Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Explaining risk for suicidal ideation in adolescent offspring of mothers with depression

Background It is well-established that offspring of depressed mothers are at increased risk for suicidal ideation. However, pathways involved in the transmission of risk for suicidal ideation from depressed mothers to offspring are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of potential mediators of this association, including maternal suicide attempt, offspring psychiatric disorder and the parent–child relationship. Method Data were utilized from a population-based birth cohort (ALSPAC). Three distinct classes of maternal depression symptoms across the first 11 years of the child's life had already been identified (minimal, moderate, chronic-severe). Offspring suicidal ideation was assessed at age 16 years. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results There was evidence for increased risk of suicidal ideation in offspring of mothers with chronic-severe depression symptoms compared to offspring of mothers with minimal symptoms (odds ratio 3.04, 95% confidence interval 2.19–4.21). The majority of this association was explained through maternal suicide attempt and offspring psychiatric disorder. There was also evidence for an independent indirect effect via the parent–child relationship in middle childhood. There was no longer evidence of a direct effect of maternal depression on offspring suicidal ideation after accounting for all three mediators. The pattern of results was similar when examining mechanisms for maternal moderate depression symptoms. Conclusions Findings highlight that suicide prevention efforts in offspring of depressed mothers should be particularly targeted at both offspring with a psychiatric disorder and offspring whose mothers have made a suicide attempt. Interventions aimed at improving the parent–child relationship may also be beneficial.
The influence of estrogen on spatial ability, perceptual speed and fine motor abilities

Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je utvrditi postoje li razlike u ucinku u razlicitim testovima kognitivnih sposobnosti ovisno o trenutnoj razini estrogena u organizmu. Sudionice su bile studentice razlicitih fakulteta (N=26), a osnovni kriteriji za sudjelovanje u istraživanju bili su stabilno dugi menstrualni ciklusi i nekoristenje oralnih kontraceptiva ili bilo kojeg drugog oblika hormonalne terapije tijekom 6 mjeseci prije pocetka istraživanja. Mjerenja su provođena u dvijema fazama menstrualnog ciklusa: kasnoj folikularnoj, kada je razina estrogena u organizmu najvisa, te menstrualnoj, kada je razina estrogena najniža. U oba navrata koristeni su Test shvacanja prostornih odnosa, Test perceptivne brzine, te O`Connorov deksterimetar kao mjera fine motorike. U prethodnim istraživanjima pokazalo se da su pod utjecajem visokih razina estrogena žene jos uspjesnije u rjesavanju onih vrsta zadataka u kojima su i inace uspjesnije od muskaraca (zadaci verbalnog tipa, perceptivne brzine i fine motorike), a da je smanjena ucinkovitost u rjesavanju onih vrsta zadataka u kojima su inace muskarci uspjesniji (zadaci prostornog i logicko-matematickog tipa). Rezultati ovog istraživanja samo su djelomicno u skladu s prijasnjim nalazima: dobivene su statisticki znacajne razlike u ucinku u Testu perceptivne brzine (t=3, 31 ; p<0, 01), kao i u ucinku na O`Connorovom deksterimetru (t=4, 51 ; p<0, 001) u kasnoj folikularnoj i menstrualnoj fazi ciklusa. Obje ove razlike su u ocekivanom smjeru, odnosno veca je ucinkovitost u tim testovima u onoj fazi ciklusa tijekom koje je razina estrogena visa. Nije dobivena statisticki znacajna razlika u ucinku u Testu shvacanja prostornih odnosa u dvije faze menstrualnog ciklusa, vjerojatno zato sto se taj test pokazao neprimjereno laganim za ovaj uzorak sudionica.
Combining mediated social touch with vision : from self-attribution to telepresence?

