Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Assessment of Relational Risk in Early Parent-Infant Relationships

This thesis provided an in-depth methodological study of the assessment of risk in early parent-infant relationships via caregivers’ representations of their infant and their relationship with them. Three approaches to the assessment of relational risk were examined in detail: parent-report questionnaires, parental Reflective Functioning (RF), and a newly developed coding system for assessing risk in parents’ representations of their relationship with their infant: the Assessment of Representational Risk (ARR). The validity and reliability of these measures were investigated in high- and low-risk parent-infant samples in relation to socio-demographic factors, parental psychopathology, adult attachment, and parent-infant interactions. Parent-report methods were found to be problematic for the assessment of parent-infant relationships in clinical samples. Mothers’ ratings of their infants were strongly related to their own level of distress and unrelated to observer or clinician ratings of infant interactive behaviour. The Reflective Functioning and ARR coding systems, both of which are applied to parents’ narratives about their relationship with their babies in semi-structured interviews, provided meaningful, reliable and valid tools for assessing the quality of the parent-infant relationship in various ways. The ARR identified three typologies of parental representations of the parent-infant relationship that may impinge on the parent-infant relationship: Hostile, Helpless and Narcissistic. These representations modified the prediction of later parent-infant interaction from parental reflective functioning and adult attachment style. The Assessment of Representational Risk is an easily accessible new tool for parent-infant assessments that provided a useful adjunct to the RF coding system. The methodological, theoretical and clinical implications of the findings were discussed.
Pulses and carcinogenesis: potential for the prevention of colon, breast and other cancers

Consumption of pulses as components of healthy diets is encouraged because it is believed that this is likely to help in reducing the risk of common non-communicable diseases, including cancers. However, the evidence base for the role of pulses in prevention of cancers is unconvincing because of the difficulties, using conventional epidemiological tools, in ascertaining the quantitative contribution made by pulses to cancer risk. Advances in understanding of the biological basis of cancer and of the mechanisms of action of cancer-preventing compounds offer new insights into the role of food-derived substances and of diet—gene interactions in modulating cancer risk. Pulses contain a rich variety of compounds which, if consumed in sufficient quantities, may help to reduce tumour risk.
Effects of Drying Time and the Presence of Plaque on the in vitro Performance of Laser Fluorescence in Occlusal Caries of Primary Teeth

The diode laser fluorescence device was introduced to diagnose caries lesions in occlusal and smooth surfaces. Despite promising results, much variation has been found in the protocol of utilization. The goal of this study was to evaluate the influence of dental plaque and drying time on the laser fluorescence (DIAGNOdent) performance in occlusal sites of primary molars. For the drying time study, 63 suspected occlusal sites in primary molars were used. The same sites were evaluated in four different conditions: (1) moist teeth, (2) teeth dried for 3 s with a 3-in-1 syringe, (3) teeth dried for 15 s, and (4) dehydrated teeth. For the plaque experiment, we selected 28 occlusal sites. After the baseline laser fluorescence readings, plaque collected from children was placed on the suspected site. New laser fluorescence measurements were performed. For both studies, we compared the laser fluorescence values, as well as sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under ROC curve. For different drying times, the more dehydrated the teeth, the higher the values. Nevertheless, the performance of the method did not change significantly, except for dehydrated teeth. In the presence of plaque, the laser fluorescence values were reduced, and the evaluated parameters were worse than with no plaque. In conclusion, the hydration state of the teeth did not change the results significantly, but the presence of plaque worsened the performance of the laser fluorescence method.
Localized SDF-1alpha gene release mediated by collagen substrate induces CD117+ stem cells homing

Stromal cell‐derived factor‐1α (SDF‐1α) mediated mobilization and homing of stem cells showed promising potential in stem cell based tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However local and sustained release of SDF‐1α is indispensable for stem cell mediated regenerative process due to its short half‐life under inflammatory conditions. In this study, a gene activated collagen substrate (GAC) was formed via assembly of plasmid encoding SDF‐1α into a collagen substrate to create a microenvironment favoring stem cell homing. Local release of SDF‐1α from the transfected cells on GAC and its effect on CD117+ stem cell homing were investigated. Non‐viral poly‐ethyleneimine (25kDa PEI)/DNA complexes were mixed with rat tail collagen solution to form the GAC. Optimization of GAC was carried out based on collagen effects on the PEI/DNA complexes, viability and luciferase expression of COS7 cells on GAC. CD117+ stem cells homing in response to SDF‐1α local expression from transfected cells on GAC were investigated in a flow chamber in vitro and in a mouse hind limb model in vivo. The gene expression, migration of CD117+ stem cells and the induced inflammation were investigated with immunostaining, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and H&E staining. The optimized parameters for GAC were DNA dosage 10 μg/cm2, molar ratio of PEI nitrogen in primary amine to DNA phosphate (N/P ratio) 4 and mass ratio of collagen to DNA (C/D ratio) 1.0. It kept cell viability above 75% and transfection efficiency around 5.8 × 105 RLU/mg protein. GAC allowed the sustained gene release up to 60 days. GAC mediated SDF‐1α gene release induced migration and homing of CD117+ stem cells in vitro and in vivo significantly, and the inflammation of GAC reduced significantly two weeks after transplantation. GAC is a promising stem cell based therapeutic strategy for regenerative medicine.
Cytokine signaling through Drosophila Mthl10 ties lifespan to environmental stress

