Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mindfulness and self regulated learning

The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate the association between mindfulness and self-regulated learning. Mindfulness is used in the treatment of stress and anxiety, and has been associated with attention regulation and affect-regulation. Mindful individuals have been found to use more strategies to keep attention on task to enhance their performance. It was therefore predicted that mindfulness would be positively associated with self-regulated learning. The data was collected using self-rapport questionnaires and consisted of three different measurements; the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) [(Baer, R. A., Smith, G. G., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J. & Toney, L. (2006). Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27 – 45. )], test anxiety and the strategy section of the “Motivational Strategic Learning Questionnaire” (MSLQ) [(Pintrich, P. R., Smith, D. A. F., Garcia, T., & Mckeachie, W. J. (1991). A Manual for the Use of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Non-Journal item. )], and a sample from Locke and Latham goal – setting questionnaire. The respondents were 346 students from the “Norwegian University of Science and Technology” (NTNU), with a response rate of 41%. A theoretical link between mindfulness and self-regulated learning is initially introduced, before the empirical investigation. The reliability of the instruments used and dimensional structure was checked to investigate the measurements reliability and consistencies with previous finding. The main aim was then tested, which consisted of testing association between mindfulness and self-regulative learning components, measured as students use of learning strategies, meta-cognitive self-regulation strategies, test anxiety and as goal-setting. Inter-correlations between the indices were performed. Cluster analysis was used to determine response tendencies within the mindfulness dimensions and MANOVA was applied to test differences between the clusters in self-regulated learning. The results indicated that the dimensional structure of the FFMQ was replicated with satisfactory Chronback alpha. Reliability of the learning strategy indices was consistent with previous results. The correlations between the different measurements revealed the facets of mindfulness to be positively correlated with learning strategies, and negatively correlated with test anxiety. Mindfulness was furthermore, across all facets, consistently and significantly positively correlated with goal accomplishment and negatively with goal dissatisfaction. Cluster analysis revealed that the cluster with a combination of high scores on mindfulness facets scored consistently better on the self-regulated learning facets. These results stayed significant even when gender, age and education were controlled for.
Diacylglycerol kinase is required for HGF-induced invasiveness and anchorage-independent growth of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.

BACKGROUND Estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancers have a worse prognosis than ER-positive cancers, being more aggressive and overexposed to stimuli leading to their progression. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has been associated with proliferation, migration and invasion of tumor cells, and several tumors, including those of breast cancer, produce HGF and overexpress its receptor. Diacylglycerol kinases (Dgks), which phosphorylate diacylglycerol to phosphatidic acid, are key regulators of cell signaling. Our research was focused on their role in HGF-induced invasion of MDA-MB-231 cells, a model of ER-negative breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Dgk activity was evaluated with a kinase assay, MDA-MB-231 cell invasion via culturing of cells in matrigel-coated transwells, and anchorage-independent growth was assessed using a soft agar assay. RESULTS HGF induces Dgk activation in MDA-MB-231 cells that is required for cell invasiveness. Moreover, Dgks are involved in MDA-MB-231 anchorage-independent growth. CONCLUSION Dgks could be a target for ER-negative breast cancer therapy.
Stress arousal and coping with surgery

Synopsis There is little evidence of a curvilinear relationship between pre-operative emotionality and post-operative adjustment, as predicted by a model which supposes that moderate preoperative anxiety assists adjustment. This paper suggests that the negative affect, or stress, associated with the work of worry should be distinguished from the active coping orientation which it also implies. In this study stress and arousal were assessed pre-operatively in a sample of cholecystectomy patients, and correlations between these scores and various indices of post-operative adjustment were computed. Stress before surgery was positively related to stress and pain experienced post-operatively. Arousal, by contrast, was negatively related to pain, medications and period before discharge. Female patients had higher stress scores than the males, while the direction of the difference was reversed in the case of arousal. These findings are interpreted as support for the significance of the role of coping orientation, as represented by arousal, in promoting adjustment, with emotionality or stress playing a less significant and even negative role.
Type I IFN are host modulators of strain‐specific Listeria monocytogenes virulence

