Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Basolateral Amygdala Pyramidal Cell Excitability May Contribute to the Anxiogenic Phenotype Induced by Chronic Early-Life Stress

Adolescence represents a particularly vulnerable period during which exposure to stressors can precipitate the onset of psychiatric disorders and addiction. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) plays an integral role in the pathophysiology of anxiety and addiction. Acute and chronic stress promote increases in BLA pyramidal cell firing, and decreasing BLA excitability alleviates anxiety measures in humans and rodents. Notably, the impact of early-life stress on the mechanisms that govern BLA excitability is unknown. To address this gap in our knowledge, we used a rodent model of chronic early-life stress that engenders robust and enduring increases in anxiety-like behaviors and ethanol intake and examined the impact of this model on the intrinsic excitability of BLA pyramidal cells. Adolescent social isolation was associated with a significant increase in the intrinsic excitability of BLA pyramidal cells and a blunting of the medium component of the afterhyperpolarization potential, a voltage signature of calcium-activated potassium (Kca) channel activity. Western blot analysis revealed reduced expression of small-conductance Kca (SK) channel protein in the BLA of socially isolated (SI) rats. Bath application of a positive SK channel modulator (1-EBIO) normalized firing in ex vivo recordings from SI rats, and in vivo intra-BLA 1-EBIO infusion reduced anxiety-like behaviors. These findings reveal that chronic adolescent stress impairs SK channel function, which contributes to an increase in BLA pyramidal cell excitability and highlights BLA SK channels as promising targets for the treatment of anxiety disorders and comorbid addiction. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although anxiety disorders and alcohol addiction frequently co-occur, the mechanisms that contribute to this comorbidity are poorly understood. Here, we used a rodent early-life stress model that leads to robust and longlasting increases in behaviors associated with elevated risk of anxiety disorders and addiction to identify novel neurobiological substrates that may underlie these behaviors. Our studies focused on the primary output neurons of the basolateral amygdala, a brain region that plays a key role in anxiety and addiction. We discovered that early-life stress decreases the activity of a specific class of potassium channels and increases the intrinsic excitability of BLA neurons and present evidence that enhancing the function of these channels normalizes BLA excitability and attenuates anxiety-like behaviors.
Vision-Based People Detection System for Heavy Machine Applications

This paper presents a vision-based people detection system for improving safety in heavy machines. We propose a perception system composed of a monocular fisheye camera and a LiDAR. Fisheye cameras have the advantage of a wide field-of-view, but the strong distortions that they create must be handled at the detection stage. Since people detection in fisheye images has not been well studied, we focus on investigating and quantifying the impact that strong radial distortions have on the appearance of people, and we propose approaches for handling this specificity, adapted from state-of-the-art people detection approaches. These adaptive approaches nevertheless have the drawback of high computational cost and complexity. Consequently, we also present a framework for harnessing the LiDAR modality in order to enhance the detection algorithm for different camera positions. A sequential LiDAR-based fusion architecture is used, which addresses directly the problem of reducing false detections and computational cost in an exclusively vision-based system. A heavy machine dataset was built, and different experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the system. The results are promising, in terms of both processing speed and performance.
Associations between Manual Abilities, Gross Motor Function, Epilepsy, and Mental Capacity in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Objective This study aimed to evaluate gross motor function and hand function in children with cerebral palsy to explore their association with epilepsy and mental capacity. Material & Methods The research investigating the association between gross and fine motor function and the presence of epilepsy and/or mental impairment was conducted on a group of 83 children (45 girls, 38 boys). Among them, 41 were diagnosed with quadriplegia, 14 hemiplegia, 18 diplegia, 7 mixed form, and 3 athetosis. A neurologist assessed each child in terms of possible epilepsy and confirmed diagnosis in 35 children. A psychologist assessed the mental level (according to Wechsler) and found 13 children within intellectual norm, 3 children with mild mental impairment, 18 with moderate, 27 with severe, and 22 with profound. Children were then classified based on Gross Motor Function Classification System and Manual Ability Classification Scale. Results The gross motor function and manual performance were analysed in relation to mental impairment and the presence of epilepsy. Epilepsy was found to disturb conscious motor functions, but also higher degree of mental impairment was observed in children with epilepsy. Conclusion The occurrence of epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy is associated with worse manual function. The occurrence of epilepsy is associated with limitations in conscious motor functions. There is an association between epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy and the degree of mental impairment. The occurrence of epilepsy, mainly in children with hemiplegia and diplegia is associated with worse mental capacities.
Age Effects on Mediolateral Balance Control

