Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Confirmatory factor analysis of the short form Beck Depression Inventory in elderly community samples.

The factor structure of the Beck Depression Inventory short form (BDI-SF) was investigated in two elderly samples, with the method of confirmatory factor analysis. Four models previously reported for the BDI-SF in the general adult population were compared for goodness of fit to the data for elderly respondents, and the best-fitting model was adjusted further for these data. Each step in the analyses of the BDI-SF responses of 199 elderly subjects from Tampa, Florida, was cross-validated with data from a second sample of 113 elderly subjects from Houston, Texas. The results confirmed that the three-factor model reported by Reynolds and Gould (1981) adequately fit the data from both elderly samples. The three identified factors were termed Negative Self-Esteem, Anergy, and Dysphoria and were considered to correspond with the cognitive, behavioral, and affective components that generally are thought to be part of the depressive syndrome. The internal consistency of the overall BDI-SF was . 74 and . 80 in the Tampa and Houston samples, respectively. These findings provide evidence for the construct validity of the BDI-SF by confirming that it displays a factor structure in the aged similar to that observed in the general adult population.
Age and adolescent social stress effects on fear extinction in female rats

Abstract We previously observed that social instability stress (SS: daily 1 h isolation and change of cage partners for 16 days) in adolescence, but not in adulthood, decreased context and cue memory after fear conditioning in male rats. Effects of stress are typically sex-specific, and so here we investigated adolescent and adult SS effects in females on the strength of acquired contextual and cued fear conditioning, as well as extinction learning, beginning either the day after the stress procedure or four weeks later. For SS in adolescence, SS females spent more time freezing (fear measure) during extinction than did controls, whereas SS in adulthood had no effect on any measure of fear conditioning. The results also indicated an effect of age: females in late adolescence show more rapid extinction of cue and better memory of extinction of context compared to adult females, which may indicate resilience to acute footshock in adolescence. Thus fear circuitry continues to mature into late adolescence, which may underlie the heightened plasticity in response to chronic stressors of adolescents compared to adults.
Gender, sexual abuse and risk behaviours in adolescents: a cross-sectional survey in schools in Goa.

BACKGROUND There is little information on the prevalence and correlates of sexual abuse in adolescents in India. METHODS A cross-sectional survey of all Class XI students in eight higher secondary schools in Goa (n = 811 ) was conducted in March 2000. A self-report questionnaire, developed and piloted in collaboration with the adolescents, elicited information on education, mental health, risk behaviours and the experience of violence and sexual abuse in the previous year. RESULTS A third of adolescents had experienced some form of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse experiences were associated with the experience of other forms of physical and verbal violence. Coercive sex had been experienced by approximately 6% of adolescents. These adolescents had significantly poorer academic performance, poorer mental and physical health, greater substance abuse, poorer parental relationships and higher rates of consensual sexual behaviours. Gender differences in the types of abuse and the associations with abuse were found. However, there was no difference between boys and girls in the rates of experience of coercive sexual intercourse. Differences in risks were found for urban and rural school students; while rural boys were more likely to have experienced coercive sexual intercourse than urban boys (10.3% v. 2.5%), urban girls were more likely to have experienced any form of sexual abuse than rural girls (37.2% v. 25.4%). CONCLUSIONS Abuse and violence in school-based adolescents is a common experience and is associated with poorer health and greater prevalence of risk behaviours. Interventions aimed at improving adolescent reproductive health must incorporate personal safety, prevention of abuse, communication skills and mental health issues.
Scaling laws for the reduction of threading dislocation densities in homogeneous buffer layers

In the heteroepitaxial growth of films with large misfit with the underlying substrate (linear mismatch strains in excess of 1%–2%) the generation of misfit dislocations and threading dislocations (TDs) is ubiquitous for thicknesses well in excess of the equilibrium critical thickness. Experimental data suggest that the TD density in relaxed homogeneous buffer layers can be divided into three regimes: (i) an entanglement region near the film/substrate interface corresponding to TD densities of ∼1010–1012 cm−2; (ii) a falloff in TD density that is inversely proportional to the film thickness h, applicable to densities in the range ∼107–109 cm−2; and (iii) saturation or weak decay of the TD density with further increase in film thickness. Typical saturation densities are on the order of ∼106–107 cm−2. In this article, we show that the TD reduction may be described in terms of effective lateral motion of TDs with increasing film thickness. An analytic model is developed that successfully predicts both the 1/.
Narrative comprehension and production in children with SLI: An eye movement study

This study investigates narrative comprehension and production in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Twelve children with SLI (mean age 5;8 years) and 12 typically developing children (mean age 5;6 years) participated in an eye-tracking experiment designed to investigate online narrative comprehension and production in Catalan- and Spanish-speaking children with SLI. The comprehension task involved the recording of eye movements during the visual exploration of successive scenes in a story, while listening to the associated narrative. With regard to production, the children were asked to retell the story, while once again looking at the scenes, as their eye movements were monitored. During narrative production, children with SLI look at the most semantically relevant areas of the scenes fewer times than their age-matched controls, but no differences were found in narrative comprehension. Moreover, the analyses of speech productions revealed that children with SLI retained less information and made more semantic and syntactic errors during retelling. Implications for theories that characterize SLI are discussed.
Effects of individual risk factors on the incidence of cardiovascular events in the treated hypertensive patients of the Hypertension Optimal Treatment Study

Background The Hypertension Optimal Treatment (HOT) Study has provided information about cardiovascular events in 18 790 hypertensives, subjected to pronounced blood pressure (BP) lowering for a mean of 3.8 years. The HOT study data have subsequently been analysed after stratification of the patients according to global cardiovascular risk, and it has been found that, despite intensive blood pressure lowering in all risk strata, morbid event rates increased with increasing risk stratum. Objectives Previously analysed global risk strata were based on combinations of risk factors. The analyses presented here were intended to provide information on the relative role that the presence of each individual factor may have in increasing cardiovascular risk, despite good BP control. Methods Risk ratios (RR) for patients with and those without a risk factor were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI) using a Cox proportional hazard model, and adjusted for all variables except the one under examination. Results For all risk factors considered and for all types of event, RR were always greater than 1, indicating a greater risk in the presence, compared with that in the absence of each factor. The male gender was a statistically significant risk for cardiovascular (CV) events, CV and total mortality and particularly for myocardial infarction (MI); age ⩾ 65 years for CV events, stroke, CV and particularly total mortality; smoking for all events analysed, but particularly for total mortality (twice higher in smokers than in non-smokers); high serum cholesterol (> 6.8 mmol/l) for CV events, MI and CV mortality; high serum creatinine (> 155 μmol/l) for CV events, stroke, CV and total mortality; diabetes for CV events, stroke, total mortality and particularly CV mortality; and ischaemic heart disease for all events analysed. Adjusted RR were often close to or greater than 2. Conclusions Each of the risk factors considered was found to be an important cause of residual risk, despite good BP control. These findings emphasize the importance of addressing other correctable risk factors, e.g. smoking, hypercholesterolaemia and diabetes, as well as rigorous control of blood pressure, and of initiating antihypertensive therapy before cardiovascular and renal damage becomes manifest.
A Brief Overview of International Migration Motives and Impacts, with Specific Reference to FDI

International migration has become one of the most debated topics in many developed and developing countries. Host countries are concerned about the socioeconomic consequences of international migration, while sending countries—from a developing country’s perspective—are concerned about the brain drain and loss of their younger population. This paper presents a concise literature review on existing theories of international migration, and long-run effects of international migration on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The empirical studies reviewed in this paper indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between international migration and FDI.
Task-specific hypoactivation in prefrontal and temporoparietal brain regions during motor inhibition and task switching in medication-naive children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

OBJECTIVE A relatively small number of functional imaging studies of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have shown abnormal prefrontal and striatal brain activation during tasks of motor response inhibition. However, the potential confound of previous medication exposure has not yet been addressed, and no functional imaging study exists to date on medication-naive children and adolescents with ADHD. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural substrates of a range of motor and cognitive inhibitory functions in a relatively large group of children and adolescents with ADHD who had never previously been exposed to medication. METHOD Nineteen boys with ADHD and 27 healthy age- and IQ-matched boys underwent functional MRI to compare brain activation during performance of tasks that assessed motor response inhibition (go/no go task), cognitive interference inhibition (motor Stroop task), and cognitive flexibility (switch task). RESULTS Boys with ADHD showed decreased activation in the left rostral mesial frontal cortex during the go/no go task and decreased activation in the bilateral prefrontal and temporal lobes and right parietal lobe during the switch task. No significant group differences were observed during motor Stroop task performance. CONCLUSION Abnormal brain activation was observed in medication-naive children and adolescents with ADHD during tasks involving motor inhibition and task switching, suggesting that hypoactivation in this patient group is unrelated to long-term stimulant exposure. Furthermore, functional abnormalities are task-specific and extend from frontostriatal to parietal and temporal cortices.
Mortality of Life Stages of Cowpea Weevil (Coleoptera: Bruchidae) Exposed to Low Pressure at Different Temperatures

Abstract Previous studies have shown that low pressure creates a low oxygen controlled atmosphere that can kill stored-product insects. The current study was conducted to determine the mortality of life stages of the cowpea weevil, Callosbruchus maculatus (F.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), exposed to different low pressures and temperatures for various exposure periods. The adults were the most susceptible life stage to low pressure; 99% mortality was achieved within 0.8 h at 32.5 mmHg, 30°C. The pupae were the most tolerant life stage to low pressure, requiring exposure periods between 28.98 and 153.20 h at temperatures of 20–35°C to achieve 99% mortality. Mortality increased with exposure time and also with increasing temperature in all life stages. Early stage eggs (3 h old) and late stage eggs (48 h old) experienced higher mortality (values for LT99 of 42.331 and 46.652 h, respectively) compared with intermediate aged eggs (24 h old; LT99 of 74.735 h) under the same conditions of low pressure and temperature. Dried beans, including cowpea, Vigna unguiculata (Walp.), are currently protected with fumigants. Application of low pressure as a pest management tool represents a potential nonchemical alternative to fumigants such as methyl bromide and phosphine for controlling the cowpea weevil and related bruchids.
The motorneuron surface

It is possible to reveal all the terminal boutons on the ventral horn cells of the spinal cord after fixation with formalin, mordanting (Weigert-Pal), embedding in carbowax and staining with haematoxylin or by a silver method. The boutons are more numerous than has been supposed and cover the greater part of the surface of the nerve cell body and dendrites. Electron micrographs after osmium fixation show a thin membrane at the surface of the nerve cell body and dendrites. The boutons are closely apposed to this surface and are themselves covered by thin membranes. At the region of contact there is usually no separation visible, with the relatively low magnification used, between pre- and post-synaptic membranes. The boutons contain many bodies that absorb electrons strongly and are presumably mitochondria. The pre-synaptic nerve fibres are provided with relatively thick sheaths, except where they swell out to form boutons. The protoplasm of glia cells fills up all the space between the neuronal elements. No large tissue spaces or intercellular matrix appear. Exchanges between the neurons and capillaries presumably take place through the glial protoplasm.
Livestock as an Imperfect Buffer Stock in Poorly Integrated Markets

Livestock holdings in rural areas of the West African Semi-arid Tropics (WASAT) are often substantial yet there is little evidence for precautionary saving in the form of livestock. This paper re-visits farm households' ability to smooth consumption ex post via savings in the form of livestock. Based on data covering Burkina Faso's 2004 drought, we find that livestock sales increase significantly in response to drought with households citing the need to finance food consumption. Some consumption smoothing is achieved via adjustments to grain stocks, but households apparently fail to smooth consumption by adjusting livestock holdings. We argue that this seemingly contradictory finding is largely due to a decrease in relative livestock prices during droughts. This renders selling livestock a costly coping strategy and underlines the need for market integration.
Energy-Efficient Routing in the Broadcast Communication Model

The broadcast communication model (BCM, for short) is a distributed system with no central arbiter populated by p stations denoted by S(1),S(2),. ,S(p) that communicate by transmitting messages on a communication channel. The stations are assumed to have the computing power of a laptop computer and to be synchronous, in particular, they all run the same program, albeit on different data. We assume that a station is expending power while transmitting or receiving messages. As it turns out, one of the most effective energy-saving strategies is to mandate individual stations to power their transceiver off (i.e., go to sleep) whenever they are not transmitting or receiving messages. Suppose that the p stations of the BCM store collectively n items such that station S(i), (1 /spl les/ i /spl les/ p), stores s/sub i/ items. Each of the items has a unique destination which is the identity of the station to which the item must be routed. The goal is to route all the items to their destinations, while expending as little energy as possible. Since, in the worst case, each item must be transmitted at least once, every routing protocol must take at least n time slots to terminate. Furthermore, station S(i), (1 /spl les/ i /spl les/ p), must be awake for at least s/sub i/ + d/sub i/ time slots, where d/sub i/ denotes the number of items destined for S(i). Since, in the BCM, every station is within transmission range from every other station, the design of energy-efficient protocols is highly nontrivial. An additional complication stems from the inherent asymmetry of the routing problem: no destination knows the identity of the sender, precluding a priori arrangements between senders and receivers. The main contribution of this work is to present an energy-efficient routing protocol for the single-channel, p-station BCM. We show that for every f /spl ges/ 1, the task of routing n items in this model can be completed with probability exceeding 1 - 1/f, in n + O(q + ln f) time slots and that no station S(i), (1 /spl les/ i /spl les/ p), has to be awake for more than s/sub i/ + d/sub i/ + O(q/sub i/ + r/sub i/ log p + log f) time slots, where q/sub i/ is the number of stations that have items destined for S(i), q = q/sub 1/ + q/sub 2/ +/spl middot//spl middot//spl middot/+ q/sub p/, and r/sub i/ is the number of stations for which S(i) has items. Since q/sub i/ /spl les/ d/sub i/, r/sub i/ /spl les/ s/sub i/ and q /spl les/ n, our protocol is close to optimal both in terms of overall completion time and energy efficiency.
Ear Detection Based on Improved AdaBoost Algorithm

Ear detection is the most important step of an ear recognition system, and the detection effect of this step directly affects the performance of the whole recognition system. according to the structural characteristics of the ear itself, this paper makes improvement on the traditional AdaBoost algorithm in view of its deficiency. There are three key contributions in this paper. The first contribution is a method which can affect the emphasis point of the detector performance in order to reduce the false alarm rate, by means of changing the weight distribution of weak classifiers.The second is the introduction of a new parameter called elimination threshold ,which can improve the robustness of the detector and prevent over fitting. With the detector that we finally obtained, we test on the database of CAS-PEAL and the other two detection databases. The test results an upwards of 97% hit rate, the experimental results indicate that the ear detecting system in this paper has good detection effect. The third contribution is we designed an ear detection system of DSP and gained a good result of practical application.
Impact of Haemoglobin Variants AS and AC on Asymptomatic Falciparum Malaria among Adults in Iwo , Southwestern Nigeria

Several studies have shown that haemoglobin (Hb) variants AS and AC are associated with resistance to severe falciparum malaria infection. However, reports on association between these haemoglobin variants and asymptomatic malaria infection are conflicting. The objectives of this study were to examine the associations between asymptomatic falciparum malaria infection and haemoglobin variants AS and AC. Seemingly healthy individuals, 2,237 (≥16 years) without clinical symptoms in Iwo, Southwestern Nigeria were screened for this study after informed consent was obtained. A sample of 5 mL of blood was withdrawn from each participant for examination of malaria parasite and haemoglobin genotype. Thick and thin Giemsa stained blood smear were prepared for malaria parasite identification and quantification. Haemoglobin genotype was determined by cellulose acetate electrophoresis. There was no significant relationship between haemoglobin variants and sex (χ = 1.46, df = 5, p = 0.918). Compared to HbAA, malaria infection and parasite densities were significantly lower in Hb AS (χ = 26.66, p < 0.001; t = 5.05, p < 0.001) and Hb AC (χ = 6.51, p = 0.01; t = 3.70, p = 0.002). There was no significant difference between AS and AC individuals with respect to malaria infection and parasite density (χ = 0.21, p = 0.64; t = 0.22, p = 0.83). These findings suggest that among adults living in Iwo, Southwestern Nigeria, HbAS or HbAC offered better protection against asymptomatic falciparum malaria infection than HbAA while HbAS and HbAC offered similar protection.
Fibrinogen estimates are influenced by methods of measurement and hemodilution with colloid plasma expanders

BACKGROUND: Measurement of plasma fibrinogen is often required in critically ill patients or massively bleeding patients being resuscitated with colloid plasma expander. This study aimed at evaluating different assays of plasma fibrinogen after in vitro dilution with commonly used plasma expanders and challenged the hypothesis that levels of fibrinogen are estimated significantly higher in plasma diluted with colloid plasma expander compared with isotonic saline.
Ectromelia in Morelet's Crocodile from Belize

Two Morelet's crocodiles (Crocodylus moreletii) captured on 21 March 1997 and 20 April 1998 in the New River system, Belize exhibited ectromelia of one forelimb. External and radiograph examination appears to indicate limb agenesis of unknown etiology, as there is no apparent scarring or skeletal trauma. These two individuals represent the only cases of missing limbs from 642 individuals captured in this study and to our knowledge, the first reported cases in Morelet's crocodile. Several factors including age and diet of the reproducing female, extremes in nest conditions (egg incubation temperature and humidity), and exposure to environmental contaminants can cause developmental abnormalities in crocodilians and may have contributed to the condition observed in these animals. Survival rates for hatchling crocodilians are generally low, and embryonic malformations such as ectromelia may constitute an added disadvantage to survival. However, both individuals examined in this study were vigorous and appeared in good condition.
Differential modulation of N‐type α1B and P/Q‐type α1A calcium channels by different G protein β subunit isoforms

1 Using transient calcium phosphate transfection into the human embryonic kidney tsa‐201 cell line and subsequent whole‐cell patch‐clamp protocols, we examined the tonic modulation of cloned N‐ and P/Q‐type calcium channels by five different G protein β subunits via strong depolarizing voltage prepulses. 2 For N‐ and P/Q‐type channels, the magnitude of inhibition was dependent on the Gβ subtype co‐expressed. 3 Both the absolute and relative magnitudes of Gβ subunit‐induced inhibition of P/Q‐type channels differed from those observed with the N‐type channel. 4 For each calcium channel subtype, kinetics of both the prepulse‐mediated recovery from inhibition and the re‐inhibition following the prepulse were examined for each of the Gβ subunits by varying either the duration between the pre‐ and the test pulse or the length of the prepulse. 5 For each channel subtype, we observed a differential Gβ subunit rank order with regard to the rates of re‐inhibition and recovery from inhibition. 6 On average, P/Q‐type channels exhibited more rapid rates of recovery from inhibition than those observed with N‐type channels. 7 Different Gβ subtypes mediated different degrees of slowing of activation kinetics. 8 The differential modulation of P/Q‐ and N‐type channels by various Gβ subtypes may provide a mechanism for fine tuning the amount of calcium entering the presynaptic nerve termini.