Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Approaching Consciousness with Masked Priming

Masked Priming is an established paradigm to investigate consciousness. The impact of prime visibility on specific priming effects determines whether associated processes can occur independently of consciousness or might rely on consciousness. A meta-analytic review of 84 studies was conducted to assess the impact of prime visibility on effect sizes in interaction with various moderators (Chapter 2). A psychological model concerning the emergence of priming effects was proposed. Two main confoundings between moderators were identified. Specific task levels were predominantly applied with specific masking methods. Furthermore, temporal parameters were chosen differently between effect types. Subsequent experiments (Chapter 3) revealed that priming effects increase with increasing prime visibility when pattern masks are applied. Priming effects were independent of prime visibility with metacontrast masks. Pattern masks are thought to reduce prime visibility on an early level whereas metacontrast masks disturb recurrent processing. Lamme and Roelfsema (2000) previously proposed that recurrent processing characterizes consciousness. Perceptual and semantic priming effects were equally affected by variations in prime visibility. However, perceptual priming effects were generally larger than semantic priming effects. Further experiments were conducted to determine the courses of perceptual and semantic priming effects with increasing prime-mask SOA and mask-target SOA (Chapter 4). Priming effects generally increase with increasing prime-mask SOA and decline at long mask-target SOA. This decline seems to be based on a simple decay and active mechanisms of inhibition (e.g. Klapp, 2005). However, courses of perceptual and semantic priming effects with increasing mask-target SOA differed. This seems to be due to an additional mechanism of object updating that acts only with relevant masks (Lleras & Enns, 2004). In the current design, masks only activated the incongruent category (i.e. relevant masks) with perceptual congruency. An electrophysiological study was conducted to compare perceptual and semantic priming with identical stimulation (Chapter 5). The applied design allowed the estimation of behavioral priming effects without response association as well as effects on event-related potentials without response execution. Perceptual priming effects without response association were larger than semantic priming effects without response association. Furthermore, the P2 component and the P3(b) component were modulated through perceptual congruency. Semantic congruency was reflected in an N400-like effect with a delayed latency. Perceptual ERP effects were observed earlier and with different distributions than semantic ERP effects. Perceptual and semantic priming effects seem to be based on different mechanisms that share several attributes. However, the current work supports the idea of approaching consciousness through the comparison of different masking methods (cf. Breitmeyer, 2014).
Factores psicosociales laborales y trastornos de sueño en docentes de educación especial.

This paper identifies the incidence of nega tive psychosocial factors present in the working environment in 532 teachers working with students with special educational needs showing the presence of sleeping disorders, identifying as symptoms with the most incidence not feeling full of life and awaken tired, as well as a significant association between compensation and the presence of symptoms of these disorders. ResUmen
Efficacy of antimicrobial coating suture coated polyglactin 910 with tricosan (Vicryl plus) compared with polyglactin 910 (Vicryl) in reduced surgical site infection of appendicitis, double blind randomized control trial, preliminary safety report.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of new antibacterial suture (Vicryl Plus) compared with a traditional braided suture (Vicryl) in a clinical study. The primary goal was to study effectiveness on reduced surgical site infection in an appendectomy operation. The authors' secondary goal was to analyze the safety and physical properties of Vicryl plus. MATERIAL AND METHOD This was a prospective, randomized, controlled, double blind, comparative, single-center study. After appendectomy was done, the patients were randomized in two groups: Vicryl Plus and Vicryl to selected suture for suturing the abdominal sheath. The surgical site infection was evaluated for 30 days, 6 months, and 1 year. The surgeons and attending doctor were blind to the type of suture. This is the primary report of the first 100 patients. RESULTS There was no difference in demographic and preoperative clinical in both groups. Although there was no statistical difference in the surgical site infection of Vicryl and Vicryl Plus (8 and 10%, p = 0.05), one case of deep surgical site infection was detected in the Vicryl group. No complications and no difference in related suture materials were detected. CONCLUSION Coated polyglactin 910 with tricosan (Vicryl Plus) is safe and satisfactory in surgical practice. Surgical site infection of appendectomy seemed too to be comparable between coated polyglactin 910 with tricosan (Vicryl Plus) and traditional polyglactin 910 (Vicryl) group.
Measuring Teacher Effectiveness Through Meaningful Evaluation

While teacher quality is recognized as a critical component in school reform and the pursuit of new teacher evaluation systems has gained national attention, the question of whether proposed teacher assessment models recognize and account for the unique roles and responsibilities of special education teachers has gone largely unnoticed. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide a review of current efforts to reform practices in teacher assessment, (b) describe recommendations for emerging teacher evaluation systems that accurately distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, and (c) consider the difficulties of implementing these reform measures in the evaluation of teachers who serve students with disabilities. Important consideration is given to understanding the unique roles and responsibilities of the special educator, as well as the use of observation protocols to evaluate instructional practices in the general and special education setting. In addition, this article elucidates the difficulties of incorporating valid measures of student performance as a component of the teacher evaluation process for special education teachers. A summary of recommendations for policy makers serves as the conclusion.
Parental Attitudes and Children's Experiences in Soccer: Correlates of Effort and Enjoyment