Background Age-related balance impairments, particularly in mediolateral direction (ML) may cause falls. Sufficiently sensitive and reliable ML balance tests are, however, lacking. This study is aimed to determine (1) the effect of age on and (2) the reliability of ML balance performance using Center of Mass (CoM) tracking. Methods Balance performance of 19 young (26±3 years) and 19 older (72±5 years) adults on ML-CoM tracking tasks was compared. Subjects tracked predictable and unpredictable target displacements at increasing frequencies with their CoM by shifting their weight sideward. Phase-shift (response delay) and gain (amplitude difference) between the CoM and target in the frequency domain were used to quantify performance. Thirteen older and all young adults were reassessed to determine reliability of balance performance measures. In addition, all older adults performed a series of clinical balance tests and conventional posturography was done in a sub-sample. Results Phase-shift and gain dropped below pre-determined thresholds (−90 degrees and 0.5) at lower frequencies in the older adults and were even lower below these frequencies than in young adults. Performance measures showed good to excellent reliability in both groups. All clinical scores were close to the maximum and no age effect was found using posturography. ML balance performance measures exhibited small but systematic between-session differences indicative of learning. Conclusions The ability to accurately perform ML-CoM tracking deteriorates with age. ML-CoM tracking tasks form a reliable tool to assess ML balance in young and older adults and are more sensitive to age-related impairment than posturography and clinical tests.
Lean Body Mass, Interleukin 18, and Metabolic Syndrome in Apparently Healthy Chinese

Objective We aimed to investigate how lean body mass is related to circulating Interleukin 18 (IL-18) and its association with metabolic syndrome (MetS) among apparently healthy Chinese. Methods A population-based sample of 1059 Chinese men and women aged 35–54 years was used to measure plasma IL-18, glucose, insulin, lipid profile, inflammatory markers and high-molecular-weight (HMW)-adiponectin. Fat mass index (FMI) and lean mass index (LMI) were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. MetS was defined by the updated National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria for Asian-Americans. Results Circulating IL-18 was positively correlated with LMI after adjustment for FMI (correlation coefficient = 0.11, P<0.001). The association with the MetS (odds ratio 3.43, 95% confidence interval 2.01–5.85) was substantially higher in the highest than the lowest quartile of IL-18 after multiple adjustments including body mass index. In the stratified multivariable regression analyses, the positive association between IL-18 and MetS was independent of tertiles of FMI, inflammatory markers and HMW-adiponectin, but significantly interacted with tertile of LMI (P for interaction = 0.010). Conclusion Elevated plasma IL-18 was associated with higher MetS prevalence in apparently healthy Chinese, independent of traditional risk factors, FMI, inflammatory markers and HMW-adiponectin. More studies are needed to clarify the role of lean mass in IL-18 secretion and its associated cardio-metabolic disorders.
The professional path to become a teacher educator: the experience of Chilean teacher educators

The professional career paths and processes of development on becoming a teacher have been studied extensively. Nonetheless, the professional development on becoming a teacher educator has been barely researched. This article reports on a study focused on the professional career path of teacher educators from a situated perspective. The research used in this study employed a mixed-method approach and combined quantitative and qualitative techniques for the purpose of sampling teacher educators from four pre-service Chilean teacher education programs. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive analyses and the dialogic discourse analysis method. Results revealed that most teacher educators are characterized as being part of a heterogeneous group, with significant classroom experience shared in common. Furthermore, the findings showed that there was a tendency within this group to focus more on their role as teachers rather than researchers. Additionally, studies also revealed that on the whole this group received little support in their early years as teacher educators. The conclusions drawn gave rise to several suggestions, all of which should be taken into consideration when preparing the next generation of teacher educators.
Engaging With the Wrong People

