Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dental caries status and salivary properties of asthmatic children and adolescents.

AIMS This study aimed to investigate the dental caries status and salivary properties in 3- to 15-year-old children/adolescents. METHODS The sample was split in two groups: asthma group (AG), composed of 65 patients who attended Public Health Service; asthma-free group (AFG), composed of 65 nonasthmatic children/adolescents recruited in two public schools. Stimulated salivary samples were collected for 3 min. Buffering capacity and pH were ascertained in each salivary sample. A single trained and calibrated examiner (kappa = 0.98) performed the dental caries examination according to WHO criteria. RESULTS The AFG showed salivary flow rate (1.10 ± 0.63 mL/min) higher (P = 0.002) than AG (0.80 ± 0.50 mL/min). An inverse relationship was observed between asthma severity and salivary flow rate (Phi coefficient, rφ: 0.79, P = 0.0001). Children with moderate or severe asthma showed an increased risk for reduced salivary flow rate (OR: 17.15, P < 0.001). No association was observed between drug use frequency (P > 0.05) and drug type (P > 0.05) with salivary flow rate. Buffering capacity was similar in both groups. No significant differences were encountered in dental caries experience between AFG and AG groups. CONCLUSIONS Although asthma can cause reduction in flow rate, the illness did not seem to influence dental caries experience in children with access to proper dental care.
Opportunism, Trust and Cooperation

Even when there is a potential danger of opportunism, economic agents often initiate contracts or engage in trust. Considering a world with two types of agents, opportunists and non-opportunists, interacting under incomplete information, this article develops a simple two-stage game theoretic model to show how trust and cooperation can emerge in a one-shot interaction, even in the absence of a supporting incentive mechanism. Two classic paradigms are considered: the prisoner's dilemma and the game of chicken. In the context of the prisoner's dilemma, trust depends on the exogenous probability of having a non-opportunist partner, while in the game of chicken trust is purely a function of the payoffs. Contrary to intuition, a high ratio of non-opportunistic agents in the population does not favor contract initiation in the game of chicken and a strong presence of opportunists does not act as an impediment to respecting commitments.
Pain and ethnicity in the United States: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND Evidence suggests that racial and ethnic disparities exist in access to effective pain treatment. PURPOSE To review evidence of these disparities and provide recommendations for care and further research. DESIGN Systematic review. METHODS We conducted a MEDLINE search using the MeSH terms of ethnic groups, minority groups, pain, analgesia, and analgesics. We included studies describing current practice patterns, utilization of available treatments, treatment outcomes, and patient and provider knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. RESULTS Our search identified 35 journal articles describing the effect of patient race and ethnicity on pain assessment and management. Three studies on pain assessment revealed that minority patients are more likely to have their pain underestimated by providers and less likely to have pain scores documented in the medical record compared to whites. Eleven of 17 studies found that African Americans and Hispanics are less likely to receive opioid analgesics and more likely to have their pain untreated compared to white patients. Three studies revealed that minority patients are more likely to have negative pain management index (PMI) scores-undertreated pain-compared to whites. Patient-related, provider-related, and pharmacy-related barriers to effective pain management were identified. CONCLUSION The majority of studies reveal racial and ethnic disparities in access to effective pain treatment akin to disparities found in other medical services. Quality improvement initiatives that improve treatment of pain for all patients according to established guidelines should decrease disparities by race or ethnicity. Educational interventions should aim to improve patient-provider communication regarding pain and its treatment and should provide support around substance abuse issues. Further research is needed to examine pain treatment outcomes and to determine whether health care system factors lead to these disparities.
Convergent Infeasible Interior-Point Trust-Region Methods for Constrained Minimization

