Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Psychometric Properties of the Arabic Version of PSS Stress Measuring Scale in the Moroccan Population

This study was conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the classic Arabic version of the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10) in a large sample of Moroccan population. A cross-sectional survey was yielded between December 2013 and January 2014 following an accidental sampling. Individuals aged above 18, from different socioeconomic categories, were invited to take part in the study. The participants had completed a questionnaire including the classic Arabic versions of PSS10. Two data collection methods involving the paper questionnaire (PQ) and an electronic questionnaire (EQ) were solicited. The psychometric properties of PSS10 were examined by internal consistency, test–retest reliability, convergent validity, and factorial structure. A total of 1,099 individuals have participated in the study. Internal consistencies of the classic Arabic PSS10 for both of PQ and EQ were respectively α = 0.72 and α = 0.85; the test–retest reliability score was 0.91. In both of PQ and EQ, PSS10 scores were higher among females (p < .01), and were positively and significantly correlated with the DASS21 subscales. The principal component analysis provided a two-factor structure. The percentages of variance explained by the two factors were 55.58 for EQ and 54.61 for PQ. The classic Arabic version of the PSS10 showed satisfactory psychometric properties in both data collection methods.
The experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people with dementia

The subjective experience of dementia for lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals is largely absent from the extant literature. This study aimed to explore what it means to experience dementia in this context given the documented psychosocial influences facing this population. A second aim was to develop understanding of these experiences within dyadic relationships. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals with dementia and people with whom they had a significant relationship. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of transcripts identified three superordinate themes reflecting characteristics of participants’ experience: Duality in managing dementia; Giving yourself away vs. holding onto yourself; and Relationships as sheltered harbours. Ten subthemes indicate processes these individuals adopt to adjust and make sense of their experience of dementia. This included decisions around concealment, ensuring safety and the promotion of personhood and couplehood. In line with findings for heterosexual couples, partners had an important role in maintaining the identity of the person with dementia. Results suggest additional and distinct challenges, including experienced and perceived discrimination and heterosexism. In response to these conditions, interviewees worked to resist a ‘double stigma’ of dementia and sexuality. Findings indicated areas of improvement for dementia services, including training in inclusive practice.
SIMICS : A COMMERCIAL LY PROVEN FULL-SYSTEM SIMULATION FRAMEWORK

This paper presents Virtutech Simics, a commercial off-the-shelf full-system simulation framework used to enable virtualized software development for cross-development targets on a regular PC or workstation. Simics provides virtual hardware that runs the same binaries as the physical hardware. The goal of virtualized software development is to enhance the software development process by reducing the reliance on physical target hardware and still test and develop as much as possible in the actual target environment.
Low-Power On-Chip Charge-Recycling DC-DC Conversion Circuit and System

A charge-recycling circuit and system that reuses the energy between two or more stacked CPUs is proposed in order to double the life of a battery. In this architecture, CPUs are divided into upper and lower load groups, and electrical charges are shared among the stacked CPUs and a tank capacitor. Charges are temporarily stored in the tank capacitor and are then reused. To control divided loads, a high-speed and energy-efficient regulator is needed. Internal circuit voltage variation between the upper and lower modules is determined by seven low-drop-out (LDO) regulators, a voltage-boosting capacitor circuit, and the tank capacitor. As a result, stable voltage can be supplied to each CPU, even if the upper and lower loads are different or a battery is being used. The LDOs improve the margin of collection in the tank capacitor or task schedule operation, and power efficiency is raised even further. The circuit can be implemented on silicon without a large external control circuit and inductor such as a switching regulator. This circuit was applied to an in-vehicle lock-step system because the upper and lower loads and tasks are the same. Additionally, by using the proposed task scheduling to maximize efficiency, this circuit can be applied not only to lock-step systems but also to general systems. Test chips were fabricated using 90-nm standard CMOS technology. Although the maximum power efficiency of a conventional circuit with a simple LDO is 44.4%, efficiency of the proposed charge-recycling circuit turned out to be as high as 87.1% with the test chips.
Effect of Using Oral Bee Honey on Postoperative Pain and Wound Healing for Children undergoing Tonsillectomy