Previous studies investigating the hypothesis that elevated social anxiety vulnerability is characterized by an attentional bias to negative social information have yielded inconsistent findings. One possible explanation for this inconsistency is that most such studies have failed to distinguish bias in attentional engagement with, and in attentional disengagement from, negative social information. It has been proposed that only one of these two possible forms of attentional bias may be associated with elevated social anxiety vulnerability, potentially giving rise to observed inconsistencies when assessment approaches have failed to dissociate them. The few studies that have sought to investigate this issue have been hampered by methodological limitations, which have compromised their capacity to differentially assess these two facets of attentional selectivity. In the present study, we employed a recently developed variant of the attentional-probe task that has proven capable of dissociating attentional engagement bias and disengagement bias, to contrast the patterns of attentional selectivity shown by participants high and low in social anxiety. Our findings reveal that elevated social anxiety vulnerability is characterized only by facilitated attentional engagement with socially negative information and not by impaired attentional disengagement from socially negative information.
Molecular Basis for Expression of Common and Rare Fragile Sites

ABSTRACT Fragile sites are specific loci that form gaps, constrictions, and breaks on chromosomes exposed to partial replication stress and are rearranged in tumors. Fragile sites are classified as rare or common, depending on their induction and frequency within the population. The molecular basis of rare fragile sites is associated with expanded repeats capable of adopting unusual non-B DNA structures that can perturb DNA replication. The molecular basis of common fragile sites was unknown. Fragile sites from R-bands are enriched in flexible sequences relative to nonfragile regions from the same chromosomal bands. Here we cloned FRA7E, a common fragile site mapped to a G-band, and revealed a significant difference between its flexibility and that of nonfragile regions mapped to G-bands, similar to the pattern found in R-bands. Thus, in the entire genome, flexible sequences might play a role in the mechanism of fragility. The flexible sequences are composed of interrupted runs of AT-dinucleotides, which have the potential to form secondary structures and hence can affect replication. These sequences show similarity to the AT-rich minisatellite repeats that underlie the fragility of the rare fragile sites FRA16B and FRA10B. We further demonstrate that the normal alleles of FRA16B and FRA10B span the same genomic regions as the common fragile sites FRA16C and FRA10E. Our results suggest that a shared molecular basis, conferred by sequences with a potential to form secondary structures that can perturb replication, may underlie the fragility of rare fragile sites harboring AT-rich minisatellite repeats and aphidicolin-induced common fragile sites.
The Deterrent Effect of Arrest in Incidents of Domestic Violence: A Bayesian Analysis of Four Field Experiments

We examine the deterrent effect of arrest in incidents of spouse abuse. The data are from field experiments conducted in four cities o Milwaukee, Omaha, Dade County (Florida), and Colorado Springs. On the average, arrest is no more effective than other police interventions in reducing new incidents of violence. However, arrest has differential effects on subsequent violence depending on the background of the offender. The implications of the findings for social science theory and public policy are discussed. (Abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by the American Sociological Association) Wisconsin Nebraska Florida Colorado Arrest and Apprehension Arrest Effects Deterrence Police Intervention Law Enforcement Intervention Police Response Domestic Violence Offender Spouse Abuse Offender Partner Violence Violence Against Women Adult Male Adult Offender Adult Violence Offender Arrest Male Offender Male Violence Offender Recidivism 07-02
Predictors of career commitment and job performance of Jordanian nurses.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Few studies focused on nurses' career commitment and nurses' job performance. This research aimed at studying variables of nurses' career commitment and job performance, and assessing the relationship between the two concepts as well as their predictors. METHODS A survey was used to collect data from a convenient sample of 640 Registered Nurses employed in 24 hospitals. RESULTS Nurses 'agreed' to be committed to their careers and they were performing their jobs 'well'. As a part of career commitment, nurses were willing to be involved, in their own time, in projects that would benefit patient care. The highest and lowest means of nurses' job performance were reported for the following aspects: leadership, critical care, teaching/collaboration, planning/evaluation, interpersonal relations/communications and professional development. Correlating of total scores of nurses' career commitment and job performance revealed the presence of a significant and positive relationship between the two concepts. Stepwise regression models revealed that the explained variance in nurses' career commitment was 23.9% and that in nurses' job performance was 29.9%. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Nurse managers should promote nursing as a career and they should develop and implement various strategies to increase nurses' career commitment and nurses' job performance. These strategies should focus on nurse retention, staff development and quality of care. CONCLUSIONS Nurses' career commitment and job performance are inter-related complex concepts that require further studies to understand, promote and maintain these positive factors in work environments.
USPEŠNOST REPRODUKCIJE U ZAVISNOSTI OD BROJA ČULA KOJIMA JE MOGUĆE ISKUSITI POJAM

