 students; 277 boys and 277 girls). The results of Part One showed significant differences between low and high trait anxious children on their composite attributional style for negative events. Children with low trait anxiety scored significantly superior to children with high trait anxiety (p .05). Concerning gender differences, remarkable differences were also found between boys and girls regarding their academic performance, trait anxiety and attributional style (p < .05). Academic performance and trait anxiety were significantly higher for the girls than for the boys (p < .01). Regarding attributional style, girls attributed positive events
Prospective analysis of factors associated with dental behavior management problems, in children aged 7-11 years

Aim: To determine the prevalence of child behavior management problems (BMP) and to analyze the influence and predictive power of nondental and dental background variables on BMP. Study Design: Prospective analytical study. Materials and Methods: The study group included 165 children aged 7-11 years who received comprehensive dental treatment, after obtaining written informed consent. Parents/guardians were interviewed using standardized questionnaire to obtain background information. Each child′s treatment was carried out and was recorded with a fixed digital video (DV) recorder. The treatments were classified into three levels of invasiveness: Noninvasive (NI), moderately invasive (MI), and highly invasive (HI). The entire DV record of each treatment was observed, and child′s dental behavior was rated independently by two precalibrated examiners using modified Venham′s behavior rating scale. Then, the background factors obtained through the questionnaire data were analyzed for its association with child′s dental behavior. Results: Statistical tests used were Chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis to determine the relationship of multiple variables with dental behavior. Comparison of child′s behavior during different visits was done by Wilcoxan matched pairs test. The prevalence of BMP in children aged 7-11 years in the study sample was 0%, 4.2%, and 15.76% for NI, MI, and HI procedures, respectively. Three variables were significant predictors of behavior; order of birth that is, first born, history of hospitalization, and unpleasant past dental experience (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Direct conditioning pathway is the major factor in determining child′s behavior. Dental experiences, duration of treatment, and complexity of treatment have greater impact on how the child behaves in a dental setup.
Evaluation of Antibodies to the Epstein-Barr Virus Immediate Early Gene Product ZEBRA by a New Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay

For the serodiagnosis of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infections, we have developed a new enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for antibodies to the ZEBRA product of EBV immediate early gene BZLF1. ZEBRA protein fused with glutathione-S-transferase (GST) was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified by affinity chromatography with glutathione-Sepharose 4B. An ELISA sandwich capture system was constructed with the GST-ZEBRA immobilized on plastic microtiter plates which had been coated with a mouse monoclonal antibody to GST. ZEBRA-IgG antibodies in patients’ sera with chronic active EBV infection (CAEBV) and infectious mononucleosis (IM) had, respectively, very high and high titers. Anti-ZEBRA antibodies were also detected at low titers in sera of some healthy controls. ZEBRA-IgM antibodies were detected in sera of patients with IM and CAEBV but not in sera of healthy controls. In sera of patients with CAEBV, the titers of IgG antibodies to ZEBRA correlated with the antibody titers to early antigens obtained with an immunofluorescence assay, but not to EBV nuclear antigens. This ELISA is a useful diagnostic and prognostic test for EBV infection.
Wnt/β-catenin Signaling in Oral Tissue Development and Disease

The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is one of several key conserved intercellular signaling pathways in animals, and plays fundamental roles in the proliferation, regeneration, differentiation, and function of many cell and tissue types. This pathway is activated in a dynamic manner during the morphogenesis of oral organs, including teeth, taste papillae, and taste buds, and is essential for these processes to occur normally. Conversely, forced activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling promotes the formation of ectopic teeth and taste papillae. In this review, we discuss our current understanding of the roles of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in oral tissue development and in related human diseases, and the potential of manipulating this pathway for therapeutic purposes.
Bimodal invitation-navigation fair bets model for authority identification in a social network

We consider the problem of identifying the most respected, authoritative members of a large-scale online social network (OSN) by constructing a global ranked list of its members. The problem is distinct from the problem of identifying influencers: we are interested in identifying members who are influential in the real world, even when not necessarily so on the OSN. We focus on two sources for information about user authority: (a) invitations to connect, which are usually sent to people whom the inviter respects, and (b) members' browsing behavior, as profiles of more important people are viewed more often than others'. We construct two directed graphs over the same set of nodes (representing member profiles): the invitation graph and the navigation graph respectively. We show that the standard PageRank algorithm, a baseline in web page ranking, is not effective in people ranking, and develop a social capital based model, called the fair bets model, as a viable solution. We then propose a novel approach, called bimodal fair bets, for combining information from two (or more) endorsement graphs drawn from the same OSN, by simultaneously using the authority scores of nodes in one graph to inform the other, and vice versa, in a mutually reinforcing fashion. We evaluate the ranking results on the LinkedIn social network using this model, where members who have Wikipedia profiles are assumed to be authoritative. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms the baseline approach by a large margin.
Retroviral gene transfer of interferon‐inducible protein 10 inhibits growth of human melanoma xenografts

