Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrating Buddhist practices and principles into mental health settings: a mixed method investigation

During recent decades there has been growing public and scientific interest into the applications of Buddhist practices and principles for improving psychological wellbeing, and for enhancing psychosocial functioning more generally. Although there is a growing and credible evidence base that supports the utility of Buddhist techniques for treating specific mental health issues, these techniques were originally taught by the Buddha in the context of a spiritual path, and with the complete liberation from suffering as the ultimate goal. Consequently, an increasing number of researchers, scholars, and Buddhist teachers have raised concerns that the manner in which Buddhist meditation techniques are being taught and practised in Western mental health settings bears little or no resemblance to the traditional Buddhist approach. Furthermore, concerns have also been raised over the extent to which the average researcher and teacher of secular Buddhist-derived interventions (BDIs) has an accurate and grounded understanding of the basic principles of Buddhist meditation. The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to make an original contribution to knowledge by: (i) providing robust theoretical foundations to support the effective interpretation, classification, and operationalisation of Buddhist terms, principles, and practices within mental health settings, and (ii) empirically investigating the benefits to mental health of authentic Buddhist practices and principles within currently unexplored population settings. Findings from this thesis demonstrate that BDIs—when correctly taught and administered—may be effective treatments for a range of mental health issues including schizophrenia, pathological gambling, work addiction, and work-related stress. However, perhaps of greater significance, findings demonstrate that if Western research and mental health disciplines truly wish to assimilate and make use of Buddhist practices as part of alleviating human suffering and advancing understanding of the mind, then it is vital that empirical investigations look beyond the superficial attributes of these spiritual practices and seek to identify the cooperating and underlying psycho-spiritual properties that are traditionally assumed to authenticate them.
TLR9 Expression and Function Is Abolished by the Cervical Cancer-Associated Human Papillomavirus Type 161

Cervical cancer development is linked to the persistent infection by high-risk mucosal human papillomaviruses (HPVs) types. The E6 and E7 major oncoproteins from this dsDNA virus play a key role in the deregulation of the cell cycle, apoptosis, and adaptive immune surveillance. In this study, we show for the first time that HPV type 16 (HPV16), the most carcinogenic type among the high-risk subgroup, interferes with innate immunity by affecting the expression of TLRs. Infection of human primary keratinocytes with HPV16 E6 and E7 recombinant retroviruses inhibits TLR9 transcription and hence functional loss of TLR9-regulated pathways. Similar findings were achieved in HPV16-positive cancer-derived cell lines and primary cervical cancers, demonstrating that this event occurs also in an in vivo context. Interestingly, E6 and E7 from the low-risk HPV type 6 are unable to down-regulate the TLR9 promoter. In addition, E6 and E7 from the high-risk HPV type 18, which are known to persist less competently in the host than HPV16, have reduced efficiency compared with HPV16 in inhibiting TLR9 transcription. Furthermore, a CpG motif derived from the HPV16 E6 DNA sequence activated TLR9, indicating this virus is able to initiate innate responses via the receptor it later down-regulates. This study reveals a novel mechanism used by HPV16 to suppress the host immune response by deregulating the TLR9 transcript, providing evidence that abolishing innate responses may be a crucial step involved in the carcinogenic events mediated by HPVs.
Cell-Surface Glycoprotein of Oligodendrocyte Progenitors Involved in Migration

Myelination by oligodendrocytes in the CNS involves the migration to and recognition and ensheathment of axons. These distinct developmental phases of myelination are assumed to involve the interplay of a precisely regulated set of cell adhesion molecules expressed by both neurons and glial cells. These molecules remain largely unelucidated. In this paper we have identified a large (330 kDa) glycoprotein expressed by murine oligodendrocyte progenitor cellsin vitro and in vivo that is downregulated as oligodendrocytes mature. Antigen-positive oligodendrocyte progenitor cells purified by panning develop into myelin-associated glycoprotein-positive oligodendrocytes and also adhere to cultured neurons. Polyclonal antibodies directed against the protein reduce the migration of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. The observations suggest that the AN2 antigen may play a role in early stages of myelination.
Closed-Form Solutions for Attitude, Speed, Absolute Scale and Bias Determination by Fusing Vision and Inertial Measurements

