Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sons daughters and intergenerational social support.

This study examines the effects of the number and gender composition of children on the receipt of social support by older persons [in the United States]. Effects vary with type of support: having daughters is most salient for telephone contact while frequency of visiting is affected by both gender and number of children. Living with children is influenced by the number but not gender of children. Finally the key to receiving help is having at least one daughter but there is no advantage of additional children of either gender.Findings are discussed in relation to models previously applied to support from different types of primary groups. (EXCERPT)
(Re-)Assessing Career Patterns in Multi-Level Systems: Insights from Wallonia in Belgium

Abstract This article proposes a new analytical framework for the study of political careers in multi-level systems. It is argued that the study of vertical movements between political arenas, which constitutes the prevalent methodological approach in the literature on political careers, should be complemented by the study of horizontal movements within political arenas. Based on a longitudinal analysis of individual political careers, the micro-approach developed in this article allows the comprehension of all territorial dynamics of political careers in multi-level systems. Based on an in-depth case study of all 419 Walloon careers in Belgium, four career patterns are identified: national careers, regional careers, multi-level careers and discrete careers. Although Belgium presents an integrated structure of opportunity, it is demonstrated that key evidences underline the prevalence of a regional and a national political class along a highly integrated political elites.
Theory and the Study of Migration in Africa

This special issue presents a series of articles that examine different aspects of migration, drawing on evidence from the African continent. Their aim is not simply to provide new empirical material but also to offer fresh theoretical insights that can unsettle, challenge and refine existing theories that frame the emerging field of migration studies. By bringing together this collection of papers from Africa, our intention is to help redress the balance of research on migration that is heavily skewed towards the interests and preoccupations of the wealthier regions of the world. In particular, we argue that the basic concepts of migration and the hypotheses concerning linkages between these concepts have been largely developed on the basis of research and experience beyond Africa. As a result, in very general terms, the continent tends to be a consumer of theory, which is produced from the production-line of analysis of migration from Mexico to the USA, across the Mediterranean, to the Gulf, and so on. In Africa, migration theory has tended to be delivered as a package to be empirically tested and proven in the ‘field’. But when it fails, it is taken back to the Western laboratory for further refinement before being shipped out again for another test run.
Inaccuracies in physicians' perceptions of their patients.

OBJECTIVE The objective was to assess primary care physicians' awareness of their patients' rated emotions, satisfaction, and opinion of the quality of their communication. DESIGN Diabetic patients (n = 261) and their primary care physicians (n = 44) each filled in a questionnaire following a routine medical visit. Patients were asked about the quality of communication with their physician, their satisfaction, and their experience of six emotions. Physicians were asked to estimate the patients' views on each of these questions. Physicians' awareness was measured by (1) correlating the physician and patient ratings, and (2) comparing mean ratings between physicians and patients. RESULTS Correlations between patients' and physicians' views of patients' emotions and satisfaction were weak to moderate in magnitude; for patients' opinion of communication quality, there was no correlation. All ratings showed a substantial discrepancy between physicians and patients, such that physicians thought patients' responses were more negative than they actually were. CONCLUSIONS Although the causes of physicians' weak awareness of their patients' responses are not known, the results suggest that the patients' affective responses may be an especially neglected aspect of communication in the medical visit.
Estimation of Sahelian-Grassland Parameters Using a Coherent Scattering Model and a Genetic Algorithm

In this paper, the applicability of a procedure for retrieval of vegetation parameters using a coherent scattering model that considers the botanical properties of Sahelian grassland and a stochastic optimization algorithm is studied. This African vegetation is mainly composed of shrubs and grass. Since the coherent scattering model is computationally time-consuming, a simplified empirical model is constructed by fitting of simulation results obtained by the scattering model. Inputs to the empirical model are the sensitive parameters that, for the studied class of vegetation, are the soil moisture content, grass density, and grass moisture content. The model outputs are the polarimetric backscattering coefficients as a function of the incidence angle. Employing the empirical model and a genetic algorithm, a search routine is implemented to estimate the biophysical parameters of the African vegetation from a data set of backscattering coefficients. The estimation of Sahelian-grassland parameters using the set of C-band HH-polarized measured data shows that this procedure achieves good agreement with the ground-truth data.
Making oneself heard – children's experiences of empowerment in Swedish preschools