We study an infeasible primal-dual interior-point trust-region method for constrained minimization. This method uses a log-barrier function for the slack variables and updates the slack variables using second-order correction. We show that if a certain set containing the initial iterate is bounded and the origin is not in the convex hull of the nearly active constraint gradients everywhere on this set, then the iterates remain in this set, and any cluster point of the iterates is a first-order stationary point. Moreover, any subsequence of iterates converging to the cluster point has an asymptotic second-order stationarity property, which, when the constraint functions are affine or when the active constraint gradients are linearly independent, implies that the cluster point is a second-order stationary point. Preliminary numerical experience with the method is reported. A primal method and its extension to semidefinite nonlinear programming is also discussed.
Sensory-Motor Integration during Speech Production Localizes to Both Left and Right Plana Temporale

Speech production relies on fine voluntary motor control of respiration, phonation, and articulation. The cortical initiation of complex sequences of coordinated movements is thought to result in parallel outputs, one directed toward motor neurons while the “efference copy” projects to auditory and somatosensory fields. It is proposed that the latter encodes the expected sensory consequences of speech and compares expected with actual postarticulatory sensory feedback. Previous functional neuroimaging evidence has indicated that the cortical target for the merging of feedforward motor and feedback sensory signals is left-lateralized and lies at the junction of the supratemporal plane with the parietal operculum, located mainly in the posterior half of the planum temporale (PT). The design of these studies required participants to imagine speaking or generating nonverbal vocalizations in response to external stimuli. The resulting assumption is that verbal and nonverbal vocal motor imagery activates neural systems that integrate the sensory-motor consequences of speech, even in the absence of primary motor cortical activity or sensory feedback. The present human functional magnetic resonance imaging study used univariate and multivariate analyses to investigate both overt and covert (internally generated) propositional and nonpropositional speech (noun definition and counting, respectively). Activity in response to overt, but not covert, speech was present in bilateral anterior PT, with no increased activity observed in posterior PT or parietal opercula for either speech type. On this evidence, the response of the left and right anterior PTs better fulfills the criteria for sensory target and state maps during overt speech production.
Attitudes Toward Women Mediate the Gender Effect on Attitudes Toward Sexist Language1

Studies of attitudes toward sexist language have consistently revealed a gender gap, with women considerably more supportive of inclusive language than men. The present study investigated this gender gap in the presence of “attitudes toward women,” a potential mediator variable. Participants were a convenience sample of 18- to 20-year-old college students (N = 278). Most were European American/White (87%) women (60%). Data were collected using the Modern Sexism Scale, Neosexism Scale, Attitudes Toward Women Scale, and Inventory of Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language-General. The customary gender gap in attitudes toward sexist language was found in this sample. Regression tests of mediation, however, revealed that when measures of attitudes toward women were included in the analysis, the gender effect diminished by as much as 61% (p < .01). These findings provide empirical evidence of a link between attitudes toward sexist language and the cultural construct, attitudes toward women.
The Issue May be the Integration of Personal and Career Issues

In this excellent major contribution, Robitshcek, DeBell, and their colleagues have highlighted a question that has loomed in counseling psychology for years—namely the fit between counseling psychology and vocational psychology in training programs. In this reaction article, I raise questions about the need for a “reintegration of vocational psychology and counseling psychology. ” I then propose that the authors change the assertion to a call for an integration of career and personal issues. Finally, I offer three recommendations for accomplishing the reintegration for which the authors argue. I struggle with the entire concept of a reintegration of counseling psychology and vocational psychology. The concept begs the question of whether and how vocational psychology and counseling psychology were ever integrated. In truth, vocational psychology predates counseling psychology by several decades.Numerous books and articles cite Parsons (1909) as an introduction to the concept of vocational psychology and career counseling. In the early part of the 20th century, Parsons initiated the notion of trait-factor and person/occupation fit before there was a field clearly entitled “counseling psychology. ” A perusal of the history of counseling psychology (Meara&Myers, 1997; Walsh, 1999) reveals that the bylaws of a Division 17 meeting in 1955 established the foundation for the division that became known as the Division of Counseling Psychology. Earlier in 1952, the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) recognized an occupation called counseling psychology. The VA also was instrumental in the establishment of university and college counseling centers around that same time. In each instance, theVAwas interested in professional counselors who would help veterans with work adjustment. Clearly, the constellation of events surrounding the VA’s interest in veterans’ adjustment, the explosion of vocational theories, and the formation of counseling psychology forged a natural merger of counseling psychology and vocational psychology. However, it is not clear if the merger of the activities
Career development in Hungary at the beginning of the 90's