To examine the relation between parental childrearing attitudes and children's experiences in sport, 49 families of 6-to 8-year-old male soccer players were studied. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires about their childrearing practices; children, coaches, fathers, and mothers provided information on the child's enjoyment, effort, ability, competitiveness, and/or co-operativeness. Mothers and fathers showed very different patterns of involvement in their child's soccer experience: Whereas maternal support and expectations were positively associated with the level of child enjoyment, paternal expectations and directiveness were highest when child ability or effort was low. Moreover, regardless of the actual nature of reported parental behaviour, mothers and fathers showing the highest levels of involvement had children showing the lowest level of co-operation with the coach. The findings suggest that fathers and mothers differ in the responsibility that they feel for helping the child who is experiencing difficulty in sport, and that, in some cases, fathers' attempts to help may actually undermine the child's effort and enjoyment.
Cross-Barrier Flow during Orographic Precipitation Events: Results from MAP and IMPROVE

Abstract Ground-based and airborne Doppler radar data collected during passage of frontal rainstorms over the European Alps and Cascade Mountains of Oregon are found to exhibit characteristic cross-barrier flow and precipitation patterns. A stably stratified layer of blocked (or partially blocked) low-momentum flow below mountain-crest level is separated from strong cross-barrier flow aloft by a concentrated layer of vertical wind shear. This shear layer slopes upward toward the mountain crest and persists for several hours as the storm passes over the mountain range. This pattern is remarkably similar from case to case and from one mountain range to the other. The orographically enhanced precipitation in these cases exhibits stratiform structure, marked by a radar bright band, which often drops to a lower height (indicating locally cooler conditions) immediately adjacent to the windward mountain slopes. A terrain-induced gravity wave produces strong downslope flow and spillover of precipitation onto the .
The influence of guideline revisions on the process and outcome of hypertension management in general practice: A descriptive study

Background: Blood pressure does not reach guideline targets in the majority of hypertensive patients. Longitudinal data from general practice records on trends in hypertension management and the influence of guideline changes are lacking. Objective: To describe the longitudinal impact of guideline revisions on the process and outcome of hypertension management in a primary care based database. Methods: We extracted data from the Nijmegen Monitoring Project (NMP), an academic practice-based research network with 50 000 patients listed. Based on the years of publication of the first Dutch guideline on hypertension (1991) and two revisions (1997 and 2003), we formed three cohorts of patients newly diagnosed with hypertension. We compared data such as patient characteristics, 2-year blood pressure course, type of first-choice antihypertensive drugs, and number of medications after 2 years of treatment. Results: Both the mean age at time of diagnosis of hypertension and pulse pressure rose between cohorts. In agreement with revisions in the guidelines, the use of diuretics as first-choice drugs increased significantly from the first to the last cohort. The percentage of patients with three or more antihypertensive drugs remained equal. The relative 2-year systolic blood pressure decline did not differ with clinical relevance between the cohorts. Conclusion: Our study has demonstrated that general practitioners achieve substantial and prolonged blood pressure reduction. However, guideline revisions do not seem to influence the amount of reduction, despite clear formulation of stricter treatment goals. In addition to qualitative research to identify the causes of this phenomenon, research to evaluate the effect of expert support systems on risk awareness and risk gain by additional treatment is necessary.
Immunohistochemical Quantification of Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan and Collagen IV in Skeletal Muscle Capillary Basement Membranes of Patients With Diabetic Nephropathy

In IDDM patients, an increased permeability of the glomerular capillaries has been associated with a general loss of negatively charged heparan sulfate proteo-glycans (HSPGs) within basement membranes (BMs). In the present study, we used immunohistochemical staining to quantify heparan sulfate (HS), HSPG core protein, and collagen IV in capillary basement membranes of skeletal muscle biopsies taken from 9 healthy control subjects (C) and 20 IDDM patients: 7 with normal albumin excretion rate (<30 mg/24 h) (D0), 5 with incipient nephropathy (albumin excretion rate 30–300 mg/24 h) (Dx), and 8 with clinical nephropathy (albumin excretion rate >300 mg/24 h) (D2). In the capillaries, staining was measured by a scanning and integrating microspectrophotometer. A significant difference in the absorbance of HS was found among the four subgroups (means ± SD): 0.477 ± 0.082 (C), 0.627 ± 0.031 (D0), 0.542 ± 0.098 (D1, and 0.371 ± 0.118 (D2) (P = 0.006). Similarly, an overall significant difference in the absorbance of collagen IV was demonstrated (means ± SD): 0.836 ± 0.111 (C), 0.838 ± 0.300 (D0), 0.970 ± 0.173 (D1), and 0.512 ± 0.248 (D2) (P = 0.02). No statistical difference in the absorbance of core protein was demonstrated among the groups. Within the diabetic groups, HS was inversely correlated to albumin-uria (r = −0.76, P = 0.003) and albuminuria corrected for creatinine clearance (r = −0.69, P = 0.008). Because, in IDDM patients with albuminuria, alterations of the content of HS and collagen IV within the capillary BM have been demonstrated immunohistochemically, not only in the glomerular filtration barrier, but also in the skeletal muscle capillary BM, we suggest that these changes reflect universal quantitative or qualitative alterations within the capillary filtration barrier.
Timing Analysis of Rate Constrained Traffic for the TTEthernet Communication Protocol

