Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two case study evaluations of an arts-based social skills intervention for adolescents with childhood brain disorder

Objective: Arts-based programmes have been shown to be useful for individuals with disturbances in cognitive and behavioural functioning. The current case studies examined the feasibility and effectiveness of a theatre skills training programme to facilitate social skills and participation for adolescents with childhood brain disorder. Methods: A case study approach was used with two adolescent participants. Focus groups were conducted immediately post-intervention, while a battery of quantitative measures were administered pre- and post-treatment, as well as 8 months post-treatment. Results: Perceived and documented improvements in social skills and participation were observed from pre- to post-intervention and at follow-up. Conclusion: Results support the use of an arts-based intervention for youth with brain injuries to facilitate social skills and participation. Findings also highlight the need for more sensitive measures of these skills for youth with childhood brain disorder, who may have impaired awareness of their abilities and/or impairments in memory and language comprehension.
South Africa and China as BRICS Partners: Media Perspectives on Geopolitical Shifts

The emergence of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) group of states as a new geopolitical power bloc has received substantial coverage in the media. South Africa’s inclusion in the group has been particularly controversial, and media attention tended to focus on the country’s relationship with China against the backdrop of the BRICS alignment. The media industry itself has also been a part of global movements of people and capital. This article seeks to establish how this relationship has been represented in the South African media, and to explore the attitudes of senior journalists and editors towards South Africa’s position within the changing global geopolitical landscape.
Clinical evaluation of Nigella sativa seeds for the treatment of hyperlipidemia: a randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial.

BACKGROUND Natural products are proved to play a good role as an alternative to synthetic chemicals in many clinical conditions. Hypercholesterolemia is the most important risk factor for atherosclerosis. Previous studies showed that Nigella sativa L. has both antioxidant and lipid lowering potentials. THE AIM OF THIS STUDY To evaluate the efficacy of the seeds of Nigella sativa on the treatment of hyperlipidemia. METHODS In this randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial which was conducted in Isfahan city (Iran), 88 subjects aged > or =18 years with a total cholesterol concentration >200 mg/dl were included. According to the patients" profiles number, they were randomized to receive either N. sativa capsules or the matching placebo. Each N sativa capsule contained 500 +/- 10 mg N. sativa crushed seeds, and patients had to take 2 g N. sativa per day for 4 weeks. Fasting baseline laboratory values (fasting blood sugar, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein, high density lipoprotein and triglyceride) were obtained for all parameters on each subject prior to the start of the study and at the end of 4 weeks. RESULTS In our study a significant decrease was observed in the concentration of total cholesterol (4.78%), Low density lipoprotein (7.6%) and Triglyceride (16.65%), and this decrease was more significant for TG concentration. N. sativa had not any beneficial effects on Fasting blood sugar and High density lipoprotein. CONCLUSION According to the results of our present study it seems that N. sativa may have some beneficial therapeutic effects in the treatment of hyperlipidemia. However, further investigations with a larger sample size are necessary.
Categorization and naming in children: Problems of induction . Ellen Markman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. Pp. 250.

REFERENCES MacWhinney, B. (1987). The competition model. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Maratsos, M. P. (1979). Learning how and when to use pronouns and determiners. In P. Fletcher & M. Garman (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 225-240). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zubin, D. A. , & Kopcke, K. -M. (1981). Gender: A less than arbitrary grammatical category. In R. A. Hendrick, C. S. Masek, & M. F. Miller (Eds.), Papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (pp. 439-449). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1983, October). Semantic categorization of nouns in the German gender system. Paper presented to the Conference on Noun Classification, Eugene, OR.
Child psychotherapy dropout: an empirical research review

This study aims to discuss the most recent data about child psychotherapy dropout, especially child psychoanalytical psychotherapy. The authors also try to offer some possible alternatives to prevent such a phenomenon. The definition of ‘child psychotherapy dropout’ is extensively discussed. The goal has been to attempt to create a standardised definition for psychotherapy dropout, which could help therapists from different theoretical backgrounds classify the term in a more unified manner.
Therapeutic Synergy of Oral Taxane BMS-275183 and Cetuximab versus Human Tumor Xenografts