Children's experiences of empowerment in relation to preschool peers and in child–adult interactions were studied, involving 25 four- to six-year-olds from four Swedish preschools. Group interviews using puppets comprised pre-constructed scenarios to examine preschools’ activities. Children took photos of indoor and outdoor preschool environments, followed by a photo-elicitation interview. Data were analysed by content analysis. Results showed that authority was expressed in relation to teachers and parents. Children negotiated about handling situations and described relations with teachers as uncomplicated; the contrary was the case with peers. Structure meant that children could choose between courses of action within set frames, describing empowerment as decision-making within limitations. Results indicated the importance of preschool teachers stimulating children to reflect on their own ability by discussing issues concerning children's sense of empowerment, using methods similar to the ones in this study.
Time-lag cross-correlations in collective phenomena

We study long-range magnitude cross-correlations in collective modes of real-world data from finance, physiology, and genomics using time-lag random matrix theory. We find long-range magnitude cross-correlations i) in time series of price fluctuations, ii) in physiological time series, both healthy and pathological, indicating scale-invariant interactions between different physiological time series, and iii) in ChIP-seq data of the mouse genome, where we uncover a complex interplay of different DNA-binding proteins, resulting in power-law cross-correlations in xij, the probability that protein i binds to gene j, ranging up to 10 million base pairs. In finance, we find that the changes in singular vectors and singular values are largest in times of crisis. We find that the largest 500 singular values of the NYSE Composite members follow a Zipf distribution with exponent ≈2. In physiology, we find statistically significant differences between alcoholic and control subjects.
A database of germline p53 mutations in cancer-prone families

We created a comprehensive database covering all published cases of germline p53 mutations. The current version lists 580 tumours in 448 individuals belonging to 122 independent pedigrees. The database describes each p53 mutation (type of the mutation, exon and codon affected by the mutation, nucleotide and amino acid change), each family (family history of cancer, diagnosis of Li-Fraumeni syndrome), each affected individual (sex, generation, p53 status, from which parent the mutation was inherited) and each tumour (type, age of onset, p53 status-loss of heterozygosity, immunostaining). Each entry contains the original reference(s). The database is freely available and can be obtained from http://www.lf2. cuni.cz
Text Coherence and Judgments of Essay Quality: Models of Quality and Coherence

This study investigates the importance of human evaluations of coherence in predicting human judgments of holistic essay quality. Of secondary interest is the potential for computational indices of cohesion and coherence to model human judgments of coherence. The results indicate that human judgments of coherence are the most predictive features of holistic essay scores and that computational indices related to text structure, semantic coherence, lexical sophistication, and grammatical complexity best explain human judgments of text coherence. These findings have important implications for understanding the role of coherence in writing quality.
Muscular torque generation during imposed joint rotation: torque-angle relationships when subjects' only goal is to make a constant effort

It is a reasonable expectation that voluntarily activated spinal motoneurons will be further excited by increases in spindle afferent activity produced by muscle stretch. Human motor behavior attributed to tonic stretch reflexes and to reflexes recruited by relatively slow joint rotation has been reported from several laboratories. We reinvestigated this issue by rotating the elbow joint over the central portion of its range while subjects focused on keeping their elbow flexion effort constant at one of three different levels and made no attempt to control the position, speed or direction of movement of their forearm. There is evidence that subjects' voluntary motor status is constant under these conditions so that any change in torque would be of involuntary origin. On average, torques rose somewhat and then fell as the elbow was flexed through a range of 80° at 10, 20 and 60°/s and a similar pattern occurred during elbow extension; i.e., both concentric and eccentric torque-angle profiles had roughly similar shapes and neither produced consistent stabilizing cross-range stiffness. The negative stiffness (rising torque) during the early part of a concentric movement and the negative stiffness (falling torque) during the later part of an eccentric movement would not have occurred if a stabilizing stretch reflex had been present. Positive stiffness rarely gave rise to torque changes greater than 20% in either individual or cross-subject averaged data. When angular regions of negative stiffness are combined with regions of low positive stiffness (torque change 10% or less), much of the range of motion was not well stabilized, especially during eccentric movements. The sum of the EMGs from biceps brachii, brachioradialis and brachialis showed a pattern opposite to that expected for a stretch reflex; there was an upward trend in the EMG as the elbow was flexed and a downward trend as the elbow was extended. There was little change in the shape of this EMG-angle relationship with either direction or velocity. The individual EMG-angle relationships were distinctive for each of these three elbow flexor muscles in four of the six subjects; in the remaining two, biceps was distinctive, but brachioradialis and brachialis appeared to be coupled. Although the EMGs of individual muscles were modulated over the angular range, no consistent stretch reflexes could be seen in the individual records. Thus, we could find no clear evidence for stretch reflex stabilization of human subjects maintaining a constant effort. Rather, muscle torque appears to be reflexly modulated across a much used portion of the elbow's angular range so that any appreciable stabilizing stiffness that is sustained for more than fractions of a second is associated with a change in effort.
Supporting Third Year Medical Students' Skill Acquisition and Self-Efficacy with Coping Models and Process Feedback during Laparoscopic Knot Tying Simulation

