Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Come Bien, Camina y No Se Preocupe—Eat Right, Walk, and Do Not Worry: Selective Biculturalism During Pregnancy in a Mexican American Community

Mexican American childbearing women appear to offer a healthy model for pregnancy. However, statistics suggest that they may be at increased risk for poor birth outcome as they acculturate to a U.S. lifestyle. An ethnographic study in Watsonville, California, examined the influence of acculturation on pregnancy beliefs and practices of 29 Mexican American childbearing women. Data from formal semi-structured interviews were submitted to content analysis. During pregnancy, women balanced well-documented, traditional Mexican cultural beliefs with the individualistic beliefs common to Anglo-Americans. Selective biculturalism emerged as a protective approach to stress reduction and health promotion. Stress reduction interventions as part of routine prenatal care have potential benefit for all pregnant women. Future research on cultural barriers to family-based social support during pregnancy is needed.
Push-to-Peer Video-on-Demand System: Design and Evaluation

We propose Push-to-Peer, a peer-to-peer system to cooperatively stream video. The main departure from previous work is that content is proactively pushed to peers, and persistently stored before the actual peer-to-peer transfers. The initial content placement increases content availability and improves the use of peer uplink bandwidth. Our specific contributions are: (i) content placement and associated pull policies that allow the optimal use of uplink bandwidth; (ii) performance analysis of such policies in controlled environments such as DSL networks under ISP control; (iii) a distributed load balancing strategy for selection of serving peers.
Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration ameliorates effects of NaCl salinity on photosynthesis and leaf structure of Aster tripolium L.

This study investigated the interaction of NaCl-salinity and elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration on gas exchange, leaf pigment composition, and leaf ultrastructure of the potential cash crop halophyte Aster tripolium. The plants were irrigated with five different salinity levels (0, 25, 50, 75, 100% seawater salinity) under ambient and elevated (520 ppm) CO2. Under saline conditions (ambient CO2) stomatal and mesophyll resistance increased, leading to a significant decrease in photosynthesis and water use efficiency (WUE) and to an increase in oxidative stress. The latter was indicated by dilations of the thylakoid membranes and an increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity. Oxidative stress could be counteracted by thicker epidermal cell walls of the leaves, a thicker cuticle, a reduced chlorophyll content, an increase in the chlorophyll a/b ratio and a transient decline of the photosynthetic efficiency. Elevated CO2 led to a significant increase in photosynthesis and WUE. The improved water and energy supply was used to increase the investment in mechanisms reducing water loss and oxidative stress (thicker cell walls and cuticles, a higher chlorophyll and carotenoid content, higher SOD activity), resulting in more intact thylakoids. As these mechanisms can improve survival under salinity, A. tripolium seems to be a promising cash crop halophyte which can help in desalinizing and reclaiming degraded land.
Learning a New Selection Rule in Visual and Frontal Cortex

How do you make a decision if you do not know the rules of the game? Models of sensory decision-making suggest that choices are slow if evidence is weak, but they may only apply if the subject knows the task rules. Here, we asked how the learning of a new rule influences neuronal activity in the visual (area V1) and frontal cortex (area FEF) of monkeys. We devised a new icon-selection task. On each day, the monkeys saw 2 new icons (small pictures) and learned which one was relevant. We rewarded eye movements to a saccade target connected to the relevant icon with a curve. Neurons in visual and frontal cortex coded the monkey's choice, because the representation of the selected curve was enhanced. Learning delayed the neuronal selection signals and we uncovered the cause of this delay in V1, where learning to select the relevant icon caused an early suppression of surrounding image elements. These results demonstrate that the learning of a new rule causes a transition from fast and random decisions to a more considerate strategy that takes additional time and they reveal the contribution of visual and frontal cortex to the learning process.
A new low-complexity patch-based image super-resolution

In this study, a novel single image super-resolution (SR) method, which uses a generated dictionary from pairs of high-resolution (HR) images and their corresponding low-resolution (LR) representations, is proposed. First, HR and LR dictionaries are created by dividing HR and LR images into patches Afterwards, when performing SR, the distance between every patch of the input LR image and those of available LR patches in the LR dictionary are calculated. The minimum distance between the input LR patch and those in the LR dictionary is taken, and its counterpart from the HR dictionary will be passed through an illumination enhancement process resulting in consistency of illumination between neighbour patches. This process is applied to all patches of the LR image. Finally, in order to remove the blocking effect caused by merging the patches, an average of the obtained HR image and the interpolated image is calculated. Furthermore, it is shown that the stabe of dictionaries is reducible to a great degree. The speed of the system is improved by 62.5%. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the experimental results show the superiority of the proposed technique over the conventional and state-of-the-art methods.
Time-varying impedance of the sheath on a probe in an RF plasma