The goal of this study was to test whether the accuracy of recall is influenced by the number of sensory modalities through which a concept can be experienced – a new variable closely related to word concreteness. Based on processing advantage of concepts that can be experienced through higher number of senses (fish) over the ones experienced through lower number of senses (moon), we hypothesized that the effect of number of senses will be observed in recall tasks, as well. In the first experiment, we presented pairs of related words to four groups of participants in the paired associate learning paradigm. Half of the participants were engaged in free recall, and half in cued recall. Each task was applied to two lists of stimuli. Within each list, half of the words were abstract, and half were concrete. Abstract words were identical across lists, whereas concrete words differed with respect to the number of modalities: one list consisted of concepts that can be experienced through a great number of senses, and another one contained those of a small number of sensory modalities. In addition to the traditional concreteness effect and that of the task, we observed the hypothesized effect of the number of sense modalities as well. As expected, participants were more accurate in cued recall task, more accurate when recalling concrete words, and more accurate when recalling concrete words with a large number of sensory modalities. The number of modalities effect was observed in the second experiment, where participants were presented with all three groups of words. To our best knowledge, this finding is the first demonstration of the effect of number of sensory modalities on memory processes. Finally, as expected, we observed that the concreteness effect was more pronounced in cued recall task. However, this interaction was not observed in the second experiment. Hence, we suggest further research of this phenomenon.
Emergency obstetric and newborn care signal functions in public and private facilities in Bangladesh

Background Signal functions for emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) are the major interventions for averting maternal and neonatal mortalities. Readiness of the facilities is essential to provide all the basic and comprehensive signal functions for EmONC to ensure emergency services from the designated facilities. The study assessed population coverage and availability of EmONC services in public and private facilities in Bangladesh. Methods An assessment was conducted in all the public and private facilities providing obstetric care in to in-patients 24 districts. Data were collected on the performance of signal functions for EmONC from the study facilities in the last three months prior to the date of assessment. Trained data-collectors interviewed the facility managers and key service providers, along with review of records, using contextualized tools. Population coverage of signal functions was assessed by estimating the number of facilities providing the signal functions for EmONC compared to the United Nations requirements. Availability was assessed in terms of the proportion of facilities providing the services by type of facilities and by district. Results Caesarean section (CS) delivery and blood transfusion (BT) services (the two major components of comprehensive EmONC) were respectively available in 6.4 (0.9 public and 5.5 private) and 5.6 (1.3 public and 4.3 private) facilities per 500,000 population. The signal functions for basic EmONC, except two (parental anticonvulsants and assisted vaginal delivery), were available in a minimum of 5 facilities (public and private sectors combined) per 500,000 population. A major inter-district variation in the availability of signal functions was observed in each public- and private-sector facility. Among the various types of facilities, only the public medical college hospitals had all the signal functions. The situation was poor in other public facilities at the district and sub-district levels as well as in private facilities. Conclusions In the public sector, CS delivery and BT services were available in the minimum required number of facilities. However, to ensure basic EmONC services, participation of the private sector is necessary. Public-private partnership should be promoted for nationwide coverage of signal functions for EmONC in Bangladesh.
THE STATE, LEGAL RIGOR, AND THE POOR The Daily Practice of Welfare Control

The state comes into being through its acts. This paper focuses on state acts par excellence, by which the state controls its population. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork on the control of welfare recipients by public welfare agencies in France. I consider investigations conducted in the homes of welfare recipients as a form of bureaucratic interrogation, with particular emphasis on its defining features, modalities and uses, and how it contributes to our understanding of contemporary practices in the institutional treatment of welfare recipients. The impact of the institutional power of constraint is combined with that of the uncertainty of the recipients' situations, of the modalities of their control, and of the rules enforced on such occasions. The paradox of these checks, which are made in the name of legal rigor but characterized by uncertainty and the discretionary power of grassroots agents, reveals the broader functioning of a government of the poor, based on the combination of a multitude of individual relationships, which though unevenly coordinated derive from a structural rationale - that of the economic imperative of putting people back to work combined with a moral undertaking of reforming habituses that fail to conform to the job market's and/or the welfare institutions' demands. Rather than disaggregation of the state, individualization and uncertainty can be viewed as a consistent mode of governance in which discretion and leeway of street-level bureaucrats are necessary for the state to exert power on citizens' behaviors.