Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interleukin-17+CD8+ T Cells Are Enriched in the Joints of Patients With Psoriatic Arthritis and Correlate With Disease Activity and Joint Damage Progression

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is associated with HLA class I genes, in contrast to the association with HLA class II in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Since IL‐17+ cells are considered important mediators of synovial inflammation, we sought to determine whether IL‐17–producing CD8+ T cells may be found in the joints of patients with PsA and whether these cells might contribute to the disease process.
Pathways to Women's Empowerment in Contemporary Bangladesh: Fertility, Resources, and Intimate Partner Violence

Pathways to Women’s Empowerment in Contemporary Bangladesh: Fertility, Resources, and Intimate Partner Violence By Sara Kathleen Head Empirical evidence suggests women’s empowerment, defined variously, and fertility mutually influence one another. Research on this relationship is most abundant in classic patriarchies; historically in these settings proof of fertility and the birth of sons have been critical for a woman’s social standing and economic security according to women’s financial dependence on male relatives, constrained sexuality, and confinement to the domestic sphere. Social and economic changes are transforming classic patriarchal systems and have various potential impacts on women’s societal role and pathways to empowerment. This dissertation conducted three studies in one classic patriarchal setting, Bangladesh, to examine the direct and indirect effects of fertility and other resources on a fundamental dimension of women’s empowerment, household decision making. Study 1 examined effects of women’s cumulative fertility and conformity to community based fertility norms on empowerment. Findings indicated women’s empowerment remains low, and aspects of increased fertility were negatively associated with empowerment. Study 2 reviewed three mediation models examining the net effect of fertility on empowerment as mediated by intimate partner violence (IPV). Results indicated cumulative fertility has only modest influence on empowerment; having at least one child, though not necessarily a son, remain important for women’s empowerment. Study 3 examined customary and contemporary resources for empowerment. Contemporary resources, specifically, women’s recent employment, non-governmental organization membership, and absence of the husband had the strongest and most consistent associations with women’s empowerment. This dissertation contributes to our overall understanding of the complex interplay between the demands of patriarchal structures and women’s empowerment, measured via household decision making. In Bangladesh’s rapidly changing environment, fertility remains influential, but contemporary resources for empowerment such as women’s economic participation and household structure are more strongly associated with empowerment. Efforts to enhance women’s empowerment should consider this changing economic landscape accordingly. Findings may serve to support empowerment efforts engaged in fertility control and its impact on gender systems. Further research is recommended to examine fertility and IPV’s association with additional dimensions of empowerment and within societies undergoing demographic transition. Research should also investigate changes in household power dynamics associated with the presence or absence of the husband. Pathways to Women’s Empowerment in Contemporary Bangladesh: Fertility, Resources, and Intimate Partner Violence
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN A MARYLAND PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

Title of Document: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN A MARYLAND PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM Hans David Lemke, Master of Science, 2005 Directed By: Professor Michael Raupp, Entomology As part of the implementation of an Integrated Pest Management program in a public school system, an inventory of woody plants was created for 12 schools and key plants and key pests in the landscape were identified. In addition, the use of alternative tactics was examined for the control of insect and weed problems. The cost and efficacy of hand removal of bagworms (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis) from Leyland cypress (X Cupressocyparis leylandii) was compared to chemical treatment. Both treatments were effective, but handpicking was more costly. The efficacy and costs of the natural product based herbicides glufosinate, pelargonic acid, and acetic acid were compared to glyphosate for weed control in hardscape areas. The natural alternatives were effective, but at a higher cost. An alternative management program that eliminated the use of preemergent herbicides for weed control on athletic fields was also studied. The alternative program did not yield satisfactory results. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN A MARYLAND PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
Friend Influence and Susceptibility to Influence: Changes in Mathematical Reasoning as a Function of Relative Peer Acceptance and Interest in Mathematics

Abstract:This study investigated friend influence over mathematics achievement in 202 same-sex friendship dyads (106 girl dyads). Participants were in the third grade (around age 9) at the outset. Each friend completed a questionnaire describing interest in mathematics and a standardized mathematical reasoning assessment. Peer nominations provided a measure of peer acceptance. The results revealed evidence that interest in mathematics moderates both the degree to which the higher-accepted friend was influential and the degree to which the lower-accepted friend was susceptible to influence. Specifically, the third-grade mathematical reasoning of the higher-accepted friend predicted an increase in the mathematical reasoning of the lower-accepted friend from third grade to fourth grade only when one friend was above average on interest in mathematics. These effects held after controlling for maternal support, parental education, friendship duration, friendship group norms, friend similarity on peer acceptance, friend similarity on interest in mathematics, and general academic functioning.
On The Move The Psychology Of Change And Transition

