Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carry-Over Biases in Clinical Pharmacology

If the effect of a treatment carries on after the treatment is withdrawn then the response to a second treatment may well be due in part to the previous treatment. This so called carry-over effect may bias any clinical trial in which subjects are tested more than once. Cross-over studies can be routinely checked for this bias. In other study designs, however, common sense and alertness for unusual patterns in the data are the only defences against it. The amount of carry-over bias in clinical trials can be somewhat minimized by the following measures. Dose-response studies, dose-titration studies, and open evaluation studies should require a sufficient washout period between the administrations of the drugs. Studies using duplicate standard deviations for the estimation of intra-individual reproducibility of a test should routinely include a statistical test for differences between the duplicate data. Self-controlled studies should not be used otherwise than as an initial orientation for a new treatment. Parallel studies should routinely be stratified for symmetry of previous treatments. Studies with subjective variables are frequently influenced by psychological carry-over effects and should, therefore, be validated together with objective variables whenever possible.
On a pointwise convergence of trigonometric interpolations with shifted nodes

We consider trigonometric interpolations with shifted equidistant nodes and investigate their accuracies depending on the shift parameter. Two different types of interpolations are in the focus of our attention: the Krylov-Lanczos and the rational-trigonometric-polynomial interpolations. The Krylov-Lanczos interpolation performs convergence acceleration of the classical trigonometric interpolation by polynomial corrections. Additional acceleration is achieved by application of rational corrections which contain some extra parameters. In both cases, we derive the exact constants of the asymptotic errors and, based on these estimates, we find the optimal shifts that provide with the best accuracy. Optimizations are performed for the pointwise convergence in the regions away from the endpoints. Asymptotic estimates allow optimal selection of the extra parameters in the rational corrections which provides with additional accuracy. Results of numerical experiments clarify theoretical investigations.
Development and Evaluation of the Individuals With Learning Disabilities and/or Difficulties Perceived Discrimination Scale

The present two studies describe the development and psychometric evaluation of the Learning Disability/Difficulty Perceived Discrimination Scale used to assess the self-reported discrimination experiences of people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. In Study 1 (N = 202) an exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors, Inferior and Cheating the System. In Study 2 (N = 216) a confirmatory factor analysis supported the stability of this two-factor correlated model and a bifactor model. Across studies, subscale and full-scale items offered evidence of good reliability, convergent validity, and concurrent validity. Preliminary support for a minority stress framework is explored. Limitations, research, and clinical work with learning difficulties and/or disabilities populations are discussed.
Stellar populations of bulges in 14 cluster disc galaxies

Photometry and long-slit spectroscopy are presented for 14 S0 and spiral galaxies of the Fornax, Eridanus and Pegasus cluster, and NGC 7582 group. The structural parameters of the galaxies are derived from the R-band images by performing a two-dimensional photometric decomposition of the surface brightness distribution. This is assumed to be the sum of the contribution of a bulge and disc component characterized by elliptical and concentric isophotes with constant (but possibly different) ellipticity and position angles. The rotation curves and velocity dispersion profiles are measured from the spectra obtained along the major axis of galaxies. The radial profiles of the Hβ, Mg and Fe line-strength indices are presented too. Correlations between the central values of Mg2, � Fe� ,H β and σ are found. The age, metallicity and α/Fe enhancement of the stellar population in the centre and at the radius where bulge and disc give the same contribution to the total surface brightness are obtained using stellar population models with variable element abundance ratios. Three classes of bulges are identified. The youngest bulges (∼2 Gyr) with ongoing star formation, intermediate-age bulges (4–8 Gyr) have solar metallicity, and old bulges (∼10 Gyr) have high metallicity. Most of the sample bulges display solar α/Fe enhancement, no gradient in age and a negative gradient of metallicity. The presence of negative gradient in the metallicity radial profile favours a scenario with bulge formation via dissipative collapse. This implies strong insideout formation that should give rise to a negative gradient in the α/Fe enhancement too. But, no gradient is measured in the [α/Fe] radial profiles for all the galaxies, except for NGC 1366. In this galaxy there is a kinematically decoupled component, which is younger than the rest of host bulge. It possibly formed by enriched material probably acquired via interaction or minor merging. The bulge of NGC 1292 is the most reliable pseudo-bulge of our sample. The properties of its stellar population are consistent with a slow build-up within a scenario of secular evolution.
A SNAP-Tagged Derivative of HIV-1—A Versatile Tool to Study Virus-Cell Interactions