Significance Invertebrates are productive models for understanding basic molecular principles that link cytokine-mediated inflammatory pathways to aging in humans. Here, we use a high-throughput dsRNA screen to determine that the multifunctional Drosophila cytokine, GBP, is a ligand for the hitherto orphan GPCR, Mthl10. Through genetic manipulation of the GBP/Mthl10 axis in larvae and adult flies, we are able to demonstrate how organismal longevity is interconnected to immunological, metabolic, and stress-protective responses. Our results provide a molecular basis for hypothesizing that a successful defense against environmental insults—be they pathogenic inflammation or noninfective challenges—will ultimately reduce lifespan. A systems-level understanding of cytokine-mediated, intertissue signaling is one of the keys to developing fundamental insight into the links between aging and inflammation. Here, we employed Drosophila, a routine model for analysis of cytokine signaling pathways in higher animals, to identify a receptor for the growth-blocking peptide (GBP) cytokine. Having previously established that the phospholipase C/Ca2+ signaling pathway mediates innate immune responses to GBP, we conducted a dsRNA library screen for genes that modulate Ca2+ mobilization in Drosophila S3 cells. A hitherto orphan G protein coupled receptor, Methuselah-like receptor-10 (Mthl10), was a significant hit. Secondary screening confirmed specific binding of fluorophore-tagged GBP to both S3 cells and recombinant Mthl10-ectodomain. We discovered that the metabolic, immunological, and stress-protecting roles of GBP all interconnect through Mthl10. This we established by Mthl10 knockdown in three fly model systems: in hemocyte-like Drosophila S2 cells, Mthl10 knockdown decreases GBP-mediated innate immune responses; in larvae, Mthl10 knockdown decreases expression of antimicrobial peptides in response to low temperature; in adult flies, Mthl10 knockdown increases mortality rate following infection with Micrococcus luteus and reduces GBP-mediated secretion of insulin-like peptides. We further report that organismal fitness pays a price for the utilization of Mthl10 to integrate all of these various homeostatic attributes of GBP: We found that elevated GBP expression reduces lifespan. Conversely, Mthl10 knockdown extended lifespan. We describe how our data offer opportunities for further molecular interrogation of yin and yang between homeostasis and longevity.
PTEN couples Sema3A signalling to growth cone collapse

Distinct changes in glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) signalling can regulate neuronal morphogenesis including the determination and maintenance of axonal identity, and are required for neurotrophin-mediated axon elongation. In addition, we have previously shown a dependency on GSK-3 activation in the semaphorin 3A (Sema3A)-mediated growth-cone-collapse response of sensory neurons. Regulation of GSK-3 activity involves the intermediate signalling lipid phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate, which can be modulated by phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and the tumour suppressor PTEN. We report here the involvement of PTEN in the Sema3A-mediated growth cone collapse. Sema3A suppresses PI3K signalling concomitant with the activation of GSK-3, which depends on the phosphatase activity of PTEN. PTEN is highly enriched in the axonal compartment and the central domain of sensory growth cones during axonal extension, where it colocalises with microtubules. Following exposure to Sema3A, PTEN accumulates rapidly at the growth cone membrane suggesting a mechanism by which PTEN couples Sema3A signalling to growth cone collapse. These findings demonstrate a dependency on PTEN to regulate GSK-3 signalling in response to Sema3A and highlight the importance of subcellular distributions of PTEN to control growth cone behaviour.
Simulation-Based Modeling and Power Management of All-Electric Ships Based on Renewable Energy Generation Using Model Predictive Control Strategy

In this paper, an integrated power system (IPS) based on fuel cell (FC), battery, photovoltaic panels (PV), and two diesel generators is proposed and modeled for an all-electric ship to address a solution for the high pollution resulting from conventional ships. Dual active bridge (DAB) converter and its nonlinear average model which is faster and more suitable for system-level studies has been used as power electronic interface. A decentralized model predictive control (MPC) strategy is also designed to control the modules of the IPS. A hierarchical control method with virtual droop control is proposed to control the power generation of diesel generators and regulate the DC link voltage of the IPS. Moreover, a power management strategy for efficient operation of diesel generators, FC and battery is considered in this study. It is important to note that, the diesel generators considered in this power system make this ship more applicable for longer voyages. The proposed system has been studied in various operational modes considering the battery and load conditions in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and its validity is shown through the obtained results. Furthermore, the simulation results show good response in a long run which is a sign of its suitability for system-level studies.
Adaptive obstacle avoidance with a neural network for operant conditioning: experiments with real robots