Career development in Hungary is going through a dramatic change. In the decades following the Second World War, the official social norms system found two trends of career development. One was based on the choice of the career ear ly-in the primary or secondary school. Children were prepared for this. Their plans for further study as adults were also adjusted to this early choice, if possible at the same place where they worked. This was sanctioned by the "loyalty bonus" and the "cadre membership. " A career chosen in this way made it possible to progress to reach a higher level, and continue to study. To leave the career however, or even to change the place of work too often, was considered negative and suspicious behavior. The so-called "migrating birds" did not fit into a centrally directed world. Career changes, resulting from ideological points of view, delineate the other trend in career development, and occurred mainly in the years of political change. People, who in the earlier periods held responsible positions, were replaced by people presumed reliable in the new era. Proficiency had very little role in this. The damage caused by these decisions is difficult to measure. In the destiny of the individual these assignments without foundation caused "employment neurosis" which, in many cases, did not appear on the surface but in the form of other symptoms. From the point of view of career psychology, a study of this trend might add an interesting supplement to the history of the past decades, but since it affected only a smaller layer of society, it is not the focus of this paper.
Research excellence and departmental climate in British universities

In recent years, university departments in the United Kingdom have been externally rated according to their effectiveness in terms of research excellence. Organizational science research into the determinants of effective organizational performance has suggested a link between climate and effectiveness. This study therefore investigated this possible link by examining the relationship between university departmental climate and research excellence rating. A longitudinal design was used which involved gathering climate data from academics in 46 departments in 14 universities in 1992 and again in 1994. These climate measures were related to external Higher Education Funding Council ratings of research excellence made in 1989 and 1992. These departmental ratings predicted subsequent departmental climate, particularly in members' descriptions of degree of formalization, support for career development and support for innovation. Dimensions of climate, however, did not predict as strongly subsequent research excellence rating. It appears that climate may be an outcome as much as a cause of rated effectiveness, at least in this context.
Expliquer la croissance des dépenses de santé: le rôle du niveau de vie et du progrès technique

[fre] Expliquer la croissance des depenses de sante : le role du niveau de vie et du progres technique par Yannick L'Horty, Alain Quinet et Frederic Rupprecht . Afin d'expliquer la progression des depenses de sante en France sur longue periode, on procede en premier lieu a un survol des etudes empiriques existantes en traitant plus particulierement deux questions : la sante est-elle un bien superieur ? Dans quelle mesure des facteurs d'offre et en particulier le progres technique medical, contribuent-il a l'accroissement des depenses de soins ? Dans un deuxieme temps, on estime une fonction de depenses de sante sur series temporelles en France entre 1970 et 1995. Les depenses de sante apparaissent tres sensibles a l'evolution du niveau de vie, mesure par le PIB par tete qui expliquerait pres des deux cinquiemes de leur progression. L'elasticite prix des depenses de sante en France s'avere egalement assez elevee meme lorsque l'on prend en compte la prise en charge de ces depenses par le systeme de protection sociale. Le progres technique medical exerce egalement une influence significative. Les conditions demographiques et le vieillissement de la population n'auraient eu qu'une influence marginale. [eng] Explaining Health Expenditure Growth: the Effect of Standard of Living and Technical Progress by Yannick L'Horty, Alain Quinet and Frederic Rupprecht . The aim of this paper is to explain health expenditures growth in France since 1970. In a first section, we survey empirical studies and deal with two major issues : is income elasticity of health greater than one ? What is the impact of supply factors, like medical technical progress ? In a second section, we estimate an health expenditure function using French data between 1970 and 1995. Health expenditures grow with the standard of living measured with GNPper capita, and that effect could explain more than two fifth of health expenditures growth since 1970. Price elasticity is high, even if we take into account financing with French Social Security system. Medical technical progress has also a strong impact. The aging of population has a minor effect.
Antifungal activity of various essential oils against Rhizoctonia solani and Macrophomina phaseolina as major bean pathogens