Ethernet is a low-cost communication solution offering high transmission speeds. Although its applications extend beyond computer networking, Ethernet is not suitable for real-time and safety-critical systems. To alleviate this, several real-time Ethernet-based communication protocols have been proposed, such as TTEthernet, which is the focus of this paper. TTEthernet is suitable for mixed-criticality systems both in the safety and temporal domain. TTEthernet offers three traffic classes: static time-triggered (TT) traffic, dynamic traffic with bounded transmission rate (called "Rate Constrained", RC), and unbounded dynamic traffic ("Best-Effort", BE). In this paper we propose a novel worst-case end-to-end delay analysis of the RC traffic for TTEthernet systems. The proposed technique considerably reduces the pessimism of the analysis, compared to existing approaches. We have evaluated the new analysis using several test cases.
INCREASED RENAL PROSTANOID SYNTHESIS AFTER UNCLIPPING THE ONE‐KIDNEY, ONE‐CLIP HYPERTENSIVE RAT: EFFECT OF RENAL DENERVATION

1. Renal denervation of hypertensive one‐kidney, one‐clip (1K, 1C) rats resulted in a minor fall in blood pressure (216, s.e.m. = 4, to 182, s.e.m. =4, mmHg) 24 h later, which returned to predenervation levels within 1 week.
An investigation of technical debt in automatic production systems

Technical Debt is a recent concept, borrowed from the financial domain. It has been recently used in software development to describe technical sub-optimal solutions that have short-term benefits but long-term extra-costs. However, no body of literature investigates how Automatic Production Systems companies deal with Technical Debt. We investigated how Technical Debt is known, how much it hurts and how is managed in an automatic production systems company. Results from one in-depth investigation show that the automatic production systems company spend quite a lot of resources because of Technical Debt, both in the extra-costs (interest) and in its management. The company presents moderate awareness of what Technical Debt is and how much is present in its systems. However, the tracking level is quite low. We, therefore, claim that Technical Debt needs more research in this domain, as it is a source of substantial extracosts and the current practices to manage it are not suitable.
Mining and Heavy Metal Pollution : Assessment of Aquatic Environments in Tarkwa ( Ghana ) using Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Application of multivariate statistics for the interpretation of surface and groundwater data from Tarkwa, a mining community in the Western region of Ghana, is presented in this study. Effluents from extractive industries established over the last half century within the study area are directly discharged onto surrounding land and surface water bodies constituting point and non-point sources of contamination for groundwater in the study area. In the Tarkwa mining area, large deposits of mine wastes, ore stockpiles and waste rocks have become a heap around the place. Twelve parameters including trace elements (Cu, Mn, Cd, Fe, Pb, As, Hg and Zn) and physico-chemical parameters (pH, conductivity, turbidity and total dissolved salts) were monitored on 49 sampling points including surface and groundwater. Data set was analysed using factor analysis (FA). FA identified four factors responsible for data structure explaining 69% of total variance in surface water and two factors in groundwater explaining 79%, and allowed the grouping of selected parameters according to common features. This study underscores the value of multivariate statistical analysis for evaluation and interpretation of the data with a view to stimulating better policy outcomes and decision-making that positively impacts water quality and thus prospectively diminishes the pollution caused by hazardous toxic elements in mining environments.
This Work Is Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Date Deposited: the Topography of Frequency and Time Representation in Primate Auditory Cortices

Natural sounds can be characterised by their spectral content and temporal modulation, but how the brain is organized to analyse these two critical sound dimensions remains uncertain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate a topographical representation of amplitude modulation rate in the auditory cortex of awake macaques. The representation of this temporal dimension is organized in approximately concentric bands of equal rates across the superior temporal plane in both hemispheres, progressing from high rates in the posterior core to low rates in the anterior core and lateral belt cortex. In A1 the resulting gradient of modulation rate runs approximately perpendicular to the axis of the tonotopic gradient, suggesting an orthogonal organisation of spectral and temporal sound dimensions. In auditory belt areas this relationship is more complex. The data suggest a continuous representation of modulation rate across several physiological areas, in contradistinction to a separate representation of frequency within each area.
EVALUATION OF A UNIVERSAL SOCIAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING GROUP PROGRAM AIMED AT PREVENTING ANGER AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

