Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MEASURING PERCEIVED REPRESENTATIONAL DEFICIENCIES IN CONCEPTUAL MODELING : INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT AND TEST Completed Research Paper

Over recent years, many scholars have studied the conceptual modeling of information systems based on a model of representation formulated by Wand and Weber. This model offers a set of premises about representational deficiencies and their implications for development and use of conceptual modeling in IS practice. Yet, only few examples of empirical research exist. One of the related problems is the lack of validated measurement instruments that could be used in such studies. This paper reports on the development of a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the perceptions that individuals have of the representational deficiencies of conceptual modeling artifacts. We describe a multi-stage approach for instrument development that incorporates feedback from expert and user perspectives. We also report on a field test of the instrument with modeling practitioners. The resulting instrument can be used in future studies that investigate the use of conceptual modeling in IS practice.
Liver and kidney function and histology in rats exposed to cadmium and ethanol.

AIMS The present study was performed to assess the function and histology of the liver and kidney in rats exposed to 50 mg Cd/l (as cadmium chloride) and/or 10% (w/v) ethanol (EtOH) for 12 weeks. METHODS The activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and asparate aminotransferase (AspAT) in serum were measured as indicators of the liver function. As parameters of the kidney function, creatinine, total protein and urea concentrations in serum and urine, as well as urinary alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity were determined, and creatinine clearance was calculated. Both organs were subjected to histopathological analysis. RESULTS Daily Cd intake ranged from 3.17 to 4.28 mg/kg body weight and from 2.41 to 3.17 mg/kg body weight in the Cd and Cd + EtOH groups, respectively. The daily intake of 10% EtOH ranged from 47.5 to 86.9 g/kg body weight in the EtOH and from 47.3 to 63.4 g/kg body weight in the Cd + EtOH-exposed rats. Cd and EtOH, independently of separate or combined application, changed liver and kidney function and histology. Rats treated with Cd alone and those co-exposed to both substances showed qualitatively similar, but different magnitudes of changes, in liver and kidney histology. Blurred trabecular structure, vacuolar degeneration and increased density of nuclear chromatin with very compact nuclear structure were found in hepatocytes of zones 2 and 3. Moreover, mononuclear cell infiltrations and necrosis of single cells were evident in zone 1. In the kidney tubules, degeneration and hypertrophy of epithelial cells and dilation in the glomeruli were also observed. Some functional (increased serum AspAT and urinary ALP, decreased urinary urea) and structural changes in the liver and kidney were more evident in the case of combined exposure, while others were more evident after single exposure. However, a decrease in creatinine clearance, noted only in the animals treated with Cd and EtOH, shows that functional changes indicating renal insufficiency are more serious in the co-exposed group. CONCLUSIONS Due to lower Cd and EtOH intake (resulting from a stronger aversion to drinking water containing both substances) in the co-exposed rats, as compared to the Cd- and EtOH-treated groups, it is difficult to draw a definite conclusion from this study. The findings, however, seem to indicate that EtOH increases Cd nephrotoxicity in rats, and thus may suggest a higher risk of kidney damage in alcoholics exposed to Cd. Unfortunately, this study does not provide clear evidence if, and to what extent, EtOH influences Cd hepatotoxicity.
Detection of HIV-1 Matrix Protein p17 Quasispecies Variants in Plasma of Chronic HIV-1–Infected Patients by Ultra-Deep Pyrosequencing

Background:The HIV-1 matrix protein p17 (p17MA) is a pleiotropic protein that plays a key role in the HIV-1 life cycle. It has been long believed to have a highly conserved primary amino acid sequence and a well-preserved structural integrity to avoid severe fitness consequences. However, recent data revealed that the carboxy (COOH)-terminus of p17MA possesses high levels of predicted intrinsic disorder, which would subtend to at least partially unfolded status of this region. This finding pointed to the need of investigating p17MA heterogeneity. Methods:The degree of intrapatient variations in the p17MA primary sequence was assessed on plasma viral RNA by using ultra-deep pyrosequencing. Results:Data obtained support a complex nature of p17MA quasispecies, with variants present at variable frequency virtually in all patients. Clusters of mutations were scattered along the entire sequence of the viral protein, but they were more frequently detected within the COOH-terminal region of p17MA. Moreover, deletions and insertions also occurred in a restricted area of the COOH-terminal region. Conclusions:On the whole, our data show that the intrapatient level of sequence diversity in the p17MA is much higher than predicted before. Our results pave the way for further studies aimed at unraveling possible correlations between the presence of distinct p17MA variants and peculiar clinical evolutions of HIV-1 disease. The presence of p17MA quasispecies diversity may offer new tools to improve our understanding of the viral adaptation during the natural history of HIV-1 infection.
Occupational stress in clinical nurses