Combining mediated social touch (i.e., interpersonal touch over a distance by means of a tactile display) with vision allows people to both see and feel their remote interaction partner’s touches. This is expected to increase the user’s sense of telepresence (i.e., the experience of "being there" in the same environment as one’s remote interaction partner), thereby perhaps providing part of the imediacy that marks natural unmediated physical contact. Such a possible effect of combining touch with vision is expected to depend partly on the central nervous system’s ability to categorize tools and technological artifacts as an actual part of one’s body. Since such so-called self-attribution is facilitated by a morphological congruence between the artifact and the human body, we anticipated that the effect of combining touch with vision would be larger when people could see the mediated touches being performed on a morphologically congruent as compared to an incongruent input medium. In our experiment, we compared two input media: a sensor-equipped mannequin that enabled a one-to-one mapping between seen and felt touch, and a morphologically incongruent touch screen that displayed a set of buttons. When participants saw the touches being initiated on the morphologically congruent mannequin input medium, they, as expected, reported a higher sense of telepresence. In addition, they perceived of the mediated touches as more touchlike with the mannequin as compared to the touch screen input medium. These findings illustrate that visual feedback, especially when morphologically correct, can improve mediated social touch. Our experiment, however, suggests that other mechanisms than self-attribution might be involved.
Developing an Early Childhood Teacher Workforce Development Strategy for Rural and Remote Communities.

The North West Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Workforce Development Strategy offers students in the Pilbara and Kimberley the opportunity to enrol in a Western Australian University's fully accredited Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary) part time and externally - so they can continue to live and work in their communities. The Western Australian Department of Education and Training (WA DET) and the Commonwealth Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) have funded the project, enabling the University to provide mentoring support and provision for Recognition of Prior Learning, on a case-by-case basis, depending on their individual experience and levels of skill. On completion of the course students will be fully qualified to teach from Kindergarten to Year 7. Added to this they will be able to bring their own knowledge of their unique communities, languages and cultures to their teaching.
Efferent neurotransmission of circadian rhythms in Limulus lateral eye. I. Octopamine-induced increases in retinal sensitivity

Octopamine increases the sensitivity of the Limulus lateral eye in situ when injected beneath the cornea during the day. The effect of octopamine is dose-dependent with a threshold concentration of about 0.1 microM injected at 1 microliter/min for 15 min. Injection of 40 microM octopamine increases lateral eye sensitivity to approximately 70% of the nighttime level normally caused by the efferent output of a circadian clock. Injections of octopamine analogues and other candidate neurotransmitters indicate that the postsynaptic receptor mediating the increase of retinal sensitivity is relatively specific for the structure of octopamine. The postsynaptic receptor is tentatively classified as a type 2B octopamine receptor (Evans, P. D. (1981) J. Physiol. (Lond.) 318: 99–122). Clozapine suppresses the effects of both exogenous octopamine and the endogenous efferent neurotransmitter. Together with the results from Barlow et al. (Barlow, R. B., Jr., S. J. Bolanowski, Jr., and M. L. Brachman (1977) Science 197: 86–89) and Battelle et al. (Batelle, B. -A., J. A. Evans, and S. C. Chamberlain (1982) Science 216: 1250–1252) our study leads to the following conclusion: retinal efferents, driven by a circadian clock in Limulus brain, release octopamine that increases visual sensitivity.
Recognizing and Managing Stress: Coping Strategies for Adolescents

Adolescents face the challenges of stress nearly every day and often report that school, pressure to have good grades, money, relationships, parents, being a teen parent, jobs, sex, STD's/AIDS, violence and fighting, and friends are all contributing factors to raising stress levels. The amount of stress is often influenced by anger, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. 2 Teens further identified outside pressure corning from multiple combinations of school, athletics, clubs, work, church, friends, and family. Some teens choose unhealthy options to deal with stress and may smoke or use drugs, self-harm, become depressed, or give up on life altogether. Adolescents can recognize what is causing them stress and leam how to manage their stress iIi a healthy and productive manner. Students need to know there are positive ways to cope with the stressors in their lives, and being able to manage stress and cope with stressors may not only benefit the students, but may also help their academic performance too.
Child Labour in Madagascar as Evidenced by the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey

In Africa today, children may be sent to live with non-relative for employment reasons. This short paper proposes a measure based on data from the 2008-2009 Demographic and Health Survey in Madagascar to identify children living with non-relatives and not attending school who are liable to be engaged in child labour. In Madagascar, children may move between family households, but may also be sent to live outside the family for economic reasons. We postulate that the models of child placement for economic reasons are gender-based and linked to geographic location. The results show that 1.4% of children aged 6-17 are in this situation. Two profiles can be identified: girls engaged in child labour tend to work in towns in households with high socioeconomic status, while boys work in areas with strong demand for farm labour. The authors make recommendations for improving data collection and suggest that surveys of child maids and farm labourers be conducted to identify harmful situations, to understand the processes whereby children become engaged in child labour (origin, means deployed), and to find out more about these children’s outcomes.
Evaluating the Performance and Energy Consumption of Distributed Data Management Systems

In the last couple of years it became more difficult for end users of data management system to optimize existing systems for performance and energy consumption. The reasons are the big number of data management systems to chose from, extensive use cases and a variety of hardware configurations. The number of factors that influence the performance and energy efficiency rises even more when it comes to distributed data management systems. For instance, in addition to vertical scale-out effects the horizontal scale-out ones have to be considered. This paper introduces an enhanced version of a Queued Petri Nets model whose simulation runs allow to predict and to study the performance and energy consumption of a distributed data management system. In contrast to traditional ways, the simulation runs can reduce both investments in time and hardware. The model's prediction in terms of performance and energy consumption were evaluated and compared with the actual experimental results. The predicted and experimental results for the response times differ by nearly 20 percent on average.
Satisfaction in Marriage and Committed Heterosexual Relationships: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract A broad range of factors impacts the satisfaction that people experience in committed and marital relationships. The present paper evaluates the impact of these factors. First, I consider changes in the research focus in the last 50 years, changes driven partly by the methodologies employed to evaluate marital satisfaction and partly by the factors seen as constituting a satisfying relationship. Next, I evaluate recent research to identify the impact of individual (e.g., work, health, power, roles) and interpersonal (e.g., violence, communication) factors at different stages of both the relationship cycle and life cycle. This research makes clear that relationship satisfaction is determined by a myriad of factors and that the relative importance of these factors likely varies among couples. Finally, I propose suggestions for future research in this area, including the need to focus on the function of both positive and negative variables related to marital satisfaction.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vitamin D: beyond Bone

In recent years, vitamin D has been received increased attention due to the resurgence of vitamin D deficiency and rickets in developed countries and the identification of extraskeletal effects of vitamin D, suggesting unexpected benefits of vitamin D in health and disease, beyond bone health. The possibility of extraskeletal effects of vitamin D was first noted with the discovery of the vitamin D receptor (VDR) in tissues and cells that are not involved in maintaining mineral homeostasis and bone health, including skin, placenta, pancreas, breast, prostate and colon cancer cells, and activated T cells. However, the biological significance of the expression of the VDR in different tissues is not fully understood, and the role of vitamin D in extraskeletal health has been a matter of debate. This report summarizes recent research on the roles for vitamin D in cancer, immunity and autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular
An Essential Role for Lipopolysaccharide-Binding Protein in Pulmonary Innate Immune Responses

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-binding protein (LBP) greatly facilitates LPS activation of monocytic cells through the CD14 receptor, triggering activation of innate immune responses. An acute phase protein, LBP is produced predominantly by the liver; however, we and others have shown that LBP is produced extrahepatically in multiple locations, including the lung. The importance of LBP in the lung has remained unclear. LBP may make the host more acutely sensitive to LPS and development of septic complications; alternatively, it may be protective, aiding in detection, opsonization, and killing of bacteria. Our objective was to determine the role LBP plays in local pulmonary immune defenses to bacterial challenge. LBP knockout mice and age-matched C57BL/6 wild-type controls were challenged with direct intratracheal inoculation of Klebsiella pneumoniae. We observed a significant increase in mortality, earlier onset of bacteremia, and greater pulmonary bacterial loads in LBP knockout mice compared with controls. Total lung myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, neutrophil recruitment to the alveolar space, and levels of KC—a chemokine involved in neutrophil recruitment—in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and lung homogenates were found to be significantly diminished in knockout mice compared with controls. Together, our findings suggest that LBP is essential in local pulmonary innate immune responses against bacteria.
If it was good enough for Aristotle……