Background: Tonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures performed worldwide, especially for children. Severe pain and difficulty swallowing are common complaints encountered in children after tonsillectomy. Oral honey administration after tonsillectomy in pediatric cases may decrease the need for analgesics through relieving postoperative pain. Moreover, honey has been increasingly used in modern medicine as a potent wound healing agent due to its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. Aim of the study: to evaluate the effect of using oral bee honey on postoperative pain and wound healing for children after tonsillectomy. Design: A Quasi-experimental research design was utilized to conduct the current study. Setting: The study was conduct at the ENT department in Benha health insurance hospital affiliated to Ministry of Health. Subjects: A simple random sample of 556 tonsillectomy children who selected according to the study formula based on the total number of children who admitted to the above setting during 2013.These were randomly allocated into two groups; study and control. Tools of date collection: Three tools were used; a structural interviewing questionnaire sheet to collect personal data, numerical pain rating scale was used to assess the severity of pain and postoperative assessment tool to evaluate the wound healing through the ability of the child to speak, swallow, and eating. Also, it used to assess daily analgesics consumption and number of awake at night due to pain. Results: postoperative pain, daily analgesics consumption, and number of awake at night due to pain in oral bee honey group was significantly less than in the control group at different time of assessment started from first till 5 days after surgery (p˂0.001). However, wound healing was significantly better in oral bee honey group than in the control group at different time of assessment started from second till 5 days after surgery (p˂0.001). Conclusion : Based on the result of the present study it can be concluded that, the research hypothesis is accepted, while it was found that the administration of oral bee honey after wake up, following tonsillectomy significantly enhancing wound healing, reduce postoperative pain and may substantially decrease the need for analgesics and number of awake at night due to pain. Recommendation : Oral bee honey can be a part of hospitals’ protocols for alleviate pain and promote wound healing after tonsillectomy. Further researches are needed to assess the potential use of bee honey in wound healing and pain relief after tonsillectomy in other hospitals to generalized the finding results.
Correlation Noise-Based Unequal Error Protected Rate-Adaptive Codes for Distributed Video Coding

Distributed video coding (DVC) is a paradigm that can shift most of the computational intensive tasks from the encoder to the decoder. This allows for the design of low complexity encoders that can be deployed in devices equipped with limited resources. However, the compression efficiency obtained using practical DVC codecs are still distant from those of traditional predictive video coding schemes such as H.264/AVC. One of the limitations of the existing DVC architectures is that they consider the correlation noise to be randomly distributed across the whole video frame. This paper shows that the Syner-Ziv (WZ) values that are closer to the endpoints of the quantization intervals have a higher probability of producing incorrect side information (SI) predictions. Thus, through this knowledge, rate-adaptive low-density parity-check accumulate codes that provide a higher level of protection to the unreliable SI bits can be exploited. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the WZ bit-rate up to 13% relative to the state-of-the-art DISCOVER architecture when considering interpolation techniques and by up to 0.9 dB for extrapolation techniques.
N-Phenyl-2-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalen-1-ylidene)hydrazinecarbothioamide

The conformation of the title molecule, C17H17N3S, is stabilized by an intramolecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bond involving the azometinic group. The dihedral angle between the two aromatic rings is 36.49 (06)°. The non-aromatic ring of the tetralone substituent adopts a sofa conformation. In the crystal, molecules are linked by pairs of N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds related via centres of symmetry, forming dimers.
DOES HELICOBACTER PYLORI AFFECT LIFE EXPECTANCY?

confidence interval (CI) 5 1.45–12.23) and swallowing dysfunction (OR 5 3.16, 95% CI 5 1.13–8.84). Other variables did not reach significance. These results suggest that important changes relating to oral intake difficulty might have occurred during hospitalization, because the two groups were basically identical in terms of baseline characteristics and laboratory findings at the time of admission. Prolonged bedridden status during hospitalization had the greatest influence on oral intake difficulty. Although the reason for prolonged bedridden status in the subjects is unclear, severe disease condition necessitating bed rest, loss of energy and volition, decreased arousal level, and lack of aggressive care programs might be contributing factors. Swallowing dysfunction was the second most important variable for predicting oral nutrition, although this factor does not seem to have a strong effect because nearly half of the non-oral intake group showed normal swallowing in the water swallowing test. To conclude, the most important factor associated with oral intake difficulty was prolonged bedridden status during hospitalization. Older persons are especially susceptible to the complications of bed rest. Oral intake difficulty in the older persons with pneumonia might be, at least partly, related to complications such as appetite loss, altered mental status, easy fatigability, muscle weakness, and deteriorated swallowing function. Further exploration is needed to analyze the disabling process.
Fibronectin Binding Protein A of Staphylococcus aureus Can Mediate Human T Lymphocyte Adhesion and Coactivation1