Type I IFN (IFN‐I) increase the sensitivity of cells and mice to lethal infection with Listeria monocytogenes. Therefore the amount of IFN‐I produced during infection might be an important factor determining Listeria virulence. Two commonly used strains of L. monocytogenes, EGD and LO28, were identified as, respectively, low and high inducers of IFN‐I synthesis in infected macrophages. Increased IFN‐I production resulted from the stronger ability of the LO28 strain to trigger the IRF3 signalling pathway and correlated with an increased sensitization of macrophages to lethal infection. In contrast, stimulation of NFκB, MAPK, or inflammasome signalling by the LO28 and EGD strains did not differ significantly. The LO28 strain was more virulent in wild‐type (wt) C57/BL6 mice than the EGD strain whereas both strains were similarly virulent in IFN‐I receptor‐deficient C57/BL6 mice. Together our data suggest that isolates of wt L. monocytogenes differ in their ability to trigger the IRF3 signalling pathway and IFN‐I production, and that the amount of IFN‐I produced during infection is an important determinant of Listeria virulence.
Perioperative Issues in Pediatric Liver Transplantation

The care of a child undergoing liver transplantation poses one of the greatest challenges in modern medicine. Since the early 1990s liver transplantation has established itself as a highly successful treatment for the management of end-stage liver disease. However, the very success of liver transplantation led to a dramatic increase in the number of children receiving a transplant. This has meant that demand for size-matched organs has outstretched supply. Innovative surgical techniques including split and reduced liver grafts have been effective in efficiently managing a limited donor pool; however, increasing numbers of children are on the waiting list although numbers of cadaveric donors has remained relatively static.
On Spatial Joins in MapReduce

This paper provides the first attempt for a full-fledged query optimizer for MapReduce-based spatial join algorithms. The optimizer develops its own taxonomy that covers almost all possible ways of doing a spatial join for any two input datasets. The optimizer comes in two flavors; cost-based and rule-based. Given two input data sets, the cost-based query optimizer evaluates the costs of all possible options in the developed taxonomy, and selects the one with the lowest cost. The rule-based query optimizer abstracts the developed cost models of the cost-based optimizer into a set of simple easy-to-check heuristic rules. Then, it applies its rules to select the lowest cost option. Both query optimizers are deployed and experimentally evaluated inside a widely used open-source MapReduce-based big spatial data system. Exhaustive experiments show that both query optimizers are always successful in taking the right decision for spatially joining any two datasets of up to 500GB each.
The impact of age, HIV serostatus and seroconversion on methamphetamine use

ABSTRACT Background: Characterizing methamphetamine use in relation to age, HIV serostatus and seroconversion is pertinent given the increasingly older age of the population with HIV and the intertwined epidemics of methamphetamine use and HIV. Objectives: Study aims were to investigate whether (i) methamphetamine use differs by age and HIV serostatus, and (ii) receiving an HIV diagnosis impacts methamphetamine use among younger and older persons with HIV. Methods: This study examined methamphetamine use characteristics among 217 individuals with a lifetime methamphetamine dependence diagnosis who completed an in-person study assessment. Results: Multivariable regressions revealed that HIV serostatus uniquely attenuates methamphetamine use, such that persons with HIV report a smaller cumulative quantity (β = −0.16, p = 0.01) and a fewer number of days (β = −0.18, p = 0.004) of methamphetamine use than persons without HIV. Among the HIV+ sample, all participants persisted in methamphetamine use after receiving an HIV diagnosis, with about 20% initiating use after seroconversion. Repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that density of methamphetamine use (i.e. grams per day used) was greater among the younger, relative to the older, HIV+ group (p = 0.02), and increased for both age groups following seroconversion (p < 0.001). Conclusion: These analyses indicate that although HIV serostatus may attenuate methamphetamine use behaviors, many people with HIV initiate, or persist in, methamphetamine use after receiving an HIV diagnosis. These findings raise the question of whether tailoring of prevention and intervention strategies might reduce the impact of methamphetamine and HIV across the age continuum.
Optimal PN sequence design for quasisynchronous CDMA communication systems

Direct sequence (DS) code-division multiple-access (CDMA) is a modulation and multiple access technique currently being implemented in digital cellular mobile radio communication systems. The conventional quasisynchronous (QS) DS-CDMA communication system is generalized, and the problem of optimal spreading pseudonoise (PN) sequence design for new QS DS-CDMA communication systems is formulated. The classes of optimal PN sequences which have good pseudo-randomness and very small cross-correlation values for some range of offsets are designed by using a matrix-based approach. In contrast to the case of the other sequences, the optimal PN sequences produce small multiple-access interference (MAI) which is not affected by the number of users if there are sufficiently large number of users in the link. The new results are compared with the commonly used PN sequences to prove the superiority of our designed sequences, and the system performance of the QS-CDMA systems using different PN sequences are also evaluated.
Memory-endowed US cities and their demographic interactions