‘If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday’ wrote the American novelist Pearl Buck, and such is the challenge facing those who hope to disentangle the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The disease is characterised by the insidious but progressive development of fibrosis that culminates in respiratory failure and death, usually within 5 years of diagnosis. Despite recent advances in pathogenetic understanding, IPF remains a disease in need of effective treatments. Following the reclassification of the idiopathic interstitial pneumonias 10 years ago,1 our understanding of the natural history of IPF has increased exponentially. Yet there remain lacunae in our knowledge of the disease: what does the earliest lesion of IPF look like and, even more importantly, what triggers its development and early progression? In most cases of IPF, extensive fibrosis is already established at the time of diagnosis. Much in the same way that cosmologists strive to infer the origins of the universe from modern-day movements of stars and planets, researchers hoping to understand the initiating events in pulmonary fibrosis have to do so by studying events that occur in established disease. At a molecular level, IPF is characterised by the apparently unopposed activation of multiple profibrotic pathways involved in wound healing.2 The purpose of the normal wound healing process is to restore tissue integrity, structure and function following injury. In early wound healing, tissue expansion is associated with migration to the site of injury of fibroblasts that then proliferate, transform into myofibroblasts and rapidly synthesise extracellular matrix.3 In healthy individuals, the profibrotic phase of tissue repair then switches off and resorption of the extracellular matrix, with fibroblast apoptosis and architectural remodelling of tissue, occurs. In IPF, in contrast, several strands of evidence point strongly to a pivotal role for repetitive alveolar epithelial injury, resulting …
Pouch Motors: Printable/inflatable soft actuators for robotics

We propose a new family of fluidic soft actuators called Pouch Motors. The pouch motors are developed to create printable actuators for enhancing mass-fabrication of robots from sheet materials using easily accessible tools. The pouch motor consists of one or more gas-tight bladders (called pouches) fabricated by heat bonding. We developed two types of actuators from inflatable pouches: the linear pouch motor and the rotational pouch motor. Our theoretical analysis predicts the static force-length and moment-angle relationships of these actuators under pressure control. We compare the theoretical bounds with actual results achieved using several fabricated devices. We developed a fabrication process of pouch motors using a heat stamping technique that allows mass-manufacturing. We also demonstrate three robot bodies with embedded pouch motors: a parallel gripper, a robotic arm with antagonistic actuation, and legged walking robot with a self-contained miniature pneumatic system.
Communication and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: A Meta-Analytic Review

Among the most researched solutions to social dilemmas is communication. Since the late 1950s, it has been well known that communication enhances cooperation in social dilemmas. This article reports a meta-analysis of this literature (forty-five effect sizes) and finds a large positive effect of communication on cooperation in social dilemmas (d = 1.01). This effect is moderated by the type of communication, with a stronger effect of face-to-face discussion ( d = 1.21) compared to written messages (d = 0.46). The communication-cooperation relationship is also stronger in larger, compared to smaller, group social dilemmas. Whether communication occurred before or during iterated dilemmas did not statistically affect the communication-cooperation effect size. Results are discussed according to theory and research on communication in social dilemmas.
Hypodensity of >⅓ Middle Cerebral Artery Territory Versus Alberta Stroke Programme Early CT Score (ASPECTS): Comparison of Two Methods of Quantitative Evaluation of Early CT Changes in Hyperacute Ischemic Stroke in the Community Setting