Fluorescently labeled human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) derivatives, combined with the use of advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques, allow the direct visualization of dynamic events and individual steps in the viral life cycle. HIV proteins tagged with fluorescent proteins (FPs) have been successfully used for live-cell imaging analyses of HIV-cell interactions. However, FPs display limitations with respect to their physicochemical properties, and their maturation kinetics. Furthermore, several independent FP-tagged constructs have to be cloned and characterized in order to obtain spectral variations suitable for multi-color imaging setups. In contrast, the so-called SNAP-tag represents a genetically encoded non-fluorescent tag which mediates specific covalent coupling to fluorescent substrate molecules in a self-labeling reaction. Fusion of the SNAP-tag to the protein of interest allows specific labeling of the fusion protein with a variety of synthetic dyes, thereby offering enhanced flexibility for fluorescence imaging approaches. Here we describe the construction and characterization of the HIV derivative HIVSNAP, which carries the SNAP-tag as an additional domain within the viral structural polyprotein Gag. Introduction of the tag close to the C-terminus of the matrix domain of Gag did not interfere with particle assembly, release or proteolytic virus maturation. The modified virions were infectious and could be propagated in tissue culture, albeit with reduced replication capacity. Insertion of the SNAP domain within Gag allowed specific staining of the viral polyprotein in the context of virus producing cells using a SNAP reactive dye as well as the visualization of individual virions and viral budding sites by stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy. Thus, HIVSNAP represents a versatile tool which expands the possibilities for the analysis of HIV-cell interactions using live cell imaging and sub-diffraction fluorescence microscopy.
The Extended Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: Chandra Point-Source Catalogs

We present Chandra point-source catalogs for the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South (E-CDF-S) survey. The E-CDF-S consists of four contiguous 250 ks Chandra observations covering an approximately square region of total solid angle ≈0.3 deg2, which flank the existing ≈1 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S). The survey reaches sensitivity limits of ≈1.1 × 10-16 and ≈6.7 × 10-16 ergs cm-2 s-1 for the 0.5-2.0 and 2-8 keV bands, respectively. We detect 762 distinct X-ray point sources within the E-CDF-S exposure; 589 of these sources are new (i.e., not previously detected in the ≈1 Ms CDF-S). This brings the total number of X-ray point sources detected in the E-CDF-S region to 915 (via the E-CDF-S and ≈1 Ms CDF-S observations). Source positions are determined using matched-filter and centroiding techniques; the median positional uncertainty is ≈0. ″35. The basic X-ray and optical properties of these sources indicate a variety of source types, although absorbed active galactic nuclei (AGNs) seem to dominate. In addition to our main Chandra catalog, we constructed a supplementary source catalog containing 33 lower significance X-ray point sources that have bright optical counterparts (R < 23). These sources generally have X-ray-to-optical flux ratios expected for normal and starburst galaxies, which lack a strong AGN component. We present basic number-count results for our main Chandra catalog and find good agreement with the ≈1 Ms CDF-S for sources with 0.5-2.0 and 2-8 keV fluxes greater than 3 × 10-16 and 1 × 10-15 ergs cm-2 s-1, respectively. Furthermore, three extended sources are detected in the 0.5-2.0 keV band, which are found to be likely associated with galaxy groups or poor clusters at z ≈ 0.1-0.7; these have typical rest-frame 0.5-2.0 keV luminosities of (1-5) × 1042 ergs s-1.
The Role of the Guanine-Based Purinergic System in Seizures and Epilepsy

Guanine-based purines have been traditionally studied as modulators of intracellular processes, mainly G- protein activity. However, more recently, several studies have shown that they exert a variety of extracellular effects not related to G-proteins, including trophic effects on neural cells, modulation of glutamatergic activity, behavioral effects and anticonvulsant activity. In this article, the putative effects of the guanine-based purines against seizures and neurotox- icity are reviewed. Current evidence suggests that guanine-based purines, especially guanosine, seem to be endogenous anticonvulsant substances, perhaps in a similar way to the adenine-based purines. Although studies addressing the mecha- nism of action of guanine-based purines are still lacking, their anticonvulsant activity is probably related to the modula- tion of several glutamatergic parameters, especially the astrocytic glutamate uptake. These findings point to the guanine- based purines as potential new targets for the development of novel drugs for neuroprotection and management of epi- lepsy.
Minority Party Government and Independent MPs: A Comparative Analysis of Australia and Ireland

Minority government is becoming more common. With support declining for traditional parties and increasing for anti-establishment movements, government formation is becoming increasingly difficult in many jurisdictions. While minority government has been the subject of much normative debate, one type of minority arrangement that has not attracted much attention is that involving independent parliamentarians. Government in most countries tends to be party government, but in this article, we examine the experience in Australia and Ireland of independents supporting minority government. We assess the performance of these administrations in terms of their stability, their productivity and their electoral performance. We find that, contrary to expectation, minority government involving independents is not a recipe for instability nor necessarily results in an efficient parliament.
Differentiating Types of Meaningfulness as Motivation for Crowdsourcing Participation and Performance

