Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An evaluation of the Touch Math method for teaching addition to students with learning disabilities in mathematics

The present study was designed to determine if children with learning disabilities in mathematics could be taught three‐row, double‐digit addition problems using a dot‐notation method. Three children with learning disabilities in mathematics were selected for the study. Prior to the intervention, these students employed a combination of count‐all and count‐on strategies when solving addition problems and relied on concrete referents such as fingers or tallies. A multiple‐probe design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The experiment consisted of a teaching phase where students learned to count the dots on numbers 1 to 9 in a specified pattern, and an intervention phase where students progressed through nine levels of addition problems. Results indicate that the three subjects were able to learn and apply the dot‐notation method successfully, and to retain the method from one‐and‐a‐half to four‐and‐a‐half months after completing instruction.
Reoperations after 3200 Revision TKAs: Rates, Etiology, and Lessons Learned

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence, etiology, and evolution with time of reoperations done after index revision total knee arthroplasties. After exclusion criteria were met, 1814 index knee revisions in 1627 patients were included in the final cohort with more than 50% of the revisions done for loosening and extensor mechanism problems and more than 80% of the revisions involving the femoral, tibial, or both components. Three hundred seventy-three knees subsequently have been reoperated on one or more times. The average time from index revision total knee arthroplasty to the first reoperation was 3.5 years (range, 1 day–19 years). Of the 1814 index revision total knee arthroplasties, 373 (20%) had 593 reoperations in 336 patients. The cumulative risks of first reoperation at 5, 10, and 15 years were 16.1% (95% CI, 14.2, 17.9), 26% (95% CI, 23.4, 28.6), and 31.4% (95% CI, 30.2, 39), respectively. There was no difference in risk to first reoperation when comparing the decades in which the index revisions were done (1970–1980, 1981–1990, and 1991–2000). There was a trend toward a higher cumulative risk of first time reoperations for deep infection, loosening, and instability in the last decade, but with the numbers available this was not statistically significant. The prevalence of reoperations in this large series of index revision total knee arthroplasties done for aseptic reasons was surprisingly high. Despite substantial improvements during the past 3 decades in component design, surgical technique, and prevention of infection, patients who have a revision total knee arthroplasty are at substantial risk of having one or more subsequent problems that result in a reoperation.
ACh, Uncertainty, and Cortical Inference

Acetylcholine (ACh) has been implicated in a wide variety of tasks involving attentional processes and plasticity. Following extensive animal studies, it has previously been suggested that ACh reports on uncertainty and controls hippocampal, cortical and cortico-amygdalar plasticity. We extend this view and consider its effects on cortical representational inference, arguing that ACh controls the balance between bottom-up inference, influenced by input stimuli, and top-down inference, influenced by contextual information. We illustrate our proposal using a hierarchical hidden Markov model.
Organization change: theory and practice

Novo livro de Burke, apresenta revisao abrangente da teoria, que culmina no promissor e ja famoso 'modelo Burke-Litwin' e em dois exemplos de sua aplicacao. Leitura importante para consultores e praticantes de mudanca organizacional e para alunos e professores de comportamento organizacional. De forma geral, e incomparavelmente mais bem fundamentado em nivel teorico do que a grande maioria dos textos existentes sobre o tema.
Increased Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome in Patients With Chronic Pancreatitis

Abstract Chronic inflammation may promote development of coronary heart disease. Studies on the relationship between chronic pancreatitis (CP) and cardiovascular diseases are scant. We conducted a nationwide retrospective cohort study to determine the risk of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in patients with CP. We randomly selected a comparison cohort of individuals without CP from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (N = 23.74 million) and frequency-matched them with patients with CP from 2000 to 2010 in a 1:4 ratio according to age, sex, and index year. The follow-up period lasted from the index date of the new CP diagnosis to the date of ACS diagnosis, censoring, or the end of 2011. We analyzed the risk of ACS by using Cox proportional-hazard models. In total, 17,405 patients with CP and 69,620 individuals without CP were followed for 84,430 and 417,426 person-years. Most patients with CP were men, and the mean age of the patients was 48.3 ± 15.0 years. The overall ACS incidence was 2.15-fold higher in the CP cohort than in the non-CP cohort (4.89 vs 2.28 per 10,000 person-years) with an adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 1.40 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20–1.64). Compared with individuals without CP, patients with CP aged ⩽39 years exhibited the highest risk of ACS (aHR 2.14, 95% CI 1.13–4.02), followed by those aged 40 to 54 years (aHR 1.66, 95% CI 1.23–2.24) and those aged 55 to 69 years (aHR 1.53, 95% CI 1.15–2.03). CP may become an independent risk factor for ACS.
A Qatari perspective on women in the engineering pipeline: an exploratory study