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of various essential oils (EOs) to decrease the activity of cell wall degrading enzymes (CWDEs) produced by fungal phytopathogens, which are associated with disease progress. Also, effect of seed treatment and foliar application of peppermint EO and its main constituent, menthol, on diseases caused by two necrotrophic pathogens on bean was investigated.
Sterically Locked Synthetic Bilin Derivatives and Phytochrome Agp1 from Agrobacterium tumefaciens Form Photoinsensitive Pr- and Pfr-like Adducts*

Phytochrome photoreceptors undergo reversible photoconversion between the red-absorbing form, Pr, and the far-red-absorbing form, Pfr. The first step in the conversion from Pr to Pfr is a Z to E isomerization around the C15=C16 double bond of the bilin chromophore. We prepared four synthetic biliverdin (BV) derivatives in which rings C and D are sterically locked by cyclizing with an additional carbon chain. In these chromophores, which are termed 15Za, 15Zs, 15Ea, and 15Es, the C15=C16 double bond is in either the Z or E configuration and the C14–C15 single bond in either the syn or anti conformation. The chromophores were assembled with Agrobacterium phytochrome Agp1, which incorporates BV as natural chromophore. All locked BV derivatives bound covalently to the protein and formed adducts with characteristic spectral properties. The 15Za adduct was spectrally similar to the Pr form and the 15Ea adduct similar to the Pfr form of the BV adduct. Thus, the chromophore of Agp1 adopts a C15=C16 Z configuration and a C14–C15 anti conformation in the Pr form and a C15=C16 E configuration and a C14–C15 anti conformation in the Pfr form. Both the 15Zs and the 15Es adducts absorbed only in the blue region of the visible spectra. All chromophore adducts were analyzed by size exclusion chromatography and histidine kinase activity to probe for protein conformation. In either case, the 15Za adduct behaved like the Pr and the 15Ea adduct like the Pfr form of Agp1. Replacing the natural chromophore by a locked 15Ea derivative can thus bring phytochrome holoprotein in the Pfr form in darkness. In this way, physiological action of Pfr can be studied in vivo and separated from Pr/Pfr cycling and other light effects.
POU2AF1 Functions in the Human Airway Epithelium To Regulate Expression of Host Defense Genes

In the process of seeking novel lung host defense regulators by analyzing genome-wide RNA sequence data from normal human airway epithelium, we detected expression of POU domain class 2–associating factor 1 (POU2AF1), a known transcription cofactor previously thought to be expressed only in lymphocytes. Lymphocyte contamination of human airway epithelial samples obtained by bronchoscopy and brushing was excluded by immunohistochemistry staining, the observation of upregulation of POU2AF1 in purified airway basal stem/progenitor cells undergoing differentiation, and analysis of differentiating single basal cell clones. Lentivirus-mediated upregulation of POU2AF1 in airway basal cells induced upregulation of host defense genes, including MX1, IFIT3, IFITM, and known POU2AF1 downstream genes HLA-DRA, ID2, ID3, IL6, and BCL6. Interestingly, expression of these genes paralleled changes of POU2AF1 expression during airway epithelium differentiation in vitro, suggesting POU2AF1 helps to maintain a host defense tone even in pathogen-free condition. Cigarette smoke, a known risk factor for airway infection, suppressed POU2AF1 expression both in vivo in humans and in vitro in human airway epithelial cultures, accompanied by deregulation of POU2AF1 downstream genes. Finally, enhancing POU2AF1 expression in human airway epithelium attenuated the suppression of host defense genes by smoking. Together, these findings suggest a novel function of POU2AF1 as a potential regulator of host defense genes in the human airway epithelium.
The impact of motivation on neuropsychological performance in sports-related mild traumatic brain injury

