Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digital radiographs displayed on different devices: effect on the detection of vertical root fractures.

AIM To evaluate whether the type of display device affects the detection of vertical root fractures (VRFs) on digital radiographs in unfilled canals and canals with fibreglass posts. METHODOLOGY Forty single-rooted human teeth were decoronated, and the root canals were prepared. The teeth were divided into 2 groups: controls (20 teeth) and with VRF (20 teeth). The VRFs were induced using an universal testing machine. Periapical radiographs of all teeth, with canal unfilled or with a fibreglass post, were obtained using the parallel technique in 3 directions (ortho-, mesio- and distoradial) on storage phosphor plates (VistaScan®). All images were evaluated and re-evaluated after 30 days by 3 examiners on a 5-point scale using 4 different devices (notebook display with full high definition resolution, desktop display with a standard resolution, 8-inch Android(™) tablet with high definition resolution and a 9.7-inch iPad® tablet with Retina resolution). Areas under ROC curves, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy values were compared by anova. RESULTS The weighted kappa values for intra- and interobserver reproducibility were 0.55-0.88 and 0.31-0.65, respectively. There was a significant difference (P < 0.05) in relation to the area under the ROC curve, specificity and sensitivity when unfilled canals were compared with canals with a fibreglass post; however, no difference was observed for the different devices studied. CONCLUSIONS The type of display device did not affect the detection of VRFs. Thus, the detection of VRFs can be performed using different screen sizes and resolutions.
Let the kernel figure it out; Principled learning of pre-processing for kernel classifiers

Most modern computer vision systems for high-level tasks, such as image classification, object recognition and segmentation, are based on learning algorithms that are able to separate discriminative information from noise. In practice, however, the typical system consists of a long pipeline of pre-processing steps, such as extraction of different kinds of features, various kinds of normalizations, feature selection, and quantization into aggregated representations such as histograms. Along this pipeline, there are many parameters to set and choices to make, and their effect on the overall system performance is a-priori unclear. In this work, we shorten the pipeline in a principled way. We move pre-processing steps into the learning system by means of kernel parameters, letting the learning algorithm decide upon suitable parameter values. Learning to optimize the pre-processing choices becomes learning the kernel parameters. We realize this paradigm by extending the recent Multiple Kernel Learning formulation from the finite case of having a fixed number of kernels which can be combined to the general infinite case where each possible parameter setting induces an associated kernel. We evaluate the new paradigm extensively on image classification and object classification tasks. We show that it is possible to learn optimal discriminative codebooks and optimal spatial pyramid schemes, consistently outperforming all previous state-of-the-art approaches.
Platforms for mediated sociability and online social capital: the role of Facebook and massively multiplayer online games

Given the popularity of new media platforms such as social network sites and video games and their increasingly central role in the social life of teens and young adults, we seek to examine their impact of social capital, particularly regarding the establishment of new types of social ties. This study examines whether the use of Facebook and playing of video games promote bridging and bonding social capital among Singaporean youths. The aim is to go beyond simple measures of intensity and frequency of use and examine more specific uses of these platforms and their contribution to online social capital. The results largely support the findings from previous studies, showing a positive relationship between intensity of Facebook use and online social capital. The findings also suggest that while general frequency of gaming was not related to online social capital, civic gaming experiences, associated with playing of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), were related to online bridging while MMO playing was directly associated with online bonding social capital.
Animal Abuse as a Sentinel for Human Violence: A Critique

It has been suggested that acts of violence against human and nonhuman animals share commonalities, and that animal abuse is a sentinel for current or future violence toward people. The popular and professional acceptance of strong connections between types of violence is beginning to be used to justify social work interventions and to influence legal decision making, and so requires greater scrutiny. Examination of the limited pool of empirical data suggests that animal abuse is relatively common among men, with violent offenders having an increased probability of reporting prior animal abuse—with the majority of violent offenders not reporting any animal abuse. Causal explanations for "the link," such as empathy impairment or conduct disorder, suffer from a lack of validating research and, based on research into interhuman violence, the assumption that violence has a predominant, single underlying cause must be questioned. An (over)emphasis on the danger that animal abusers pose to humans serves to assist in achieving a consensus that animal abuse is a serious issue, but potentially at the cost of failing to focus on the most common types of abuse, and the most effective strategies for reducing its occurrence. Nothing in this review and discussion should be taken as minimizing the importance of animals as frequent victims of violence, or the co-occurrence of abuse types in "at-risk" households. However, given the weakness of the underlying data, emphasizing the indiscriminate dangerousness of all animal abusers may have unforeseen and unwanted consequences.
Knee flexor and extensor strength during concentric and eccentric muscle actions after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using the semitendinosus tendon and ligament augmentation device

