Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A test of the theory of reasoned action in the context of condom use and AIDS

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) was employed as a framework for understanding adolescents’ behavior that could put them at risk for contracting AIDS. The TRA focuses on the role of subjective norms and attitudes toward behavior to predict behavioral intentions and risk‐avoidance behavior (condom use). Adolescent participants (N = 492) in three groups (8th grade, 11/12th grade, and early college) filled out questionnaires. Results supported Ajzen and Fishbein's contentions regarding the role of attitude and subjective norms, but subjective norms also functioned as a predictor of attitudes. Additional evidence indicated models by gender and sexual experience were different. For sexually active adolescents, attitude was a better predictor of both behavioral intentions and condom use than subjective norms, but for sexually inactive adolescents, subjective norm was a better predictor. For male adolescents, subjective norm was a better predictor of both behavioral intentions and condom use than attitude, bu.
Improving and Sustaining Center Quality: The Role of NAEYC Accreditation and Staff Stability

Research Findings. This study examines child care centers that improved quality and sustained these improvements over time. Quality was assessed using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales (ECERS). Forty-three centers were visited three times over six years. Centers that substantially improved by Time 2 were not initially rated better than those that did not improve but did employ less harsh teachers. At the second visit, centers that improved substantially were higher in quality, employed more sensitive and less harsh teachers, had experienced lower teaching staff turnover, and achieved NAEYC accreditation. The vast majority sustained these improvements. Centers seeking NAEYC accreditation were more likely to become accredited if they received moderate to intensive support and experienced less teaching staff turnover. Centers were more likely to experience lower turnover if they paid staff higher wages. Practice or Policy. Resources to support centers in becoming accredited and to increase the retention of teaching staff can assist centers in improving and sustaining quality.
A Cultural Encounter through Volunteer Tourism: Towards the Ideals of Sustainable Tourism?

International volunteering is increasingly recognised as a form of alternative tourism. However, the nature of the ‘alternative’ experience gained, and the ensuing narrative between host and volunteer, remains under-explored in published research, especially in volunteer tourism research within a cultural context in a developed nation. This paper examines the nexus between volunteer tourism and cultural tourism in the search for alternative and sustainable experiences through tourism. Qualitative research using in-depth interviews, diaries and participant observation was conducted to examine the pre-, during and post-trip experiences of 12 Australian visitors undertaking organised volunteer activities in an indigenous Maori community in the North Island of New Zealand during January 2005. Members of the indigenous Maori community were also interviewed to provide an important host perspective. Findings suggest that the nature of the interaction and cultural experiences gained were perceived as mutually beneficial and seemingly different from those gained from traditional cultural products. In particular, the volunteers experienced an alternative Maori cultural product and engaged in a different narrative with their Maori hosts through their volunteer work, one rich in authentic cultural content, genuine and reflective of modern Maori life in New Zealand society.
Analysis of a composite endpoint with longitudinal and time‐to‐event data

We propose a new nonparametric test to compare treatment effects using a composite endpoint comprising a longitudinal continuous measurement and multiple time‐to‐event outcomes. The composite endpoint incorporates the severity of each outcome as measured against the whole cohort in the entire study. This new proposed test is conceptually simple and computationally easy to implement. Unlike many currently available methods, our strategy is very flexible and can be applied to many types of clinical settings including the situation where we have multiple time‐to‐event outcomes. We apply our method to reanalyze two clinical trials for Scleroderma patients and also use simulation studies to show that the performance of our method is compatible with the results from a popular method proposed by Finkelstein and Schoenfeld (Statist. Med. 1999; 18:1341–1354). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Security Pricing as Enabler of Cyber-Insurance A First Look at Differentiated Pricing Markets

