Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Differentiation of Self Dimensions in the Anxiety Problems

Bowen’s multigenerational family theory emphasizes the importance of autonomy and interdependence in individual development and focuses on the role played by the differentiation of self processes on the psychological health at the individual, dyadic, and systemic levels. Starting from these premises, the main objective of our investigation was to explore the differences, in the levels of anxiety and differentiation of self, between a control group (n = 69) and a sample of adults seeking therapeutic services for anxiety (n = 47). To better specify our results, in a second step, we also explored which of the differentiation of self dimensions could increase or reduce the likelihood that an individual belonged to the anxiety group or to the control group. We found that lower levels of I-position, and higher levels of emotional cutoff and fusion with others, display higher levels of anxiety-related problems. Moreover, emotional cutoff and fusion with other traits emerged as a predictor of the probability of seeking support for anxiety disorders.
The Impact of Collocation Activities on Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Knowledge of Vocabulary

The primary aim of this study was to open up new ways with which teachers could help learners improve their knowledge of vocabulary via collocation activities. This study investigated the effect of collocation activities on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge in order to solve their vocabulary problems. To this end, 60 female students from Pardis Institute in Lahijan, Iran participated in this study. They were divided into two groups of 30, one as an experimental group that received collocation activities as the treatment and a control group which received traditional method of vocabulary instruction. The researchers used a quasiexperimental, pre-test/post-test control group design. The data were analyzed using an Independent Samples T-test and a series of paired Samples T-tests. The findings of this study showed that collocation activities improved significantly participant learners’ vocabulary knowledge. The findings from paired-sample t-test indicated that the learners in the experimental group outperformed the control group in vocabulary knowledge.
The role of natural resources on moderating the relationship between fiscal decentralization and corruption: Evidence from Indonesia

This study aims to provide empirical evidences about the influence of fiscal decentralization on the level of corruption in regional governments of district and city in Indonesia and the role of natural resources in that influence. Panel data is used in this study with the observation period from 2008 to 2014 and 514 population from regency and city governments. As many as 433 observations from the final sample was taken based on the purposive sampling method. Meanwhile, the hypothesis testing using PLS-SEM with WarpPLS. The results of the study found out that fiscal decentralization will increase the incidence of corruption in the district and city of regional governments. The second finding is that natural resources will increase the incidence of corruption when the regional autonomy system and fiscal decentralization are applied to local governments.
Environmental Drivers for Cambial Reactivation of Qilian Junipers (Juniperus przewalskii) in a Semi-Arid Region of Northwestern China

Although cambial reactivation is considered to be strongly dependent on temperature, the importance of water availability at the onset of xylogenesis in semi-arid regions still lacks sufficient evidences. In order to explore how environmental factors influence the initiation of cambial activity and wood formation, we monitored weekly cambial phenology in Qilian juniper (Juniperus przewalskii) from a semi-arid high-elevation region of northwestern China. We collected microcores from 12 trees at two elevations during the growing seasons in 2013 and 2014, testing the hypothesis that rainfall limits cambial reactivation in spring. Cambium was reactivated from late April to mid-May, and completed cell division from late July to early August, lasting 70–100 days. Both sites suffered from severe drought from January to April 2013, receiving < 1 mm of rain in April. In contrast, rainfall from January to April 2014 was 5–6 times higher than that in 2013. However, cambial reactivation in 2014 was delayed by 10 days. In spring, soil moisture gradually increased with warming temperatures, reaching 0.15 m3/m3 before the onset of xylogenesis, which may have ensured water availability for tree growth during the rainless period. We were unable to confirm the hypothesis that rainfall is a limiting factor of cambial reactivation. Our results highlight the importance of soil moisture in semi-arid regions, which better describe the environmental conditions that are favorable for cambial reactivation in water-limited ecosystems.
Carbon Quantum Dots As Antibacterial Photosensitizers and Their Polymer Nanocomposite Applications

Carbon quantum dots and their incorporation in various polymer matrices are reviewed. In general, the importance of such polymer nanocomposites in biomedical applications is highlighted. In particular, the physical and antimicrobial properties of carbon quantum dots and their ability to produce reactive oxygen species under certain conditions using the principle of photodynamic therapy are explored. The characterization, preparation, mechanism of action, and use of carbon quantum dots are discussed. The known combinations of polymers and carbon quantum dots and their use in various industries are also described.
Comparative study of serum ferritin and vitamin D in thalassemia patients with healthy controls