This paper analyzes the problem of data fusion when the adopted sensors are a monocular camera and inertial sensors (i.e. one tri-axial accelerometer and one tri-axial gyrometer). The paper provides two main contributions. The first is the analytical derivation of all the observable modes, i.e. all the physical quantities that can be estimated by only using the information in the sensor data acquired during a short time interval. Specifically, the observable modes are the vehicle speed and attitude, the absolute scale and the bias affecting the inertial measurements. This holds even in the case when the camera only observes a single point feature. The analytical derivation of the previous observable modes is based on a non standard observability analysis, which fully accounts the system non linearities. The second contribution is the analytical derivation of closed-form solutions which analytically express all the previous observable modes in terms of the sensor measurements collected during a very short time interval. This allows introducing a very simple and powerful new method able to simultaneously estimate all the observable modes without the need of any initialization or a priori knowledge. Both the observability analysis and the derivation of the closed-form solutions are carried out in several different contexts, including the case of biased and unbiased inertial measurements, the case of a single and multiple features, and in presence and absence of gravity. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated via extensive Monte Carlo simulations and by using two distinct real data sets.
Frequency of Red Cell Alloimmunization and Autoimmunization in Thalassemia Patients: A Report from Eastern India

Introduction. Red blood cell (RBC) alloimmunization and autoimmunization remain a major problem in transfusion dependent thalassemic patients. There is a paucity of data on the incidence of RBC alloimmunization and autoimmunization in thalassemic patients from eastern part of India, as pretransfusion antibody screening is not routinely performed. Aims. To assess the incidence of RBC alloimmunization and autoimmunization in transfusion dependent thalassemic patients in eastern India. Materials and Methods. Total 500 thalassemia cases were evaluated. The antibody screening and identification were performed with commercially available panel cells (Diapanel, Bio-rad, Switzerland) by column agglutination method. To detect autoantibodies, autocontrol and direct antiglobulin tests were carried out using polyspecific coombs (IgG + C3d) gel cards in all patients. Results. A total of 28 patients developed RBC alloimmunization (5.6%) and 5 patients had autoantibodies (1%). Alloantibody against c had the highest incidence (28.57%) followed by E (21.42%). Five out of 28 (17.85%) patients had developed antibodies against both c and E. Conclusion. Data from this study demonstrate that the RBC alloantibody and autoantibody development rates are significant in our region. Thus, pretransfusion antibody screening needs to be initiated in eastern India in order to ensure safe transfusion practice.
Cues to Coup Plotters

A large proportion of coup attempts in autocracies occur in the aftermath of elections, yet little systematic research exists on the topic. Drawing on recent literature on elections in autocracies, we present an argument to explain postelection coups. While we recognize that electoral institutions have the potential to stabilize autocracies, we illustrate that the election event can spark instability when incumbents reveal electoral weakness. Electoral outcomes—in the form of vote shares and opposition reactions—are signals containing information about the strength of the opposition, and indirectly about the likelihood of a successful full-scale revolution that would compromise the privileged positions of regime elites. In these situations, coups are likely to be initiated to avoid a revolution, either by serving as concessions to the opposition or by facilitating increased repression. We perform a large-N study that supports our argument, significantly nuancing the claim that elections stabilize autocracies.
Word Processing and English as a Foreign Language: Environmental Factors Affecting Revision Quality - A Qualitative Analysis

SUMMARY This study investigates the impact upon quality of revision changes of four specific variables: (a) tiredness, (b) the time of the day, (c) noise, and (d) writers’ psychological situation. The particular context is 46 University students whose first language is Greek and had various experience on word processing. These student writers were interviewed in order the researcher to extract the information necessary for an in-depth analysis. They wrote and revised in English through the medium of word-processors. The analysis has shown that no immediate negative influence is evident in the output and the writers felt an impact of environmental factors considered needing to produce quality revisions. Discussion concludes with the results, implications and the limitations of the findings.
Augmented Reality in Schools: Preliminary Evaluation Results from a Summer School

— Formative usability evaluation aims at finding usability problems during the development process. The earlier these problems are identified, the less expensive to fix they are. This paper presents some preliminary results from a formative usability testing of the 1st prototype developed for the ARiSE (Augmented Reality in School Environments) project.
Minipool Caprylic Acid Fractionation of Plasma Using Disposable Equipment: A Practical Method to Enhance Immunoglobulin Supply in Developing Countries