A quantitative understanding of cities' demographic dynamics is becoming a potentially useful tool for planning sustainable growth. The concomitant theory should reveal details of the cities' past and also of its interaction with nearby urban conglomerates for providing a reasonably complete picture. Using the exhaustive database of the Census Bureau in a time window of 170 years, we exhibit here empirical evidence for time and space correlations in the demographic dynamics of US counties, with a characteristic memory time of 25 years and typical distances of interaction of 200 km. These correlations are much larger than those observed in a European country (Spain), indicating more coherent evolution in US cities. We also measure the resilience of US cities to historical events, finding a demographical post-traumatic amnesia after wars (such as the American Civil War) or economic crisis (such as the 1929 Stock Market Crash).
A MODEL TO DETERMINE COST ESTIMATION FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALES USING USE CASE POINTS 1

The purpose of this study was to develop a cost estimation model for software development projects of small and medium scale. The model was derived from the Use Case Points, which is usually used to estimate software development effort. The development of our cost estimation model was based on the need for a reference to the estimated costs for software development projects, particularly software development projects of small–medium scale. The cost estimation was used to estimate the allocation of resources spent on covering personnel resources, money, and time to complete the project. The result of this study was a cost estimation model for software development projects of small–medium scale that had been tested with four software projects that had been completed. Testing of the model was performed using data from four projects got level deviations between the estimated cost and the actual cost amounted to 6.89%.
Emil Kraepelin's dream speech: A psychoanalytic interpretation

Freud's contemporary fellow psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin collected over the course of several decades some 700 specimens of speech in dreams, mostly his own, along with various concomitant data. These generally exhibit far more obvious primary‐process influence than do the dream speech specimens found in Freud's corpus; but Kraepelin eschewed any depth‐psychology interpretation. In this paper the authors first explore the respective orientations of Freud and Kraepelin to mind and brain, and normal and pathological phenomena, particularly as these relate to speech and dreaming. They then proceed, with the help of biographical sources, to analyze a selection of Kraepelin's deviant dream speech in the manner that was pioneered by Freud, most notably in his ‘Autodidasker’ dream. They find that Kraepelin's particular concern with the preservation of his rather uncommon family name‐and with the preservation of his medical nomenclature, which lent prestige to that name‐appears to provide a key link in a chain of associations for elucidating his dream speech specimens. They further suggest, more generally, that one's proper name, as a minimal characteristic of the ego during sleep, may prove to be a key in interpreting the dream speech of others as well.
Characterization of the mouse analogues of CD59 using novel monoclonal antibodies: tissue distribution and functional comparison

CD59, the sole membrane regulator of the membrane attack complex of complement, is broadly and abundantly expressed in man and other mammals. In mouse, CD59 is encoded by two homologous genes. The expression patterns and functional roles of the proteins encoded by these genes, mCD59a and mCD59b, have not been well characterized. Here we describe the generation of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies detecting specifically mCD59a and mCD59b. These reagents have been used to study function and to ascertain the cell and tissue distributions of mCD59a and mCD59b. mCD59a was broadly distributed on endothelia, erythrocytes, platelets, and on numerous other cell types in organs, a distribution pattern resembling that of CD59 in other species. In marked contrast, expression of mCD59b was restricted to germ cell elements in the testis and mature spermatozoa. Both mCD59a and CD59b inhibited human and rodent complement with similar efficiency. These findings demonstrate that the broadly distributed mCD59a is the key regulator of the terminal complement pathway in mice whereas CD59b, expressed only in testis and on sperm, probably plays other roles in vivo.
Relationship Between Mastoid Pneumatization and Middle Ear Barotrauma in Divers

Objectives/Hypothesis Previous studies have shown a relationship between eustachian tube function and size of mastoid pneumatization, as well as eustachian tube function and middle ear (ME) barotrauma. The purpose of this study is to investigate a possible relationship between size of mastoid pneumatization and ME barotrauma in sports scuba (s elf‐c ontained u nderwater b reathing a pparatus) divers.
Complications after surgery for necrotising pancreatitis: risk factors and prognosis.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate risk factors, results of treatment, and prognostic influence of complications on survival from acute necrotising pancreatitis. DESIGN Retrospective study of prospectively collected data. SETTING Tertiary referral centre, Austria. SUBJECTS 100 consecutive patients operated on for necrotising pancreatitis confirmed by dynamic angio-computed tomography from 1988-1997. INTERVENTIONS 77 patients were operated on acutely followed by open management, and in 23 the operations were delayed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Morbidity, mortality, factors predisposing to complications, prognostic effect of complications on survival. RESULTS Acute operations, alcoholic origin, APACHE II scores of > or = 10 on admission, and organ dysfunction on admission were independent factors that predisposed patients to complications. Colonic necrosis (n = 17) bleeding (n = 12) and intestinal fistulisation (n = 10) predominated. The overall mortality of complicated pancreatic necrosis was higher among patients admitted with surgical complications than in those who were not, but not significantly so (12/33 compared with 7/44 p = 0.06). Colonic necrosis (mortality 53%, relative risk: 2.45, p = 0.01), however, seemed to be of prognostic relevance. CONCLUSIONS Complications are common in severe necrotising pancreatitis leading to organ dysfunction and need for acute operations. Colonic necrosis is an independent prognostic factor for survival.
The effect of antenatal corticosteroids on maternal serum glucose in women with diabetes