Gaudiano et al. (1996) have shown that a neural network model of classical and operant conditioning can be trained to control the movements of a wheeled mobile robot. The neural network learns to avoid obstacles as the robot moves around without supervision in a cluttered environment. The neural network does not require any knowledge about the quality or configuration of the sensors. In this article we report results using our neural network with the real mobile robot Khepera.
A novel vision to mitigate pilot contamination in massive MIMO-based 5G networks

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is one of the promising technologies to be used in the future fifth generation (5G) wireless networks for its capability to increase the system throughput, improve spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. To achieve these benefits of the massive MIMO, there are many challenges that need to be handled. One of these challenges is the pilot contamination problem that arises from reusing pilot sequences among the system cells. Since this problem is considered as a bottleneck of the system performance, it attracted many researchers who proposed schemes to solve it. In this paper, we propose a new scheme that mitigates its effect by adopting both asynchronous pilot transmission (APT) and fractional pilot reuse (FPR). We compare the performance of our proposed scheme with other schemes using computer simulations and show that our proposed scheme enhances the performance of the time division duplex (TDD) multi-cell massive MIMO systems in terms of the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) and capacity.
Behavioral Intention and Satisfaction with 3G Technology among Students in Somalia: A Structural Equation Modeling Study

Third generation mobile telecommunication technology (3G) was widely adopted. It has become an essential part of the today's activities for considerable segments of populations in the world. Theoretically driven by unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, the current study investigates the factors underlying behavioral intention and satisfaction with 3G technology among students in Somalia.By employing stratified random sampling, this study collected the data from 395 students in a private university in Somalia. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was employed to analyze and test the hypothesized model. The results of SEM suggested that behavioral intention to adopt 3G mobile technology has been positively influenced by social influence, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and perceived expense, whereas performance expectancy, social influence and behavioral intention were determinants of students' satisfaction with the 3G mobile technology. Limitations, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
Reactivities of various mediators and laccases with kraft pulp and lignin model compounds

Laccase-catalyzed oxygen delignification of kraft pulp offers some potential as a replacement for conventional chemical bleaching and has the advantage of requiring much lower pressure and temperature. However, chemical mediators are required for effective delignification by laccase, and their price is currently too high at the dosages required. To date, most studies have employed laccase from Trametes versicolor. We have found significant differences in reactivity between laccases from different fungi when they are tested for pulp delignification in the presence of the mediators 2,2(prm1)-azinobis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonate) (ABTS) and 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HBT). A more detailed study of T. versicolor laccase with ABTS and HBT showed that HBT gave the most extensive delignification over 2 h but deactivated the enzyme, and therefore a higher enzyme dosage was required. Other mediators, including 1-nitroso-2-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid, 4-hydroxy-3-nitroso-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid, promazine, chlorpromazine, and Remazol brilliant blue, were also tested for their ability to delignify kraft pulp. Studies with dimeric model compounds indicated that the mechanisms of oxidation by ABTS and HBT are different. In addition, oxygen uptake by laccase is much slower with HBT than with ABTS. It is proposed that the dication of ABTS and the 1-oxide radical of HBT, with redox potentials in the 0.8- to 0.9-V range, are required for pulp delignification.
Photoconductive switch design for microwave applications

A procedure for choosing the dimensions of a photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) for operation at microwave switching frequencies, and particularly at 10.0 GHZ, is described. The critical dimension is the switch length (electrode separation), which must be small enough to force photoinduced charge removal during switch turn-off via sweep out rather than recombination. The switch depth in the direction of turn-on optical pulse absorption must be several optical absorption depths long to ensure absorption of all the incident light, which optimizes optical to electrical signal gain. The switch width is determined in conjunction with the peak intensity of the optical pulse because the switch width-optical intensity product, which represents optical power, determines the turn-on time, the on-state switch resistance and the turn-off delay time. Simulations show that a switch with a 0.5 ¿m length, 5.0 ¿m depth, and 20 ¿m width, illuminated with 1.0 W peak power optical pulses at 10 GHz, will have a 4.8 ps turn-on time, a 0.23 ¿ on-state resistance, and a 46 ps turn-off time.
Acute chest syndrome in adult sickle cell disease in eastern Saudi Arabia

