Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial Variables in Patients With (Sub)Acute Low Back Pain: An Inception Cohort in Primary Care Physical Therapy in the Netherlands

Study Design. A prospective cohort study of patients with episodes of acute or subacute low back pain, seeking physical therapy in primary care, with follow-up at weeks 2, 4, 8, and 12. Objectives. To evaluate the association between psychosocial factors and the transition from acute or subacute low back pain to chronicity. Summary of Background Data. Psychosocial factors have long been thought to be associated with chronic pain only. Recent prospective studies, however, suggest that these factors may also be important in acute or subacute low back pain. Methods. Demographic, psychosocial, and psychological baseline data were collected and analyzed from a sample of 66 acute or subacute patients with low back pain in order to predict the 3-month outcome. Results. After 3 months, response rate was 85% (56 patients). Forty-five percent rated their current status as “not recovered. ” Twelve percent reported work absenteeism. Using multiple regression analyses, baseline scores on the Acute Low Back Pain Screening Questionnaire, Pain Coping Inventory, Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, and Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia were not significantly associated with nonrecovery at 3 months. The only significant predictor at baseline was the subscale pain of the ALBPSQ, correctly classifying 80% of the patients. The relative risk for not being recovered was 3.72 (95% confidence interval, 1.63–8.52) for the subjects with high scores on the subscale for pain. Pain scores and scores on psychosocial variables at 12 weeks were not associated. Conclusions. The study strongly revealed pain-related items to be essential factors in the development of chronicity and long-term disability in primary care physical therapy. Health status at 8 weeks seems crucial in developing chronicity.
AS FONTES DE TECNOLOGIA NO SETOR DE TELECOMUNICAÇÕES E OS FATORES MOTIVADORES PARA COOPERAÇÃO

Este estudo tem por objetivo compreender a relacao existente entre as empresas de telecomunicacoes instaladas no Brasil e as suas fontes de inovacao e tecnologias. Esta pesquisa considerou as seguintes fontes em sua analise: departamento de PD departamento de PD outros departamentos da empresa; outras empresas dentro do mesmo grupo empresarial; fornecedores; clientes; concorrentes e/ou competidores; empresas de consultoria; universidades; institutos de pesquisa; aquisicao de patentes, licencas e know-how; conferencias, simposios, feiras e exposicoes, e publicacoes especializadas. A pesquisa identificou quais sao as fontes de inovacao e tecnologia mais valorizadas e utilizadas pelas empresas do setor de telecomunicacoes; qual a natureza dos projetos desenvolvidos e quais sao os fatores que contribuem para projetos em parceria com centros de pesquisa e/ou universidades. A pesquisa foi de natureza quantitativa, foram enviados 44 questionarios as empresas fabricantes de equipamentos para setor, que segundo Fransman (2001), encontra-se no nivel 1. Dentre estas, 23 empresas responderam, as quais constituiram a amostra analisada. O artigo esta estruturado em 6 secoes, a primeira apresenta o problema de pesquisa e os objetivos que o estudo buscou alcancar, a segunda contem a discussao teorica que suporta o modelo metodologico que e detalhado na secao seguinte, a quarta secao constitui-se dos resultados encontrados, a quinta secao apresenta as conclusoes do estudo e por ultimo sao apresentadas as referencias bibliograficas do artigo. Palavras-chave: fontes de inovacao, setor de telecomunicacoes, cooperacao empresa/universidade.
Predictors of Placement Recommendations for Children with Behavioral or Emotional Disorders