Thank you very much for downloading on the move the psychology of change and transition. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look hundreds times for their chosen readings like this on the move the psychology of change and transition, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they are facing with some malicious virus inside their desktop computer.
Adaptation of respiratory patterns in collaborative reading

Speech and variation of respiratory chest circumferences of eight French dyads were monitored while reading texts with increasing constraints on mutual synchrony. In line with previous research, we find that speakers mutually adapt their respiratory patterns. However a significant alignment is observed only when speakers need to perform together, i.e. when reading in alternation or synchronously. From quiet breathing to listening, to speech reading, we didn't find the gradual asymmetric shaping of respiratory cycles generally assumed in literature (e.g. from symmetric inhalation and exhalation phases towards short inhalation and long exhalation). In contrast, the control of breathing seems to switch abruptly between two systems: vital vs. speech production. We also find that the syllabic and the respiratory cycles are strongly phased at speech onsets. This phenomenon is in agreement with the quantal nature of speech rhythm beyond the utterance, previously observed via pause durations.
Policy and Politics for Smallholder Agriculture

More than 100 years ago, Karl Kautsky (1899) published The Agrarian Question. The question he analyzed in this book remains important today: Is there a need and justification for agricultural policies that specifically support smallholder agriculture? Kautsky argued that the peasant producers persisted due to self-exploitation and underconsumption, which were not deemed to be socially desirable situations. Kautsky was convinced of the technical superiority of the large farms and saw no justification for agricultural policies designed to support small farmers. The experience of the 20th century tells a different story: Implementing policies to support the economic development of small farmers proved to be a particularly successful strategy to reduce rural poverty and to use agriculture as an engine of growth on the road to industrialization (Mellor 1976). Both Western industrialized countries and the fast-growing Asian economies document the success of this development strategy. As Lipton (2005) noted, there is virtually no example of mass poverty reduction in modern history that did not start with sharp rises in employment and self-employment income due to increased productivity among small family farms.
Explaining IT-Based Knowledge Sharing Behavior with IS Continuance Model and Social Factors

Knowledge is an important asset in determining the success and survival of an organization in today’s competitive markets. It becomes so important that many advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Information Systems (IS) have been developed and employed by organizations specifically for Knowledge Management (KM). However, KM is not just a technical issue. Human is one of the important elements in KM. Human and technology must cooperate well so that KM can be facilitated. Therefore, how to motivate employees to share their knowledge becomes one of the most important KM issues. This paper aims to: (1) extend IS continuance model to study the behavior of using KMS to share knowledge within an organization and (2) integrate social factors in the model to study their relative importance to the use of KMS to share knowledge. It studied the impacts of perceived usefulness, satisfaction, social factors and task interdependence on the behavior of using KMS to share knowledge within an organization. Literature review and survey were conducted to provide supportive results. In the data analysis, the four factors were found to be significantly related to the behavior being studied and explained a significant proportion of the variance.
Automatic recognition of sign language subwords based on portable accelerometer and EMG sensors

Sign language recognition (SLR) not only facilitates the communication between the deaf and hearing society, but also serves as a good basis for the development of gesture-based human-computer interaction (HCI). In this paper, the portable input devices based on accelerometers and surface electromyography (EMG) sensors worn on the forearm are presented, and an effective fusion strategy for combination of multi-sensor and multi-channel information is proposed to automatically recognize sign language at the subword classification level. Experimental results on the recognition of 121 frequently used Chinese sign language subwords demonstrate the feasibility of developing SLR system based on the presented portable input devices and that our proposed information fusion method is effective for automatic SLR. Our study will promote the realization of practical sign language recognizer and multimodal human-computer interfaces.
Coexistence of long-range magnetic order and superconductivity from Campbell penetration depth measurements

Application of a tunnel-diode resonator (TDR) technique for studies of the vortex response in magnetic superconductors is described. Operating at very small excitation fields and a sufficiently high frequency, the TDR was used to probe the small-amplitude linear AC response in several types of single crystals where long-range magnetic order coexists with bulk superconductivity. Full local-moment ferromagnetism destroys superconductivity and can coexist with it only in a narrow temperature range (∼0.3 K). In contrast, weak ferromagnetic as well as antiferromagnetic orders can coexist with bulk superconductivity and may even lead to an enhancement of vortex pinning. By analyzing the Campbell penetration depth we find a sharp increase of the true critical current in the vicinity of the magnetic phase transitions. We conclude that critical magnetic fluctuations are responsible for this enhancement.
Preferential Biological Processes in the Human Limbus by Differential Gene Profiling

