Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Fit Families pilot study: preliminary findings on how parental health and other family system factors relate to and predict adolescent obesity and depressive symptoms

This study, undergirded by family systems theory, examined the extent to which parent and family-level factors correlate with adolescent obesity and depressive symptoms. We also considered whether these variables predict unique variance in adolescent obesity and depressive symptoms. The participants were a convenience sample of 77 racially diverse, predominantly early adolescents (aged 12 to 17) and their parents. Results from a series of linear and logistic regression analyses indicated that three of the study factors (parental weight history, family resources and adolescent weight history) significantly contributed to the variance in adolescents' body mass indexes and only one of the study factors (parental depressive symptomatology) significantly contributed to the variance in adolescents' rates of depressive symptomatology. These preliminary findings clarify how parent and family system factors might inform family and school-based intervention and treatment efforts for adolescent health outcomes. Practitioner points Family environment (measured in this study as family conflict and cohesion) should continue to be evaluated as a risk factor for obesity and depressive symptoms in racial and ethnic minority and non-minority families. Family therapists as well as other practitioners (for example, primary care providers) should assess for family conflict when adolescents present with physical and psychological distress and disturbances. Family therapists and other practitioners could be more effective if they established whether adolescent patients and their family members have the resources (for example, knowledge, financial ability and skills) needed to live a healthy lifestyle, as well as the coping strategies for maintaining their physical and psychological health.
Automatically detecting action units from faces of pain: Comparing shape and appearance features

Recent psychological research suggests that facial movements are a reliable measure of pain. Automatic detection of facial movements associated with pain would contribute to patient care but is technically challenging. Facial movements may be subtle and accompanied by abrupt changes in head orientation. Active appearance models (AAM) have proven robust to naturally occurring facial behavior, yet AAM-based efforts to automatically detect action units (AUs) are few. Using image data from patients with rotator-cuff injuries, we describe an AAM-based automatic system that decouples shape and appearance to detect AUs on a frame-by-frame basis. Most current approaches to AU detection use only appearance features. We explored the relative efficacy of shape and appearance for AU detection. Consistent with the experience of human observers, we found specific relationships between action units and types of facial features. Several AU (e.g. AU4, 12, and 43) were more discriminable by shape than by appearance, whilst the opposite pattern was found for others (e.g. AU6, 7 and 10). AU-specific feature sets may yield optimal results.
The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals.

PURPOSE To develop a reliable and valid questionnaire of bilingual language status with predictable relationships between self-reported and behavioral measures. METHOD In Study 1, the internal validity of the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q) was established on the basis of self-reported data from 52 multilingual adult participants. In Study 2, criterion-based validity was established on the basis of standardized language tests and self-reported measures from 50 adult Spanish-English bilinguals. Reliability and validity of the questionnaire were established on healthy adults whose literacy levels were equivalent to that of someone with a high school education or higher. RESULTS Factor analyses revealed consistent factors across both studies and suggested that the LEAP-Q was internally valid. Multiple regression and correlation analyses established criterion-based validity and suggested that self-reports were reliable indicators of language performance. Self-reported reading proficiency was a more accurate predictor of first-language performance, and self-reported speaking proficiency was a more accurate predictor of second-language performance. Although global measures of self-reported proficiency were generally predictive of language ability, deriving a precise estimate of performance on a particular task required that specific aspects of language history be taken into account. CONCLUSION The LEAP-Q is a valid, reliable, and efficient tool for assessing the language profiles of multilingual, neurologically intact adult populations in research settings.
Suv4-20h Abrogation Enhances Telomere Elongation during Reprogramming and Confers a Higher Tumorigenic Potential to iPS Cells