This study investigated the relationship among teacher efficacy, child socioeconomic status (SES), child ethnicity, and educational placement recommendations concerning children with behavioral or emotional disorders (E/BD). For the study, 350 special education teachers were randomly selected from 10 school districts in the Denver metropolitan area. Participants completed the Expanded Teacher Efficacy Scale to measure Classroom Management/Discipline, External Influences, and Personal Teaching Efficacy. Participants also completed the Educational Placement Vignette. After reading the descriptive case study of a fourth grade boy identified as having E/BD, special educators indicated the placement option they would recommend for the student. Vignettes were identical except for variations regarding the child's SES and ethnicity. Results suggest that Classroom Management/Discipline, External Influences, and child SES are significant predictors of special education teachers’ placement recommendations. Knowledge acquired through this investigation provides a foundation for a theory concerning how educational placement decisions are determined. Recommendations are made for using the knowledge to reduce placement rates in restrictive environments, and suggestions are provided to advance the theory regarding how placement decisions are made.
Trellis factor search PTS for PAPR reduction in OFDM

OFDM symbols exhibit a property of high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR), which degrades system performance. Partial transmit sequence (PTS) is a kind of methods to depress the PAPR effectively. To obtain good trade-offs between complexity and performance on PAPR reduction using PTS schemes, a trellis structure based PTS factor search method is proposed and investigated in this paper. The trellis search is with a variant constraint length LC, 1lesLClesV-1, where V is the number of PTS sub-blocks. The method is to decide a PTS factor by searching all possible paths obtained by varying LC consecutive factors. Using different constraint length, trellis factor search PTS exhibits different PAPR reduction performance with different computation burden. The trellis search can be viewed as a general PTS factor search model including the full search and the iterative search appeared in previous papers
Use of the Visual Motor Gestalt Test in the Diagnosis of Learning Disabilities

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Connecticut Association for Children with Perceptual Learning Disabilities, Hartford, Conn. April 30, 1969. Here is the way the Visual Motor Gestalt Test came into being: I am not a clinical psychologist and have had no training in psychology. I am a psychiatrist and neurologist, a neuropathologist trained in the pathology of the brain and the nervous system by S. T. Orton at the time when he was doing his important work with strephosymbolia. In 1930, I was a research associate to Adolf Meyer, studying schizophrenic adults at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Springfield State Hospital in Maryland. At that time, gestalt psychology was just becoming known in this country through the work of the German psychologists Kurt Kaffka, Wilhelm Koehler and Max Wertheimer, all of whom later came to this country, where they finished their work. Gestalt psychology teaches that whatever we see or perceive we experience immediately as a global organized whole or gestalt. This organized whole is more immediately experienced than any of its parts or details, which are recognized later by the process of differentiation. Wertheimer studied these phenomena with a variety of line drawings, configurations and gestalten, which he presented to adult subjects, asking them to describe what they saw. I was interested in finding out how subjects who could not or would not talk would experience such gestalten. In the beginning these were psychiatric patients, often mute schizophrenics at Springfield State Hospital and Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. Later I was interested in finding out how children, normal and not normal, experienced gestalten, what their visual experiences were and how they developed, from as young as they would respond to the test until ma-
Interactive Image Segmentation Based on Level Sets of Probabilities

In this paper, we present a robust and accurate algorithm for interactive image segmentation. The level set method is clearly advantageous for image objects with a complex topology and fragmented appearance. Our method integrates discriminative classification models and distance transforms with the level set method to avoid local minima and better snap to true object boundaries. The level set function approximates a transformed version of pixelwise posterior probabilities of being part of a target object. The evolution of its zero level set is driven by three force terms, region force, edge field force, and curvature force. These forces are based on a probabilistic classifier and an unsigned distance transform of salient edges. We further propose a technique that improves the performance of both the probabilistic classifier and the level set method over multiple passes. It makes the final object segmentation less sensitive to user interactions. Experiments and comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Effect of antidepressive therapy on retinal contrast processing in depressive disorder