According to social information-processing models, aggressive children are prone to over-attribute hostile intentions to peers. The current article describes the development and preliminary evaluation of a 5-session, classroom-based, universal group program that focuses on helping students develop a more positive attributional style. Compared to a test-retest control group (n = 34), children receiving group intervention (n = 18) were less likely to endorse hostile attributions and more likely to endorse benign attributions in response to a set of ambiguous social situations. Furthermore, peer-directed aggressive behaviour scores reduced more in the experimental group than in the control group. Children who received social information processing group intervention also reported less perceived anger and showed a trend to report more self-control than those in the control group. Finally a regression analysis showed that children who evidenced greater reductions in aggressive behaviour tended to be those who also reported greater decreases in hostile attributional style.
Endothelial function, CRP and oxidative stress in chronic kidney disease.

BACKGROUND Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in cardiovascular disease (CVD). Apart from traditional risk factors, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, malnutrition and endothelial dysfunction are important in CVD development in renal patients. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), endothelium dependent vasodilation (EDV) and oxidative stress markers in patients with CKD K/DOQI stage 3-5. METHODS Measurements of CRP, conjugated dienes (CD), lipid hydroperoxide (LOOH), oxidized low density lipoprotein,glutathione and albumin were performed in 44 consecutive patients with CKD stage 3-5. EDV was measured by methacholine infusion in the brachial artery and venous occlusion plethysmography. RESULTS Patients with high CRP had significantly lower glomerular filtration rates and albumin, but increased LOOH and CD. In multiple regression analysis, only LOOH and CD remained significant. Patients with poor EDV had increased urea and lower glutathione (GSH). In multiple regression analysis, GSH and urea were independently related to EDV. No correlation was found between CRP and endothelial function. CONCLUSION CRP was related to lipid peroxidation, while endothelial function was related to intracellular oxidative stress in patients with CKD. CRP and EDV were unrelated to each other. Therefore, CRP and endothelial function could provide complementary prognostic information regarding future cardiovascular disorders in renal patients.
Developmentally sensitive assistance and development: collaboration between Japanese EFL learners

This study investigates the extent to which Japanese learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are able to offer mediation to their peers while engaging in pair work, and whether that mediation is sensitive to the needs of their partner. Grounded in sociocultural theory, the study assesses the extent to which the study participants identify and respond to a partner’s developmental level, offering appropriate help. Further, evidence in the data of learner development is examined. Six first-year university learners of EFL participated in the study, and were placed in to three pairs. Each pair was given a set of pictures in random order, and was asked to construct a story from the pictures, first orally, then in writing, working together closely with their co-participant. The audio-recorded sessions were transcribed and analysed for instances of developmentally sensitive peer–peer assistance. Numerous examples were found throughout the data showing all study participants being capable and willing to offer such assistance to their peers. Further, evidence was found of the assistance leading to microgenetic development in task performance.
Weight optimization for H∞ loop shaping method using frequency response data for SISO stable plant

The H∞ loop shaping method is known as one of the robust controller design methods. In this method, the design procedure consists of two steps; weight design and derivation of stabilizing controller. Thereby, the closed-loop system achieves good tracking and robustness. However, the explicit index for the weight design has not been proposed. As a result, a time-consuming and tedious process is often required. This paper provides a new weight design method for a stable SISO plant. The resulting weight guarantees the desired performance level of the designed controller in advance of the controller design. However, the weight is designed using only frequency responses, and the time-consuming and tedious process such as system identification is not needed.
Evaluation of a non‐invasive method of assessing opioid induced respiratory depression

Opioid induced respiratory depression is potentially fatal. The aim of this study was to validate a monitoring system that could be used to assess respiratory depression in postoperative patients. The hypercapnic ventilatory response was estimated non‐invasively in 12 volunteers. In two steps, we tested a system which delivered carbon dioxide (CO2) challenges through a venturi mask, measuring changes in ventilation with an uncalibrated respiratory inductance plethysmograph (RIP). RIP and pneumotachograph measurements of ventilation, taken at the same time during a CO2 challenge, were similar; group mean (SD), pneumotachograph 13.9 (3.5) l.min−1.kPa−1, RIP 14.3 (2.9) l.min−1.kPa−1. Bland–Altmann analysis showed the variation between these two methods was ± 5 l.min−1.kPa−1 (2 SD). Second, we confirmed that the venturi mask is suitable for delivering CO2 challenges. Despite the variability in RIP measurements, a simple multimodal respiratory monitoring system could be developed that incorporates clinical observation and non‐invasive measurement of the ventilatory response to CO2.