Background: Thalassemia is the most common genetic disorder in humans; they are encountered among all ethnic groups and in almost every country around the world. Mostly occur in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean sea, hence the name. These are a group of hereditary haemolytic disorders characterized by impairment in the synthesis of globin chains of Hb. The present study aimed to find out the serum ferritin and vitamin D level in thalassemic children in the tertiary care hospital in Bikaner, western Rajasthan, India. Methods: This study was conducted at Sardar Patel Medical College and associated hospital in Bikaner, Rajasthan. There were 40 cases and 40 controls in the age groups from 4 to 16 years. Fresh samples were taken and required tests were performed following standard protocol. Both ferritin and vitamin D were performed on Electrochemiluminescence (ECL). Results: Level of serum ferritin was significantly high and vitamin D was significantly low (p-value<0.0001 for both) in thalassemic children. Conclusions: In this study the role of serum ferritin and vitamin D has been explored. The extremely high level of ferritin was found due to the regular blood transfusion and consequent iron overload and low vitamin D was found due to impairment in liver functions among thalassemic children.
Information and Communication Technology, Bank Verification Number and Fraud Prevention in Nigerian Banking Industry

Fraud was cited as Nigeria’s biggest problem both in the public and private sector. It is worrisome to note that bank staffs connive with outsiders to perpetrate fraud, even the emergence of ICT recently makes it easy to perpetrate fraud and it was also established that fraud contributed immensely to failure of most banks. Fraud is not peculiar either in magnitude or sophistication to Nigeria, the crash in the multinational companies in the wake of fraud and accounting scandals attests to this fact. Banks nonetheless played a dubious role in the collapse of these corporations. Structured questionnaire was prepared to get the opinions of both workers and bank customers using all the banking industry in Nigeria. This paper endeavors to examine Information Communication Technology, Bank Verification Number and Fraud Prevention in the Banking industry in Nigeria, their responses were critically analyzed and the study concluded that the introduction of Bank Verification Number with the aid of Information communication technology (ICT) is an effective tool that will reduce the incidence of fraud to the barest minimum in Nigeria, the use of ICT should also be encouraged but with strict security and thus the financial institutions and their business partner must continue to seek and develop new solutions to the issue of customer authentication and transaction validation.
Low-Profile and Closely Spaced Four-Element MIMO Antenna for Wireless Body Area Networks

A compact four-element multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) antenna is proposed for medical applications operating at a 2.4 GHz ISM band. The proposed MIMO design occupies an overall volume of 26 mm × 26 mm × 0.8 mm. This antenna exhibits a good impedance matching at the operating frequency of the ISM band, whose performance attributes include: isolation around 25 dB, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) less than 0.02, average channel capacity loss (CCL) less than 0.3 bits/s/Hz and diversity gain (DG) of around 10 dB. The average peak realized gain of the four-element MIMO antenna is 2.4 dBi with more than 77 % radiation efficiency at the frequency of interest (ISM 2.4 GHz). The compact volume and adequate bandwidth, as well as the good achieved gain, make this antenna a strong candidate for bio-medical wearable applications.
Urbanization and mortality in Britain, c. 1800–50

Abstract In the long‐running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the ‘biological standard of living’. This article reviews long‐run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific question: did mortality rise especially in rapidly growing industrial and manufacturing towns in the period c. 1830–50? Using comparative data for British, European, and American cities and selected rural populations, this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this phenomenon was not confined to ‘new’ or industrial towns. Instead, mortality rose in the 1830s especially among young children (aged one to four years) in a wide range of populations and environments. This pattern of heightened mortality extended between c. 1830 and c. 1870, and coincided with a well‐established rise and decline in scarlet fever virulence and mortality. The evidence presented here therefore supports claims that mortality worsened for young children in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but also indicates that this phenomenon was more geographically ubiquitous, less severe, and less chronologically concentrated than previously argued.
Monitoring of particulate hazardous air pollutants and affecting factors in the largest industrial area in South Korea: The Sihwa-Banwol complex

Ambient air monitoring of particulate hazardous air pollutants was performed from 2005 to 2007 in the Sihwa-Banwol industrial complexes, which is the largest industrial area in Korea. The occurrence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals, their spatial and seasonal distributions, and the factors affecting the variations in concentrations were investigated. The annual average concentration of benzo[a]pyrene was 1.27 ng/m, with a maximum of 10.41 ng/m. The PAH levels between the industrial and residential sites did not differ significantly, although heavy metals strongly related to industrial activities showed a clear variation between the two groups. Thus, industrial activities were not the only sources of PAHs; they also included automobile emissions and residential heating fuels. Coal-fired power plants outside the city and transboundary contributions from China and North Korea also affected the PAH levels in the area. Although ambient levels of heavy metals had no specific seasonal pattern, PAH levels showed distinct seasonal variations, with the highest level in winter. Factors affecting the PAH concentrations were vehicle exhaust, domestic heating, industrial activities, incineration within the area, and fuel combustion outside the area. The Sihwa-Banwol industrial complexes can be regarded as a hot-spot of PAH pollution in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Trait‐dependency of trophic interactions in zooplankton food webs