Langmuir probes used in radiofrequency (rf) discharges usually include compensation elements that minimize the effect of high frequency oscillations in plasma potential. The design of these elements requires knowledge of the capacitance of the sheath on the probe tip, a quantity which varies nonlinearly during the rf cycle. Sheath capacitance has been studied previously for capacitively coupled discharges, where the rf is applied to the electrodes. Here the problem is treated from the standpoint of a small probe in a fluctuating discharge. This work differs from existing literature in that (a) no step model is used and the Debye sheath is treated exactly, (b) the treatment is simple and analytic, (c) the time-variation of the capacitance is explicitly shown, (d) the results are applied to probe design and (e) cylindrical geometry is considered. The rf frequency is assumed low enough that electron transit times can be ignored. We find that when the rf excursions bring the sheath from the Child–Langmuir region into the Debye sheath or electron saturation region, its capacitance has a strongly non-linear behaviour.
Using an Adaptive Expertise Lens to Understand the Quality of Teachers' Classroom Implementation of Computer-Supported Reform Curricula in High School Science

: The exploratory study reported here is part of a larger-scale research project aimed at building theoretical and practical knowledge of complex systems in students and teachers with the goal of improving high school biology learning. In this paper we propose a model of adaptive expertise to better understand teachers’ classroom practices. Through three case studies, we further illustrate the characteristics of adaptive expertise of more or less successful teaching and learning. By doing this research, it is our ultimate goal to contribute to scholarship on practices and training in which teachers must participate to support complex systems teaching and learning in classrooms.
An automated pathological class level annotation system for volumetric brain images

We introduce an automated, pathological class level annotation system for medical volumetric brain images. While much of the earlier work has mainly focused on annotating regions of interest in medical images, our system does not require annotated region level training data nor assumes perfect segmentation results for the regions of interest; the time and effort needed for acquiring training data are hence significantly reduced. This capability of handling high-dimensional noisy data, however, poses additional technical challenges, since statistical estimation of models for such data is prone to over-fitting. We propose a framework that combines a regularized logistic regression method and a kernel-based discriminative method to address these problems. Regularized methods provide a flexible selection mechanism that is well-suited for high dimensional noisy data. Our experiments show promising results in classifying computer tomography images of traumatic brain injury patients into pathological classes.
Preliminary Psychometric Evaluation of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale in Methamphetamine Dependence

ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the initial psychometric properties of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) in individuals with and without major depressive disorder who use methamphetamine. We used data from two completed studies and two ongoing clinical trials. The HAM-D has well established reliability and validity in a variety of populations. However, there are no published reports of reliability and validity of the HAM-D in a methamphetamine-using population. Methods: HAM-D and depression status data were extracted from four separate studies for this psychometric assessment. Using these data, we evaluated three measures of construct validity: internal consistency, contrasted group validity, and factorial validity. Results: We found potential concerns with the construct validity of the HAM-D in users of methamphetamine. Intercorrelations between items were primarily less than 0.20 and the Cronbach's alpha value in this sample was 0.58, indicating potential issues with internal consistency. The results of two-sample t-tests suggest concerns with contrasted group validity, as no significant difference in average scores were found for nine items. Consistent with previous studies, a principal component analysis indicates that the HAM-D is multidimensional. Conclusions: The 17-item HAM-D might not reliably and validly measure depression severity in a methamphetamine-using population. Given our small sample, additional research is needed, though, to further test the psychometric properties of the HAM-D in individuals who use methamphetamine.
Open-closed homotopy algebra in mathematical physics

In this paper we discuss various aspects of open-closed homotopy algebras (OCHAs) presented in our previous paper, inspired by Zwiebach’s open-closed string field theory, but that first paper concentrated on the mathematical aspects. Here we show how an OCHA is obtained by extracting the tree part of Zwiebach’s quantum open-closed string field theory. We clarify the explicit relation of an OCHA with Kontsevich’s deformation quantization and with the B-models of homological mirror symmetry. An explicit form of the minimal model for an OCHA is given as well as its relation to the perturbative expansion of open-closed string field theory. We show that our open-closed homotopy algebra gives us a general scheme for deformation of open string structures (A∞ algebras) by closed strings (L∞ algebras).
Scenario Networks for Software Specification and Scenario Management TR-2001-15