With the advent of powerful task performance platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT), crowdsourcing has become a powerful means to address a variety of high-volume pragmatic problems, ranging from language translations to imagery analysis. Crowdsourcing uses crowds of relatively low-cost workers to perform tasks, finding accuracy in the volume of work done rather than relying on experts to address each requirement. This study investigated the breadth of meaningfulness as a potential incentive mechanism in driving performance, participation, and reservation wages in paid crowdsourcing using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT). Where previous research has equated meaningfulness to an altruistic and/or charitable purpose, this research investigated meaningfulness purpose beyond charity based on the insight that this incentive category, in previous work in industry and education, was intended to be more grounded in an individual objective of usefulness than in altruistic objectives. In this study, it was hypothesized that participants receiving charitable and profitable contexts to their tasks (e.g., informed that task outcomes were being used in a meaningful way) would produce higher performance and participation, as well as a smaller (or lack of) performance or participation drop-offs with lower pecuniary interventions (e.g., indicating a lower reservation wage). It was also hypothesized that participants receiving charitable contexts would produce higher performance and participation than profitable contexts, as well as lower reservation wages. Participants were recruited online using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT). Participants were asked to complete a demographics
Consumer Perception of Inpatient Medical Services

Although it is currently popular to reflect consumers’ perspectives to medical service management, insufficient attempts have been made to understand detailed perception of the consumer side of medical services to promote medical services’ evaluation from the consumer viewpoint. The aim of this study was to descriptively reveal how consumers perceive medical services that they receive, focusing on inpatient medical services. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 adults who experienced hospitalization of five or more days. Constant comparative analysis was performed on the obtained descriptive data. We identified 1) medical procedures, 2) explanations from medical professionals, 3) behavior of medical service providers, 4) somatic sensations, and 5) self-perceived physical conditions as target factors that medical service consumers perceived during hospitalization. The response to the perceived target factors, “compared with the expectation that the consumer had before the hospitalization,” suggests that it is an important medical service consumer reaction to check if the service met their expectations for perceived factors. The response to the medical services perception targets suggested that medical service consumers are involved in medical services and interested in various perception targets. The expectations that medical service consumers have prior to hospitalization can largely influence inpatient medical services evaluation.
Annual Electric Load Forecasting by a Least Squares Support Vector Machine with a Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm

The accuracy of annual electric load forecasting plays an important role in the economic and social benefits of electric power systems. The least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) has been proven to offer strong potential in forecasting issues, particularly by employing an appropriate meta-heuristic algorithm to determine the values of its two parameters. However, these meta-heuristic algorithms have the drawbacks of being hard to understand and reaching the global optimal solution slowly. As a novel meta-heuristic and evolutionary algorithm, the fruit fly optimization algorithm (FOA) has the advantages of being easy to understand and fast convergence to the global optimal solution. Therefore, to improve the forecasting performance, this paper proposes a LSSVM-based annual electric load forecasting model that uses FOA to automatically determine the appropriate values of the two parameters for the LSSVM model. By taking the annual electricity consumption of China as an instance, the computational result shows that the LSSVM combined with FOA (LSSVM-FOA) outperforms other alternative methods, namely single LSSVM, LSSVM combined with coupled simulated annealing algorithm (LSSVM-CSA), generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and regression model.
The effect of student use of the free-body diagram representation on their performance

Multiple representations (such as pictures, words, diagrams, and graphs) were found by many researchers in the physics education field to enhance the students’ ability to understand the physical concepts. Free−body diagram is a method of the multiple representations and it is defined as the pictorial representation in problems involving forces. In the literature available on physics education, little research has been found concerning the effects of using free−body diagrams on student performance at the college level. The purpose of this investigation is to address and explore the effects of using free−body diagrams on the test results of freshman−engineering students at the university level. This study was conducted using a sample of engineering students taking the introductory−physics course on Newtonian mechanics. The quantitative investigation showed that students who draw correct free−body diagrams while solving a physics problem are likely to solve the problem correctly, while students who draw wrong diagrams are likely to fail in solving the problem. 85% of our students used the free−body diagram representation, although they did not receive any credit for that use, which shows the students’ awareness of the importance of the free−body diagram representation.
Canterbury Drifts at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1119, New Zealand: Climatic modulation of southwest Pacific intermediate water flows since 3.9 Ma