Purpose: Combination therapy consisting of an oral taxane, BMS-275183, and the anti-epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody, cetuximab, was assessed for enhanced therapeutic benefit in preclinical tumor models. Experimental Design: Mice bearing human tumor xenografts, either L2987 lung or GEO colon carcinoma, were administered the aforementioned treatments singly or in combination regimens. Delays in tumor growth and tumor-free status were evaluated and combination treatments were assessed relative to optimal solo treatments. Results: Combination therapies with the oral taxane plus cetuximab were tolerated and therapeutic synergistic outcomes obtained. The therapeutic enhancements were >1 log cell kill greater than the antitumor effect caused by either solo agent applied optimally. For example, at the maximum-tolerated dose of BMS-275183, 60 mg/kg/administration, given p.o. once every 3 days for a total of six administrations (q3d×6), 1.0 gross log cell kill was achieved in mice bearing well established (100 to 200 mg) s.c. implanted L2987 tumors. Cetuximab, at an optimal dose of 1 mg/mouse, given i.p. q3d×6, produced 1.3 log cell kill. When cetuximab, 1 mg/mouse, i.p., plus BMS-275183, 25 mg/kg/administration, p.o. , were both given q3d×6, the result was 2.6 log cell kill with three of eight mice cured (P < 0.01). Similar efficacy benefits were obtained in the GEO tumor model. Conclusions: The combination of oral taxane BMS-275183 plus cetuximab provided therapeutically synergistic antitumor activity in two different human tumor xenograft models. Clinical evaluation of this combination is recommended.
Unsupervised Text Segmentation Based on Native Language Characteristics

Most work on segmenting text does so on the basis of topic changes, but it can be of interest to segment by other, stylistically expressed characteristics such as change of authorship or native language. We propose a Bayesian unsupervised text segmentation approach to the latter. While baseline models achieve essentially random segmentation on our task, indicating its difficulty, a Bayesian model that incorporates appropriately compact language models and alternating asymmetric priors can achieve scores on the standard metrics around halfway to perfect segmentation.
Community Participation: Challenges for People with Disabilities Living in Oaxaca, Mexico, and New Mexico, United States

The use of wheelchairs or other mobility aids often limits the community participation of people with disabilities because of architectural barriers present in buildings. Although this has been recognized as a global problem, little research has been done to document accessibility standards on an international level. This study reports results from a survey using the Americans With Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines Checklist for Buildings and Facilities to measure the differences in levels of accessibility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, and Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Investigators surveyed four building types (stores, restaurants, churches, and government buildings or public museums) in both geographic locations to determine whether each building was accessible. The findings showed that buildings in Albuquerque were significantly (p < .0001) more accessible than buildings in Oaxaca on all measurement items and across all four building types. However, many buildings in Albuquerque were not fully accessible.
Everyday problem solving in Alzheimer's patients: A comparison of subjective and objective assessments

Patient self-reports, caregiver reports and objective measures are commonly employed methods of assessing everyday cognitive competence. However, little research has examined the relationship among them. The current study assessed the congruence among Alzheimer's patients' and their caregivers' ratings of patient performance on instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and scores on an objective measure of everyday competence, the Everyday Problems Test for the Cognitively Challenged Elderly (EPCCE). The effects of patient and caregiver characteristics on these relationships were also examined. Participants included 63 patient/caregiver dyads who were part of a larger, ongoing longitudinal study at the Stanford Aging Clinical Research Center. Significant positive relationships between patient and caregiver ratings and between each of these ratings and EPCCE scores suggest that both informant groups perceive the pattern of AD patients' everyday cognitive decline similarly, and that patients are aware.
Carbohydrate–Aromatic Interactions in Proteins

Protein–carbohydrate interactions play pivotal roles in health and disease. However, defining and manipulating these interactions has been hindered by an incomplete understanding of the underlying fundamental forces. To elucidate common and discriminating features in carbohydrate recognition, we have analyzed quantitatively X-ray crystal structures of proteins with noncovalently bound carbohydrates. Within the carbohydrate-binding pockets, aliphatic hydrophobic residues are disfavored, whereas aromatic side chains are enriched. The greatest preference is for tryptophan with an increased prevalence of 9-fold. Variations in the spatial orientation of amino acids around different monosaccharides indicate specific carbohydrate C–H bonds interact preferentially with aromatic residues. These preferences are consistent with the electronic properties of both the carbohydrate C–H bonds and the aromatic residues. Those carbohydrates that present patches of electropositive saccharide C–H bonds engage more often in CH−π interactions involving electron-rich aromatic partners. These electronic effects are also manifested when carbohydrate–aromatic interactions are monitored in solution: NMR analysis indicates that indole favorably binds to electron-poor C–H bonds of model carbohydrates, and a clear linear free energy relationships with substituted indoles supports the importance of complementary electronic effects in driving protein–carbohydrate interactions. Together, our data indicate that electrostatic and electronic complementarity between carbohydrates and aromatic residues play key roles in driving protein–carbohydrate complexation. Moreover, these weak noncovalent interactions influence which saccharide residues bind to proteins, and how they are positioned within carbohydrate-binding sites.
LexPageRank: Prestige in Multi-Document Text Summarization

Multidocument extractive summarization relies on the concept of sentence centrality to identify the most important sentences in a document. Central-ity is typically deﬁned in terms of the presence of particular important words or in terms of similarity to a centroid pseudo-sentence. We are now considering an approach for computing sentence importance based on the concept of eigenvector centrality (prestige) that we call LexPageRank. In this model, a sentence connectivity matrix is constructed based on cosine similarity. If the cosine similarity be-tween two sentences exceeds a particular predeﬁned threshold, a corresponding edge is added to the connectivity matrix. We provide an evaluation of our method on DUC 2004 data. The results show that our approach outperforms centroid-based summarization and is quite successful compared to other summarization systems.
Comparison of transperitoneal laparoscopic access techniques: Optiview visualizing trocar and Veress needle.