Background Recently, we reported a reduced retinal contrast gain in unmedicated and medicated patients with major depression. Aims To analyse whether the contrast gain normalises after successful antidepressive therapy by recording the pattern electroretinogram (PERG) in healthy controls and patients with depression before and after antidepressive therapy. Method Fourteen patients diagnosed with major depression were repeatedly scanned and the results compared with that from 40 matched controls. Results The retinal contrast gain was lower at baseline in patients with depression, was normalised with remission and correlated with the severity of depression. Patients who did not achieve remission retained significantly lower contrast gain at follow-up. Conclusions The study provides evidence for a state-dependent modulation of retinal contrast gain in patients with major depression. Reduced contrast gain normalised after therapy. A PERG-based contrast gain could serve as a state marker of depression.
Monoclonal antibody Rip specifically recognizes 2′,3′‐cyclic nucleotide 3′‐phosphodiesterase in oligodendrocytes

The antigen recognized with monoclonal antibody (mAb) Rip (Rip‐antigen) has been long used as a marker of oligodendrocytes and myelin sheaths. However, the identity of Rip‐antigen has yet to be elucidated. We herein identified the Rip‐antigen. No signal recognized by mAb‐Rip was detected by immunoblot analyses in the rat brain, cultured rat oligodendrocytes, or the oligodendrocyte cell line CG‐4. As this antibody worked very well on immunocytochemistry and immunohistochemistry, Rip‐antigen was immunopurified with mAb‐Rip from the differentiated CG‐4 cells. Eight strong‐intensity bands thus appeared on 5–20% SDS‐PAGE with SYPRO ruby fluorescence staining. To identify these molecules, each band extracted from the gel was analyzed by MALDI‐QIT/TOF mass spectrometry. We found an interesting molecule in the oligodendrocytes from an approximately 44‐kDa band as 2′,3′‐cyclic nucleotide 3′‐phosphodiesterase (CNP). To test whether CNP was recognized by mAb‐Rip, double‐immunofluorescence staining was performed by using Alexa Fluor 488‐conjugated mAb‐Rip and Alexa Fluor 568‐conjugated mAb‐CNP in the rat cerebellum, mouse cerebellum, cultured rat oligodendrocytes, and CG‐4 cells. The Rip‐antigen was colocalized with CNP in these cells and tissues. To provide direct evidence that CNP was recognized by mAb‐Rip, rat Cnp1‐transfected HEK293T cells were used for double‐immunofluorescence staining with mAb‐Rip and mAb‐CNP. The Rip‐antigen was colocalized with CNP in rat Cnp1‐transfected HEK293T cells, but the antigen was not detected by mAb‐Rip and mAb‐CNP in mock‐transfected HEK293T cells. Overall, we have demonstrated that the antigen labeled with mAb‐Rip is CNP in the oligodendrocytes. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Effects of Ignition Interlock Devices on DUI Recidivism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study in Hamilton County, Ohio

As demands for more effective legal remedies for drunk driving escalate, a number of states have authorized judges to use breath analyzer ignition interlock devices as an optional sanction in drunk driving cases. This research presents initial findings from a quasi-experimental study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of interlock devices as a deterrent to a repeated drunk driving arrest in a sample of persons convicted of DUI. Survival rates across a 30-month risk period, during which interlock installation, license suspension, and probation sanctions were in effect, indicate that interlock devices significantly reduced the likelihood of a repeated DUI arrest as compared to license suspension.
Adenosine A1 receptor activation mediates the developmental shift at layer 5 pyramidal cell synapses and is a determinant of mature synaptic strength

• Neocortical layer 5 pyramidal cell synapses exhibit a developmental reduction in neurotransmitter release probability. Mature synapses are weaker, less reliable and show greater facilitation than immature connections. • Using paired intracellular recordings our study identifies the mechanism that mediates this developmental change as being due to an increased activation of presynaptic adenosine A1 receptors. • Unlike immature connections, which showed little A1 receptor activation, mature connections demonstrated a broad range of activation that was inversely correlated to mature synaptic strength. • We show that the functional efficacy of A1 receptors does not change over development and so our evidence points to concentrations of extracellular adenosine at synapses increasing locally over development. • The increased adenosine levels significantly affect synaptic efficacy suggesting that the emplacement of adenosine sources and sinks might be a novel mechanism for long‐term plasticity at layer 5 pyramidal cell synapses.
Politics and religion beyond state borders: the activity of Spanish MEPs on religious issues