The purposes of this study were to compare operated and nonoperated knees after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using the semitendinosus tendon and a polypropylene ligament augmentation device, and to determine the interrelationships among strength, knee stability, and current activity levels. Isokinetic tests for knee flexion (prone position) and extension (sitting po sition) strength during concentric-eccentric muscle ac tion cycles were completed at 60 and 180 deg/sec angular velocities, and passive anterior displacement were determined for 15 male and 15 female patients (mean age, 27 ± 8 years; mean time since surgery, 21 ± 3 months). With the exception of eccentric muscle actions during knee extension, peak torque and work done were significantly greater on the nonoperated leg (P < 0.05). Passive anterior displacement was signifi cantly greater in the operated than the nonoperated knee (P < 0.01). Strength measurements tended to be modestly related to current activity level ( R > 0.40 in 24 of 32 correlations; P < 0.05), whereas anterior displacement was not related to current activity level (R = -0.19, operated knee; R = - 0.09, nonoperated knee; P > 0.05). Greater emphasis should be directed toward strengthening the knee flexors and knee exten sors after this surgery. Although joint-specific tests (completed actively via isokinetic dynameter) are more related to activity levels than are knee laxity tests (completed passively via knee arthrometer), neither test should be relied on as the only predictor of activity level in this patient population.
Reprivileging Reading: The Negotiation of Uncertainty

This essay explores intersections between reading and privilege and moves out from a survey of faculty reading practices to consider what is at stake in distinguishing between “real” and “instrumental” reading. Allen argues that, as privileged subjects, teachers can best help students approach reading as the negotiation of uncertainty when teachers themselves undertake such negotiation. That is, instructors do well to consciously inhabit and emotionally integrate their own contradictory desires for reading—the desire for institutional viability associated with instrumental reading, on the one hand, and the desire for the leisured thought of real reading, on the other.
Liquidity, Monetary Policy, and the Financial Crisis: A New Monetarist Approach

A model of public and private liquidity integrates financial intermediation theory with a New Monetarist monetary framework. Non-passive fiscal policy and costs of operating a currency system imply that an optimal policy deviates from the Friedman rule. A liquidity trap can exist in equilibrium away from the Friedman rule, and there exists a permanent nonneutrality of money, driven by an illiquidity effect. Financial frictions can produce a financial-crisis phenomenon that can be mitigated by conventional open market operations working in an unconventional manner. Private asset purchases by the central bank are either irrelevant or they reallocate credit and redistribute income. (JEL E13, E44, E52, E62, G01)
Audiovisual Integration and Lipreading Abilities of Older Adults with Normal and Impaired Hearing

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine how age-related hearing impairment affects lipreading and auditory-visual integration. The working hypothesis for the investigation was that presbycusic hearing loss would increase reliance on visual speech information, resulting in better lipreading and auditory-visual integration in older persons who have hearing impairment, compared with older persons who have normal hearing. Design: This study compared the performance of 53 adults with normal hearing (above age 65) and 24 adults with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment (above age 65) on auditory-only (A), visual-only (V), and auditory-visual (AV) speech perception, using consonants, words, and sentences as stimuli. All testing was conducted in the presence of multi-talker background babble, set individually for each participant and each type of stimulus, to obtain approximately equivalent A performance across the groups. In addition, we compared the two groups of participants on measures of auditory enhancement, visual enhancement, and auditory-visual integration that were derived from the A, V and AV performance scores. Results: In general, the two groups of participants performed similarly on measures of V and AV speech perception. The one exception to this finding was that the participants with hearing impairment performed significantly better than the participants with normal hearing on V identification of words. Measures of visual enhancement, auditory enhancement, and auditory-visual integration did not differ as a function of hearing status. Conclusions: Overall, the results of the current study suggest that despite increased reliance on visual speech information, older adults who have hearing impairment do not exhibit better V speech perception or auditory-visual integration than age-matched individuals who have normal hearing. These findings indicate that inclusion of V and AV speech perception measures can provide important information for designing maximally effective audiological rehabilitation strategies.
Formation of Fenestrae in Murine Liver Sinusoids Depends on Plasmalemma Vesicle-Associated Protein and Is Required for Lipoprotein Passage

Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC) are characterized by the presence of fenestrations that are not bridged by a diaphragm. The molecular mechanisms that control the formation of the fenestrations are largely unclear. Here we report that mice, which are deficient in plasmalemma vesicle-associated protein (PLVAP), develop a distinct phenotype that is caused by the lack of sinusoidal fenestrations. Fenestrations with a diaphragm were not observed in mouse LSEC at three weeks of age, but were present during embryonic life starting from embryonic day 12.5. PLVAP was expressed in LSEC of wild-type mice, but not in that of Plvap-deficient littermates. Plvap-/- LSEC showed a pronounced and highly significant reduction in the number of fenestrations, a finding, which was seen both by transmission and scanning electron microscopy. The lack of fenestrations was associated with an impaired passage of macromolecules such as FITC-dextran and quantum dot nanoparticles from the sinusoidal lumen into Disse's space. Plvap-deficient mice suffered from a pronounced hyperlipoproteinemia as evidenced by milky plasma and the presence of lipid granules that occluded kidney and liver capillaries. By NMR spectroscopy of plasma, the nature of hyperlipoproteinemia was identified as massive accumulation of chylomicron remnants. Plasma levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL) were also significantly increased as were those of cholesterol and triglycerides. In contrast, plasma levels of high density lipoproteins (HDL), albumin and total protein were reduced. At around three weeks of life, Plvap-deficient livers developed extensive multivesicular steatosis, steatohepatitis, and fibrosis. PLVAP is critically required for the formation of fenestrations in LSEC. Lack of fenestrations caused by PLVAP deficiency substantially impairs the passage of chylomicron remnants between liver sinusoids and hepatocytes, and finally leads to liver damage.
Notes on Passive Object Relatives

Across languages, children are known to encounter difficulty, up to different ages depending on different languages, in the production of object relative clauses (OR), in contrast with their smooth production of Subject relatives (SR) (for discussion, Guasti & Cardinaletti (2003), Novogrodsky & Friedmann (2006), and references cited therein). In this paper I will develop a hypothesis as to what the source of the difficulty with the production of object relatives could be. I will address the issue from a particular angle, looking at the strategies that children put to work in their productions, when faced with the necessity to produce an object relative. Among them, a relatively widespread one is the production of what I will refer to as passive object relatives, namely a passive sentence + a subject relative. Here, I will focus my attention on this strategy more closely.
Structural analysis of the chromosome segregation protein Spo0J from Thermus thermophilus

Prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids encode partitioning systems that are required for DNA segregation at cell division. The plasmid partitioning loci encode two proteins, ParA and ParB, and a cis‐acting centromere‐like site denoted parS. The chromosomally encoded homologues of ParA and ParB, Soj and Spo0J, play an active role in chromosome segregation during bacterial cell division and sporulation. Spo0J is a DNA‐binding protein that binds to parS sites in vivo. We have solved the X‐ray crystal structure of a C‐terminally truncated Spo0J (amino acids 1–222) from Thermus thermophilus to 2.3 Å resolution by multiwavelength anomalous dispersion. It is a DNA‐binding protein with structural similarity to the helix–turn–helix (HTH) motif of the lambda repressor DNA‐binding domain. The crystal structure is an antiparallel dimer with the recognition α‐helices of the HTH motifs of each monomer separated by a distance of 34 Å corresponding to the length of the helical repeat of B‐DNA. Sedimentation velocity and equilibrium ultracentrifugation studies show that full‐length Spo0J exists in a monomer–dimer equilibrium in solution and that Spo0J1–222 is exclusively monomeric. Sedimentation of the C‐terminal domain of Spo0J shows it to be exclusively dimeric, confirming that the C‐terminus is the primary dimerization domain. We hypothesize that the C‐terminus mediates dimerization of Spo0J, thereby effectively increasing the local concentration of the N‐termini, which most probably dimerize, as shown by our structure, upon binding to a cognate parS site.
Longitudinal patterns of fluency impairment in dementia: The role of domain and “nuisance variables”

Background: The potential differential impact of Alzheimer's disease (AD) across semantic categories/domains (i.e., living/nonliving) has been debated extensively in the past 30 years. An important methodological consideration in this area is the issue of whether category effects are genuine or a by-product of intrinsic properties of items, i.e., nuisance variables (NVs). Aims: The study's aim was to investigate whether NVs versus semantic domain of words generated in a semantic fluency task better predict semantic impairment. Methods & Procedures: We examined semantic fluency performance of demographically matched AD patients and controls. AD patients were longitudinally examined over a 2-year period. Norms of all NVs known to differ across domains were obtained for each word generated; influence of domain was also studied. Outcomes & Results: AD patients generated fewer words than controls. However, both groups showed fairly similar performance: more familiar words, with earlier acquisition, and representing concepts with higher manipulability were generated. Domain exerted similar influence on semantic fluency performance in controls and patients at initial evaluation, but it did not influence performance as the disease advanced. In contrast, the role of familiarity increased with disease progression. Conclusions: The role of NVs—especially familiarity—appears to be, comparatively, a more relevant predictor of longitudinal deterioration than semantic domain. Knowing which variables within a semantic fluency task longitudinally predict cognitive decline is a useful clinical tool and could possibly be a cognitive marker to improve accuracy of neuropsychological evaluation of patients with probable AD.
The Discovery of the Optical and Near-IR Afterglows of the First Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts

We present optical and near-infrared searches for afterglow emission from the first four Swift bursts with accurate positions from the X-Ray Telescope (XRT). Using telescopes at Las Campanas, Keck, and Palomar observatories, we rapidly identified and followed up afterglows for three of the four bursts and subsequently identified the redshift of GRB 050126 (z = 1.290). In three cases the burst positions were also observed with the Very Large Array, but no radio afterglow emission was detected. The optical/near-IR afterglows are fainter than about 70% of all afterglows detected to date, with GRB 050126 being the faintest, and were identified thanks to accurate and rapid positions from the XRT and rapid response with ≳1 m telescopes. This suggests that the fraction of dust-obscured bursts is small, ≲20% when combined with afterglows localized by the HETE-2 Soft X-ray Camera. The X-ray fluxes are typical of the known population, with the exception of GRB 050126, which has the faintest X-ray afterglow to date (normalized to Δt = 10 hr) and was detected thanks to a response time of only 130 s after the burst. Finally, we find that all three optical/near-IR afterglows are located ≲2'' away from the nominal XRT positions, suggesting that the XRT is capable of delivering highly accurate positions, which will revolutionize afterglow studies.
The Process of Choosing What to Study: A Longitudinal Study of Upper Secondary Students' Identity Work When Choosing Higher Education

This paper presents the first results from a longitudinal qualitative study following 38 Danish students' choice of higher education. By using a narrative psychological framework it is shown how the choice of higher education is embedded in various dilemmas, making it difficult for the students to make meaningful choices. They believe the choice should be unique and individual and that it should correspond with who they are and wish to become. However, the analysis shows that choosing what to study after upper-secondary school is a complex ongoing and social process, rather than an isolated individual event. Implications of these results are discussed and the educational system is urged to provide room for and facilitate students' production of choice narratives.
The Equity‐Control Model as a Predictor of Vandalism Among College Students1

Investigations into the problem of vandalism have been limited in scope and quantity. Vandalism constitutes a rather common form of aggression, and its roots need to be more thoroughly understood. Basic research on this phenomenon could be an important adjunct to extant work on human aggression. From a practical standpoint, the societal costs of vandalism are simply enormous. Vandalism in American schools, parks, recreation areas, public housing, and transit systems is estimated to cost from $1 to $4 billion per year, and the figure is increasing rapidly (Einolander, 1976; U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, 1975).
Long‐term prognosis and quality of life after reversible cerebral ischemic attacks

ABSTRACT— The long‐term prognosis and quality of life of 201 patients admitted to hospital with reversible ischemic attacks (RIA) were estimated in a prospective study. The median follow‐up time was 58 months. Further RIAs were reported by 91 patients (45%) and 48 (24%) suffered a stroke. The risk of stroke was markedly higher in the first 6 months after RIA, after which the annual stroke rate was rather constant with an average of 4.8%, about 8 times higher than expected. The average annual mortality rate for the RIA patients was 5.9%, which is significantly higher than expected. Cardiovascular deaths accounted for more than half of all deaths, stroke for one fourth. Life‐table analysis of subgroups disclosed a much more favorable prognosis for women under 60 years. High systolic blood pressure, diabetes, and previous myocardial infarction were identified as risk factors. The occurrence of RIA had significantly influenced the quality of life and occupational status for the majority of the patients, even for those who did not suffer a subsequent stroke. Decreased working capacity, general asthenia and fatigue and impaired memory were the most common complaints. We conclude that RIA may be a more serious vascular event than generally believed. Apart from carrying a substantial risk of stroke and death, even a single RIA can cause permanent psychological dysfunction influencing the quality of life.
Effects of Specific Genes Activating RAGE on Polycystic Kidney Disease

Background: Autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is characterized by progressive cyst formation and secretion of fluid and is associated with interstitial inflammation and fibrosis, resulting in the loss of renal function. We previously generated mice overexpressing PKD2, causing progressive cyst development with an inflammatory and fibrotic phenotype in the kidneys. Methods: To profile the gene expression related to inflammation and cystogenesis, microarray analysis was performed with kidney tissue from 6-, 12- and 18-month-old mice. Subsequently, levels and related mechanisms of selected genes, s100a8 and s100a9, were evaluated. Results: S100a8 and s100a9 was upregulated more than 2-fold and differently expressed in the cystic region. Receptor of advanced glycation end product (RAGE) is a putative cell surface receptor for s100a8/a9. It was expressed in cyst-lining cells and up-regulated pro-inflammatory transcription factor NF-ĸB in transgenic mice. We also confirmed RAGE expression in ADPKD patient kidneys. It was suggested that the signaling related to proliferative cystogenesis through previous reports; therefore, we confirmed that phosphorylated-ERK and cyst formation was reduced by treatment of RAGE-siRNA. Conclusions: The results may provide important information for the expression of s100a8/a9 and RAGE, linking progressive cystogenesis with inflammation in cystic kidney.