Reprogramming of adult differentiated cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) cells has been achieved by over-expression of specific transcription factors. Nuclear reprogramming induces a series of profound changes at the telomeres of the parental differentiated cells, including a telomerase-dependent telomere elongation and the remodeling of telomeric chromatin. In particular, iPS cells show a decreased density of H4K20me3 heterochromatic mark at telomeres compared to the parental cells. Suv4-20h1 and Suv4-20h2 histone methytransferases (HMTases) are responsible for the trimethylation of H4K20 at telomeres, as cells deficient for both HMTases show decreased levels of H4K20me3 at telomeric chromatin. Here, we set to address the role of the Suv4-20h enzymes in telomere reprogramming by generating bona-fide iPS cells from mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) double null for both HMTases (Suv4-20dn MEFs). We found that Suv4-20h deficiency enhances telomere elongation during reprogramming without altering their ability to protect the chromosome ends or the efficiency of reprogramming. Moreover, teratomas generated from Suv4-20dn iPS cells also have elongated telomeres and an increased growth rate when compared to wild-type controls. These results indicate that abrogation of Suv4-20h enzymes and loss of heterochromatic mark H4K20me3 at telomeric heterochromatin facilitates telomere reprogramming and provides an increased tumorigenic potential to the resulting iPS cells.
Exploring four generations' beliefs about career: Is “satisfied” the new “successful”?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether four different generations (Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y) hold different beliefs about career. Career type, career success evaluation and importance attached to organizational security are to be scrutinized for each generation.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 750 people completed a vignette task, rating the career success of 32 fictitious people. Each vignette contained a different combination of five career features (functional level, salary, number of promotions, promotion speed, and satisfaction) at two levels (low and high). Furthermore, several items were added in order to determine each participant's career type and the extent to which they attached importance to organizational security.Findings – The majority of participants still had rather “traditional” careers, although younger generations seemed to exhibit larger discrepancies between career preferences and actual career situation. Overall, sati.
Development of a Clinical Score (A2DS2) to Predict Pneumonia in Acute Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose— Poststroke pneumonia is a potentially preventable complication after stroke associated with poor outcome. We developed and externally validated a prognostic score for predicting risk of pneumonia after ischemic stroke. Methods— The prognostic score was developed based on clinical data routinely collected after admission from the Berlin Stroke Register, Germany. The association of demographics, comorbidities, and clinical characteristics with poststroke pneumonia was investigated using multivariable logistic regression analyses. Independent predictors of poststroke pneumonia were translated into a point scoring system based on the corresponding regression coefficients. The predictive properties of the developed prognostic score were externally validated using an independent data set from the Stroke Register Northwest-Germany. Results— Between 2007 and 2009, 15 335 patients with ischemic stroke were registered within the Berlin Stroke Register. The observed rate of pneumonia in hospital was 7.2%. A 10-point score was derived for prediction of poststroke pneumonia (Age ≥75 years=1, Atrial fibrillation=1, Dysphagia=2, male Sex=1, stroke Severity, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale 0–4=0, 5–15=3, ≥16=5; A2DS2). The proportion of pneumonia varied between 0.3% in patients with a score of 0 point to 39.4% in patients with a score of 10 points. The score demonstrated excellent discrimination (C-statistic 0.84; 95% CI, 0.83–0.85) and calibration (McFadden R2=0.21). Prediction, discrimination, and calibration properties were reproduced in the validation cohort consisting of 45 085 patients with ischemic stroke. Conclusions— The A2DS2 score is a valid tool for predicting poststroke pneumonia based on routinely available data. A2DS2 might be useful for guiding monitoring of high-risk patients or prophylactic pneumonia management in clinical routine.
Modeling severity risk under PD–LGD correlation

In this article, a generic severity risk framework in which loss given default (LGD) is dependent upon probability of default (PD) in an intuitive manner is developed. By modeling the conditional mean of LGD as a function of PD, which also varies with systemic risk factors, this model allows an arbitrary functional relationship between PD and LGD. Based on this framework, several specifications of stochastic LGD are proposed with detailed calibration methods. By combining these models with an extension of CreditRisk+, a versatile mixed Poisson credit risk model that is capable of handling both risk factor correlation and PD–LGD dependency is developed. An efficient simulation algorithm based on importance sampling is also introduced for risk calculation. Empirical studies suggest that ignoring or incorrectly specifying severity risk can significantly underestimate credit risk and a properly defined severity risk model is critical for credit risk measurement as well as downturn LGD estimation.
Elevated Serum Total IgE – A Potential Marker for Severe Chronic Urticaria

Background: Elevated IgE levels in patients with chronic urticaria have been noted previously, but the significance of these findings has not been appreciated. Objective: To measure the IgE levels in such patients and to examine the relationship between these levels and urticarial severity, autologous serum skin test, anti-thyroid antibodies and duration. Methods: Serum total IgE levels from 203 patients with chronic urticaria were measured and compared with nonatopic individuals. Additionally, patients were assessed for urticarial severity, the presence of autologous serum skin test and anti-thyroid antibodies. Results: Of the chronic urticaria patients, 47 (23.2%) were classified as mild, whereas 67 (33%) were classified as having moderate and 89 (43.8%) as having severe chronic urticaria. Total IgE levels were elevated, above 175 U/ml, in 69/203 (34%) of patients, compared with 7/81 (8.6%) of healthy controls (p < 0.001). A significant association between increased total IgE and chronic urticaria severity was found. Whereas 93% of patients with increased level of total IgE suffered from moderate-to-severe chronic urticaria, this was observed in only 69% of patients with normal IgE (p < 0.0001). Autologous serum skin test and anti-thyroid antibodies were positive in 59/163 (36%) and 28/189 (15%) patients, respectively. A significant association between increased total IgE levels and the presence of autologous serum skin test, anti-thyroid antibodies and urticarial duration lasting more than 25 months (p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001 and p = 0.021, respectively) was also detected. Conclusions: Total serum IgE levels are frequently elevated in patients with chronic urticaria and these are associated with disease severity and duration.
The impact of Mississippi's mandatory delay law on abortions and births.