Background— The one third middle cerebral artery territory (⅓ MCA) method and the Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) were used to detect significant early ischemic changes (EIC) on CT brain of acute stroke patients. We sought to compare the reliability of the 2 methods in routine clinical practice. Methods— Eighty consecutive patients admitted to a community hospital in Hong Kong with suspected acute ischemic stroke and a CT brain scan performed within 6 hours of symptom onset were included. Five blinded observers (1 neurologist, 2 general radiologists, and 2 neuroradiologists) independently evaluated the scans, using the ATLANTIS/CT Summit criteria for >⅓ MCA involvement, and ASPECTS ≤7. Kappa statistics were used to determine interobserver agreement. Results— Significant EIC were present in 11.4% of the scans with the ⅓ MCA method, and 19.4% with ASPECTS. For >⅓ MCA involvement, all observers agreed in 57 cases (71%), with moderate interobserver agreement (&kgr;=0.49). For ASPECTS ≤7, all observers agreed in 34 cases (42%), with fair interobserver agreement (&kgr;=0.34). After prevalence and bias adjustments, substantial (prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted &kgr; [PABAK]=0.74) and moderate (PABAK=0.44) agreements were found for the ⅓ MCA method and ASPECTS respectively. Conclusions— The ⅓ MCA method was more reliable in detecting significant EIC on CT brain within 6 hours of stroke onset in routine clinical practice, whereas ASPECTS was able to detect significant EIC in a higher proportion of these early scans.
Fast simulation of equity-linked life insurance contracts with a surrender option

In this paper, we consider equity-linked life insurance contracts that give their holder the possibility to surrender their policy before maturity. Such contracts can be valued using simulation methods proposed for the pricing of American options, but the mortality risk must also be taken into account when pricing such contracts. Here, we use the least-squares Monte Carlo approach of Longstaff and Schwartz coupled with quasi-Monte Carlo sampling and a control variate in order to construct efficient estimators for the value of such contracts. We also show how to incorporate the mortality risk into these pricing algorithms without explicitly simulating it.
Karyotoxicity of Metabolites from Alternaria alternata ( Fr . ) Keisslerin Spinacia oleracea

Fungal metabolites are known biconcave organic compounds produced by diverse group of fungal organisms during growth and metabolism. Metabolites secreted in nutrient medium at different growth intervals by Alternaria alternate (Fr.) Keissler, a serious causal pathogen of leaf spot of Spinacia oleracea L were isolated, confirmed their chemical nature and evaluated for their cytological effects on metabolically active cells of meristematic zone of roots. An increase in per cent seed germination without any abnormalities over control was recorded with seeds receiving five days old metabolites treatment. Seed germination rate declined while percent abnormalities increased with metabolites of longer duration. Meristematic cells from root of treated seeds were reported to multiply abnormally due to appearance of many abnormalities like Anaphase Bridge, laggards, diagonal metaphase and mis-orientation of mitotic spindles. Phytochemicals tests and UV absorption spectrum for isolated toxins confirmed its phenolic nature.
The Arabidopsis Mutant cev1 Links Cell Wall Signaling to Jasmonate and Ethylene Responses Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at www.plantcell.org/cgi/doi/10.1105/tpc.002022.

Biotic and abiotic stresses stimulate the synthesis of jasmonates and ethylene, which, in turn, induce the expression of genes involved in stress response and enhance defense responses. The cev1 mutant has constitutive expression of stress response genes and has enhanced resistance to fungal pathogens. Here, we show that cev1 plants have increased production of jasmonate and ethylene and that its phenotype is suppressed by mutations that interrupt jasmonate and ethylene signaling. Genetic mapping, complementation analysis, and sequence analysis revealed that CEV1 is the cellulose synthase CeSA3. CEV1 was expressed predominantly in root tissues, and cev1 roots contained less cellulose than wild-type roots. Significantly, the cev1 mutant phenotype could be reproduced by treating wild-type plants with cellulose biosynthesis inhibitors, and the cellulose synthase mutant rsw1 also had constitutive expression of VSP. We propose that the cell wall can signal stress responses in plants.