The extracellular matrix protein fibronectin (FN) mediates the adhesion of bacteria as well as T lymphocytes. Mammalian cells express integrins α4β1 and α5β1 as the major FN-binding cell surface receptors. Bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, also express FN-binding receptors that are important for adherence to host tissue and initiation of infection. The S. aureus FN-binding protein, FnbpA, has been previously identified, and recombinant proteins that correspond to distinct functional regions of this protein have been made. Three recombinant truncated forms of FnbpA, rFnbpA(37-881), rFnbpA(37-605), and rFnbpA(620-881), were examined for effects on in vitro adhesion and coactivation of human T lymphocytes. These proteins, when coimmobilized with anti-CD3 mAb, activated T lymphocyte proliferation. The coactivation signal generated by the rFnbpA proteins required medium containing serum with FN. Furthermore, the costimulatory signal could be restored in FN-depleted serum when the rFnbpAs were preloaded with soluble FN. Monoclonal Ab blocking studies revealed that integrin α5β1 is the major receptor responsible for the rFnbpA costimulatory signal. Shear flow cell detachment assays confirmed that lymphocytes can bind to FN captured by the rFnbpA proteins. These results suggest that the S. aureus rFnbpA can interact with integrin α5β1 via an FN bridge to mediate adhesion and costimulatory signals to T lymphocytes.
Interaction of the interferon-induced PKR protein kinase with inhibitory proteins P58IPK and vaccinia virus K3L is mediated by unique domains: implications for kinase regulation

Expression of the double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR) is induced by interferons, with PKR activity playing a pivotal role in establishing the interferon-induced antiviral and antiproliferative states. PKR is directly regulated by physical association with the specific inhibitor, P58IPK, a cellular protein of the tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) family, and K3L, the product of the corresponding vaccinia virus gene. P58IPK and K3L repress PKR activation and activity. To investigate the mechanism of P58IPK- and K3L-mediated PKR inhibition, we have used a combination of in vitro and in vivo binding assays to identify the interactive regions of these proteins. The P58IPK-interacting site of PKR was mapped to a 52-amino-acid aa segment (aa 244 to 296) spanning the ATP-binding region of the protein kinase catalytic domain. The interaction with PKR did not require the C-terminal DNA-J homology region of P58IPK but was dependent on the presence of the eukaryotic initiation factor 2-alpha homology region, mapping to the 34 aa within the sixth P58IPK TPR motif. Consistent with other TPR proteins, P58IPK formed multimers in vivo: the N-terminal 166 aa were both necessary and sufficient for complex formation. A parallel in vivo analysis to map the K3L-binding region of PKR revealed that like P58IPK , K3L interacted exclusively with the PKR protein kinase catalytic domain. In contrast, however, the K3L-binding region of PKR was localized to within aa 367 to 551, demonstrating that each inhibitor bound PKR in unique, nonoverlapping domains. These data, taken together, suggest that P58IPK and K3L may mediate PKR inhibition by distinct mechanisms. Finally, we will propose a model of PKR inhibition in which P58IPK or a P58IPK complex binds PKR and interferes with nucleotide binding and autoregulation, while formation of a PKR-K3L complex interferes with active-site function and/or substrate association.
THE BRAIN AS A MULTI-LAYERED MAP . SCALES AND REFERENCE POINTS FOR PATTERN RECOGNITION IN NEUROIMAGING

In this paper, we provide an overview of brain mapping in neuroscience and describe the application of spatial data processing techniques to represent the brain as a multi-layered map.Anatomical reference points (landmarks) are determined from the topological properties of the brain, including the shapes of sulci, gyri, and fissures. Functional reference points are calculated by measured parameters of brain activity. Linking experimental results with spatial and temporal reference points is a necessary step for performing a comparative analysis of heterogeneous data regarding brain structures and activity. Using reference points helps define coordinate systems and scales, highlight points of interest and regions of interest, create templates, and classify data. The paper shows that spatial analysis is a convenient approach to pattern recognition in neuroimaging. We also discuss the role of extrinsic behavior landmark stimuli and intrinsic brain structural elements such as place cells and grid cells in navigation tasks.
An Entropy-Based Long-Life Multipath Routing Algorithm in MANET

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are comprised of mobile nodes that are communicating via either directed wireless links or multi-hop wireless links through a sequence of intermediate nodes. The multipath routing in mobile ad hoc networks is difficult because the network topology may change constantly, and the available alternative path is inherently unreliable. So far, much of the effort of multipath routing has been focused on using the predefined alternate path when a relay on the primary path has failed regardless of the availability of the alternate path. This reactive route handoff can increase the overhead for frequent route discoveries. This paper proposes a novel Entropy-based Long-life Multipath Routing algorithm in MANET (ELMR). The key idea of ELMR algorithm is to construct the new metric-entropy and select the stability multipath with the help of entropy metric to reduce the number of route reconstruction so as to provide QoS guarantee in MANET. It is typically proposed in order to increase the reliability of data transmission or to provide load balancing. The simulation results show that the proposed approach and parameters provide an accurate and efficient method of estimating and evaluating the route stability in dynamic MANETs.
Rewritable Data Embedding on MPEG Coded Data Domain