CONTEXT Beginning August 8, 1992, a woman in the state of Mississippi had to wait 24 hours after in-person receipt of state-mandated information regarding abortion and birth complications, fetal development, and alternatives to abortion before an abortion could be performed. OBJECTIVE To analyze the effect of the law on the abortion and birth rates of Mississippi residents. DESIGN A retrospective analysis of abortion and birth rates before and after the law in Mississippi as contrasted with abortion and birth rates in 2 comparison states, Georgia and South Carolina. Neither Georgia nor South Carolina enforced a mandatory delay law, but both states began enforcement of parental notification statutes during the study period. PATIENTS Female residents of reproductive age in Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina between 1989 and 1994. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES We compared birth rates, abortion rates, the percentage of late abortions, and the percentage of abortions performed outside the state of residence for all women and then by age and race before and after August 1992 among women of Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. RESULTS We found that rate ratios (RRs) of resident abortion rates (rate after law implementation/rate before law implementation) declined 12% more in Mississippi than in South Carolina (95% confidence interval [CI], 8%-15%) and 14% more in Mississippi than in Georgia (95% CI, 10%-17%) in the 12 months after the law went into effect. Rate ratios for white adults declined 22% more in Mississippi than in South Carolina (95% CI, 17%-27%) and 20% more in Mississippi than in Georgia (95% CI, 15%-25%). Changes among nonwhite adults and white teens were more modest but also statistically significant (P<.05). For all women, RRs of the percentage of abortions performed after 12 weeks' gestation increased 39% more in Mississippi than in either South Carolina or Georgia (P<.05); the increase in the percentage of abortions after 12 weeks' gestation was observed for white and non-white adults (P<.05). We also show that the percentage of abortions performed out of state increased 42% more among women in Mississippi relative to women in South Carolina after the law (95% CI, 34%-50%). CONCLUSION The timing of the decline in abortion rates in Mississippi, the lack of similar declines in comparison states, the rise in percentage of late abortions and abortions performed out of state and the apparent completeness of abortion reports suggest that Mississippi's mandatory delay statute was responsible for a decline in abortion rates and an increase in abortions performed later in pregnancy among residents of Mississippi. The effect of delay laws in other states will likely depend on whether statutes require 2 separate visits to the abortion provider (ie, clinics, hospitals, or physicians' offices where abortions are performed) and the availability of abortion services.
Imperfect Decryption and an Attack on the NTRU Encryption Scheme

A property of the NTRU public-key cryptosystem is that it does not provide perfect decryption. That is, given an instance of the cryptosystem, there exist ciphertexts which can be validly created using the public key but which can’t be decrypted using the private key. The valid ciphertexts which an NTRU secret key will not correctly decipher determine, up to a cyclic shift, the secret key. In this paper we present attacks based on this property against the NTRU primitive and many of the suggested NTRU padding schemes [15, 10, 11]. These attacks use an oracle for determining if valid ciphertexts can be correctly deciphered, and recover the user’s secret key. The attacks are quite practical. For example, the attack against the NTRU-REACT padding scheme proposed in [15] with the N = 503 parameter set [21] requires on average fewer than 30,000 oracle calls and can be performed on a PC in a few minutes. As the traditional definition of a publickey encryption scheme requires perfect decryption, we also define a new type of encryption scheme which encompasses both NTRU and an attack model for the attacks presented against it.
Reduced goal‐directed action control in autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of heterogeneous neurodevelopmental conditions associated with persistent, stereotyped or repetitive actions, and patterns of interest that are maintained in spite of possible negative outcomes. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether impairments in the ability to execute flexible goal‐directed actions may be an underlying feature in ASD contributing to these symptoms. Young adults diagnosed with ASD were recruited along with controls and adults with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Participants were trained to make keyboard actions for food outcomes and then subsequently allowed to consume one outcome till satiety. As expected, this outcome devaluation procedure reduced subsequent responding for actions predicting the devalued outcome, while maintaining responding on the other still‐valued action, in controls. However, both ASD and SAD participants were unable to demonstrate flexible goal‐directed actions, and were insensitive to the change in outcome value on subsequent action control. This behavioral deficit was not due to impairments in appropriate contingency awareness, as all groups rated the devalued food outcome as less pleasant after devaluation. A lack of control over actions may underlie persistent and habitual actions in anxiety‐inducing contexts typical in both ASD and SAD, such as avoidance and safety behaviors. Using a translational behavioral paradigm, this study demonstrated that individuals with ASD are unable to use changes in the environment to flexibly update their behavior in the same context. This reduced behavioral control may underlie persistence of intrusive actions and restricted inflexible cognition, representing a specific area for targeted behavioral interventions. Autism Res 2016. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1285–1293. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Intestinal complications after chemotherapy for patients with unresected primary colorectal cancer and synchronous metastases

