Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specifying peripheral aberrations in visual science.

PURPOSE Investigations of foveal aberrations assume circular pupils. However, the pupil becomes increasingly elliptical with increase in visual field eccentricity. We address this and other issues concerning peripheral aberration specification. METHODS One approach uses an elliptical pupil similar to the actual pupil shape, stretched along its minor axis to become a circle so that Zernike circular aberration polynomials may be used. Another approach uses a circular pupil whose diameter matches either the larger or smaller dimension of the elliptical pupil. Pictorial presentation of aberrations, influence of wavelength on aberrations, sign differences between aberrations for fellow eyes, and referencing position to either the visual field or the retina are considered. RESULTS Examples show differences between the two approaches. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but there are ways to compensate for most disadvantages. Two representations of data are pupil aberration maps at each position in the visual field and maps showing the variation in individual aberration coefficients across the field. CONCLUSIONS Based on simplicity of use, adequacy of approximation, possible departures of off-axis pupils from ellipticity, and ease of understanding by clinicians, the circular pupil approach is preferable to the stretched elliptical approach for studies involving field angles up to 30 deg.
Community Resilience and Environmental Transitions

1. Introduction 2. Towards a Framework for Understanding Community Resilience 3. Transition Theory: Environmental Pathways and Resilient Communities 4. System Memory: Community Learning, Tradition and Historical Networks 5. Path Dependency: 'Lock-In' Mechanisms and Pathways of the '(Im)possible' 6. Transitional Corridors: External Constraints for Endogenous Community Resilience 7. Environmental transitions and the Policy Challenge: How to make Local Communities More Resilient 8. Conclusions
Translation and psychometric properties of the “ethical conflict in nursing questionnaire: critical care version” in Iran

Introduction Ethical conflict is one of ICU nurses’ main problems, which rise for several reasons that must be measured. Unfortunately, there is no native instrument for measuring ethical conflicts for ICU nurses in Iran. One of the more suitable and new tools for the measurement of ethical conflict is called the “Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire: Critical Care Version (ECCNQ-CCV). ” This study was aimed to translate and investigate psychometric properties of the ECCNQ-CCV in Iranian nurses. Methods In this methodological study, after translation and cultural adaptation, face validity, content validity, and construct validity were assessed. Then, internal consistency and stability were measured for reliability. Two software programs (SPSS version 20 and AMOS) were used for data analysis. Result Face and content validities were acceptable. Confirmatory factor analysis was not fitted. Thus, exploratory factor analysis was done, which showed five factors. However, some of the scenarios in a factor were not compatible with each other, and choosing the fit name for factors was not possible. Thus, all the scenarios were put into one factor, which has been proposed by the developer in the original version. The alpha Cronbach was 0.92 for the total scale. Conclusions Findings show that the one factor Persian version of the ECNQ-CCV has acceptable psychometric properties. It can be used to evaluate ethical conflicts in Iranian ICU nurses.
TMX, social loafing, perceived accountability and OCB

ABSTRACT This study intends to explore the effect of team-member exchange on perceived accountability and organizational citizenship behavior, as well as the potential moderating effects of social loafing in the relationship. Data were collected from full-time hotel employees in northern Taiwan. A convenience sampling method was used to distribute questionnaires to employees in 25 five-star international tourist hotels. A total of 550 questionnaires were distributed, of which 366 were returned and 184 were rejected due to incorrect completion and incoherent information, yielding a response rate of 66.5%. The result fills previous studies’ research gap and indicates that a moderated mediation model with perceived accountability as the mediator of the relationship between team-member exchange and organizational citizenship behavior, and with social loafing as the moderator on such negative indirect link between team-member exchange, perceived accountability, and organizational citizenship behavior.
Is the Push for Gender Sensitive Research Advancing the SDG Agenda of Leaving No One Behind?

Abstract Following decades of advocacy, collecting sex-disaggregated data and conducting gender analyses have become an expected aspect of research in development studies. We strongly support this shift, yet it has focused attention upon one manifestation of inequality. We explore five dimensions of inequality, as expressed in health metrics in Ethiopia, to highlight diverse manifestations of inequalities. We call for a broader approach to understanding inequalities and how the simultaneous experience of multiple, intersecting inequalities, is greater than their sum. This shift is essential to support the ‘leave no one behind’ agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Experiences with animal models of dermatitis herpetiformis: A review

Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is caused by the consumption of gluten, which is also the trigger for celiac disease. DH is currently considered to be the skin manifestation of celiac disease, as both diseases have some degree of gluten-sensitive enteropathy. The human leukocyte antigens class II genes, DQ2 and DQ8, are tightly associated with both diseases, and there is an increased level of anti-gliadin antibodies in both diseases. Animal models of gluten sensitivity have been used to better understand the pathogenesis of both diseases. This paper describes these different models and discusses how certain elements of these models contribute to the development of DH.
Oxygen free radicals in nephrology

For living creatures with an aerobic metabolism, the univalent reduction of oxygen can lead to formation within the cell of intermediate products with marked chemical instability and strong potential toxicity. These are the free radicals (FR) superoxide and hydroxyl, hydrogen peroxide and the singlet 1O2. Their toxicity is primarily expressed through the peroxidation of membrane lipids, resulting in mitochondrial, lysosomal and parietal damage. It is enhanced by the presence of metals in trace amounts. Imbalance between the production of FR and the availability of FR scavengers (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, etc.) may underlie different human pathologies. FR have been thought to play a part in inflammation; the aging process, carcinomatous transformations, damage due to recirculation and autoimmune diseases. As far as the kidney is concerned, the intervention of FR has been demonstrated or can be postulated in various contexts in the light of what has been observed in other pathologies: immunological nephritis, toxic nephropathies, microthrombotic and microangiopathic processes, damage caused by post-ischemic reflow, and problems in the preservation and rejection of transplants. FR have also been incriminated in lung lesions following intradialytic leukostasis and some aspects of toxicity ascribable to uremia. Subject to the precautions imposed by the need for theoretical, experimental and clinical verification, FR biochemistry offers new keys to the interpretation of a variety of kidney pathologies and opens up new prospects for treatment, both through a better understanding of the mechanism of action of drugs already known and employed, and with regard to the practical possibility of using alternative or combined forms of therapy.
Anthropometric assessment of school age children in Addis Ababa.

BACKGROUND Malnutrition is a major health problem in children. There are several studies of anthropometry among under-five children. However, there is scarcity of data on the nutritional status among school children and adolescents in Ethiopia as else where in developing countries. OBJECTIVES The objective of the study is to assess the nutritional status of school age children in Addis Ababa. METHODS The study design is a cross sectional anthropometric survey conducted among School age children. Anthropometric measurements were taken in 1208 children using standard measurement techniques. The NCHS reference data on height and body mass index (BMI) were used to estimate age-specific prevalence of stunting, thinness, and overweight. RESULTS Using the 5th percentile of the NCHS reference data, the prevalence of thinness was 28.4% for boys and 20.4% for girls; the average being 24%. The prevalence of stunting (<3rd centile) was 13.8% for boys and 6.2% for girls with an average of 9.8% for both sexes. The prevalence of overweight was 3.3%. CONCLUSION Thinness and stunting were shown to have low prevalence in the study group, a level which is lower than the prevalence in some developing countries. Further epidemiological study is required to better determine the true magnitude of the problem.
Punishment on the Frontlines of Public Service Delivery: Client Ethnicity and Caseworker Sanctioning Decisions in a Scandinavian Welfare State

Many public welfare programs give public employees discretionary authority to dispense sanctions when clients do not follow or comply with the policies and procedures required for receiving welfare benefits. Yet research also shows that public employees’ use of discretion in decision making that affects clients can occasionally be marked by racial biases and disparities. Drawing on the Racial Classification Model (RCM) for a theoretical model, this article examines how client ethnicity shapes public employees’ decisions to sanction clients. Using Danish employment agencies as our empirical setting, we present findings from two complementary studies. Study 1 uses nationwide administrative data. Examining sanctioning activity at the employment agency-level, we find that agencies with a larger percentage of clients being nonWestern immigrants or their descendants impose a greater overall number of sanctions and dispense them with greater frequency. Study 2 uses survey experimental data to build on this finding. Addressing concerns about internal validity and a need for analyses at the individual employee-level, we present survey experimental evidence that employment agency caseworkers are more likely to recommend sanctions for ethnic minority (Middle-Eastern origin) clients than for ethnic majority (Danish origin) clients. Moreover, we investigate how three caseworker characteristics—ethnicity, gender, and work experience—condition the relationship between client ethnicity and caseworkers’ decisions to sanction clients. While we find no moderation effects for ethnicity or gender, work experience appears to diminish the influence of client
Improving phosphorus uptake and wheat productivity by phosphoric acid application in alkaline calcareous soils.