This study examines the interplay between the political and religious factors in the activity of Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in their work within the European Parliament (EP). First, we explore the impact of Spanish MEPs’ religious preferences and ideological beliefs regarding religious affairs on their parliamentary activity. Second, we analyse the parliamentary activity of Spanish MEPs (parliamentary questions and motions for resolution) related to religious affairs. We argue that the rapid and profound process of secularisation in the Spanish population is also observable in the stances of MEPs towards religious affairs. Most of them perceive religious issues as belonging to only the private sphere, and do not consider that their personal religious affiliation and preferences should play any role in their political activity in the EP. The analysis also shows that religion is mainly addressed in an indirect way in the EP and is not a central concern on the agenda. We conclude that despite the fact that religion plays a minor role, the analysis of the activity of Spanish MEPs permits us to detect an affinity between ideological and religious positions. Therefore we argue that the religious cleavage that has characterised the history of Spain, despite having lost its historical strength, is still detectable in the activity of MEPs: right-wing parties are defenders of the values and interests of the Catholic Church within the EP, while left-wing parties have a more secularist agenda and use the EP as an arena to denounce the privileges and attitudes of the Catholic Church in Spain.
PARTICIPATION IN A COURSE ON AGING: KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND ANXIETY ABOUT AGING IN ONESELF AND OTHERS

Knowledge, anxiety, and attitudes about older adults and one's own aging were assessed in 256 college students. The Facts on Aging Quiz (Palmore, 1988), the Knowledge of Aging and the Elderly Quiz (Kline, Scialfa, Stier, & Babbitt, 1990), the Anxiety about Aging Scale (Lasher & Faulkender, 1993) and the Aging Semantic Differential (Rosencranz & McNevin, 1969) were administered at the end of the semester to students enrolled in an upper level psychology course on aging and students enrolled in an introductory psychology course (who had never had a course on aging). Comparisons of those finishing the psychology of aging course and those never having taken a course on aging revealed significant differences in knowledge of aging and the elderly and attitudes toward the average 70-year-old. Interestingly, the two groups of students did not differ in personal anxiety about aging and attitudes about one's own aging. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to attitudinal judgments of oneself versus others and the differential benefits of education for attitudes and anxiety about other old adults versus attitudes and anxiety about one's own aging.
Amelioration of Stroke-Induced Neurological Deficiency by Lyophilized Powder of Catapol and Puerarin

Catalpol and puerarin are active ingredients isolated from Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch and Radix Puerariae, respectively. They are popular in research for their poly-pharmacological effects. This research focused on effect of anti-stroke by lyophilized powder of catalpol and puerarin (C-P) and potential mechanisms. At the beginning of research, C-P was identified and analyzed by HPLC. Neurological function was evaluated by Longa score, neurological complex function score and beam balance score after permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (PMCAO) in mice. Infarct volume and water content were evaluated after treatment of C-P. Anti-oxidative stress, anti-apoptosis, angiogenesis and neurogenesis were investigated by ELISA, WB and immunohistochemical stain respectively. With treatment of C-P, neurological deficiency of PMCAO mice was ameliorated. Morphologically, infarct volume and water content in ischemic hemisphere were significantly reduced by C-P. In vivo and in vitro, oxidative stress injury was extenuated by C-P. Meanwhile, Caspase-3 was down-regulated and Bxl-2 was up-regulated by C-P in vivo. In addition, C-P enhanced angiogenesis around the infarct of cortex and neurogenesis in the Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus (DG). Hence, C-P ameliorated stroke-induced neurological deficiency through its multiple neuroprotections. What's more, this article provides us a novel formula of active ingredients for stroke.
Neutrophil Elastase Activates Protease-activated Receptor-2 (PAR2) and Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) to Cause Inflammation and Pain*