The present study was based on an integrative work stress model proposed by Cooper and his associates (Cooper et al., 1988), which focused on stress perception and outcomes, as well as potential moderating variables such as personality and coping efforts. Specifically, this article examines occupational stress in clinical nurses who worked in various hospitals in southern Taiwan. When compared with Chinese industrial white and blue-collar workers, nurses experienced higher work stress, more physical and mental ill-health, lower job satisfaction, and also made more efforts to cope with work stress. There were also some interesting differences in types of stressors experienced by nurses and industrial workers.
Contact vitiligo following a strong patch test reaction to triglycidyl‐p‐aminophenol in an aircraft industry worker: case report and review of the literature

Epoxy resin systems (ERSs) are a frequent cause of occupational allergic contact dermatitis. A 50‐year‐old patient developed eczematous skin lesions on the back of his hands, lower arms and eye lids, 2 months after he had started working in aircraft construction. Patch tests showed positive reactions at day 3 to nickel sulfate, epoxy resin based on diglycidyl ether of bisphenol F (DGEBF) and 1,4‐butanediol diglycidyl ether (1,4‐BDDGE). The chemical triglycidyl‐p‐aminophenol (TGPAP) applied at 1% and 0.1% induced the strongest (+++ positive) reaction. About 4 months after the patch test with TGPAP, the patient presented with 2 circular depigmented spots in the former TGPAP‐patch test areas. Dermatohistopathology confirmed the diagnosis of contact vitiligo.
Differences in Strength Assessment Scores for Youth With and Without ED Across the Youth and Parent Rating Scales of the BERS-2

The authors' studies evaluated the discriminative ability of the youth and parent forms of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale—Second Edition (BERS-2; Epstein, 2004). The BERS-2 is a standardized rating scale system that assesses the emotional and behavioral strengths of children and youth. Separate studies compared the perceptions of youth and parents of youth with emotional disturbance (ED) to youth and parents of youth without ED. Participants in Study 1 included 71 children verified with ED according to state special education guidelines and 386 children without ED. Participants in Study 2 included 82 parents of children with ED and 411 parents of children without ED. Results of Study 1 indicated statistically significant differences in the scores of youth with and without ED on four of five BERS-2 Youth Rating Scale subscales and the overall strength index. Results of Study 2 indicated statistically significant differences in the scores of parents of youth with and without ED on all five of BERS-2 Parent Rating Scale subscales and the strength index.The limitations, future research, and implications of the studies are discussed.
Nursing children and young people: what mental health training is required?

AIM The aim of this research was to investigate the views of children and young people's nurses on the mental health training they had received and what recommendations they would make for future staff training. METHOD Nine such nurses who had experience of nursing young people following self-harm or a suicide attempt were recruited. Data were collected using individual 45-minute semi-structured interviews and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. RESULTS The findings of this study indicate that children and young people's nurses may benefit from some empathy and attitudes-based training. Participants clearly indicated that they do not feel that they have adequate expertise in mental health nursing. Participants requested training on a variety of mental health topics. CONCLUSION The results indicate that children and young people's nurses feel that their current mental health training is inadequate. Individualised training packages for different work areas could be delivered collaboratively by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and specialist children and young people's nurses, using face-to-face teaching methods.
Dieting in adolescence: An application of the theory of planned behaviour

This study examined self-reported height and weight, self/body esteem, current-ideal body figure discrepancy, dietary restraint, intentions to diet and underlying beliefs based upon the theory of planned behaviour in 128 11-year-olds (61 boys, 67 girls) and 103 13–14-year-olds (52 boys, 51 girls). Overall the sample showed low levels of restraint and intentions to diet, although there were a number of significant differences between the age-sex groups. Restraint and intentions to diet were higher in the girls and restraint was more closely related to current-ideal body figure discrepancy than actual degree of overweight. Intentions to diet, and restraint were significantly predicted by beliefs about the positive outcomes of dieting, conditions facilitating dieting, and pressure from the media to attain a slim body shape. These variables mediated the effects of actual weight, sex and age but not self/body esteem or current-ideal body figure discrepancy on intentions and restraint.
The Value of Intimacy – Negotiating Commercial Relationships in Lifestyle Entrepreneurship

Abstract With the aim of reconsidering lifestyle values in relation to economic rationality in small tourism and hospitality businesses, we focus on the “commercial home” as a site where boundaries between personal and commercial values are constantly performed in practice. Through an interactionist analysis of the narrative of a B&B and gallery owner, we illustrate the emergence of intimacy as a commercial value in the hospitality industry. By using Georg Simmel’s notion of distance, we analyse the formation of value as a dynamic social process in a context where a traditional market ethos is both rejected and reformulated. In this value creation analysis we show how tension between intimacy and distance in the interaction between hosts and guests is managed through negotiated boundary work. This is illustrated through three themes: situated friendship, the in‐between space of the private and the public and the local host as traveller. We argue that an analysis of situated interactions between producers and consumers highlights tension and interplay between personal and commercial relations, rather than a dichotomic either/or relationship. This personal/commercial nexus points at an emerging hospitality ethos that opens up new possibilities to analyse the co‐creation of value and innovation in the service economy.
Cleavage of hemoglobin by hookworm cathepsin D aspartic proteases and its potential contribution to host specificity