Under-representation of women in engineering has received a great deal of attention, but remained limited largely to a Western context. Thus, this article aims to unveil the barriers to progress, tracking the performance and the emerging trend of success at the undergraduate level of women in engineering in a different cultural dimension. Secondary research, particularly statistical data of female undergraduate engineering students at Qatar University (QU), is used in this study. Findings show that the booming economic development and access to modern education are the key drivers that change the position of women in Qatari society. A shift away from a masculine-dominated society to a more balance masculine/feminine society was identified as the impetus for better enrolment and achievement of female engineering students in Qatar. Similar to the trend in the USA, recruitment and not retention was the reason behind the under-representation of female undergraduate engineering students at QU.
Effects of Aging and Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease on Tactile Temporal Order Judgment

It is generally accepted that the basal ganglia play an important role in interval timing that requires the measurement of temporal durations. By contrast, it remains controversial whether the basal ganglia play an essential role in temporal order judgment (TOJ) of successive stimuli, a behavior that does not necessarily require the measurement of durations in time. To address this issue, we compared the effects of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) on the TOJ of two successive taps delivered to each hand, with the arms uncrossed in one condition and crossed in another. In addition to age-matched elderly participants without PD (non-PD), we examined young healthy participants so that the effect of aging could serve as a control for evaluating the effects of PD. There was no significant difference between PD and non-PD participants in any parameter of TOJ under either arm posture, although reaction time was significantly longer in PD compared with non-PD participants. By contrast, the effect of aging was apparent in both conditions. With their arms uncrossed, the temporal resolution (the interstimulus interval that yielded 84% correct responses) in elderly participants was significantly worse compared with young participants. With their arms crossed, elderly participants made more errors at longer intervals (~1 s) than young participants, although both age groups showed similar judgment reversal at moderately short intervals (~200 ms). These results indicate that the basal ganglia and dopaminergic systems do not play essential roles in tactile TOJ involving both hands and that the effect of aging on TOJ is mostly independent of the dopaminergic systems.
DECIMAL and PLFaultCAT: From Product-Line Requirements to Product-Line Member Software Fault Trees

PLFaultCAT is a tool for software fault tree analysis (SFTA) during product-line engineering. When linked with DECIMAL, a product-line requirements verification tool, the enhanced version of PLFaultCAT provides traceability between product- line requirements and SFTA hazards as well as semi-automated derivation of the SFTA for each new product-line system previously verified by DECIMAL. The combined tool reduces the effort needed to safely reuse requirements and customize the product-line SFTA as each new system is constructed.
Analysis of the Shotgun Expression Library of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Genome for Immunodominant Polypeptides: Potential Use in Serodiagnosis

ABSTRACT A recombinant DNA strategy was applied to analyze and screen the shotgun expression library from a clinically confirmed local virulent isolate of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with sera from tuberculosis patients, which led to expression and purification of highly immunoreactive and specific mycobacterial antigens expressed during the course of active disease which could be of diagnostic significance. An enzyme-linked immunoassay for diagnosis of tuberculosis was devised by using a shotgun immunoexpression library in the λgt11 vector. DNA from a virulent M. tuberculosis patient isolate (TBW-33) confirmed with the BACTEC 460 system was sheared and expressed to generate shotgun polypeptides. β-Galactosidase fusion proteins capable of demarcating active tuberculosis infections from Mycobacterium bovis BCG-vaccinated healthy subjects or people harboring environmental mycobacteria were selected by comparative immunoreactivity studies. Promising mycobacterial DNA cassettes were subcloned and expressed into the glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion vector pGEX-5X-1 with a strong tac promoter and were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21. These fusion proteins were severed at a built-in factor Xa recognition site to separate the GST tags and were utilized in an indirect enzyme-linked immunoassay for serodiagnosis of patients with active tuberculosis. The system offered a clear demarcation between BCG-vaccinated healthy subjects and patients with active tuberculosis and proved to be effective in detecting pulmonary as well as extrapulmonary tuberculosis, with an overall sensitivity of 84.33% and an overall specificity of 93.62%.
Southern Hemisphere Influenza and Vaccine Effectiveness Research and Surveillance