Background Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is an essential plasma-derived medicine that is lacking in developing countries. IgG shortages leave immunodeficient patients without treatment, exposing them to devastating recurrent infections from local pathogens. A simple and practical method for producing IgG from normal or convalescent plasma collected in developing countries is needed to provide better, faster access to IgG for patients in need. Methodology/Principal Findings IgG was purified from 10 consecutive minipools of 20 plasma donations collected in Egypt using single-use equipment. Plasma donations in their collection bags were subjected to 5%-pH5.5 caprylic acid treatment for 90 min at 31°C, and centrifuged to remove the precipitate. Supernatants were pooled, then dialyzed and concentrated using a commercial disposable hemodialyzer. The final preparation was filtered online by gravity, aseptically dispensed into storage transfusion bags, and frozen at <-20°C. The resulting preparation had a mean protein content of 60.5 g/L, 90.2% immunoglobulins, including 83.2% IgG, 12.4% IgA, and 4.4% IgM, and residual albumin. There was fourfold to sixfold enrichment of anti-hepatitis B and anti-rubella antibodies. Analyses of aggregates (<3%), prekallicrein (5-7 IU/mL), plasmin (26.3 mU/mL), thrombin (2.5 mU/mL), thrombin-like activity (0.011 U/g), thrombin generation capacity (< 223 nM), and Factor XI (<0.01 U/mL) activity, Factor XI/XIa antigen (2.4 ng/g) endotoxin (<0.5 EU/mL), and general safety test in rats showed the in vitro safety profile. Viral validation revealed >5 logs reduction of HIV, BVDV, and PRV infectivity in less than 15 min of caprylic acid treatment. Conclusions/Significance 90% pure, virally-inactivated immunoglobulins can be prepared from plasma minipools using simple disposable equipment and bag systems. This easy-to-implement process could be used to produce immunoglobulins from local plasma in developing countries to treat immunodeficient patients. It is also relevant for preparing hyperimmune IgG from convalescent plasma during infectious outbreaks such as the current Ebola virus episode.
Sublethal Effects of Insecticide Exposure on Megacopta cribraria (Fabricius) Nymphs: Key Biological Traits and Acetylcholinesterase Activity

Megacopta cribraria F. (Hemiptera: Plataspidae), the kudzu bug, is an invasive insect pest of U.S. soybean. At present, insecticide application is the primary and most effective control option for M. cribraria. In this study, the potential effects of sublethal and low-lethal concentrations (LC10 and LC40) of three common insecticides on key biological traits and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity of the treated nymphal stage of insect were assessed. The results show that the sublethal concentration of imidacloprid significantly reduced adult emergence rate of M. cribraria. A low-lethal concentration of imidacloprid significantly increased nymphal development time, but significantly decreased adult emergence rate and adult longevity. Both sublethal and low-lethal concentrations of acephate caused an increase in nymphal development time and a reduction in adult emergence rate and adult longevity. Fecundity of females was significantly reduced only by exposure to low-lethal concentrations of acephate. Sublethal and low-lethal concentrations of bifenthrin increased nymphal development time, but significantly decreased adult emergence rate. In addition, we found that the AChE activity of M. cribraria was significantly increased only by LC40 imidacloprid, but strongly inhibited by acephate.
Synaptic dysfunction and oxidative stress in Alzheimer’s disease: Emerging mechanisms

In this paper, we review experimental advances in molecular neurobiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), with special emphasis on analysis of neural function of proteins involved in AD pathogenesis, their relation with several signaling pathways and with oxidative stress in neurons. Molecular genetic studies have found that mutations in APP, PS1 and PS2 genes and polymorphisms in APOE gene are implicated in AD pathogenesis. Recent studies show that these proteins, in addition to its role in beta‐amyloid processing, are involved in several neuroplasticity‐signaling pathways (NMDA‐PKA‐CREB‐BDNF, reelin, wingless, notch, among others). Genomic and proteomic studies show early synaptic protein alterations in AD brains and animal models. DNA damage caused by oxidative stress is not completely repaired in neurons and is accumulated in the genes of synaptic proteins. Several functional SNPs in synaptic genes may be interesting candidates to explore in AD as genetic correlates of this synaptopathy in a “synaptogenomics” approach. Thus, experimental evidence shows that proteins implicated in AD pathogenesis have differential roles in several signaling pathways related to neuromodulation and neurotransmission in adult and developing brain. Genomic and proteomic studies support these results. We suggest that oxidative stress effects on DNA and inherited variations in synaptic genes may explain in part the synaptic dysfunction seen in AD.
Overconfidence and Early-Life Experiences: The Impact of Managerial Traits on Corporate Financial Policies

We show that measurable managerial characteristics have significant explanatory power for corporate financing decisions beyond traditional capital-structure determinants. First, managers who believe that their firm is undervalued view external financing as overpriced, especially equity. Such overconfident managers use less external finance and, conditional on accessing risky capital, issue less equity than their peers. Second, CEOs with Depression experience are averse to debt and lean excessively on internal finance. Third, CEOs with military experience pursue more aggressive policies, including heightened leverage. Complementary measures of CEO traits based on press portrayals confirm the results.
A regression approach to categorical music emotion recognition

Music emotion recognition is a challenging task due to the subjective issue. Simply assigning an emotion class to a music clip is deterministic due to ignoring the individual difference when people perceive music emotion. Also, within a music clip, there always exist more than one kind of emotions. In this paper, we propose a regression approach for categorical music emotion recognition. For each music clip, based on the features extracted by various algorithms, the proposed approach determines the top two dominant emotions in it. Eight regressors for eight emotion classes are trained respectively to score the intensity of each emotion in a music clip. An experiment on a data set of 385 music clips annotated by 105 subjects is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Is Taurolidine-citrate an effective and cost-effective hemodialysis catheter lock solution? A systematic review and cost- effectiveness analysis