The current project examined the impact of differential motivation on baseline versus post-mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) neuropsychological measures in athletes. Collegiate athletes were administered a neuropsychological battery prior to and post-MTBI. High Motivation at Baseline (HMB) and Suspect Motivation at Baseline (SMB) groups were established for each measure based on whether baseline performance fell +/− one or more standard deviations from the mean of the given measure. Greater improvement was expected in the SMB group than the HMB group given hypothesized differences in baseline motivation. In repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) that removed achievement performance, the SMB groups demonstrated greater improvement than the HMB groups for the Trail Making Test A & B (TMT-A & B), Digit Span, and Stroop-Color Word (Stroop-CW) tests. Also, the percentage of participants who improved according to reliable change indices was greater for the SMB groups on the TMT-A & B, Stroop-CW, and the Vigil. These findings are likely due to lower motivation in the SMB group for each test. However, results also suggest that some tests may be relatively unaffected by motivation. These data may have clinical implications and point to the need for better methods of identifying athletes with suspect motivation at baseline. (JINS, 2006, 12, 475–484.)
Unfinished Proletarianization: Self, Anger, and Class Action among the Second Generation of Peasant-Workers in Present-Day China

As a result of its open-door policies and 30 years of reform, China has become the “world’s factory” and given rise to a new working class of rural migrant workers. This process has underlain a path of (semi-)proletarianization of Chinese peasant-workers: now the second generation is experiencing dagong, working for a boss, in industrialized towns and cities. What is the process of proletarianization of peasant-workers in China today? In what way does the path of proletarianization shape the new Chinese working class? Drawing on workers’ narratives and our ethnographic studies in Shenzhen and Dongguan between 2005 and 2008, this study focuses on the subjective experiences of the second generation of dagongmei/zai, female migrant workers/male migrant workers, who have developed new forms of power and resistance unknown to the previous generation of workers. Did the pain and trauma experienced by the first generation of dagong subjects gradually evolve into the anger and resentment that has conditioned the labor strikes and class actions of the second generation? In short, what continuity and change can we observe in the life struggles of this new working class? Is the second generation of dagong subjects compelled to take action as a result of long-endured pain and anger? Self, anger, and collective action among the new working class propel the narrative described in this article.
Use of breed-specific ranges for the vertebral heart scale as an aid to the radiographic diagnosis of cardiac disease in dogs

The vertebral heart scale was measured on right lateral recumbent thoracic radiographs of 320 dogs of six popular breeds, including for each breed at least 20 dogs with no clinical signs of cardiovascular or respiratory disease and at least 19 dogs with cardiac or respiratory disease. There were significant differences between the mean values of the scale for the different breeds; the normal boxer dogs had a significantly higher mean value than the normal dogs of all the other breeds, and the labrador retrievers had a significantly higher mean value than all the other breeds except the boxer and the cavalier King Charles spaniel. For all the breeds except the boxer, there was a trend for dogs with cardiac disease (but not respiratory disease) to have higher mean values on the scale than normal dogs of the same breed; however, at the optimal value of the scale for distinguishing between dogs of each breed with and without cardiac disease, the sensitivity and specificity were relatively low, in the range 58 to 83 per cent. The scale was most accurate for the diagnosis of cardiac disease in the Yorkshire terrier and the cavalier King Charles spaniel, breeds affected by predominantly dilative forms of cardiac disease. In contrast, it was very inaccurate in the boxer, a breed that has a higher incidence of cardiac diseases associated with concentric hypertrophy.