Despite the promising potential of network risk management services (e.g., cyber-insurance) to improve information security, their deployment is relatively scarce, primarily due to such service companies being unable to guarantee profitability. As a novel approach to making cyber-insurance services more viable, we explore a symbiotic relationship between security vendors (e.g., Symantec) capable of price differentiating their clients, and cyber-insurance agencies having possession of information related to the security investments of their clients. The goal of this relationship is to (i) allow security vendors to price differentiate their clients based on security investment information from insurance agencies, (ii) allow the vendors to make more profit than in homogeneous pricing settings, and (iii) subsequently transfer some of the extra profit to cyber-insurance agencies to make insurance services more viable. In this paper, we perform a theoretical study of a market for differentiated security product pricing, primarily with a view to ensuring that security vendors (SVs) make more profit in the differentiated pricing case as compared to the case of non-differentiated pricing. In order to practically realize such pricing markets, we propose novel and <italic>computationally efficient</italic> consumer differentiated pricing mechanisms for SVs based on (i) the market structure, (ii) the communication network structure of SV consumers captured via a consumer's <italic>Bonacich centrality</italic> in the network, and (iii) security investment amounts made by SV consumers. We validate our analytical model via extensive simulations conducted on practical SV client network topologies; main results show (through those simulations) that (a) a <italic>monopoly</italic> SV could improve its profit margin by upto <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx$</tex-math><alternatives> <mml:math> <mml:mo>≈</mml:mo> </mml:math> <inline-graphic xlink:href="pal-ieq1-2684801.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> 25 percent (based on the simulation setting) by accounting for clients’ investment information and network locations, whereas in an <italic>oligopoly</italic> setting, SVs could improve their profit margins by upto <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx$</tex-math><alternatives> <mml:math> <mml:mo>≈</mml:mo> </mml:math> <inline-graphic xlink:href="pal-ieq2-2684801.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> 18 percent, and (b) differentiated security pricing mechanisms are fair among SV consumers with respect to the total investment made by a consumer. To the best of knowledge, the proposed differentiated pricing framework is the first of its kind in the security products domain, and is generally applicable to usecases beyond the one investigated in this work.
Canadian cross-cultural comparison of the High-Risk Pregnancy Stress Scale

The purpose of this article is to present the French and English versions of the High-Risk Pregnancy Stress Scale (HRPSS) and the reliability and validity analyses. This instrument contains 16 items representing psychological and environmental stressors of the at-risk pregnancy situation with or without hospitalization. The HRPSS was developed specifically to measure the degree of stress as experienced by women with high-risk pregnancy. The results of the principal component analyses with Varimax rotation (N = 105) reveal that the HRPSS has two components. The first component represents physical restriction, while the second represents concerns related to pregnancy. These two components have been identified as forming the basis of the concept of antenatal-related stress. The HRPSS demonstrates internal consistency, equivalence and stability reliability. The psychometric analyses reveal that both the French and English versions have similar qualities.
Monoclonal antibodies specific for wild mouse neurotropic retrovirus: detection of comparable levels of virus replication in mouse strains susceptible and resistant to paralytic disease

We used AKR/J mice to produce monoclonal antibodies specific for a neurotropic ecotropic (WM-E) virus initially isolated from wild mice. The rationale for this approach involved the observation that these mice were immunologically hyporesponsive to endogenous ecotropic virus (Akv) but fully responsive to type-specific determinants of WM-E. Hybridoma cell lines derived from mice immunized with both denatured and viable virus produced antibodies with specificity for three viral membrane-associated polypeptides, gp70, p15(E), and p15gag. Epitopes specific for WM-E virus were detected in each of these polypeptides. Cross-reactivity with Friend ecotropic virus (Friend murine leukemia virus) was observed with some gp70- and p15gag-specific antibodies, but no reactivity with endogenous Akv ecotropic virus was seen. The majority of these antibodies did not react with either xenotropic or mink cell focus-forming viruses. Two WM-E-specific anti-gp70 antibodies reacting with different determinants had virus-neutralizing activity in the absence of complement, suggesting that the respective epitopes may participate in receptor binding or virus penetration events. We used these monoclonal antibodies in initial studies to examine the replication of WM-E virus in neonatally inoculated AKR/J mice which are fully resistant to the paralytic disease induced by this virus. Since these mice express high levels of endogenous ecotropic virus, standard assays for ecotropic virus cannot be used to study this question. We present evidence that the resistance to disease does not involve a resistance to virus replication, since these mice expressed levels of viremia and virus replication in spleen and lumbar spinal cord comparable to susceptible NFS/N mice at a time when the latter began to manifest clinical signs of lower-motor-neuron pathology.
Executive Functions and Theory-of-Mind Among Deaf Children: Different Routes to Understanding Other Minds?

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of executive functions (EF) in theory-of-mind (ToM) performance in deaf children and adolescents. Four groups of deaf children aged 7–16 years, with different language backgrounds at home and at school, that is, bilingually instructed native signers, oralist-instructed native signers, and two groups of bilingually instructed late signers from Sweden and Estonia, respectively, were given eight ToM and four EF measures. The bilingually instructed native signers performed at a significantly higher level on the ToM measures than the other groups of deaf children. On the EF measures, there were no significant differences found between any of the groups, with one exception—the Swedish bilingual late signers had a significantly shorter average reaction time on the go-no-go inhibition task than the oralist native signers and the Estonian bilingual late signers. However, the Swedish children's better EF performance was not mirrored in better performance on ToM tasks. Our results indicate that despite all deaf children's good general cognitive abilities, there were still differences in their performance on ToM tasks that need to be explained in other terms. Thus, whatever the cause of late signers' difficulties with ToM, poor EF-skills seem to be of minor importance.
Why Managers Won'T Learn