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Trait-dependency of trophic interactions in zooplankton food webs Florian Vincent, Andrea Bertolo, Gérard Lacroix, M.A. Mouchet, Eric Edeline
Study on Friction and Wear Behavior of Inconel 625 Superalloy during Hot Extrusion

Friction during the hot extrusion of Inconel 625 superalloy tubes causes severe wear of the mold and plays a decisive role in the quality of the workpieces. In this paper, a ball-to-disk method was utilized to investigate the tribological behavior of Inconel 625 using two different tribological pairs, i.e., GCr15 and Si3N4, at room and elevated temperatures. Friction coefficient, specific wear rate, and morphology of worn surfaces were systematically characterized. It was found that the friction coefficients for both tribological pairs generally increased as the testing temperature increased, while the specific wear rate increased firstly and then decreased with the rise of temperature. Along with the increasing sliding speed, the friction coefficient between Inconel 625 and Si3N4 decreased monotonically, while the specific wear rate increased firstly and then decreased. Under any given testing condition, the friction coefficient and specific wear rate of the Inconel 625 for Inconel/Si3N4 pair are less than those of the Inconel/GCr15 pair. The main wear mechanisms between GCr15 and Inconel 625 are adhesive and fatigue wear at all testing temperatures. The wear mechanisms between Si3N4 and Inconel 625 are adhesive and abrasive wear at room temperature but fatigue wear at 500°C. Our findings indicate that the use of ceramic molds in the hot extrusion of Inconel 625 may significantly improve the surface qualities of the product and reduce the wear of the mold.
Anti-HIV / HCV Activity of Cyanobacterial Phycobiliproteins by a New Standardized Method Using Bacteriophage Surrogates

The control of the viral infections requires efficient, rapid and safe testing procedures. We tested the efficiency of a quick and reliable alternative assay to the standard plaque assay (PA) in the detection of viral inhibition. Using MS-2 and FX-174 phages, the developed assay was used to evaluate the potential of cyanobacterial phycobiliproteins (PBS) as natural antiviral bioactive molecules against HIV and HCV. The antiviral activity was examined by mixing the phage with crude aqueous extracts in a 1:1 (v/v) ratio for 1hr at 4oC. The viral titer of MS-2 and FX-174 was reduced by 0.92 LR and 1.19 LR, respectively. In the case of the crude PBS extract of Spirulina platensis, similar result trends were obtained by virion titration which indicated that a strong correlation between the two assays was verified (�90 %). The morphological characteristics of both phages were severely affected when treated with the extract, whereas the characteristic features of their hosts seem unaffected. The PBS was found to affect the adsorption of the phages on their bacterial hosts and consequently viral reproduction. In conclusion, MS-2 and FX-174 can be used in drug evaluation by the well standardized method developed in this study.
Early Life Health Interventions and Childhood Development: Evidence from Special Care Nursery Assignment in Australia’s Northern Territory

This paper studies the effect of improved early-life health care, through assignment to a special care nursery (SCN), on childhood development and school achievement. We use linked administrative data in the Northern Territory of Australia and exploit the fact that assignment to SCN is largely based on rules of thumb involving low birth weight thresholds. We find large positive effects of SCN assignment on development at age five and some persistent improvements in test scores. Our results suggest that costly early-life health interventions, that are shown to increase survival probabilities of children in the short run, can also substantially boost cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
A Unique TGFB1-Driven Genomic Program Links Astrocytosis, Low-Grade Inflammation and Partial Demyelination in Periplaques of Spinal Cords from Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Patients