PURPOSE We retrospectively compared the safety, efficacy, and relative indications of the Optiview visualizing trocar and the Veress needle for obtaining transperitoneal laparoscopic access. PATIENTS AND METHODS Of 100 consecutive transperitoneal laparoscopic procedures performed by a single surgeon, the Veress needle was used initially in 96 patients. The Optiview was used on 26 occasions: in 4 patients as the initial access attempt, and in 22 patients after the Veress needle had failed. Patient characteristics (age, body mass index [BMI], American Society of Anesthesiologists [ASA] score, and history of abdominal surgery), success rates, and complications were compared. RESULTS Access was obtained successfully with the Optiview in 25 of 26 cases (96%), whereas the Veress needle was successful in 72 of 96 (75%; P = 0.02). The Hasson cannula was used successfully after two of the Veress needle failures and the single Optiview failure. Age, BMI, ASA score, and history of abdominal surgery were not associated with access failure. There were no Optiview-related complications. Use of the Hasson cannula was not associated with any complications, but it was difficult to place, leaked gas, or both in two of the three patients. There were four Veress-related access complications (all minor): one colon insufflation, two retroperitoneal hematomas, and one liver laceration. CONCLUSIONS As an alternative to the Hasson cannula, the Optiview visualizing trocar is a safe and highly effective method of obtaining transperitoneal laparoscopic access, particularly in those patients in whom difficulty is encountered with the Veress needle. However, the needle is less expensive and, in our experience, has not been associated with significant complications. Because we were unable to determine objective patient characteristics that increase the risk for Veress needle failure, we continue to use it for the first attempts at transperitoneal access in most patients.
Hepatotoxicity associated with antifungal therapy after bone marrow transplantation.

Received 31 March 2005; accepted 4 April 2005; electronically published 24 June 2005. Reprints or correspondence: Dr. John R. Wingard, University of Florida College of Medicine, Div. of Hematology/ Oncology, PO Box 100277, 1600 SW Archer Rd., ARB4-165, Gainesville, FL 32610-0277 (wingajr@medicine.ufl.edu). Clinical Infectious Diseases 2005; 41:308–1
(EGL) and Contrastive Rhetoric: Reflections from L2 Writing Research

This study argues that if we, really, accept English as a global language, and diversity of cultures, we have to better understand the different composing conventions of different cultures; otherwise, written communication among people of different cultures may break down. This argument is theoretically based on a number of premises drawn from Purves’s (1988) extensive research in contrastive rhetoric. With this in mind, the present study attempts to show how Arabic and Spanish speakers narrate in English and, to what extent their native cultures affect their narrative written productions. In addition, some of the cognitive factors that may shape the subjects’ written productions were discussed. Using Labov’ sociolinguistic model of narrative structure, this study shows that the narrative texts of both Arabic and Spanish speakers share almost all the structural properties of Labov’s model. This finding may lead us to claim that regardless of the subjects’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the narrative structural components seem to be somehow universal. This claim needs to be tested with low-level subjects of various languages and cultures.
Predicting employee life satisfaction: A coherent model of personality, work, and nonwork experiences, and domain satisfactions.

This study examined a theoretical model that linked neuroticism, extraversion, daily hassles and uplifts in both work and nonwork domains, job satisfaction, and nonwork satisfaction to overall life satisfaction. Structural equation analyses were conducted on 3 waves of data obtained from 479 police officers. It was found that job satisfaction and nonwork satisfaction made independent contributions to overall life satisfaction, but there was no significant relationship between work experiences and nonwork satisfaction, nor between nonwork experiences and job satisfaction. These findings support a segregation model rather than a spillover model of the links between the work and nonwork domains of employees' lives. Moreover, the total effects showed that life satisfaction was determined, in order of importance, by nonwork satisfaction, neuroticism, nonwork hassles, job satisfaction, nonwork uplifts, extraversion, work hassles, and work uplifts.
Quality of Work Life and its Relation to Quality of Life