We provide a record of variations in southwest Pacific Ocean intermediate water flow that shows a strong correlation between periods of vigorous flow and warm climate phases. Ocean Drilling Program Site 1119, located at 395 m water depth on the upper continental slope east of New Zealand, penetrated 514 m of silts and silty clays (glacial deposits) punctuated by muds and episodic 0.02–1.2-m-thick terrigenous sands (interglacial deposits). The natural gamma-ray record reflects the waxing and waning of the South Island ice cap since 3.91 Ma. Below 86.19 m composite depth, the succession comprises drift sediments deposited from north-flowing intermediate Subantarctic Mode Water (SAMW, ~250–800 m depth) and Antarctic Intermediate Water (~800–1100 m depth). A change from the deposition of large, low-energy drifts on the middle slope to smaller, higher-energy drifts on the upper slope coincided with global climatic deterioration that occurred after ca. 3.25 Ma. This change marks an upward expansion of intermediate cold waters, perhaps caused by the inception of the Subantarctic Front and the consequent commencement of Southland Current–driven SAMW flow.
The constitutive level of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is more important than hypoxia-induced VEGF up-regulation in the angiogenesis of human melanoma xenografts

Angiogenesis of tumours might develop as a result of environmental conditions, such as hypoxia, and/or as a result of genetic alterations specific for tumour cells. The relative contributions of these mechanisms were investigated by comparing the in vivo expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) to the hypoxic fraction, the angiogenic potential and the vascular density of four human melanoma lines (A-07, D-12, R-18, U-25) grown intradermally in Balb/c nu/nu mice. VEGF expression, bFGF expression and expression of pimonidazole, a marker of hypoxic cells, were investigated by immunohistochemistry. An association between high VEGF and bFGF expression and high angiogenic potential was detected, suggesting an important role for VEGF/bFGF in the angiogenesis of melanomas. High VEGF/bFGF expression was also related to low hypoxic fraction and high vascular density. Thus, the constitutive, genetically determined level of VEGF was probably more important than hypoxia-induced upregulation in the angiogenesis of the melanoma xenografts. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Effects of an Equatorial ‘ ‘ Wallff on an Atmospheric Model

I ABSTRACT-The effect of an artificial lateral boundary (the wall) at the Equator on a simulated atmospheric circulation was studied numerically. By comparing the solutions of two 30-day integrations of a global model with and without the wall, we found that the discrepancies of the wind and temperature at the middle and high latitudes became appreciable at approximately 8 days and serious at approximately 12 days. This suggests that the wall (hemispheric) model may be applied as a forecast model for a maximum of about 12 days. The disagreement in the wind between the two cases starts just below the tropo-pause level a t the Equator and spreads toward the higher latitudes. Eventually, the middle latitudes respond to this equatorial effect, and the disagreement is amplified to the natural variability level. Insertion of the wall considerably increases the condensation of water vapor in the Tropics for the winter hemisphere; the reverse i s true for the summer hemisphere. The result is that, in the winter hemisphere , the tropical troposphere and the stratosphere are cooler and the higher latitude troposphere is warmer in the wall case than in the control case. The opposite is true for the summer hemisphere.
Pengaruh Kompetensi, Komitmen Organisasi, Motivasi Kerja terhadap Kinerja Karyawan di Kantor Pos Bandung 40000

PT Pos Indonesia (Persero) Bandung 40000, selalu berusaha memberikan pelayanan jasa kurir terbaik terhadap konsumen. Namun, terdapat permasalahan bahwa kinerja karyawan PT Pos Indonesia (Persero) Bandung 40000 tidak optimal. Penelitian menggunkan pendekatan kuantitatif, dengan metode menggunakan metode survey. Ukuran populasi sebanyak 138 responden, sedangkan responden yang dijadikan sampel adalah sebanyak 103 responden. Tekhnik sampling menggunakan non probability sampling. Uji instrumen menggunakan validitas dan reliabilitas, sedangkan teknik analisa data menggunakan PLS. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kompetensi memiliki pengaruh positif terhadap motivasi kerja, komitmen organisasi memiliki pengaruh positif terhadap motivasi kerja, kompetensi memiliki pengaruh positif terhadap kinerja karyawan, komitmen organisasi tidak memiliki pengaruh positif terhadap kinerja karyawan, motivasi kerja memiliki pengaruh positif terhadap kinerja karyawan
PSYCHIATRIC SEQUELAE OF AMPUTATION : I IMMEDIATE EFFECTS

Twenty-five subjects, who had undergone amputation within last 6 weeks, were studied for psychiatric complications, including phantom limb phenomena. The patients were interviewed on SCID, HRSD and HARS. Out of a total of 25 subjects, 8 (34.6%) developed psychiatric disorders - PTSD and major depression. The whole sample was thus divided into 2 groups-sick and nonsick. Phantom limb was seen in 88% subjects. No significant difference was present between the two groups with regard to presence of phantom, its associated phenomena of pain, telescopy and movement. A statistically significant difference was seen in psychiatric sickness in relation to upper and lower limb.