Interferon‐inducible protein 10 (IP‐10) is an immunomodulatory chemokine recently recognized to have potent antiangiogenic activity in vivo. Due to difficulties in the stability, manufacture and chronic administration of recombinant forms of endogenous antiangiogenic proteins, antiangiogenic gene therapy has emerged as a promising new form of cancer treatment. We retrovirally transduced A375 human melanoma cells with the human IP‐10 gene and injected cells subcutaneously into nude mice. IP‐10‐transduced cells also were mixed with null‐transduced cells in varying proportions before injection. In vivo growth of IP‐10‐transduced melanoma cells was markedly diminished compared to parental or null‐transduced cells (p = 0.0002, Kruskal‐Wallis test). This growth inhibition was associated with a marked reduction in microvessel density. The degree of growth inhibition of tumors following injection of a mixed population of null‐ and IP‐10‐transduced cells was directly associated with the fraction of IP‐10‐transduced cells present. We conclude that retroviral transduction of human melanoma cells with the IP‐10 gene leads to sufficient protein secretion to inhibit angiogenesis and tumor growth. These findings suggest that IP‐10 gene therapy might be an effective therapy in patients with cancer. Published 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Regulation of Monocarboxylic Acid Transporter-1 by cAMP Dependent Vesicular Trafficking in Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cells

In this study, a detailed characterization of Monocarboxylic Acid Transporter-1 (Mct1) in cytoplasmic vesicles of cultured rat brain microvascular endothelial cells shows them to be a diverse population of endosomes intrinsic to the regulation of the transporter by a brief 25 to 30 minute exposure to the membrane permeant cAMP analog, 8Br-cAMP. The vesicles are heterogeneous in size, mobility, internal pH, and co-localize with discreet markers of particular types of endosomes including early endosomes, clathrin coated vesicles, caveolar vesicles, trans-golgi, and lysosomes. The vesicular localization of Mct1 was not dependent on its N or C termini, however, the size and pH of Mct1 vesicles was increased by deletion of either terminus demonstrating a role for the termini in vesicular trafficking of Mct1. Using a novel BCECF-AM based assay developed in this study, 8Br-cAMP was shown to decrease the pH of Mct1 vesicles after 25 minutes. This result and method were confirmed in experiments with a ratiometric pH-sensitive EGFP-mCherry dual tagged Mct1 construct. Overall, the results indicate that cAMP signaling reduces the functionality of Mct1 in cerebrovascular endothelial cells by facilitating its entry into a highly dynamic vesicular trafficking pathway that appears to lead to the transporter's trafficking to autophagosomes and lysosomes.
Prevalence and Characteristics of Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase and Plasmid-Mediated Fluoroquinolone Resistance Genes in Escherichia coli Isolated from Chickens in Anhui Province, China

The aim of this study was to characterize the prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) genes and plasmid-mediated fluoroquinolone resistance (PMQR) determinants in 202 Escherichia coli isolates from chickens in Anhui Province, China, and to determine whether ESBL and PMQR genes co-localized in the isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility for 12 antimicrobials was determined by broth microdilution. Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs), DNA sequencing, and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) were employed to characterize the molecular basis for β-lactam and fluoroquinolone resistance. High rates of antimicrobial resistance were observed, 147 out of the 202 (72.8%) isolates were resistant to at least 6 antimicrobial agents and 28 (13.9%) of the isolates were resistant to at least 10 antimicrobials. The prevalence of bla CTX-M, bla TEM-1 and bla TEM-206 genes was 19.8%, 24.3% and 11.9%, respectively. Seventy-five out of the 202 (37.1%) isolates possessed a plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance determinant in the form of qnrS (n = 21); this determinant occurred occasionally in combination with aac(6′)-1b-cr (n = 65). Coexistence of ESBL and/or PMQR genes was identified in 31 of the isolates. Two E. coli isolates carried bla TEM-1, bla CTX-M and qnrS, while two others carried bla CTX-M, qnrS and aac(6′)-1b-cr. In addition, bla TEM-1, qnrS and aac(6′)-1b-cr were co-located in two other E. coli isolates. PFGE analysis showed that these isolates were not clonally related and were genetically diverse. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to describe detection of TEM-206-producing E. coli in farmed chickens, and the presence of bla TEM-206, qnrS and aac(6′)-1b-cr in one of the isolates.
Human Tumor Xenografts as Predictive Preclinical Models for Anticancer Drug Activity in Humans: Better than Commonly Perceived—But They Can Be Improved