In this paper, we propose a rewritable data embedding scheme on MPEG coded data domain for content managements including DRM, content controlling and indexing. Data embedding is performed in a block by block basis, where the length of zero run and the value of dummy AC component of quantized DCT coefficients are used as a data carrier. In the detection process, we can reconstruct the MPEG coded data that is very close to the original one, which enables us not only to rewrite embedded data but also retain the original MPEG video quality. In the experiment, we show that up to a few kbits/frame data embedding without any large PSNR penalty and data recovery can be realized using typical MPEG-1 coded stream.
PKCζ Is Essential for Pancreatic β-Cell Replication During Insulin Resistance by Regulating mTOR and Cyclin-D2

Adaptive β-cell replication occurs in response to increased metabolic demand during insulin resistance. The intracellular mediators of this compensatory response are poorly defined and their identification could provide significant targets for β-cell regeneration therapies. Here we show that glucose and insulin in vitro and insulin resistance in vivo activate protein kinase C ζ (PKCζ) in pancreatic islets and β-cells. PKCζ is required for glucose- and glucokinase activator–induced proliferation of rodent and human β-cells in vitro. Furthermore, either kinase-dead PKCζ expression (KD-PKCζ) or disruption of PKCζ in mouse β-cells blocks compensatory β-cell replication when acute hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia is induced. Importantly, KD-PKCζ inhibits insulin resistance–mediated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activation and cyclin-D2 upregulation independent of Akt activation. In summary, PKCζ activation is key for early compensatory β-cell replication in insulin resistance by regulating the downstream signals mTOR and cyclin-D2. This suggests that alterations in PKCζ expression or activity might contribute to inadequate β-cell mass expansion and β-cell failure leading to type 2 diabetes.
Moves and Wrap-Up Sentences in Chinese Students’ Essay Conclusions

Whether L1 (first language) rhetorical transfer affects L2 (second language) writing remains a controversial issue. Based on Hyland’s move theory, this article focuses on the moves and the quality of wrap-up sentences in essay conclusions, exploring the impact of L1 rhetorical transfer. One hundred eighty-four expository essays written by Chinese college students were analyzed, as well as 20 English and 20 Chinese model essays. Besides, sentence-initial discourse markers in 100 Chinese model essays were collected and categorized to investigate why Chinese teachers and students favor certain English linking adverbials. The research results show that the Chinese students displayed their strategy use in Discourse Marker, Consolidation and Close, but the preference to certain sets of linking adverbials and Affirmation move can be attributed to the L1 rhetorical transfer at lexical level and text level. In this study, L1 rhetorical transfer has been found to go hand in hand with strategy use. For the students at tertiary level, strategy use might overweigh L1 rhetorical transfer.
How can a mobile vendor get satisfied customers?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the role that a relational variable (trust) and three personal variables (impulsiveness, involvement and innovativeness), may play as antecedents of satisfaction of mobile shoppers.Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative information was collected using a survey instrument directed to Spanish mobile shoppers. In total, 447 valid questionnaires were obtained. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings – Trust, involvement and innovativeness were found to have a positive impact on mobile shopper satisfaction, except impulsiveness, which has a negative impact, as the authors proposed.Research limitations/implications – The study highlights the importance of gaining m‐shopper satisfaction and different ways of achieving this goal, especially, internal influences.Practical implications – M‐vendors should bear in mind that engendering trust and involvement with the channel is positive if they are to achieve purchaser satisfaction with the med.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: current burden and future projections

SERIES “THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE” Edited by K.F. Rabe and J.B. Soriano Number 2 in this Series ### Summary ⇓Information about the comparative magnitude of the burden from various diseases and injuries is a critical input into building the evidence base for health policies and programmes. Such information should be based on a critical evaluation of all available epidemiological data using standard and comparable procedures across diseases and injuries, including information on the age at death and the incidence, duration and severity of cases who do not die prematurely from the disease. A summary measure, disability-adjusted life yrs (DALYs), has been developed to simultaneously measure the amount of disease burden due to premature mortality and the amount due to the nonfatal consequences of disease. Approximately 2.7 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) occurred in 2000, half of them in the Western Pacific Region, with the majority of these occurring in China. About 400,000 deaths occur each year from COPD in industrialised countries. The increase in global COPD deaths between 1990 and 2000 (0.5 million) is likely to be partly real, and partly due to better methods and more extensive data availability in 2000. The regional (adult) prevalence in 2000 varied from 0.5% in parts of Africa to 3–4% in North America. ### Introduction Health systems must increasingly address a broad spectrum of health issues, ranging from epidemic outbreaks to advanced therapeutic care. They must, or should, also support disease prevention and health-promotion activities. Recognising that resources for health were unlikely to grow as quickly as demand, in 1993, the World Bank proposed a series of intervention packages for countries at different stages of development which, if implemented, would probably lead to the greatest gains in population health at affordable cost. The evidence for these recommendations was based …