Objective: To evaluate changes in serum glucose values following administration of corticosteroids in women with gestational (GDM) or pre-gestational diabetes (PGDM). Method: Patients with diagnoses of pregnancy and GDM or PGDM from 2006-2009 who received corticosteroids for enhancement of fetal pulmonary maturity as an inpatient were identified following IRB approval. Fasting (FSG) and two hour post prandial serum (PPSG) glucose levels, and oral anti-hyperglycemic agents and insulin given were recorded. Day 1 (D1) was the day the first dose of corticosteroid was administered. The percentage of women with FSG > 95 mg/dL and the percentage with at least one PPSG > 120 mg/dL during each day were calculated. Data were analyzed utilizing SPSS v15. Results: Fifty-five patients met the study criteria. FSG was greater than 95 mg/dL in over 90% of women on Days 2 and 3 and remained elevated in 51% on Day 4. At least one PPSG was greater than 120 mg/dL in 81% - 98% on Days 1 - 3, and in over 60% on Days 4 - 6. The majority of women taking insulin received increases in doses that were less than double their regular dose (26 out of 33); the others received higher doses. Three of 6 patients who began the study taking glyburide were started on insulin. Of the 19 who began the study with diet controlled GDM, 11 were started on medication. Conclusion: Women with GDM or PGDM who are administered antenatal corticosteroids will experience prolonged serum glucose levels above the range associated with optimal pregnancy outcome.
Rectal cancer survival in the Nordic countries and Scotland

The aim of this study was to present detailed population‐based survival estimates for patients with a rectal adenocarcinoma, using cancer register data supplemented with clinical data. Based on cancer register data, differences in rectal cancer survival have been reported between countries in Europe. Variation in the distribution of stage at diagnosis, initial therapy including surgical technique, and comorbidity are possible explanatory factors. Adenocarcinomas in the rectum, diagnosed in 1997 and identified in the national cancer registries in the Nordic countries and Scotland were included. Age standardized 5‐year relative survival and multiplicative regression models for the relative excess mortality were calculated. 3888 patients were included in the survival study. Men in Denmark, Finland and Iceland had lower 5‐year relative survival and poorer stage distribution compared to Norway, Sweden and Scotland. Danish men had the highest rate of excess deaths in the first six months after diagnosis. Stage adjusted, the elevated relative excess mortality decreased and after six months the excess mortality rates were the same in all countries. The poor 5‐year relative survival in Danish men was mainly due to a high excess rate of death during the first six months after diagnosis. The low survival in Finland and Iceland was not in accordance with other periods. For both countries this may be explained by random variation due to small numbers. The study emphasizes the need for high quality and detailed data in order to understand international survival differences, and cautions comparisons between large national samples and those of smaller areas. © 2009 UICC
Single nucleotide polymorphisms in clinics: Fantasy or reality for cancer?*

Abstract Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been classically used for dissecting various human complex disorders using candidate gene studies. During the last decade, large scale SNP analysis, i.e. genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have provided an agnostic approach to identify possible genetic loci associated with heterogeneous disease such as cancer susceptibility, prognosis of survival or drug response. Further, the advent of new technologies, including microarray-based genotyping as well as high throughput next generation sequencing has opened new avenues for SNPs to be used in clinical practice. It is speculated that the utility of SNPs to understand the mechanisms, biology of variable drug response and ultimately treatment individualization based on the individual’s genome composition will be indispensable in the near future. In the current review, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the clinical utility of genetic variants in disease risk-prediction, prognosis, clinical outcome and pharmacogenomics. The lessons and challenges for the utility of SNP-based biomarkers are also discussed, including the need for additional functional validation studies.