Hookworms routinely reach the gut of nonpermissive hosts but fail to successfully feed, develop, and reproduce. To investigate the effects of host‐parasite coevolution on the ability of hookworms to feed in nonpermissive hosts, we cloned and expressed aspartic proteases from canine and human hookworms. We show here that a cathepsin D‐like protease from the canine hookworm Ancylosotoma caninum (Ac‐APR‐1) and the orthologous protease from the human hookworm Necator americanus (Na‐APR‐1) are expressed in the gut and probably exert their proteolytic activity extracellularly. Both proteases were detected immunologically and enzymatically in somatic extracts of adult worms. The two proteases were expressed in baculovirus, and both cleaved human and dog hemoglobin (Hb) in vitro. Each protease digested Hb from its permissive host between twofold (whole molecule) and sixfold (synthetic peptides) more efficiently than Hb from the nonpermissive host, despite the two proteases' having identical residues lining their active site clefts. Furthermore, both proteases cleaved Hb at numerous distinct sites and showed different substrate preferences. The findings suggest that the paradigm of matching the molecular structure of the food source within a host to the molecular structure of the catabolic proteases of the parasite is an important contributing factor for host‐parasite compatibility and host species range.
The construct validity of a measure of the benchmarks of educational practices

Purpose – The American University of Beruit has generated a model for student success that builds on Kuh's five benchmarks of academic practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the measures used to assess effectiveness of the benchmarks. Design/methodology/approach – Using a database of student responses to the College Outcomes Survey, scalelets representing each of the five benchmarks were constructed. Confirmatory factor analysis, correlations, and structural equation modeling were used to test the measurement model and overall fit of the data, assess the extent the constructs are interdependent, and investigate influence of benchmarks on valued student outcomes. Findings – Results provided evidence of reliability and construct validity of the measures. The university needs studies addressing the psychometric properties of the measures used to answer fundamental questions about its institutional effectiveness and needs to know whether these findings represent t.
Scalable Semi-supervised kernel spectral learning using random Fourier features

We live in the era of big data with dataset sizes growing steadily over the past decades. In addition, obtaining expert labels for all the instances is time-consuming and in many cases may not even be possible. This necessitates the development of advanced semi-supervised models that can learn from both labeled and unlabeled data points and also scale at worst linearly with the number of examples. In the context of kernel based semi-supervised models, constructing the training kernel matrix for the large training dataset is expensive and memory inefficient. This paper investigates the scalability of the recently proposed multi-class semi-supervised kernel spectral clustering model (MSSKSC) by means of random Fourier features. The proposed model maps the input data into an explicit low-dimensional feature space. Thanks to the explicit feature maps, one can then solve the MSSKSC optimization formation in the primal, making the complexity of the method linear in number of training data points. The performance of the proposed model is compared with that of recently introduced reduced kernel techniques and Nyström based MSSKSC approaches. Experimental results demonstrate the scalability, efficiency and faster training computation times of the proposed model over conventional large scale semi-supervised models on large scale real-life datasets.
Esterase Inhibition by Grapefruit Juice Flavonoids Leading to a New Drug Interaction

Our previous studies described a newly identified potential of grapefruit juice (GFJ) in mediating pharmacokinetic drug interactions due to its capability of esterase inhibition. The current study identifies the active components in GFJ responsible for its esterase-inhibitory effect. The esterase-inhibitory potential of 10 constitutive flavonoids and furanocoumarins toward p-nitrophenylacetate (PNPA) hydrolysis was investigated. The furanocoumarins bergamottin, 6′,7′-dihydroxybergamottin, and bergapten, and the glycoside flavonoids naringin and hesperidin, at concentrations found in GFJ or higher, did not inhibit the hydrolysis of PNPA by purified porcine esterase and human liver microsomes. However, the flavonoid aglycones morin, galangin, kaempferol, quercetin, and naringenin showed appreciable inhibition of PNPA hydrolysis in purified porcine esterase, and human and rat liver systems. In Caco-2 cells, demonstrated to contain minimal CYP3A activity, the permeability coefficient of the prodrugs lovastatin and enalapril was increased in the presence of the active flavonoids kaempferol and naringenin, consistent with inhibition of esterase activity. In rats, oral coadministration of kaempferol and naringenin with these prodrugs led to significant increases in plasma exposure to the active acids. In addition, in portal vein-cannulated rats, coadministration of lovastatin with kaempferol (10 mg/kg) led to a 154% and a 113% increase in the portal plasma exposure to the prodrug and active acid, respectively, compared with coadministration with water. The contribution of CYP3A inhibition was demonstrated to be minimal. Overall, a series of flavonoids present in GFJ are identified as esterase inhibitors, of which kaempferol and naringenin are shown to mediate pharmacokinetic drug interaction with the prodrugs lovastatin and enalapril due to their capability of esterase inhibition.
Unravelling the determinants of insular body size shifts