The 2009 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic highlighted the need for improved scientific knowledge to support better pandemic preparedness and seasonal influenza control. The Southern Hemisphere Influenza and Vaccine Effectiveness Research and Surveillance (SHIVERS) project, a 5‐year (2012–2016) multiagency and multidisciplinary collaboration, aimed to measure disease burden, epidemiology, aetiology, risk factors, immunology, effectiveness of vaccination and other prevention strategies for influenza and other respiratory infectious diseases of public health importance. Two active, prospective, population‐based surveillance systems were established for monitoring influenza and other respiratory pathogens among those hospitalized patients with acute respiratory illness and those enrolled patients seeking consultations at sentinel general practices. In 2015, a sero‐epidemiological study will use a sample of patients from the same practices. These data will provide a full picture of the disease burden and risk factors from asymptomatic infections to severe hospitalized disease and deaths and related economic burden. The results during the first 2 years (2012–2013) provided scientific evidence to (a) support a change to NZ's vaccination policy for young children due to high influenza hospitalizations in these children; (b) contribute to the revision of the World Health Organization's case definition for severe acute respiratory illness for global influenza surveillance; and (c) contribute in part to vaccine strain selection using vaccine effectiveness assessment in the prevention of influenza‐related consultations and hospitalizations. In summary, SHIVERS provides valuable international platforms for supporting seasonal influenza control and pandemic preparedness, and responding to other emerging/endemic respiratory‐related infections.
Strategies for Fostering Critical-Thinking Skills

Undergraduate education has been the subject of much recent criticism and discussion, which, along with changes in media industries, has led to a re-thinking of what and how we teach (Blanchard and Christ, 1993; Shoemaker, 1993). Within advertising curricula, responses to these changes include the integrated communications approach (Duncan, Caywood and Newsom, 1993) and increased emphasis upon teaching critical-thinking skills (Lancaster andMartin, 1989; Rotzoll, 1985). As faculty search for teaching strategies to foster critical-thinking skills, teachers of advertising may find their discipline well-suited to this type of curricular innovation. Advertising courses require that students do original research and use secondary data in a skillful and critical way. In the advertising media planning course, this is especially true, as students must use critical-thinking skills to make decisions in the uncertain and dynamic communication and social environment in which media plans are developed and operate. In this decision environment, few of the social variables affected by advertising campaigns are known, defined, or measured. Adding to the ambiguity is the lack of information planners face-some information is not attainable, due to cost or time constraints, and that information which is available is often incomplete. As a result, the actions and reactions of the target group, competitors, regulators, and media operators are often difficult for media planners to predict, much less change. To offer a pedagogic foundation upon which to build teaching strategies, this paper draws upon the seminal work of John Dewey and his theory of reflective thought. This perspective is used to create a series of exercises designed to foster students’ critical-thinking skills through the development of three key orientations to media-planning processes; tolerance for the ambiguity and lack of closure that is a fundamental part of the planning process, flexibility in articulating media planning problems and devising solutions, and adaptability to respond to changing media, market and audience conditions.
Microsaccades drive illusory motion in the Enigma illusion

Visual images consisting of repetitive patterns can elicit striking illusory motion percepts. For almost 200 years, artists, psychologists, and neuroscientists have debated whether this type of illusion originates in the eye or in the brain. For more than a decade, the controversy has centered on the powerful illusory motion perceived in the painting Enigma, created by op-artist Isia Leviant. However, no previous study has directly correlated the Enigma illusion to any specific physiological mechanism, and so the debate rages on. Here, we show that microsaccades, a type of miniature eye movement produced during visual fixation, can drive illusory motion in Enigma. We asked subjects to indicate when illusory motion sped up or slowed down during the observation of Enigma while we simultaneously recorded their eye movements with high precision. Before “faster” motion periods, the rate of microsaccades increased. Before “slower/no” motion periods, the rate of microsaccades decreased. These results reveal a direct link between microsaccade production and the perception of illusory motion in Enigma and rule out the hypothesis that the origin of the illusion is purely cortical.
Decreased mechanical efficiency in clinically stable patients with COPD.

BACKGROUND: It has recently been reported that total daily energy expenditure (TDE) is increased in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and it was hypothesised that these patients may have a decreased mechanical efficiency during activities. The purpose of the present study was to measure the mechanical efficiency of submaximal leg exercise, and to characterise patients with a potentially low efficiency in terms of body composition, resting energy expenditure, lung function, and symptom limited exercise performance. METHODS: Metabolic and ventilatory variables were measured breath by breath during submaximal cycle ergometry exercise performed at 50% of symptom limited achieved maximal load in 33 clinically stable patients with COPD (23 men) with forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) of 40 (12)% predicted. Net mechanical efficiency was calculated adjusting for resting energy expenditure (REE). RESULTS: Median mechanical efficiency was 15.5% and ranged from 8.5% to 22.7%. Patients with an extremely low mechanical efficiency (< 17%, n = 21) demonstrated an increased VO2/VE compared with those with a normal efficiency (median difference 4.7 ml/l, p = 0.005) during submaximal exercise. There was no difference between the groups differentiated by mechanical efficiency in blood gas tensions at rest, airflow obstruction, respiratory muscle strength, hyperinflation at rest, resting energy expenditure or body composition. There was a significant difference in total airways resistance (92% predicted, p = 0.03) between the groups differentiated by mechanical efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that many patients with severe COPD have decreased mechanical efficiency. Furthermore, based on the results of this study it is hypothesised that an increased oxygen cost of breathing during exercise contributes to the decreased mechanical efficiency.
Dissipationless collapse, weak homology and central cores of elliptical galaxies