Background: During the third year general surgery clerkship, medical students are required to develop laparoscopic knot-tying skills. Knot-tying skills studies often rely on objective variables (e.g., time, materials used, number of iterations) that lend themselves to correlational analysis of pre- and post-intervention skill level. This study differs by examining how instructional interventions—role modeling and feedback—affect medical students' skill acquisition and self-efficacy during a laparoscopic surgical simulation training session. Methods: Seventy-eight surgical clerkship students were assigned randomly to one cell of a 2X2 factorial design. Participants observed one of two types of role modeling (expert vs. coping) and received either process-oriented or outcome-oriented feedback during a 30-min laparoscopic training session. Participants also completed several surveys that assessed their interest in surgery and their self-efficacy for laparoscopic knot tying. Results: Coping model groups tended to perform better on the knot tying task, though this was less the case in the presence of outcome feedback. Expert model groups slightly outperformed the coping model group on the peg transfer task, but in the presence of outcome feedback they reported the lowest satisfaction with their performance and the lowest self-efficacy for the knot tying task. The coping model combined with process feedback had a positive influence on students' efficiency in learning the task, on their satisfaction with their performance, and on their self-efficacy for laparoscopic knot typing. Conclusions: Results are discussed relative to self-regulated learning theory.
Congenital Abdominal Wall Defects: An Update

Objective: To review published peer-reviewed literature regarding abdominal wall defects including gastroschisis and omphalocele. Methods: Review of published peer-reviewed literature using Med Line 1985–2003 and textbooks. Results: Gastroschisis and omphalocele literature is reviewed using pathology, incidence and epidemiology, prenatal evaluation, pregnancy and delivery management, postnatal outcome and fetal therapy. Conclusion: Gastroschisis and omphalocele are common abdominal wall defects and have significant morbidity and mortality.
A PUBLIC CATALOG OF STELLAR MASSES, STAR FORMATION AND METALLICITY HISTORIES, AND DUST CONTENT FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY USING VESPA

We applied the VESPA algorithm to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey final data release of the Main Galaxies and Luminous Red Galaxies samples. The result is a catalog of stellar masses, detailed star formation and metallicity histories and dust content of nearly 800,000 galaxies. We make the catalog public via a T-SQL database, which is described in detail in this paper. We present the results using a range of stellar population and dust models, and will continue to update the catalog as new and improved models are made public. We also present a brief exploration of the catalog, and show that the quantities derived are robust: luminous red galaxies can be described by one to three populations, whereas a main galaxy sample galaxy needs on average two to five; red galaxies are older and less dusty; the dust values we recover are well correlated with measured Balmer decrements and star formation rates are also in agreement with previous measurements. We find that whereas some derived quantities are robust to the choice of modelling, many are still not.
The Proapoptotic Effect of Traditional and Novel Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in Mammalian and Yeast Cells

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have long been used to treat pain, fever, and inflammation. However, mounting evidence shows that NSAIDs, such as aspirin, have very promising antineoplastic properties. The chemopreventive, antiproliferative behaviour of NSAIDs has been associated with both their inactivation of cyclooxygenases (COX) and their ability to induce apoptosis via pathways that are largely COX-independent. In this review, the various proapoptotic pathways induced by traditional and novel NSAIDs such as phospho-NSAIDs, hydrogen sulfide-releasing NSAIDs and nitric oxide-releasing NSAIDs in mammalian cell lines are discussed, as well as the proapoptotic effects of NSAIDs on budding yeast which retains the hallmarks of mammalian apoptosis. The significance of these mechanisms in terms of the role of NSAIDs in effective cancer prevention is considered.
Footprints of divergent evolution in two Na+/H+ type antiporter gene families (NHX and SOS1) in the genus Populus

Populus, a deciduous tree species of major economic and ecological value, grows across the range in which trees are distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. Patterns of DNA variation are often used to identify the evolutionary forces shaping the genotypes of distinctive species lineages. Sodium/hydrogen (Na+/H+) antiporter genes have been shown to play a central role in plant salt tolerance. Here, we analyzed DNA nucleotide polymorphisms in the Na+/H+ antiporter (NHX and SOS1) gene families across 30 different Populus species using several methods of phylogenetic analysis and functional verification. NHX and SOS1 gene families in the genus Populus have expanded from the state in their common ancestors by duplication events, and their distinct lineages have been retained. Signals of positive selection at certain amino acid sites in different members of the Na/H antiporter gene families show that the dynamics that drive the evolution of each gene vary. SOS1 has undergone duplication in Populus euphratica and been subjected to adaptive evolution in section Turanga; the paralog of PeSOS1 (PeSOS1.2) can complement the Escherichia coli mutant EP432; and the expression pattern of PeSOS1.2 is different from that of PeSOS1, a fact which may have been beneficial for P. euphratica, conferring a fitness advantage in saline habitats. The divergent evolution of the individual members of the NHX and SOS1 gene families is likely to have been influenced by the varied ecological and environmental niches occupied by the different poplar species, giving rise to evolutionary footprints that reflect the specific functions and subcellular localizations of the proteins encoded by these genes.
Plasma Leptin, Adiponectin, Neuropeptide Y Levels in Drug Naive Children With ADHD