BACKGROUND Low phosphorus (P) efficiency from existing granular fertilisers necessitates searching for efficient alternatives to improve wheat productivity in calcareous soil. RESULTS Multi-location trials have shown that phosphoric acid (PA) produced 16% higher wheat grain over commercial P fertilisers, i.e. diammonium phosphate (DAP) and triple superphosphate (TSP). Methods of P application significantly influenced grain yield and the efficiency of methods was observed in the order: PA placement below seed > PA, DAP or TSP fertigation > DAP or TSP broadcast. The sub-surface application of PA produced highest grain yields (mean of all rates), i.e. 4669, 4158 and 3910 kg ha(-1) in Bagh, Bhalwal and Shahpur soil series, respectively. Phosphoric acid at 66 kg P2 O5 ha(-1) was found more effective in increasing gain yield over that of control. Trend in grain P uptake was found similar to that observed for grain yield. Maximum P uptake by grain was recorded at the highest P rate and the lowest at zero P. The significant increase in P uptake with P rates was generally related to the increase in yield rather than its concentration in grain. Phosphorus agronomic efficiency (PAE) and phosphorus recovery efficiency (PRE) were found higher at lower P rate (44 kg P2 O5 ha(-1) ) and decreased with P application. However, PA applied by the either method resulted in higher PAE and PRE compared to DAP and TSP. CONCLUSION Phosphoric acid is suggested as an efficient alternative to commercial granular P fertilisers for wheat production in alkaline calcareous soils. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.
Characteristics of Genomic Test Consumers Who Spontaneously Share Results With Their Health Care Provider

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genomic test consumers who spontaneously shared their test results with their health care provider. Utilizing data from the Scripps Genomic Health Initiative, we compared demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal characteristics of DTC genomic test consumers who shared their results with their physician or health care provider versus those who did not share. We also compared genomic risk estimates between the two groups. Of 2,024 individuals assessed at approximately 6 months post testing, 540 individuals (26.5%) reported sharing their results with their physician or health care provider. Those who shared were older (p < .001), had a higher income (p = .01), were more likely to be married (p = .005), and were more likely to identify with a religion (p = .004). As assessed prior to undergoing testing, sharers also reported higher levels of exercise (p = .003), lower fat intake (p = .02), fewer overall concerns about testing (p = .001), and fewer concerns related to the privacy of their genomic information (p = .03). The genomic disease risk estimates disclosed were not associated with sharing. Thus, in a DTC genomic testing context, physicians and other health care providers may be more likely to encounter patients who are more health conscious and have fewer concerns about the privacy of their genomic information. Genomic risk itself does not appear to be a primary determinant of sharing behavior among consumers.
The basic nonuniformity of the cerebral cortex

Evolutionary changes in the size of the cerebral cortex, a columnar structure, often occur through the addition or subtraction of columnar modules with the same number of neurons underneath a unit area of cortical surface. This view is based on the work of Rockel et al. [Rockel AJ, Hiorns RW, Powell TP (1980) The basic uniformity in structure of the neocortex. Brain 103:221–244], who found a steady number of approximately 110 neurons underneath a surface area of 750 μm2 (147,000 underneath 1 mm2) of the cerebral cortex of five species from different mammalian orders. These results have since been either corroborated or disputed by different groups. Here, we show that the number of neurons underneath 1 mm2 of the cerebral cortical surface of nine primate species and the closely related Tupaia sp. is not constant and varies by three times across species. We found that cortical thickness is not inversely proportional to neuronal density across species and that total cortical surface area increases more slowly than, rather than linearly with, the number of neurons underneath it. The number of neurons beneath a unit area of cortical surface varies linearly with neuronal density, a parameter that is neither related to cortical size nor total number of neurons. Our finding of a variable number of neurons underneath a unit area of the cerebral cortex across primate species indicates that models of cortical organization cannot assume that cortical columns in different primates consist of invariant numbers of neurons.
Neoadjuvant treatment response as an early response indicator for patients with rectal cancer.