By means of high-resolution N-body simulations we revisited the dissipationless collapse scenario for galaxy formation. We considered both single-component collapses and collapses of a cold stellar distribution in a live dark matter halo. Single-component collapses lead to stellar systems whose projected profiles are fitted very well by the Sersic R 1/m law with 3.6 < m < 8. The stellar end-products of collapses in a dark matter halo are still well described by the R 1/m law, but with 1.9 < m < 12, where the lowest m values are obtained when the halo is dominant. In all the explored cases the profiles at small radii deviate from their global best-fit R 1/m model, being significantly flatter. The break-radius values are comparable with those measured in ‘core’ elliptical galaxies, and are directly related to the coldness of the initial conditions. The dissipationless collapse of initially cold stellar distributions in pre-existing dark matter haloes may thus have a role in determining the observed weak homology of elliptical galaxies.
Codon bias signatures, organization of microorganisms in codon space, and lifestyle.

New and simple numerical criteria based on a codon adaptation index are applied to the complete genomic sequences of 80 Eubacteria and 16 Archaea, to infer weak and strong genome tendencies toward content bias, translational bias, and strand bias. These criteria can be applied to all microbial genomes, even those for which little biological information is known, and a codon bias signature, that is the collection of strong biases displayed by a genome, can be automatically derived. A codon bias space, where genomes are identified by their preferred codons, is proposed as a novel formal framework to interpret genomic relationships. Principal component analysis confirms that although GC content has a dominant effect on codon bias space, thermophilic and mesophilic species can be identified and separated by codon preferences. Two more examples concerning lifestyle are studied with linear discriminant analysis: suitable separating functions characterized by sets of preferred codons are provided to discriminate: translationally biased (hyper)thermophiles from mesophiles, and organisms with different respiratory characteristics, aerobic, anaerobic, facultative aerobic and facultative anaerobic. These results suggest that codon bias space might reflect the geometry of a prokaryotic "physiology space. " Evolutionary perspectives are noted, numerical criteria and distances among organisms are validated on known cases, and various results and predictions are discussed both on methodological and biological grounds.
Skin microcirculation and regional peripheral resistance in patients with chronic renal anaemia treated with recombinant human erythropoietin

Skin microcirculation and regional peripheral resistance were studied in 14 patients with renal anaemia during therapy with recombinant human erythropoietin. Haematocrit was raised from 20·0 to 31·3% after 10–12 weeks of treatment and remained stable over another period of 12 weeks. Antihypertensive treatment had to be intensified in five patients. Regional calf blood flow decreased significantly; accordingly, calculated peripheral vascular resistance was increased by more than 100%. However, transcutaneous oxygen pressure (37°C and 44°C) increased significantly. The pathological vasoconstrictor response of skin capillaries was not influenced. There were no significant differences of any parameter between the patients requiring reinforced antihypertensive therapy and those with stable blood pressure. In conclusion skin oxygenation may be improved by erythropoietin treatment to a large extent despite an increase in calculated total limb vascular resistance.
Positive Youth Development From Sport to Life: Explicit or Implicit Transfer?

While previous studies indicate that participation in sport has the potential to facilitate positive developmental outcomes, there is a lack of consensus regarding the possible transfer of these outcomes to other environments (i.e., school or work). An important issue within the positive development literature concerns how sport programs should approach the issue of transfer. This article outlines two distinct approaches to the transfer debate: the explicit approach and the implicit approach. Specifically, this article discusses the relative strengths and limitations of these two approaches with regards to their effectiveness, sustainability, and balance of adult- and youth-driven learning. Recommendations for future research directions are also presented.
evaluating a ‘new’ in-service professional development programme in greece: the experiences of tutors and teachers

Abstract This article explores critically the case of university-provided inservice training for secondary teachers in Greece, using the experience of both tutors and teachers as they embark upon it. It draws upon an exploratory study carried out with 22 secondary teachers (philologists) and 12 university teachers in the context of two university departments. The analysis focuses on two aspects of Kirkpatrick's (1975) conceptualisation of the evaluation process: reaction evaluation and learning evaluation. The findings highlighted the limitations of the event-delivery model of professional development, in particular, the vexatious relationship between theory and practice. The article concludes with a number of recommendations related to the need for the greater involvement of teachers in the organisation, formulation and delivery of in-service professional development.
Dynamic Bayesian Network Based Fault Diagnosis on Nonlinear Dynamic

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