Objective: ADHD is one of the most common childhood psychiatric disorders. Research indicates that there is some link between obesity/overweight and ADHD, though the mechanism of this association remains uncertain. It is the aim of the present study to explore the association between ADHD, obesity, and plasma leptin, neuropeptide Y (NPY), and adiponectin levels. Method: Thirty-six patients diagnosed with ADHD were included in the study. The control group consisted of 40 healthy children and adolescents who had similar age and gender features with the patient group. Plasma leptin, adiponectin, NPY levels were measured, and body mass index (BMI), weight for height, and standard deviation scores (SDS) of height, weight, and BMI were calculated. Results: No significant difference was found between patients and healthy children in terms of BMI and BMI percentile. Participants were classified into three groups according to their weight to height values. There was no significant difference between the two groups, but 10% of the control group and 30.6% of the ADHD group were classified as overweight, which was 3 times higher than the control group. The adiponectin plasma level was significantly lower and leptin/adiponectin (L/A) ratio was significantly higher in the ADHD group. There was no significant difference between serum NPY levels. In the ADHD group, the mean leptin plasma level was high, but was not statistically significant. Conclusion: We think that a low adiponectin level and high L/A ratio may be the underlying mechanism of the obesity in ADHD patients.
Innovation as identity construction in language teaching and learning: case studies from Hong Kong

This paper reports on a qualitative multiple case study that examined the implementation of innovations in English language education by three teachers in Hong Kong. Grounded in an analytical framework of teacher identity, in-depth interviews over an entire year provide a longitudinal understanding of the participants' experiences of simultaneously negotiating identity and implementing innovation in language teaching and learning within different schools in Hong Kong. Results point to a mutually constitutive relationship between identity and the implementation of these innovations. It is argued that the implementation of innovation underpinned the capacity of participants to both position themselves, as well as to be positioned by others, as particular types of teachers. The results also suggest that being afforded scope to explore their preferred professional identities, both discursively and experientially, is essential to the implementation of innovation. The analysis highlights that the implementation of innovation can be blocked or restricted if scope for the exploration of particular identities is denied to teachers, and that this may result in the marginalization of the identities teachers are seeking to construct. Implications for schools wishing to foster the implementation of innovation in language teaching and learning are discussed and suggestions for future research considered.
Sexual behavior and hormonal estrus cycles in captive aged lowland gorillas (gorilla gorilla)

To evaluate whether observed cycles in proceptive behavior in aging lowland gorilla females (age 40+) at Brookfield Zoo were driven by ovarian activity, we compared monthly behavioral data to estradiol and progestogen cycles based on fecal hormone assessments. Progestogen peaks showed regularity and close coincidence with monthly sexual behaviors. Estradiol was more variable. Progestogen peaks varied between 22±5 days for the control female (29 years old), to 24±2.5 and 29±8 for the two aged subjects. In the first aged female, which was housed with other females and a silverback, the high degree of cyclicity in sexual behavior, regularity of progestogen cycles, and close concordance between hormonal cycling and sexual behavior strongly compared to patterns found (in this and other studies) in gorilla females <35 years old. Cyclical progestogen peaks were longer and more variable in the second aged female—perhaps because she lacked the social mediation of other females or a male. For husbandry reasons she is not housed with the gorilla group, behavioral data were not collected from her. The value of our longitudinal study is in obtaining reproductive profiles of primate females that are approaching maximum lifespan. This pilot study is part of a larger research project on reproductive senescence that will include other captive females >35 years old, a population that is rapidly increasing in North American zoos as gorillas continue to age. Am. J. Primatol. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in clinical samples by using a simple lysis method and polymerase chain reaction

We have evaluated the polymerase chain reaction for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples from patients with tuberculous infection. Two simple methods for mycobacterial DNA release have been compared: sonication and lysis with nonionic detergents and proteinase K. The more effective method was the enzymatic technique. By using this protocol with 75 specimens we detected M. tuberculosis DNA in all of the samples, whereas only 48 and 71 samples were positive by acid-fast staining and culture, respectively.