PURPOSE Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer is associated with improved local control and may result in complete tumor response. Associations between tumor response and disease control following radical resection should be established before tumor response is used to evaluate treatment strategies. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare oncologic outcomes associated with the degree of pathologic response after chemoradiotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS All patients with locally advanced (cT3-4 or cN+ by endorectal ultrasonography, computed tomography, or magnetic resonance imaging) rectal carcinoma diagnosed from 1993 to 2008 at our institution and treated with preoperative chemoradiotherapy and radical resection were identified, and their records were retrospectively reviewed. The median radiation dose was 50.4 Gy with concurrent chemotherapy. Recurrence-free survival (RFS), distant metastasis (DM), and local recurrence (LR) rates were compared among patients with complete (ypT0N0), intermediate (ypT1-2N0), or poor (ypT3-4 or N+) response by using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression. RESULTS In all, 725 patients were classified by tumor response: complete (131; 18.1%), intermediate (210; 29.0%), and poor (384; 53.0%). Age, sex, cN stage, and tumor location were not related to tumor response. Tumor response (complete v intermediate v poor) was associated with 5-year RFS (90.5% v 78.7% v 58.5%; P < .001), 5-year DM rates (7.0% v 10.1% v 26.5%; P < .001), and 5-year LR only rates (0% v 1.4% v 4.4%; P = .002). CONCLUSION Treatment response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy among patients with locally advanced rectal cancer undergoing radical resection is an early surrogate marker and correlate to oncologic outcomes. These data provide guidance with response-stratified oncologic benchmarks for comparisons of novel treatment strategies.
The Impacts of Negative Interest Rates on the Eurozone Economy

This thesis evaluates the effects of a monetary policy shock in the Eurozone. The investigation stems from the recent implementation of negative interest rates in select European countries and Japan. Impulse response functions are used to compare variable responses when not influenced by negative rates versus when significantly impacted by this monetary policy. The inconclusiveness in the comparison between these two models resulted in failing to reject the hypothesis that negative interest rates have yet to be successful in the Eurozone. However, any economy is a complicated environment that cannot be modelled precisely, as numerous other factors play a role in the movements of macroeconomic variables. Therefore, this research is simply one possible perspective regarding this monetary policy. The Impacts of Negative Interest Rates on the Eurozone Economy Western University Economics 4400E Cynthia Wang Advisor: Professor Rui Castro
Perceptual Ability with Real-World Nighttime Scenes: Image-Intensified, Infrared, and Fused-Color Imagery

We investigated human perceptual performance allowed by relatively impoverished information conveyed in nighttime natural scenes. We used images of nighttime outdoor scenes rendered in image-intensified low-light visible (i2) sensors, thermal infrared (ir) sensors, and an i2/ir fusion technique with information added. We found that nighttime imagery provides adequate low-level image information for effective perceptual organization on a classification task, but that performance for exemplars within a given object category is dependent on the image type. Overall performance was best with the false-color fused images. This is consistent with the suggestion in the literature that color plays a predominate role in perceptual grouping and segmenting of objects in a scene and supports the suggestion that the addition of color in complex achromatic scenes aids the perceptual organization required for visual search. In the present study, we address the issue of assessment of perceptual performance with alternative night-vision sensors and fusion methods and begin to characterize perceptual organization abilities permitted by the information in relatively impoverished images of complex scenes. Applications of this research include improving night vision, medical, and other devices that use alternative sensors or degraded imagery.
Ratio analysis of cumulatives for labeled cell quantification from immunofluorescence histograms derived from cells expressing low antigen levels

The problem of the quantitative analysis of immunofluorescence histograms “with weak labeling” is considered. In these distributions, the fluorescence intensity mean of labeled cells is slightly above that of unlabeled cells, and therefore there is a considerable overlap between the two populations. The procedure of selecting “by eye” an intensity level that separates labeled from unlabeled cells is evidently inadequate, leading to subjective and not reproducible results. Threshold and subtraction methods, although objective, quick, and easy to use, are also inaccurate. Till now, correct enough estimates of the percentage of labeled cells have been obtained only by applying mathematical modeling methods, that are, however, not very easy to handle. A new method for estimating the labeled cell proportion from immunofluorescence histograms is presented. It relies on the analysis of the ratio of the cumulative distributions associated with the routinely available test and negative control histograms. Since this ratio results in a well‐defined “σ‐shaped” distribution from a certain channel onwards, a suitable fitting function is used to obtain directly a preliminary estimate of the proportion of labeled cells. Then, an iterative procedure is designed for updating the estimate until it is judged acceptable, according to a suitable criterion. Moreover, to take into account the overall variability in the control data, the estimation process is repeated using the cumulatives associated with replicate negative control histograms. The accuracy of the method was tested with the same set of experimental data analyzed by means of a mathematical modeling method described in a previous article (Lampariello and Aiello, Cytometry 1998;32:241–254). There was a very good agreement between the known and estimated proportions of labeled cells, and the latter were, in many cases, even closer to the true values than those previously obtained. On the basis of the results reported, the method, which is objective, very simple, and much easier to implement than our previously proposed one, appears to be effective in the entire range of the percentage values, and to provide results independent of the acquisition precision. © 2009 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry