Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Participatory citizenship: Critical perspectives on client-centred occupational therapy

Abstract Background/aims: This article aims to discuss client-centred practice, the current dominant approach within occupational therapy, in relation to participatory citizenship. Occupational therapists work within structures and policies that set boundaries on their engagement with clients, while working with complex, multidimensional social realities. Methods: The authors present a critical discussion shaped by their research, including a survey, discussions at workshops at international conferences, and critical engagement with the literature on occupational therapy, occupation, and citizenship. Conclusion: A focus on citizenship suggests reframing professional development based on the participation in public life of people as citizens of their society. While occupational therapists often refer to clients in the context of communities, groups, families, and wider society, the term client-centred practice typically represents a particular view of the individual and may sometimes be too limited in application for a more systemic and societal approach. Significance: The authors question the individual focus which has, until recently, been typical of client-centred occupational therapy. Placing citizenship at the core of intervention is a transformative process that assumes all people are citizens and conceives of health as a collective issue, influencing the way we educate, do research, and practise.
Redistribution and Group Participation: Experimental Evidence from Africa and the UK

This paper investigates whether the prospect of redistribution hinders the formation of efficiency-enhancing groups. An experiment is conducted in a Kenyan slum, Ugandan villages, and a UK university town and used to test, in an anonymous setting with no feedback, whether subjects join a group that increases their endowment but exposes them to one of three redistributive actions: stealing, giving, or burning. Exposure to redistributive options among group members operates as a disincentive to join a group. This finding obtains under all three treatments -- including when the pressure to redistribute is intrinsic. However, the nature of the redistribution affects the magnitude of the impact. Giving has the least impact on the decision to join a group, whilst forced redistribution through stealing or burning acts as a much larger deterrent to group membership. These findings are common across all three subject pools, but African subjects are particularly reluctant to join a group in the burning treatment, indicating strong reluctance to expose themselves to destruction by others.
The role of house dust mite elimination in the management of childhood asthma: an unresolved issue

Indoor allergens are likely to be direct environmental causes of asthma and mite exposure, and sensitization is the most important environmental risk factor for childhood asthma in temperate zones. Analagous to occupational asthma, allergen avoidance in asthmatic children sensitized and exposed to mite allergens is associated with a reduction in airway hyperresponsiveness and symptoms associated with improvement in lung function. The long‐term effect of this strategy needs to be prospectively evaluated considering both the timing and duration of exposure, as well as the timing and duration of removal. In order to be successful, it is important to achieve and maintain a major reduction on allergen levels, for a long period of time.
Comparison of outcomes of group O vs non-group O premature neonates receiving group O RBC transfusions.

OBJECTIVES At some institutions all infants requiring RBC transfusions in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) receive only group O RBCs. Although transfused group O plasma is minimized in packed RBCs, small amounts of residual anti-A, anti-B, and anti-A,B in group O packed RBCs may bind to the corresponding A and B antigens of non-group O RBCs, possibly hemolyzing their native RBCs and thereby releasing free hemoglobin, theoretically resulting in hypercoagulability and promoting bacterial growth from free iron. METHODS Premature infants in the University of Kentucky Children's Hospital NICU database who were transfused (all received group O transfusions) were compared for a number of severity markers to determine if non-group O patients had worse outcomes than group O patients. RESULTS In this NICU sample, 724 neonates received at least 1 blood component. No significant differences were found between group O and non-group O infants with regard to final disposition or complications. CONCLUSIONS This reassuring finding validates the longstanding neonatal transfusion practice of using group O packed RBCs for infants of all blood groups in the NICU. However, a recent study shows increased mortality from necrotizing enterocolitis in group AB neonates at a facility transfusing only group O RBCs to neonates of all blood groups and suggests a change in neonatal transfusion practice to ABO group-specific RBCs; therefore more studies may be warranted.
Inhibition of T cell proliferation by selective block of Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channels.

T lymphocytes express a plethora of distinct ion channels that participate in the control of calcium homeostasis and signal transduction. Potassium channels play a critical role in the modulation of T cell calcium signaling, and the significance of the voltage-dependent K channel, Kv1.3, is well established. The recent cloning of the Ca(2+)-activated, intermediate-conductance K(+) channel (IK channel) has enabled a detailed investigation of the role of this highly Ca(2+)-sensitive K(+) channel in the calcium signaling and subsequent regulation of T cell proliferation. The role IK channels play in T cell activation and proliferation has been investigated by using various blockers of IK channels. The Ca(2+)-activated K(+) current in human T cells is shown by the whole-cell voltage-clamp technique to be highly sensitive to clotrimazole, charybdotoxin, and nitrendipine, but not to ketoconazole. Clotrimazole, nitrendipine, and charybdotoxin block T cell activation induced by signals that elicit a rise in intracellular Ca(2+)-e.g., phytohemagglutinin, Con A, and antigens such as Candida albicans and tetanus toxin in a dose-dependent manner. The release of IFN-gamma from activated T cells is also inhibited after block of IK channels by clotrimazole. Clotrimazole and cyclosporin A act synergistically to inhibit T cell proliferation, which confirms that block of IK channels affects the process downstream from T cell receptor activation. We suggest that IK channels constitute another target for immune suppression.
Influência do hormônio tireoideano t3 tópico sobre os osteócitos em defeitos ósseos críticos de calvária de ratos Wistar

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a influencia do hormonio tireoideano T3 topico sobre os osteocitos, em defeitos osseos criticos de calvaria de ratos. Foram utilizados 30 ratos Wistar machos, aleatoriamente divididos em tres grupos (n=10): controle (defeito osseo preenchido com um placebo constituido por base de pomada), grupo tratado 1 (defeito osseo preenchido com T3 em pomada, na concentracao de 0,03%) e grupo tratado 2 (defeito osseo preenchido com T3 em pomada, na concentracao de 3%), analisados aos 30 e 60 dias. Foram realizados defeitos osseos criticos de 8mm na calota craniana dos animais, preenchidos por pomada e analisados nos periodos propostos. Foram realizadas analises histologicas, morfometricas e analise morfologica e contagem das lacunas de osteocitos. Histologicamente o grupo tratado com T3 a 0,03% apresentou uma aceleracao do turnover e da remodelacao ossea, no periodo de 30 dias, onde foram evidenciadas linhas de reversao e osteocitos organizando-se ao redor dos Canais de Havers. Aos 60 dias, neste mesmo tratamento, as linhas de reversao estao diminuidas. No periodo de 30 dias, o controle mostrou formacao ossea de 672,25 ± 89,10mm2, enquanto no grupo tratado com T3 a de 0,03% ocorreu a maior formacao de osso (1640,5 ± 215,52mm2), diferencas estas, estatisticamente significantes (p 0,05). Aos 60 dias, a formacao ossea no grupo controle foi de 927 ± 81,5mm2, enquanto no grupo tratado com T3 a 0,03% foi de 1176,25 ±220,65 mm2 (p>0,05). A formacao de 1065 ± 13,29mm2 de osso no tratamento com T3 a 3% foi maior que o controle (p 0,05). Aos 30 dias, em relacao a quantidade de lacunas de osteocitos, o grupo tratado com T3 na concentracao de 0,03% apresentou o maior numero de lacunas de osteocitos presentes no osso neoformado (217,5 ± 34,64 mm2), estatisticamente diferente (p 0,05). Aos 30 dias, em relacao a morfologia das lacunas dos osteocitos, o grupo tratado com T3 apresentou uma maior atividade destas celulas, com extensos canaliculos e ampla rede de conexoes. Concluiu-se que a pomada contendo T3, na concentracao de 0,03%, auxilia o reparo osseo no periodo de 30 dias, promovendo maior formacao ossea. A acao do hormonio proporcionou um aumento no numero e morfologia das lacunas dos osteocitos na mesma concentracao e periodo em que foi observada maior formacao ossea.
THE MARINE PACHYPLEUROSAUR SERPIANOSAURUS GERMANICUS NOV. SPEC. - SKELETON AND ISOLATED BONE REMAINS FROM THE PELSONIAN (MIDDLE TRIASSIC) OF THE EUROPEAN GERMANIC BASIN CARBONATE INTERTIDALS AND ITS PALEOBIOLOGY AND TAPHONOMY