The island rule, a pattern of size shifts on islands, is an oft-cited but little understood phenomenon of evolutionary biology. Here, we explore the evolutionary mechanisms behind the rule in 184 mammal species, testing climatic, ecological and phylogenetic hypotheses in a robust quantitative framework. Our findings confirm the importance of species’ ecological traits in determining both the strength and the direction of body size changes on islands. Although the island rule pattern appears relatively weak overall, we find strongest support for models incorporating trait, climatic and geographical factors in a phylogenetic context, lending support to the idea that the island rule is a complex phenomenon driven by interacting intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms. Overall, we find that different clades may be evolutionarily predisposed to dwarfism or gigantism, but the magnitude of size changes depends more on adaptation to the novel island environment.
Activation of Drosophila hemocyte motility by the ecdysone hormone

Summary Drosophila hemocytes compose the cellular arm of the fly's innate immune system. Plasmatocytes, putative homologues to mammalian macrophages, represent ∼95% of the migratory hemocyte population in circulation and are responsible for the phagocytosis of bacteria and apoptotic tissues that arise during metamorphosis. It is not known as to how hemocytes become activated from a sessile state in response to such infectious and developmental cues, although the hormone ecdysone has been suggested as the signal that shifts hemocyte behaviour from quiescent to migratory at metamorphosis. Here, we corroborate this hypothesis by showing the activation of hemocyte motility by ecdysone. We induce motile behaviour in larval hemocytes by culturing them with 20-hydroxyecdysone ex vivo. Moreover, we also determine that motile cell behaviour requires the ecdysone receptor complex and leads to asymmetrical redistribution of both actin and tubulin cytoskeleton.
Alterations of negative regulators of cytokine signalling in immunodeficiency‐related non‐Hodgkin lymphoma

We investigated immunodeficiency‐related non‐Hodgkin lymphoma for the presence of molecular alterations affecting negative regulators of the Janus family protein tyrosine kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription pathway. Protein tyrosine phosphatase, non‐receptor type 6/Src homology 2‐containing tyrosine phosphatase‐1 epigenetic silencing was recurrent in primary effusion lymphoma (100%), and diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (63%), with a higher prevalence in the non‐germinal centre subtype, and was associated with the activation of the Janus family protein tyrosine kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 pathway. Suppressor of cytokine signalling (SOCS)1 and SOCS3 epigenetic silencing were occasionally detected, whereas SOCS1 was frequently mutated in diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma and polymorphic post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorders, possibly as a cause of aberrant somatic hypermutation. However, the mutation profile of the coding region of the gene was different from that expected from the aberrant somatic hypermutation process, suggesting that, at least in some cases, SOCS1 mutations may have been selected for their functional activity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Randomized, Double-Blind Comparison of Venlafaxine and Sertraline in Outpatients With Major Depressive Disorder

Background: This 8-week, double-blind, randomized trial compared the efficacy and tolerability of venlafaxine and sertraline in patients with major depression. Method: Outpatients (N = 147) with DSM-IV major depressive disorder and a baseline 21-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) score of at least 18 were randomly assigned to venlafaxine, 37.5 mg b.i. d. , or sertraline, 50 mg once daily. From day 15, the doses could be increased to venlafaxine, 75 mg b.i. d. , or sertraline, 50 mg b.i. d. Efficacy was assessed with the 21-item HAM-D, the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Clinical Global Impressions scale (CGI) using a modified intent-to-treat analysis. Results: No significant differences were noted between treatments for mean HAM-D, MADRS, or CGI scores. At week 8, the HAM-D response rate was 83% with venlafaxine (N = 75) and 68% with sertraline (N = 72) (p = .05). A HAM-D score less than 10 was recorded in 68% of venlafaxine-treated and 45% of sertraline-treated patients at week 8 (p = .008). Among patients who increased their dose, the remission rate (HAM-D score < 10) was 67% with venlafaxine and 36% with sertraline at week 8 (p <.05). The overall discontinuation rate was 21% with venlafaxine and 17% with sertraline. The most common adverse events with venlafaxine were nausea, headache, and sweating and with sertraline were nausea, headache, and diarrhea. Conclusion: Among patients who increased their dose, approximately twice as many experienced a remission with venlafaxine, which is a more clinically relevant endpoint than response and represents the proportion of patients who have recovered or are well.