Times are changing. ’New Times’ do not just affect social and political life; they also have a major impact on organisations and those who work for them. The certainties of the past disintegrate: ’all that is solid melts into air’. Markets are changing diversifying and differentiating; levels and forms of competitive pressure are changing; in many industries government-induced regulation is disappearing. Information Technology increases the speed of communication and enables incredibly detailed control of work operations, thus in turn generating product differentiation. Organisations themselves
All-cause and cause-specific mortality in rheumatoid arthritis are not greater than expected when treated with tumour necrosis factor antagonists

Background: Mortality is increased in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), mainly because of cardiovascular (CV) events, cancer and infections. Recent data suggest that treatment with tumour necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists may affect this trend. Objective: To assess whether treatment with TNF antagonists is associated with reduction in CV events, cancer and infection rates, and in mortality in patients with RA treated and not treated with TNF antagonists. Methods: BIOBADASER is a registry for active long-term follow-up of safety of biological treatments in patients with RA. It includes 4459 patients with RA treated with TNF antagonists. EMECAR is an external RA cohort (n = 789) established to define the characteristics of the disease in Spain and to assess comorbidity. The incidence density (ischaemic heart disease) of CV events, cancer and infections was estimated and compared. The standardised mortality ratio was compared with the rate in the general population. A propensity score was used to match cohorts by the probability of being treated. Results: Rates of CV and cancer events are significantly higher in EMECAR than in BIOBADASER (RR 5–7 for different CV events, and RR 2.9 for cancer), whereas the rate of serious infections is significantly higher in BIOBADASER (RR 1.6). Mortality ratio of BIOBADASER by EMECAR is 0.32 (0.20–0.53) for all causes of death, 0.58 (0.24–1.41) for CV events, 0.52 (0.21–1.29) for infection and 0.36 (0.10–1.30) for cancer-related deaths. Conclusion: Morbidity, other than infection, and mortality are not higher than expected in patients with RA treated with TNF antagonists.
Identification of Bacteria in Blood Culture Broths Using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization Sepsityper™ and Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is a novel method for the direct identification of bacteria from blood culture broths. We evaluate for the first time, the performance of the MALDI Sepsityper™ Kit and MS for the identification of bacteria compared to standard phenotypic methods using the manufacturer's specified bacterial identification criteria (spectral scores ≥1.700–1.999 and ≥2.000 indicated identification to genus and species level, respectively). Five hundred and seven positive blood culture broths were prospectively examined, of which 379 (74.8%; 358 monomicrobial, 21 polymicrobial) were identified by MALDI-TOF MS; 195 (100%) and 132 (67.7%) of 195 gram-positive; and 163 (100%) and 149 (91.4%) of 163 gram-negative organisms from monomicrobial blood cultures were correctly identified to genus and species level, respectively. Spectral scores <1.700 (no identification) were obtained in 128/507 (25.2%) positive blood culture broths, including 31.6% and 32.3% of gram-positive and polymicrobial blood cultures, respectively. Significantly more gram-negative organisms were identified compared to gram-positive organisms at species level (p<0.0001). Five blood cultures were misidentified, but at species level only; including four monomicrobial blood cultures with Streptococcus oralis/mitis that were misidentified as Streptococcus pneumoniae. Positive predictive values for the direct identification of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria from monomicrobial blood culture broths to genus level were 100%. A diagnostic algorithm for positive blood culture broths that incorporates gram staining and MALDI-TOF MS should identify the majority of pathogens, particularly to genus level.
The Role of Different Types of Anaphor in the On-Line Resolution of Sentences in a Discourse

Abstract Interpreting sentences as part of a larger discourse requires evaluating information in the sentence against the current discourse representation. This paper examines the time course of such sentence resolution processes in two eye-tracking experiments. The experimental passages contained verbs depicting contextually congruent or incongruent events depending upon which of two possible antecedents were assigned to an anaphor. In Experiment 1, immediate effects of detecting the incongruence were found in first pass fixations on the verb but only when the sentences contained pronouns referring unambiguously to focused discourse antecedents. In Experiment 2 where matching name and definite description anaphors were used, the congruence effects were delayed until the second pass refixations of the verb and anaphor. The results are interpreted in relation to the different discourse roles played by different anaphoric devices and considered in relation to Sanford and Garrod′s (1981) Memory Focus model.
The Energetic Pathway to Mobility Loss: An Emerging New Framework for Longitudinal Studies on Aging