The large marine pachypleurosaur sauropterygian Serpianosaurus germanicus nov. spec. , represent- ing the oldest well known record of this genus from the Pelsonian, is introduced based on a postcranial skeleton. Of younger age are the Serpianosaurus mirigolensis (Rieppel, 1989) specimens from the Illyrian/Fassanian boundary (Grenzbitumen Bed) of the northwestern Tethys (Monte San Giorgio). Additional materials from Germany contain individual remains of different sexes and ages, all of which have been found in shallow marine to intertidal carbonate deposits. The postcranial skeleton and single bone remains from the Karlstadt Formation (upper Pelsonian, Anisian) of the Middle Triassic from different German sites demonstrate that this genus is more common in the Germanic Basin, but also is present in the northern Tethys. The paleogeography and facies distribution indicate evaporative to shallow marine conditions with extensive intertidal flats and sabkhas on the southern Germanic Basin coasts at that time. One possible reason for the abundance of Serpianosaurus during late Pelsonian time is a food chain that was based on horseshoe crabs, the eggs of which might have been a main target for the fish that were the primary food source for the pachypleurosaurs. Serpianosaurus and other marine vertebrates may have been killed by storm events and their carcasses deposited on intertidal flats where they were themselves food sources for large carnivorous thecodont archosaurs such as Ticinosuchus (Chirotherium tracks), or ? Arizonasaurus (Isochirotherium tracks), the footprints of which occur on the intertidals where Serpianosaurus and other marine vertebrate remains were deposited.
Effects of Graph Topology on Performance of Distributed Algorithms for Networked Control and Sensing

We consider distributed collaborative control and sensing as they frequently arise in networked control systems. The algorithms are constrained to use local information. We show by experiments that the performance of such distributed, local information based algorithms, can depend dramatically on the structure of the underlying topology (connectivity pattern) of the agents. We investigate the speed of convergence, accuracy, robustness and resiliency of such algorithms including consensus problems. We consider several graphs that can be used to represent collaborative control and communication patterns. We first show that small world topologies offer several advantages from a perspective of a favorable tradeoff between performance of collaborative behaviors vs costs of collaborative behaviors (or equivalently constraints for collaboration). Second, we show that a two level hierarchy consisting of carefully located and controlled ’leaders’ at the higher level and the rest of the agents at the lower level, can provide a very efficient communication pattern with substantial improvement of performance. We close with a description of the possible topologies for this two tier structure and their performance.
A combination of heuristic and bacteria foraging-differential evolution algorithm for transmission network expansion planning with security constraints

Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is an important component of power system planning. Its task is to determine the optimal set of transmission lines to be constructed such that the cost of expansion plan is minimum and no network constraints are violated during the planning horizon. The problem is very complex due to large number of options to be analysed and the discrete nature of the optimization variables. Hence, more efficient and robust techniques are required to solve this complex problem. This paper presents a new hybrid approach for TNEP with security constraints, where first the solution is obtained very quickly with a new promising heuristic method, which is used as a starting point for the proposed metaheuristic approach known as bacteria foraging differential evolution algorithm (BF-DEA). The heuristic method used for generating the initial solution is based on a DC power flow based compensation approach to simulate single/double line modifications arising out of a candidate line addition and an outage of other line. This method can be used to quickly obtain a suboptimal/optimal transmission network expansion plan. One of the difficulties with metaheuristic methods is the possibility of premature convergence to a nonoptimal solution. The worst part is that in many situations we do not even know as to how close/far the optimal solution obtained is from the global optimum one. The plan obtained with the heuristic method provides an upper bound on the solution obtained with BF-DEA. The hybrid method thus ensures that BF-DEA will provide a solution which is much closer to the global optimum. Results for two sample systems demonstrate the potential of the proposed scheme.
Congestion-based routing strategies in multihop TDD-CDMA networks

In this paper, a network topology is investigated that allows both peer-to-peer and nonlocal traffic in a cellular-based time-division duplex code-division multiple-access (TDD-CDMA) system known as opportunity driven multiple access (ODMA). The key to offering appropriate performance of peer-to-peer communication in such a system relies on the use of a routing algorithm which minimizes interference. This paper presents a study of the constraints and limitations on the capacity of such a system using a variety of routing techniques. A congestion-based routing algorithm is presented that attempts to minimize the overall power of the system as well as providing a measure of feasibility. This technique provides the lowest required transmit power in all circumstances, and the highest capacity in nearly all cases studied. All of the routing algorithms studied here allocate TDD time slots on a first come first served basis according to a set of predefined rules. This fact is utilized to enable the development of a combined routing and resource allocation algorithm for TDD-CDMA relaying. A novel method of time slot allocation according to relaying requirements is then developed. Two measures of assessing congestion are presented based on matrix norms. One is suitable for current interior point solution, the other is more elegant but is not currently suitable for efficient minimization and, thus, practical implementation.
Steady-state lopinavir levels in third trimester of pregnancy

Stek and colleagues reported low lopinavir levels in the third trimester of pregnancy at standard dosing. Since their initial report in 2003, we have taken steady-state trough lopinavir levels in all pregnant women in the third trimester; the results of 26 women on a lopinavir/ritonavir regimen are reported. The median trough level was 3.66 μg/ml, range 0.25–9.97; the median HIV viral load was 49 copies/ml at delivery. All infants were HIV polymerase chain reaction negative at 3 months.
MYCOBACTERIAL INFECTIONS IN TEXAS CHILDREN: A 5-YEAR CASE SERIES

The epidemiology of nontuberculous mycobacterial infections is poorly understood, particularly in regions where tuberculosis (TB) is endemic. In 5 years, 75 children had nontuberculous mycobacterial disease (30 lymphadenopathy, 17 pulmonary, 17 soft tissue, and 11 bacteremia) and 30 had TB. Divergent antibiotic susceptibility profiles and the persistence of disease caused by TB emphasize the importance of microbiologic diagnosis for suspected mycobacterial disease.
Nucleosome dynamics. VI. Histone tail regulation of tetrasome chiral transition. A relaxation study of tetrasomes on DNA minicircles.

We have recently described the relaxation of mononucleosomes on an homologous series of 351-366 bp DNA minicircles, as a tool to study nucleosome structure and dynamics in vitro. Nucleosomes were found to have a tail-regulated access to three distinct DNA conformations, depending on the crossing between the entering and exiting DNAs, and its polarity. This approach was now used to explore tetrasome chiral transition, and the influence of the histone tails. The data confirmed the existence of two states, with linking number differences DeltaLk(t)=-0.74(+/-0.01) and +0.51(+/-0.06). As expected, the particle free energy is higher in the right-handed state (DeltaG(t)=1.9(+/-0.I) kT), but it decreased (to 1.3(+/-0.1) kT) upon histone acetylation and the addition of phosphate, a potent tail destabilizer. Removal of the tails with trypsin further decreased DeltaG(t) (to 0.6 kT), and also induced a loss of supercoiling in both states, to DeltaLk(t)=-0.64(+/-0.03) and +0. 35(+/-0.05). The loop end-conditions, and hence the parameters of the DNA superhelix, were then calculated for both states using the explicit solutions to the equations of the mechanical equilibrium in the theory of elastic rod model for DNA. Whereas the pitch of the DNA superhelix may be approximately equal and opposite in the two conformations, its radius (r) was 20% larger in the right-handed conformation, confirming previous observations by electron microscopy of a tetrasome lateral opening in that conformation. The above supercoiling losses were found to reflect a further 3 % increase in r (to 23 %) upon removal of the tails in the right-handed conformation, and a 14 % increase in the left-handed conformation. The use of composite tetramers with one histone tail intact and the other removed showed these effects to be essentially due to the H3 tails. Altogether, these results show that the H3 tails oppose the tetrasome opening which is expected to be required to relieve the clash between the entering and exiting DNAs in the course of the transition, but which also appears to be intrinsic to the protein reorientation mechanism. We propose that the block against opening results from the H3 tails intercalating into the small groove of the double helix at +/-10 bp from the dyad, and acting as wedges against local DNA straightening. The tails (especially H3) may therefore regulate tetrasome chiral transition in vivo.
Functional MRI of human brain activation at high spatial resolution