Background: The role of palliative resection of the primary tumour in patients who present with metastatic colorectal cancer is unclear. Aims: This study compared the incidence of major intestinal complications in such patients who received chemotherapy treatment with or without prior palliative resection of the primary tumour. Patients: The incidence of intestinal obstruction, perforation, fistula formation, and gastrointestinal haemorrhage, and the requirement for abdominal radiotherapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer treated at a single institution over a 10 year period was determined. Results: Eighty two patients received initial treatment with chemotherapy without resection of the primary tumour (unresected group) and 280 patients had undergone prior resection (resected group). In the unresected group, the incidence of peritonitis, fistula formation, and intestinal haemorrhage was 2.4% (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.3–8.5%), 3.7% (95% CI 0.8–10.3%), and 3.7% (95% CI 0.8–10.3%), respectively, and was not significantly different from the resected group. Intestinal obstruction affected 13.4% (95% CI 6.9–22.7%) of patients in the unresected group and 13.2% (95% CI 9.2–17.2%) of patients in the resected group. More patients in the unresected group required ⩾3 blood transfusions (14.6% v 7.5%; p=0.048) and abdominal radiotherapy (18.3% v 9.6%; p=0.03) than the resected group. Conclusions: The incidence of major intestinal complications in patients with unresected colorectal cancer and synchronous metastases who receive initial treatment with chemotherapy is low. Chemotherapy may be successfully used as initial treatment for such patients with no increased risk of most major intestinal complications compared with patients who have undergone initial resection of the primary tumour.
Acute Effects of Whole-Body Vibration on Jump Force and Jump Rate of Force Development: A Comparative Study of Different Devices

Bagheri, J, van den Berg-Emons, RJ, Pel, JJ, Horemans, HL, and Stam, HJ. Acute effects of whole-body vibration on jump force and jump rate of force development: A comparative study of different devices. J Strength Cond Res 26(3): 691–696, 2012—The goal of this study was to compare the acute effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) delivered by 3 devices with different mechanical behavior on jump force (JF) and jump rate of force development (JRFD). Twelve healthy persons (4 women and 8 men; age 30.5 ± 8.8 years; height 178.6 ± 7.3 cm; body mass 74.8 ± 9.7 kg) were exposed to WBV for 15 and 40 seconds using 2 professional devices (power plate [PP; vertical vibration] and Galileo 2000 [GA; oscillatory motion around the horizontal axis in addition to vertical vibration]) and a home-use device [Power Maxx, PM; horizontal vibration]). The JF and JRFD were evaluated before, immediately after, and 5 minutes after WBV. The JF measured immediately after 40 seconds of vibration by the GA device was reduced (3%, p = 0.05), and JRFD measured after 5 minutes of rest after 40 seconds of vibration by the PM device was reduced (12%, p < 0.05) compared with the baseline value. The acute effects of WBV (15 or 40 seconds) on JF and JRFD were not significantly different among the 3 devices. In conclusion, our hypothesis that WBV devices with different mechanical behaviors would result in different acute effects on muscle performance was not confirmed.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory phonophoresis versus topical application in improvement of hand grip strength in psoriatic arthritic patients

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of ibuprofen phonophresis versus topical application of ibuprofen in improvement of hand grip strength in psoriatic arthritic patients. Methods: Forty patients who had asymmetrical psoriatic arthritis in hand participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 30 to 50 years. Patients were classified randomly into two groups of equal numbers; group (1) (control group) received routine physical therapy (hot therapy, stretching and strengthening exercises), in addition to sham ibuprofen phonophoresis, while group (2) (studied group): received routine physical therapy, in addition to ibuprofen phonophoresis. Each patient was evaluated for grip strength, tender and swollen joint count before and after one month of treatment. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between both groups regarding to grip strength, tender and swollen joint count, with the percentage of improvement in group 1 were 56%, 54%, and 55% ,while in group 2 were 82%, 80% and 76% respectively. It is concluded that the results of the current study confirms the effectiveness of phonophoresis as a therapeutic modality enhancing the delivery of ibuprofen so increasing the percentage of improvement of grip strength in the studied group . (Amal M. Abd El Baky and Intsar S. Waked. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory phonophoresis versus topical application in improvement of hand grip strength in psoriatic arthritic patients. Journal of American Science 2011; 7(6): 110-114). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience. org.