The capacity to walk independently is a central component of independent living. Numerous large and well‐designed longitudinal studies have shown that gait speed, a reliable marker of mobility, tends to decline with age and as a consequence of chronic disease. This decline in performance is of utmost importance because slow walking speed is a strong, independent predictor of disability, healthcare utilization, nursing home admission, and mortality. Based on these robust findings, it has been postulated that age‐associated decline in walking speed is a reliable barometer of the effect of biological aging on health and functional status. Despite the extraordinary prognostic information that walking speed provides, which is often superior to traditional medical information, there is a limited understanding of the mechanisms that underlie age‐ and disease‐related gait speed decline. Identifying the mechanisms that underlie the prognostic value of walking speed should be a central theme in the design of the next generation of longitudinal studies of aging, with appropriate measures introduced and analytical approaches incorporated.
Immigration Under New Labour: Policy and Effects

The Labour government's time in office between 1997 and 2010 was characterised by legislative activism in immigration matters. This article contextualises and tracks the main continuities in the government's policy-making during this period. Key to this process was the attempt to create different conceptions of migrants according to ‘type’. Thus a dual approach was taken, one that characterised asylum-seekers and refugees as unwanted, and labour migrants as wanted. However, policy and discourse regarding the unwanted migrants were to have consequences, one of which was the creation of the notion that immigration was in crisis. This impacted on public perceptions and led to further policy-making that was reactive to the crisis the initial policy had created.
Exploring young students' collaborative argumentation within a socioscientific issue

Argumentation has been the emphasis of many studies during the last decade. However, previous studies have not identified why some students are more successful than others, and what are students' characteristics of argumentation, especially when working collaboratively. The purpose of this study was to identify how young students construct arguments when working in pairs, and hence identify those characteristics of their interactions that might lead students to provide better written arguments in the science classroom. More specifically this study follows a case study design, examining two different pairs from a class of 12- to 13-year-old students that participated in a specially designed instructional approach within a socioscientific issue. The two pairs were videotaped for a duration of four, 50-minute lessons and the transcripts were analyzed in order to identify characteristics of students' interactions during argumentation. The results indicated that one of the pairs constructed high level written arguments by the end of the instruction, and that the two pairs engaged in different types of discussion. The findings suggest that one of the pairs engaged more with the topic, and that a socioscientific context does not afford on its own engagement with argumentation. On the contrary, there is a need of ownership, and engagement that is not automatic and was only evident in one of the pairs. Therefore, an implication arising from this issue for research is an exploration of how students from different backgrounds, either social or cultural, understand and identify with the main socioscientific issues that are used as part of teaching science, in order to understand how to better design curriculum that will support engagement of all students with the topic. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50:209–237, 2013
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: progression of honeycombing at thin-section CT.

PURPOSE To evaluate the progression of honeycombing at computed tomography (CT) and to determine serial changes in the pattern of disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS CT scans, obtained in 29 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis who had undergone at least two serial CT examinations 1-52 months apart, were reviewed. Twelve patients had received no treatment, and 17 patients had received corticosteroids. Initial and follow-up CT scans were evaluated independently and then directly compared with each other. RESULTS Twenty-six of the 29 patients showed progression of honeycombing, which was variable at CT (median, 0.4% [range, 0%-11%] per month) but not significantly different between untreated and treated patients. Areas of ground-glass attenuation on CT scans preceded and were predictive of the development of honeycombing in that location. Corticosteroid treatment reduced areas of ground-glass attenuation, but honeycombing on CT scans was irreversible. CONCLUSION Low-dose therapy with corticosteroids does not suppress alveolitis sufficiently to prevent continued deterioration of the alveolar structures.
Age differences in the emotional modulation of attention: Effects of own-age versus other-age emotional face cues on the alerting and orienting networks

This study used a modification of an attentional cueing task with emotional faces as cues to examine whether emotional cues influence the efficiency of alerting and spatial orienting, and whether the effects vary with the age of the faces and/or the age of the subjects. In this task, younger and older adults responded to the location of a target (left or right) preceded by a brief emotional cue (happy, sad, or neutral faces) or by no cue. Older adults showed a larger alerting effect than younger adults and this pattern was not further moderated by the valence of cues or the age of the faces. However, the results for the orienting effects indicated both age similarities and differences as a function of age of the faces. Both age groups exhibited orienting benefits from valid cueing by neutral and positive own-age faces, and showed orienting benefits for negative other-age face cues. Older adults appeared to be differentially influenced by orienting cues compared to younger adults as suggested by the cue-validity effect (i.e., response times slower for invalidly cued targets than for validly cued targets), especially for the own-age face cues. Whereas younger adults demonstrated the cue-validity effects for neutral and happy own-age face cues, older adults showed the cue-validity effects for the own-age face cues regardless of valence. The results highlight the importance of considering the age of the faces when assessing age differences in attention to emotional face cues.