Background: Proteases cleave protease-activated receptor-2 (PAR2), which activates transient receptor potential (TRP) ion channels to cause inflammation and pain. Results: Neutrophil elastase cleaves PAR2, resulting in Gαs-mediated cAMP formation, transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) activation, and sensitization of nociceptive neurons, inflammation, and pain. Conclusion: Elastase causes PAR2- and TRPV4-mediated inflammation and pain. Significance: PARs and TRP channels mediate responses to diverse proteases. Proteases that cleave protease-activated receptor-2 (PAR2) at Arg36↓Ser37 reveal a tethered ligand that binds to the cleaved receptor. PAR2 activates transient receptor potential (TRP) channels of nociceptive neurons to induce neurogenic inflammation and pain. Although proteases that cleave PAR2 at non-canonical sites can trigger distinct signaling cascades, the functional importance of the PAR2-biased agonism is uncertain. We investigated whether neutrophil elastase, a biased agonist of PAR2, causes inflammation and pain by activating PAR2 and TRP vanilloid 4 (TRPV4). Elastase cleaved human PAR2 at Ala66↓Ser67 and Ser67↓Val68. Elastase stimulated PAR2-dependent cAMP accumulation and ERK1/2 activation, but not Ca2+ mobilization, in KNRK cells. Elastase induced PAR2 coupling to Gαs but not Gαq in HEK293 cells. Although elastase did not promote recruitment of G protein-coupled receptor kinase-2 (GRK2) or β-arrestin to PAR2, consistent with its inability to promote receptor endocytosis, elastase did stimulate GRK6 recruitment. Elastase caused PAR2-dependent sensitization of TRPV4 currents in Xenopus laevis oocytes by adenylyl cyclase- and protein kinase A (PKA)-dependent mechanisms. Elastase stimulated PAR2-dependent cAMP formation and ERK1/2 phosphorylation, and a PAR2- and TRPV4-mediated influx of extracellular Ca2+ in mouse nociceptors. Adenylyl cyclase and PKA-mediated elastase-induced activation of TRPV4 and hyperexcitability of nociceptors. Intraplantar injection of elastase to mice caused edema and mechanical hyperalgesia by PAR2- and TRPV4-mediated mechanisms. Thus, the elastase-biased agonism of PAR2 causes Gαs-dependent activation of adenylyl cyclase and PKA, which activates TRPV4 and sensitizes nociceptors to cause inflammation and pain. Our results identify a novel mechanism of elastase-induced activation of TRPV4 and expand the role of PAR2 as a mediator of protease-driven inflammation and pain.
A Survey of Factors Influencing Patients ‘Choice of Anaesthesia for Caesarean Section

In this study, we were able to show that there was little difference between the way decisions are made in a private hospital setting, a public hospital setting when women were managed by a single obstetrician (private patients), and when hospital cfassified patients were managed in a team setting. These phenomena in our area are contrary to the popular belief (3,5,6) that patients in private hospitals are managed differently and are more likely to undergo Caesarean section.
An international perspective: Constructing intervention strategies for families in Mexico

In this article, the authors comment on the contribution of the Alcohol, Drugs and the Family research group to draw public and scientific attention to the suffering and needs of families coping with addiction problems. The article also describes the impact of the stress-strain-coping-support model and the 5-Step Method on the research, intervention and education domains in Mexico. Some of the limitations to positively influence public policy are underscored; these include the nature of the sociocultural context which favors the view of addictions as private problems that must be solved within the family. The experience of delivering the 5-Step Method to Mexican urban population and its adaptation to indigenous communities and web-based format are discussed as well. Overall, the development and implementation of the 5-Step Method in Mexico has been positive, as demonstrated particularly by a cost-effectiveness study carried out with indigenous communities. Based on this review, the scope and challenges for family intervention in Mexico are outlined considering: (1) the dissemination of the 5-Step Method in both the rural and urban contexts; (2) extensive training of family counsellors; and finally (3) policy making to fulfil the needs of families facing addictive problems.