Ann Saudi Med 2005; 25 (1): 53-55 Pulmonary complications with sickle cell disease are serious and carry significant morbidity and mortality. Acute chest syndrome is a spectrum of pulmonary pathology, which can include common chest pain, fever, cough, and dyspnea with abnormal clinical and radiological chest signs.1-3 e aim of this study was to report the clinical features and outcome of acute chest syndrome episodes in adult sickle cell disease in patients admitted to King Fahad Hospital, Hofuf, in eastern Saudi Arabia.
Hierarchical Unambiguity

We develop techniques to investigate relativized hierarchical unambiguous computation. We apply our techniques to push forward some known constructs involving relativized unambiguity based complexity classes (UP and Promise- UP) to new constructs involving arbitrary levels of the relativized unambiguous polynomial hierarchy (UPH). Our techniques are developed on constraints imposed by hierarchical assembly of unambiguous nondeterministic polynomial-time Turing machines, and so our techniques differ substantially, in applicability and in nature, from standard techniques (such as the switching lemma [Has87]), which are known to play roles in carrying out similar generalizations. Aside from achieving these generalizations, we resolve a question posed by Cai, Hemachandra, and Vyskoc [CHV93] on an issue related to nonadaptive Turing access to UP and adaptive smart Turing access to Promise-UP.
When Does Label Propagation Fail? A View from a Network Generative Model

What kinds of data does Label Propagation (LP) work best on? Can we justify the solution of LP from a theoretical standpoint? LP is a semisupervised learning algorithm that is widely used to predict unobserved node labels on a network (e.g., user’s gender on an SNS). Despite its importance, its theoretical properties remain mostly unexplored. In this paper, we answer the above questions by interpreting LP from a statistical viewpoint. As our main result, we identify the network generative model behind the discretized version of LP (DLP), and we show that under specific conditions the solution of DLP is equal to the maximum a posteriori estimate of that generative model. Our main result reveals the critical limitations of LP. Specifically, we discover that LP would not work best on networks with (1) disassortative node labels, (2) clusters having different edge densities, (3) nonuniform label distributions, or (4) unreliable node labels provided. Our experiments under a variety of settings support our theoretical results.
Algorithms for Sparse Linear Classifiers in the Massive Data Setting

Classifiers favoring sparse solutions, such as support vector machines, relevance vector machines, LASSO-regression based classifiers, etc., provide competitive methods for classification problems in high dimensions. However, current algorithms for training sparse classifiers typically scale quite unfavorably with respect to the number of training examples. This paper proposes online and multi-pass algorithms for training sparse linear classifiers for high dimensional data. These algorithms have computational complexity and memory requirements that make learning on massive data sets feasible. The central idea that makes this possible is a straightforward quadratic approximation to the likelihood function.
Dimethyl sulfoxide prevents DNA nicking mediated by ionizing radiation or iron/hydrogen peroxide-generated hydroxyl radical.

Eighty percent of the single-strand DNA breaks induced by gamma-irradiation were prevented by the hydroxyl radical (.OH) scavenger dimethyl sulfoxide (Me2SO); CH4 was generated in the process as a product of the interaction of . OH and Me2SO. In contrast, Me2SO completely blocked DNA nicking by an iron/H2O2 system which produces . OH but smaller amounts of CH4 from Me2SO. Because Me2SO prevented DNA breaks from the more efficient iron/H2O2 system but only blocked 80% of irradiation-mediated nicking, the results suggest that . OH is responsible for 80% of the DNA single-strand breaks and the remaining 20% is due to interactions not involving . OH.
Anti-Fibrillin-1 Autoantibodies in Systemic Sclerosis Are GM and KM Allotype-Restricted

GM and KM allotypes – genetic markers of immunoglobulin (Ig) γ and ĸ chains, respectively – have been shown to play an important role in genetic predisposition to some autoimmune diseases. To determine their role in susceptibility to systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma) and in the generation of anti-fibrillin-1 antibodies, 148 SSc patients and 191 controls were typed for several GM and KM allotypes by a standard hemagglutination inhibition method. IgG and IgM antibodies to fibrillin-1 were measured by radioimmunoassay. GM and KM phenotypes were not significantly associated with SSc. However, these determinants significantly influenced the production of anti-fibrillin-1 antibodies in SSc patients. In Caucasians, GM1,3,17 23 5,13,21 and GM3 23 5,13 phenotypes were associated with the presence and absence of IgG autoantibodies, respectively. The production of these autoantibodies was also associated with KM allotypes, KM1,3 heterozygosity being associated with response and homozygosity for the KM3 allele with nonresponse to fibrillin-1. In African-Americans, the KM1 homozygotes were associated with the absence of anti-fibrillin-1 antibodies and the KM3 homozygotes with the presence of autoantibodies. In this ethnic group, the GM1,17 5,13 phenotype was associated with the absence of IgM autoantibodies. This represents the first description of genetic control of autoimmunity to fibrillin-1 in scleroderma.