It is not uncommon for new anti-cancer drugs or therapies to show highly effective, and sometimes even spectacular anti-cancer treatment results using transplantable tumors in mice. These models frequently involve human tumor xenografts grown subcutaneously in immune deficient hosts such as athymic (nude) or severe combined immune deficient (SCID) mice. Unfortunately, such preclinical results are often followed by failure of the drug/therapy in clinical trials, or, if the drug is successful, it usually has only modest efficacy results, by comparison. Not surprisingly, this has provoked considerable skepticism about the value of using such preclinical models for early stage in vivo preclinical drug testing. As a result, a shift has occurred towards developing and using spontaneous mouse tumors arising in transgenic and/or knockout mice engineered to recapitulate various genetic alterations thought to be causative of specific types of respective human cancers. Alternatively, the opinion has been expressed of the need to refine and improve the human tumor xenograft models, e.g., by use of orthotopic transplantation and therefore promotion of metastatic spread of the resultant ‘primary’ tumors. Close inspection of retrospective and prospective studies in the literature, however, reveals that human tumor xenografts—even non metastatic ectopic/subcutaneous ‘primary’ tumor transplants—can be remarkably predictive of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs that have activity in humans, when the drugs are tested in mice using pharmacokinetically clinically equivalent or ‘rational’ drug doses. What may be at variance with clinical activity, however, is the magnitude of the benefit observed in mice, both in terms of the degree of tumor responses and overall survival. It is argued that this disparity can be significantly minimized by use of orthotopic transplant/metastatic tumor models in which treatment is initiated after the primary tumor has been removed and the distant metastases are well established and macroscopic—i.e., the bar is raised and treatment is undertaken on advanced, high volume, metastatic disease. In such circumstances, survival should be used as an endpoint; changes in tumor burden using surrogate markers or micro-imaging techniques can be used as well to monitor effects of therapies on tumor response. Adoption of such procedures would more accurately recapitulate the phase I/II/III clinical trial situation in which treatment is initiated on patients with advanced, high-volume metastatic disease.
The role of protein kinase C δ activation and STAT3 Ser727 phosphorylation in insulin-induced keratinocyte proliferation

Activation of the STAT family of transcription factors is regulated by cytokines and growth factors. STAT tyrosine and serine phosphorylation are linked to the transcriptional activation and function of STAT. We have previously described a unique pathway inducing keratinocyte proliferation, which is mediated by insulin stimulation and depends on protein kinase C δ (PKCδ). In this study, we assessed STAT3 activation downstream of this pathway and characterized the role of PKCδ activation in STAT3 tyrosine and serine phosphorylation and keratinocyte proliferation. Following insulin stimulation, STAT3 interacted with PKCδ but not with any other PKC isoform expressed in skin. Activated forms of PKCδ and STAT3 were essential for insulin-induced PKCδ-STAT3 activation in keratinocyte proliferation. Abrogation of PKCδ activity inhibited insulin-induced STAT3 phosphorylation, PKCδ-STAT3 association and nuclear translocation. In addition, overexpression of STAT3 tyrosine mutant eliminated insulin-induced PKCδ activation and keratinocyte proliferation. Finally, overexpression of a STAT3 serine mutant abrogated insulin-induced STAT3 serine phosphorylation and STAT3-induced keratinocyte proliferation, whereas STAT3 tyrosine phosphorylation was induced and nuclear localization remained intact. This study indicates that PKCδ activation is a primary regulator of STAT3 serine phosphorylation and that PKCδ is essential in directing insulin-induced signaling in keratinocyte proliferation.
Cognition in the woods: Biases in probability judgments by search and rescue planners

A type of emergency decision-making which has not received research attention is the police search for a lost person in a rural or wilderness area. For many such incidents, decisions concerning where to search for the lost subject are made by a planning team, each member of which assigns probabilities to the various hypotheses about where the subject might be located, including the residual hypothesis that the subject is somewhere else entirely, that is, outside of the designated search area. In the current study, 32 adult males with search planning experience were asked to assign probabilities to a fictional lost person incident. It was hypothesized, according to support theory (Tversky & Koehler, 1994), that subjects who first considered the five possible scenarios accounting for how the subject could have left the search area—i.e., unpacked the residual hypothesis—would subsequently increase their probability estimate of the global hypothesis that the missing subject was not in the designated search area, compared to those subjects who unpacked the focal hypothesis. This hypothesis was confirmed. We also found considerable evidence for subadditivity, as most subjects estimated higher summed probabilities for the individual scenarios accounting for the focal and residual hypotheses, respectively. The potential negative consequences of such unpacking effects during a lost person incident were discussed, and possible means of mitigating such effects were described.
Lack of association between IL‐1β, TNF‐α, and IL‐10 gene polymorphisms and sporadic Parkinson’s disease in an Italian cohort