Corneal epithelial stem cells or limbal stem cells (LSCs) are responsible for the maintenance of the corneal epithelium in humans. The exact location of LSCs is still under debate, but the increasing need for identifying the biological processes in the limbus, where LSCs are located, is of great importance in the regulation of LSCs. In our current study we identified 146 preferentially expressed genes in the human limbus in direct comparison to that in the cornea and conjunctiva. The expression of newly identified limbal transcripts endomucin, fibromodulin, paired-like homeodomain 2 (PITX2) and axin-2 were validated using qRT-PCR. Further protein analysis on the newly identified limbal transcripts showed protein localization of PITX2 in the basal and suprabasal layer of the limbal epithelium and very low expression in the cornea and conjunctiva. Two other limbal transcripts, frizzled-7 and tenascin-C, were expressed in the basal epithelial layer of the limbus. Gene ontology and network analysis of the overexpressed limbal genes revealed cell-cell adhesion, Wnt and TGF-β/BMP signaling components among other developmental processes in the limbus. These results could aid in a better understanding of the regulatory elements in the LSC microenvironment.
Encoding Induced Alpha EEG Activity Reveals Visual Working Memory Representations and their Manipulations

Until recently, the fields of visual working memory and imagery have independently studied the cognitive representation of visual information. It remains unclear, however, whether the representation of information during working memory and mental imagery are mediated by similar mechanisms, or whether they represent distinct processes. Previous studies have reconstructed orientation selectivity profiles from induced alpha-band (8 – 12 Hz) oscillations of electroencephalographic (EEG) data, enabling the identification of the contents held in visual memory. In an attempt to draw a bridge between these two fields, this thesis examines whether the induced alpha activity that has been shown to mediate the representation of orientations held in visual working memory can be used to track an imagery manipulation of these representation via a mental rotation. The results replicate previous findings, revealing that induced posterior alpha-band activity contains sufficient information that allows for the identification of the representation maintained in working memory. Furthermore, the reconstruction of orientation selectivity profiles revealed reliable changes in the mental representation during the imagery manipulation, although without being able to reliably decode the direction of the rotation. These results begin to bridge between isolated fields, indicating that these mental representations may depend on similar neural processes.
The Effects of Financial Statement Presentation on the Behavior of Professional and Nonprofessional Information Users

An introduction of IFRS brings a considerable change in the presentation format of financial statements. This study investigates the effects of financial-statement presentation format and footnote disclosures on judgments and decisions of information users with different knowledge level. We conduct a field experiment with Korean M.B. A students and CPAs, surrogates for nonprofessional and professional users, respectively. Our results suggest that only judgments of nonprofessional users are influenced by the presentation format of financial statements. This is consistent with the functional fixation hypothesis that nonprofessional users overlook information placed outside the normal point of disclosure. Footnote disclosures are found to have no effects on judgments and decisions of neither nonprofessional users nor professional users. This suggests that managements should look for an alternative disclosure format which can be read and interpreted by information users more conveniently.
Drosophila Adaptation to Viral Infection through Defensive Symbiont Evolution

Microbial symbionts can modulate host interactions with biotic and abiotic factors. Such interactions may affect the evolutionary trajectories of both host and symbiont. Wolbachia protects Drosophila melanogaster against several viral infections and the strength of the protection varies between variants of this endosymbiont. Since Wolbachia is maternally transmitted, its fitness depends on the fitness of its host. Therefore, Wolbachia populations may be under selection when Drosophila is subjected to viral infection. Here we show that in D. melanogaster populations selected for increased survival upon infection with Drosophila C virus there is a strong selection coefficient for specific Wolbachia variants, leading to their fixation. Flies carrying these selected Wolbachia variants have higher survival and fertility upon viral infection when compared to flies with the other variants. These findings demonstrate how the interaction of a host with pathogens shapes the genetic composition of symbiont populations. Furthermore, host adaptation can result from the evolution of its symbionts, with host and symbiont functioning as a single evolutionary unit.
Notes from Underground: Are Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs Respecting their Promises?