Functional activation maps of the human visual cortex were obtained at a spatial resolution almost two orders of magnitude better than achievable by positron emission tomography and within measuring times of a few seconds. Transient alterations in the concentration of paramagnetic deoxyhemoglobin were conveniently detected at 2.0‐T with use of RF‐spoiled FLASH MRI sequences employing gradient echo times of 6 to 60 ms and voxel sizes of 2.5 to 39 μl.
Aggression involving alcohol: relationship to drinking patterns and social context.

AIMS The present study examines the relationships between: (1) alcohol involvement/perceived intoxication level of participants and aggression severity; (2) respondent drinking patterns and involvement in alcohol-related aggression; and (3) social context and alcohol-related aggression. DESIGN Random digit dialing (RDD) with computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) was used to obtain a random sample of Ontario adults aged 18-60 (response rate of 67%). PARTICIPANTS Respondents who reported that they had been involved personally in physical aggression in the past 12 months were the focus of the present study. MEASUREMENTS Questions were asked regarding the most recent incident of physical aggression, including whether the respondent and opponent drank alcohol prior to aggression, perceived intoxication levels at the time, number of participants, relationship to opponent, social context of aggression, time of day and day of week. Three items were used to assess aggression severity: injury to respondent, use of threats by respondent or opponent and police involvement. FINDINGS (1) Injury to respondent and threats by respondent were not associated with alcohol involvement per se, but were significantly related to perceived level of alcohol intoxication; (2) drinking pattern of respondent was significantly associated with alcohol-related aggression but unrelated to aggression that did not involve alcohol; and (3) a number of contextual factors (e.g. gender, number of participants, time of day) were found to be associated with alcohol involvement in aggression. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that both drinking pattern and contextual factors are important in distinguishing between alcohol-related aggression and non-alcohol-related aggression. As well, alcohol intoxication may be an important predictor of aggression severity.
Comparison of Community Reintegration and Selected Stroke Specific Characteristics in Nigerian Male and Female Stroke Survivors

This study investigated the difference between community reintegration of male and female stroke survivors and the association between gender of stroke survivors and some selected stroke specific characteristics (type, side of paresis and occurrence) Fifty-two patients (25 males and 27 females) recruited from hospitals in Nigeria took part in the study. Community reintegration (CR) was assessed three months post-admission discharge using the Reintegration to Normal Living Index (RNLI). Demographic and stroke-specific characteristics were obtained using a data form. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test. Level of significance was set at p = 0.05. The mean age of the participants was 61.21 ± 11.25 years (range 31 – 86 years). There was no significant difference (p = 0.173) between the community reintegration scores of male and female participants. There was also no significant association between gender and each of the selected stroke specific characteristics such as type of stroke (p = 0.279); side of paresis (p = 0.250) and occurrence of stroke (p = 0.670). Community reintegration scores of male and female stroke survivors are not significantly different. There is no significant association between gender and each of the selected stroke specific characteristics. KEYWORDS : community reintegration, stroke, stroke survivors, participation, gender