Scenarios are widely used to specify the desired behavior of a system, but managing the large collection of scenarios that frequently result and making a scenario-based specification complete are challenging tasks. Scenario networks address these challenges while retaining the many advantages of scenarios during software specification activities. A scenario network is a collection of scenarios that has been integrated into a single entity by the specification of the sequential and concurrent relationships among its component scenarios. The addition of these relationships specifies the larger-scale behavior that is typically missing from a collection of scenarios, and ties scenarios together in a way that either indicates no gaps in the description are present, or makes gaps obvious. Scenario networks provide procedural guidance for scenario creation and support for scenario management. Gaps in the structure of a scenario network correspond to missing or incomplete scenarios, and the closing of these gaps result in the completion of the scenario collection. A scenario network organizes the collection of its scenarios, and its structure indicates several kinds of scenario relationships, including equivalence relations dividing them into equivalence classes. These relationships address some of the challenges associated with scenario management.
Pharmacodynamic Effects of Different Aspirin Dosing Regimens in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients With Coronary Artery Disease

Background— Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have reduced aspirin-induced pharmacodynamic effects. This may be attributed to increased platelet turnover rates resulting in an increased proportion of non–aspirin-inhibited platelets during the daily dosing interval. The hypothesis of this study was that an increase in the frequency of drug administration [twice daily (bid) versus once daily (od)] may provide more effective platelet inhibition in T2DM patients. Methods and Results— T2DM patients with stable coronary artery disease were prospectively recruited. Patients modified their aspirin regimen on a weekly basis according to the following scheme: 81 mg/od, 81 mg/bid, 162 mg/od, 162 mg/bid, and 325 mg/od. Pharmacodynamic assessments included light-transmittance aggregometry after arachidonic acid, collagen and adenosine diphosphate stimuli; VerifyNow-Aspirin assay; and serum thromboxane B2 (TXB2) levels. Twenty patients were analyzed. All patients were sensitive and compliant to aspirin irrespective of dose, as assessed by arachidonic acid–induced aggregation. When aspirin was administered once daily, there was no significant effect on platelet reactivity by increasing the once-daily dosing using aspirin-sensitive assays (collagen-induced aggregation and VerifyNow-Aspirin). An increase in aspirin dose by means of a second daily administration was associated with a significant reduction in platelet reactivity assessed by collagen-induced aggregation and VerifyNow-Aspirin between 81 mg/od and 81 mg/bid (P<0.05 for both assays) and between 81 mg/od and 162 mg/bid (P<0.05 for both assays). There was no impact of aspirin dosing regimens on adenosine diphosphate–induced aggregation. A dose-dependent effect of aspirin was observed on serum TXB2 levels (P=0.003). Conclusions— Aspirin dosing regimens are associated with different pharmacodynamic effects in platelets from T2DM patients and stable coronary artery disease, with a twice-daily, low-dose aspirin administration resulting in greater platelet inhibition than once-daily administration as assessed by aspirin-sensitive assays and a dose-dependent effect on serum TXB2 levels. The clinical implications of a modified aspirin regimen tailored to T2DM patients warrant further investigation. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01201785.
Modulation of osteoblastic/odontoblastic differentiation of adult mesenchymal stem cells through gene introduction: a brief review

Bone tissue engineering is one of the important therapeutic approaches to the regeneration of bones in the entire field of regeneration medicine. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are actively discussed as material for bone tissue engineering due to their ability to differentiate into autologous bone. MSCs are able to differentiate into different lineages: osteo/odontogenic, adipogenic, and neurogenic. The tissue of origin for MSCs defines them as bone marrow-derived stem cells, adipose tissue-derived stem cells, and, among many others, dental stem cells. According to the tissue of origin, DSCs are further stratified into dental pulp stem cells, periodontal ligament stem cells, stem cells from apical papilla, stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth, dental follicle precursor cells, and dental papilla cells. There are numerous in vitro/in vivo reports suggesting successful mineralization potential or osteo/odontogenic ability of MSCs. Still, there is further need for the optimization of MSCs-based tissue engineering methods, and the introduction of genes related to osteo/odontogenic differentiation into MSCs might aid in the process. In this review, articles that reported enhanced osteo/odontogenic differentiation with gene introduction into MSCs will be discussed to provide a background for successful bone tissue engineering using MSCs with artificially introduced genes.
Long-wavelength triangular ring laser

Single-lateral mode, long-wavelength, waveguide diode-ring lasers have been fabricated in InP-InGaAsP with facets etched using CAIBE. The devices lase at around 1.26 /spl mu/m under pulsed testing. The lowest threshold current is around 64 mA, The best side-mode-suppression ratio (SMSR) is found to be 25.4 dB. Triangular ring lasers demonstrated significantly higher SMSR than Fabry-Perots fabricated on the same chip. Ring laser far-field and output power dependence on structural angle are also reported.
Quantifying Qualitative Analyses of Verbal Data: A Practical Guide