Cette etude s'est donne pour objectifs de parvenir a une definition d'ensemble du concept “Qualite de la vie au travail” (QVT) et d‘eprouver empiriquement sa structure. On propose une definition multiple de la QVT et de ses relations avec la qualite de la vie en general basee sur la theorie systemique de l'action, ce qui fournit des criteres pour la selection des items et la formulation des hypotheses sur la structure des interrelations entre les dimensions de la QVT. Utilisant des donnees recuellies sur des echantillons de travailleurs hongrois, les hypotheses ont eteeprouvees au moyen de l'analyse du plus petit espace de Guttman. Les resultats confirment les hypotheses. On a obtenu un systeme conceptuel empirique doublement ordonne, une structure “radex” qui exprime les deux aspects de la definition de la QVT: mode de fonctionnement (expressif, integrateur, adaptateur, conservateur) et domaine de fonctionnement (psychologique, physique, social, culturel). La structure du monde de la QVT et de la qualite de la vie est comme prevu conique: la qualite de la vie occupe la base du cone et la QVT le sommet. La satisfaction procedant de la vie et du travail est situee entre les deux. The major objective of the present study was to suggest a comprehensive definitional framework for the quality of work life (QWL) concept and to test its structure empirically. A facet definition of QWL and its relation to quality of life (QOL) in general based on action systemic concepts is proposed, which provides guidelines for the selection of items and the formulation of hypotheses about the structure of interrelationships among components of QWL. Based on data collected from samples of Hungarian workers, the hypotheses were tested by means of Guttman's Smallest Space Analysis. The results support the hypotheses. An empirical doubly ordered conceptual system, a radex structure, was obtained that reflects the two facets of the definition of QWL: mode of functioning—expressive, integrative, adaptive and conservative; and field of functioning—psychological, physical, social and cultural. The structure of the total universe of QWL and QOL is a conical structure as hypothesised. Quality of life occupies the base of the cone and QWL the top. Satisfaction with life and work were found to be located between the two.
Emotional regulation as a mediator between interpersonal mistreatment and distress

Theory and research from the emotional labour literature focusing on mistreatment of employees by customers were used to examine interpersonal mistreatment by customers, coworkers, and supervisors. Specifically, we examined the relationships between all three of these sources of interpersonal mistreatment and psychological distress. We also examine the possibility that emotional regulation strategies mediated these relationships. In Study 1, we focused on surface acting as the mediating emotional regulation strategy. Using a sample of 256 working adults, the results of that study found a mediating role for surface acting between mistreatment and distress for mistreatment by customers and coworkers but not supervisors. In Study 2, we included measures of both deep acting and surface acting as potential mediators between sources of mistreatment and distress. Using a sample of 138 working adults, this second study again found that surface acting mediated the relationship between mistreatment and distress for mistreatment by customers and coworkers but not supervisors. Further, deep acting did not mediate any of the relationships between sources of mistreatment and psychological distress. We conclude surface acting plays an important mediating role in the relationship between interpersonal mistreatment by both customers and coworkers, and psychological distress.
Elimination of self-injurious behaviour by brief physical restraint and DRA

Abstract Brief physical restraint and differential reinforcement of alternative behaviour (DRA) were used to treat the self-injurious and stereotypic behaviour of an institutionalized profoundly mentally handicapped boy. The study employed a multiple baseline design across behaviours, and data were gathered at 30-second intervals. The treatment lasted for about three weeks, after which the subject became the responsibility of regular staff for maintenance. The treatment resulted in rapid elimination of inappropriate behaviour and an increase in reinforced toy-play. The maintenance was discontinued after four months because the direct care staff had difficulties in applying the treatment. After two years the self-injurious behaviour of the subject was almost totally absent, while toy-play had increased.
Children's and adults' parafoveal processes in German: Phonological and orthographic effects

Phonological and orthographic information has been shown to play an important role in parafoveal processing in skilled adult reading in English. In the present study, we investigated whether similar parafoveal effects can be found in children using the boundary eye tracking method. Children and adults read sentences in German with embedded target nouns which were presented in original, pseudohomophone (PsH), transposed-letter (TL), lower-case and control conditions to assess phonological and orthographic preview effects. We found evidence of PsH preview benefit effects for children. We also found TL preview benefit effects for adults, while children only showed these effects under specific conditions. Results are consistent with the developmental view that reading initially depends on phonological processes and that orthographic processes become increasingly important.
New directions for dual enrollment: Creating stronger pathways from high school through college

This chapter provides a national picture of innovative learning options, such as dual enrollment and early college high schools. These options prepare high school students for college-level course work by providing supported early immersion in college. The chapter also discusses how such programs can help a wide range of students and highlights the importance of state policy in encouraging these efforts to create stronger connections among high schools, post-secondary institutions, and the workforce.