We previously reported that in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with a progressive form of the disease, spinal cord periplaques extend distance away from plaque borders and are characterized by the co-occurrence of partial demyelination, astrocytosis and low-grade inflammation. However, transcriptomic analyses comparing periplaques to adjacent normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) areas did not allow providing a comprehensive view of molecular events in astrocytes vs oligodendrocytes. Here, we re-assessed our transcriptomic data with the aim of identifying functionally-relevant co-expression networks that would reflect astrocyte vs oligodendrocyte molecular signatures in periplaques. We identified an astrocytosis-related gene module comprising GFAP, the hub gene CX43/GJA1 and a set of transcripts forming a TGFB/SMAD1/SMAD2 genomic signature. Partial demyelination was characterized by a co-expression network which, besides myelin genes, comprised a highly significant number of translation/elongation-related genes. Interestingly, the main oligodendrocyte-related hub we identified was NDRG1, a gene previously shown to be specifically silenced in the NAWM of MS patients. This result indicated that NDRG1 down-regulation could be an important event in the process of periplaque partial demyelination. To establish a putative link between NDRG1 down-regulation and a cytokine/chemokine signature, we then sought to identify cytokine/chemokine genes whose mRNA levels inversely correlated with those of NDRG1. Following this approach we found 5 candidate immune-related genes whose up-regulation associated with NDRG1 down-regulation: TGFB1, PDGFC, IL-17D, IL-33, and IL-12A. From these results we propose that in the spinal cord of MS patients with progressive forms of the disease, TGFB1 may Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 23 August 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201708.0080. v1 © 2017 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.
With Osteochondral Lesions of the Talus Clinical Outcomes of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Injection With Arthroscopic Treatment in Older Patients

Background: The ideal treatment for osteochondral lesions of the talus (OLTs) is still controversial, especially in older patients.Recently, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been suggested for use in the cell-based treatment of cartilage lesions.Purpose: To compare the clinical outcomes of MSC injection and arthroscopic marrow stimulation treatment with those of arthro-scopic marrow stimulation treatment alone for the treatment of OLTs in older patients.Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.Methods: Among 107 patients with OLTs treated arthroscopically, only the patients older than 50 years (65 patients) wereincluded in this study. Patients were divided into 2 groups: 35 patients (37 ankles) treated with arthroscopic marrow stimulationtreatment alone (group A) and 30 patients (31 ankles) who underwent MSC injection along with arthroscopic marrow stimulationtreatment (group B). Clinical outcomes were evaluated according to the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, the American Ortho-paedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) Ankle-Hindfoot Scale, and the Roles and Maudsley score. The Tegner activity scale wasused to determine outcomes in activity levels.Results: The mean VAS score in each group was significantly improved (P\.05) from 7.2 6 1.1 to 4.0 6 0.7 in group A and from7.1 6 1.0 to 3.2 6 0.9 in group B. The mean AOFAS score in each group was also significantly improved (P\.05) from 68.0 6 5.5to 77.2 6 4.8 in group A and from 68.1 6 5.6 to 82.6 6 6.4 in group B. There were significant differences in mean VAS and AOFASscores between the groups at final follow-up (mean, 21.8 months; range, 12-44 months) (P \ .001). The Roles and Maudsleyscore showed significantly greater improvement in group B than in group A after surgery (P = .040). The Tegner activity scalescore was significantly improved in group B (from 3.5 6 0.7 to 3.8 6 0.7; P = .041) but not in group A (from 3.5 6 0.8 to 3.66 0.6; P = .645). Large lesion size ( 109 mm
Inactivation of LCN2/EGR1 Promotes Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Differentiation and Remyelination after White Matter Injury

The insufficient remyelination due to the impaired oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation and maturation is highly associated with irreversible white matter injury and neurological deficits. Consequently, inhibitory components and microenvironment for remyelination might serve as potential therapeutic targets for treating white matter injury after acute central nervous system injury and neurodegeneration diseases. Lipocalin-2 was recently reported to corelate with white matter in both atypical, acute white matter injured disease subarachnoid hemorrhage and typical, chronic white matter injured disease multiple sclerosis. To elucidate the role and underlying mechanism of Lipocalin-2 in oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation and remyelination, we used genetic inhibition and a constitutive conditional knockout model with subarachnoid hemorrhage or multiple sclerosis. We found that the genetic inhibition of the increase in Lipocalin-2 promoted oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation, remyelination, and functional recovery after subarachnoid hemorrhage or multiple sclerosis. Unexpectedly, the inhibition of Lipocalin-2 did not reduce glial activation and inflammation. Lipocalin-2 was shown to activate Early Growth Response Protein 1 in oligodendrocyte precursor cells, which is partly regulated by its receptor SLC22A17. In the conditional knockout of Early Growth Response Protein 1 in oligodendrocyte precursor cells, we discovered enhanced oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation in developing and injured white matter; consistently, the specific inactivation of Early Growth Response Protein 1 promoted remyelination and neurological recovery after subarachnoid hemorrhage or multiple sclerosis. Thus, we propose that following white matter injury in humans, the increase in Lipocalin-2 activates Early Growth Response Protein 1 and consequently impair oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation and myelin repair. Our results suggest that therapies specifically inactivating Lipocalin-2/ Early Growth Response Protein 1 signal in oligodendroglial lineage cells could represent a novel strategy to enhance differentiation and remyelination in white matter injury patients.