Pascale E, Passarelli E, Purcaro C, Vestri AR, Fakeri A, Guglielmi R, Passarelli F, Meco G. Lack of association between IL‐1β, TNF‐α, and IL‐10 gene polymorphisms and sporadic Parkinson’s disease in an Italian cohort. Acta Neurol Scand: 2011: 124: 176–181. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
High-sensitivity SPECT imaging using large collimator holes and geometric blurring compensation

The low detection efficiency of conventional SPECT results in noisy measurements and degraded image quality. Using large collimator holes improves SPECT detection efficiency with a cost of losing image resolution. This work studies the tradeoff of high-sensitivity SPECT imaging using large collimator holes with geometric blurring compensation. Five types of collimators were investigated and compared with a general all purpose (GAP) Philips AXIS and IRIX SPECT collimator using computer simulations. An "inverse-cone" geometric blurring model is incorporated in the reconstruction. It is shown that less noisy SPECT images can be achieved with the spatial resolution unchanged using large collimator holes with the inverse-cone blurring compensation model. The optimal collimator hole found in the computer simulation is the one with a hole acceptance angle in the range of 6.3deg 9.4deg. In the phantom experiment, a cardiac insert phantom was scanned using a high-resolution collimator and a high-sensitivity collimator with and without blurring compensation, respectively. It shows that the resolution of the image obtained using the high-sensitivity collimator can be successfully recovered by the blurring compensation, and the image is much less noisy compared to the one obtained using the high-resolution collimator.
Children’s sleep and adjustment: the moderating role of vagal regulation

Children’s vagal tone and vagal suppression were examined as moderators of associations between children’s sleep disruptions and adjustment problems. A relatively large sample (n = 167) of boys and girls who ranged in age between 8 and 9 years participated with their parents. Sleep was examined via actigraphy in the child’s home for seven consecutive days. Children’s vagal tone was examined during baseline conditions, and their vagal suppression was assessed in response to an inter‐adult argument. In comparison with children exhibiting higher levels of vagal tone, those with lower vagal tone were at increased risk of externalizing problems, depression symptoms and higher body mass index associated with increased sleep disruptions (i.e. lower Sleep Efficiency, increased Wake Minutes and fewer Sleep Minutes). Thus, lower vagal tone functioned as a vulnerability factor for adjustment problems in the context of sleep problems. A higher level of vagal suppression to the inter‐adult argument functioned as a protective factor against externalizing behaviors otherwise associated with increased Wake Minutes and reduced Sleep Efficiency. Findings demonstrating the moderating role of vagal functioning in the context of sleep disruptions are novel, and highlight the importance of individual differences in children’s physiological regulation for sleep and adjustment.
Sequentiality Versus Simultaneity: Interrelated Factor Demand

Abstract Firms may adjust capital and labor sequentially or simultaneously. In this paper, we develop a structural model of interrelated factor demand subject to nonconvex adjustment costs and estimated by simulated method of moments. Based on Norwegian manufacturing industry plant-level data, parameter estimates reveal cost advantages for adjusting capital and making net changes in labor simultaneously. Factor demand models with fully specified interrelated adjustment costs structures perform best to describe the dynamic panel data.
Comparison of Nursing Care Perceptions between Patients who had Surgical Operation and Nurses who Provided Care to those Patients

Aim: This descriptive study which was conducted in the surgical clinics of a university hospital in Gaziantep/Turkey aims to compare care perceptions of patients who had surgical operation and those of nurses. Method: The participants were 379 patients and 70 nurses who provided care to those patients. The data were collected using Identification Form and CBI-24 (Caring Behaviours Inventory-24). Result: It was determined that CBI-24 total average of score of patients (5.08±0.97) is significantly lower than nurses (5.28±0.45) in statistical sense (p=0.05). It was found that patients’ sub-dimension scores for knowledge and skill 5.13±1.0, being respectful 4,97±1,03, are lower than scores of nurses and the difference between them is at significantly high level in statistical sense (respectively p<0.001 and p=0.002). Conclusion: It was determined that level of patients’ perception of nursing care is lower than those of nurses. It was observed that nursing care is influenced from characteristics of patients and nurses.
Initial correction with the Boston Thoracic Brace.

The Boston Thoracic Brace, i.e. a Boston Brace without superstructures, has been used for treatment of scoliosis in 57 patients with 91 major curves measuring 31.8 +/- 6.5 degrees, the apex of the scolioses varying from D 7 to L 3. There was a mean correction of 12.9 +/- 6.4 degrees (41 per cent), which was superior to that of the Milwaukee Brace also in the thoracic scolioses (mean correction 3.6 +/- 5.8 degrees) (10 per cent).