Background: Prevention of catheter-related infection is of prime importance,. However, because of the risks caused by the leakage of circulating antibiotics and development of resistance to antibiotics, they are replaced by lock solutions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and cost- effectiveness of taurolidine-citrate as a hemodialysis catheter lock solution compared to other common alternatives in Iran. Methods: To evaluate the efficacy of taurolidine-citrate, a systematic review was conducted by searching electronic databases. The outcomes of interest for cost-effectiveness analysis were as follows: "Catheter-related bacteremia episodes"; "catheter-related bacteremia-free survival"; "catheter thrombosis rate" for efficacy evaluation and "reduction of catheter-related infection". For evidence synthesis, a meta-analysis was conducted on the extracted efficacy data. To evaluate the cost of treatments, direct medical costs were included, and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was calculated for each comparison. The payers’ (patients and insurance companies) perspectives were used for cost analysis. Results: After carrying out the systematic process, three articles were included in the analysis. Considering 95% confidence interval, the relative difference was -0.16 (-0.25 to -0.07) for catheterrelated bacteremia episode, indicating that the rate of catheter-related infections in hemodialysis patients who used taurolidine-citrate was 16% less than in those hemodialysis patients who received heparin. Considering 95% confidence interval, the relative difference was 0.13 (-0.06 0.32) for catheter thrombosis, showing that the rate of catheter-related thrombosis in hemodialysis patients who used taurolidine-citrate was 13% more than in hemodialysis patients who received heparin. The results of this analysis indicated that taurolidine-citrate, compared to heparin, was more effective in preventing catheter-related infection; therefore, it could be considered as a superior strategy. Nevertheless, compared to heparin-gentamicin combination, taurolidine-citrate is an inferior strategy because of its higher cost and lower infection prevention. Conclusion: Compared to heparin, taurolidine-citrate is a superior option, but it is an inferior strategy compared to heparin-gentamicin combination. The clinical evidences on taurolidine-citrate, heparin and gentamicin/heparin are not sufficient for making confident decisions.
Using a Strengths Approach to Early Childhood Teacher Preparation in Child Protection using Work-Integrated Education

This paper explores a collaborative strengths-based approach to investing in pre-service early childhood teacher education in the area of child protection. The doctoral research of the author, which evaluated a Strengths Approach as a cross-sector tool for implementing change in early-childhood education and in doing so researched a potential investment in improving pre-service preparation, is described and discussed. Findings from the research suggest that using a strengths-based process, involving work-integrated learning, enhanced the ability of the pre-service teachers in the study to protect young children. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2013(3), 157-169)
Experiential Avoidance, Dyadic Interaction and Relationship Quality in the Lives of Veterans and Their Partners

This study assessed the mediating pathways of observed couple communication on the dyadic associations between experiential avoidance (EA) and relationship quality. A sample of 228 military couples following combat deployment participated in a conflict discussion and completed self-report measures to assess EA and relationship quality. Results of an actor–partner interdependence model using structural equation modeling indicated that for both dyad members greater EA was associated with their own lower relationship quality. Higher EA in men was associated with more observed negative communication, as well as lower relationship quality in their female partners. Positive couple communication was associated with higher relationship quality in men and in women. Overall, EA demonstrated associations with relationship quality above and beyond couple communication skills. This study points to the importance of EA for the marital system and suggests that interventions targeting EA and positive couple communication skills may strengthen military marital relationships following deployment to war.
ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND THE ELASTICITIES OF LABOUR DEMAND: ECONOMETRIC EVIDENCE FROM FINLAND

By using theoretical model and empirical analysis, we investigate the effects of the economic integration on the elasticity of labour demand with own price. In a general theoretical model of intra-industry trade, we analyze how economic integration changes the labour-demand elasticity. We show that intensified trade competition increases the labour-demand elasticity, whereas better advantage of economies of scale decreases the elasticity of labour demand by decreasing elasticity of substitution between differentiated products. If integration gives rise to an increase in input-substitutability and/or outsourcing activities, labour demand will become more elastic. We test the idea whether European integration has changed the labour-demand elasticities in Finland using data from the manufacturing sector from 1975 to 2002. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that economic integration has contributed to increased elasticities of total labour demand.
A h-Shirt-Based Body Sensor Network for Cuffless Calibration and Estimation of Arterial Blood Pressure

In this paper, a body sensor network (BSN) system for measuring systolic blood pressure (SBP) by a cuffless approach based on h-Shirt has been developed. Two experiments were conducted on a total of 22 subjects to evaluate the cuffless calibration approach and BSN system respectively. The results showed that using the estimated time and distance travelled by a pulse and a parameter derived from the secondary derivative of PPG, the BSN system can measure SBP completely without using a cuff within 1.2±6.0 mmHg of the reference on 10 healthy subjects aged 21-35 yrs.