Cognitive deficits are increasingly acknowledged as a highly relevant clinical feature of schizophrenia, susceptible of therapeutic intervention. Considerable efforts have been devoted to identify and develop pharmacological agents that provide cognitive-enhancing benefits to patients with schizophrenia. However, results from studies are not univocal and the “real world” cognitive functioning gain provided by these agents seems disappointingly modest. Three issues are crucial in this respect. First, there is no convincing evidence that atypical agents are any better than typical agents in improving cognitive functioning. Second, even though studies observe statistically significant treatment effects on cognition, these gains are poor or imperceptible on a clinical and functional level. Third, studies do not report differences in treatment effect compared to placebo effect in terms of their cognitive enhancing effects. Finally, examples of interventions that do provide important and meaningful improvements in cognitive functioning in schizophrenia patients will be briefly presented.
THE FIELD X-RAY AGN FRACTION TO z = 0.7 FROM THE CHANDRA MULTIWAVELENGTH PROJECT AND THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

We employ the Chandra Multiwavelength Project (ChaMP) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study the fraction of X-ray-active galaxies in the field to z = 0.7. We utilize spectroscopic redshifts from SDSS and ChaMP, as well as photometric redshifts from several SDSS catalogs, to compile a Parent sample of more than 100,000 SDSS galaxies and nearly 1600 Chandra X-ray detections. Detailed ChaMP volume completeness maps allow us to investigate the local fraction of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), defined as those objects having broadband X-ray luminosities LX(0.5–8 keV) ⩾1042 erg s−1, as a function of absolute optical magnitude, X-ray luminosity, redshift, mass, and host color/morphological type. In five independent samples complete in redshift and i-band absolute magnitude, we determine the field AGN fraction to be between 0.16% ± 0.06% (for z ⩽ 0.125 and −18>Mi > − 20) and 3.80% ± 0.92% (for z ⩽ 0.7 and Mi < −23). We find excellent agreement between our ChaMP/SDSS field AGN fraction and the Chandra cluster AGN fraction, for samples restricted to similar redshift and absolute magnitude ranges: 1.19% ± 0.11% of ChaMP/SDSS field galaxies with 0.05 < z < 0.31 and absolute R-band magnitude more luminous than MR < −20 are AGNs. Our results are also broadly consistent with measures of the field AGN fraction in narrow, deep fields, though differences in the optical selection criteria, redshift coverage, and possible cosmic variance between fields introduce larger uncertainties in these comparisons.
Advances in Our Understanding of “Resistance” to Antiplatelet Agents for Prevention of Ischemic Stroke

We review the role of aspirin and clopidogrel for prevention of ischemic stroke and explore the concept of antiplatelet therapy resistance both from a laboratory and clinical perspective and genetic polymorphisms that might influence platelet reactivity with clopidogrel administration. Debates have raged over the years about the application of platelet function tests in clinical practice. We conclude that platelet function testing is not indicated in routine clinical practice. This recommendation is supported by clinical guideline statements, a lack of a global platelet function measure, and limitations of current platelet function test methods as applied in practice. We discuss a recently hypothesized hierarchy of patient characteristics in relation to which patients are most likely to benefit from platelet function studies based on acuity (i.e., risk) of cardiovascular disease. A focus of antiplatelet therapy administration should include emphasis on compliance/adherence and in the example of aspirin, use of well-absorbed forms of aspirin and avoidance of drugs that may interact with aspirin to inhibit its mechanism of action (e.g., certain nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).
High-resolution live-cell imaging reveals novel cyclin A2 degradation foci involving autophagy

ABSTRACT Cyclin A2 is a key player in the regulation of the cell cycle. Its degradation in mid-mitosis relies on the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Using high-resolution microscopic imaging, we find that cyclin A2 persists beyond metaphase. Indeed, we identify a novel cyclin-A2-containing compartment that forms dynamic foci. Förster (or fluorescence) resonance energy transfer (FRET) and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) analyses show that cyclin A2 ubiquitylation takes place predominantly in these foci before spreading throughout the cell. Moreover, inhibition of autophagy in proliferating cells induces the stabilisation of a subset of cyclin A2, whereas induction of autophagy accelerates the degradation of cyclin A2, thus showing that autophagy is a novel regulator of cyclin A2 degradation.
Consistent model selection and data‐driven smooth tests for longitudinal data in the estimating equations approach

Summary. Model selection for marginal regression analysis of longitudinal data is challenging owing to the presence of correlation and the difficulty of specifying the full likelihood, particularly for correlated categorical data. The paper introduces a novel Bayesian information criterion type model selection procedure based on the quadratic inference function, which does not require the full likelihood or quasi‐likelihood. With probability approaching 1, the criterion selects the most parsimonious correct model. Although a working correlation matrix is assumed, there is no need to estimate the nuisance parameters in the working correlation matrix; moreover, the model selection procedure is robust against the misspecification of the working correlation matrix. The criterion proposed can also be used to construct a data‐driven Neyman smooth test for checking the goodness of fit of a postulated model. This test is especially useful and often yields much higher power in situations where the classical directional test behaves poorly. The finite sample performance of the model selection and model checking procedures is demonstrated through Monte Carlo studies and analysis of a clinical trial data set.