This article provides one example of a method of analyzing qualitative data in an objective and quantifiable way. Although the application of the method is illustrated in the context of verbal data such as explanations, interviews, problem-solving protocols, and retrospective reports, in principle, the mechanics of the method can be adapted for coding other types of qualitative data, such as gestures and videotapes. The mechanics of the method are outlined in 8 concrete steps. Although verbal analyses can be used for many purposes, the main goal of the analyses discussed here is to formulate an understanding of the representation of the knowledge used in cognitive performances and how that representation changes with learning. This can be contrasted with another method of analyzing verbal protocols, the goal of which is to validate the cognitive processes of human performance, often as embodied in a computational model.
Subthreshold operation of PVDF-integrated dual- gate thin-film transistor for tactile sensing

This paper presents a piezoelectric-charge-gated thin-film transistor (TFT) operated in the subthreshold region intended for tactile sensing. The TCAD simulation has been conducted to detail the working principles of the device in the subthreshold region together with experimental results on a fullyintegrated sensor using polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and a- Si:H dual-gate TFT.
Clinical, physical, physiological, and dietary patterns of obese and sedentary adults with primary hypertension characterized by sex and cardiorespiratory fitness: EXERDIET-HTA study

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this study was to determine some key physical, physiological, clinical, and nutritional markers of health status in obese and sedentary adults (54.0 ± 8.1 years, 141 men and 68 women) with primary hypertension (HTN) characterized by sex and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) level. The studied population showed a high cardiovascular risk (CVR) profile including metabolically abnormal obese, with poor CRF level (22.5 ± 5.6 mL·kg−1·min−1), exercise-induced HTN (Systolic Blood Pressure>210 mmHg in men and >190 mmHg in women at the end of the exercise test) and with non-healthy adherence to dietary pattern (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, 46.3%; Mediterranean Diet, 41.1%; and Healthy Diet Indicator, 37.1%). Women showed a better biochemical and dietary pattern profile than men (lower values, P < 0.05, in triglycerides, mean difference = 26.3; 95% CI = 0.9–51.7 mg/dL, aspartate transaminase, mean difference = 4.2; 95% CI = 0.3–8.0 U/L; alanine transaminase, mean difference = 8.2; 95% CI = 1.6–14.8 U/L; gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, mean difference = 11.0; 95% CI = -1.1–23.2 U/L and higher values, P = 0.002, in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, mean difference = 5.0, 95% CI = -13.3–3.3 mg/dL), but physical and peak exercise physiological characteristics were poorer. A higher CRF level might contribute to the attenuation of some CVR factors, such as high body mass index, non-dipping profile, and high hepatic fat. The results strongly suggest that targeting key behaviors such as improving nutritional quality and CRF via regular physical activity will contribute to improving the health with independent beneficial effects on CVR factors.
Introducing the Massachusetts CSI Nursing Delirium Collaborative.

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) developed the Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy to help clinical nurses develop leadership and innovation skills needed to support quality care and improve patient outcomes. In this final installment of our three-part CSI series, several facilities work collaboratively to address delirium assessment, prevention, and treatment at their hospitals. See the first two parts of the series in the March and July issues of Nursing2016.
Neuroinflammation and microglia: considerations and approaches for neurotoxicity assessment

Background: The impact of an inflammatory response, as well as interactions between the immune and nervous systems, are rapidly assuming major roles in neurodegenerative disease and injury. However, it is now appreciated that the exact nature of such responses can differ with each type of insult and interaction. More recently, neuroinflammation and the associated cellular response of microglia are being considered for their contribution to neurotoxicity of environmental agents; yet, so far, the inclusion of inflammatory end points into neurotoxicity assessment have relied primarily on relatively limited measures or driven by in vitro models of neurotoxicity. Objective: To present background information on relevant biological considerations of neuroinflammation and the microglia response demonstrating the complex integrative nature of these biological processes and raising concern with regards to translation of effects demonstrated in vitro to the in vivo situation. Specific points are addressed that would influence the design and interpretation of neuroinflammation with regards to neurotoxicology assessment. Conclusion: There is a complex and dynamic response in the brain to regulate inflammatory processes and maintain a normal homeostatic level. The classification of such responses as beneficial or detrimental is an oversimplification. Neuroinflammation should be considered as a balanced network of processes in which subtle modifications can shift the cells toward disparate outcomes. The tendency to overinterpret data obtained in an isolated culture system should be discouraged. Rather, the use of cross-disciplinary approaches to evaluate several end points should be incorporated into the assessment of inflammatory contributions to the neurotoxicity of environmental exposures.