Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity and reliability of a quality-of-life assessment instrument in children aged between 6 and 11 years

BACKGROUND There is increasing recognition of the importance of obtaining children’s reports of their health, but significant challenges remain in accomplishing these goals in a systematic, community-based approach. OBJECTIVES The aim of study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the culturally adapted Turkish version of the “Child Health and Illness Profile – Child Edition (CHIP-CE) (6–11) for children 6 to 11 years of age. DESIGN Cross-sectional analytical study conducted at Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Eskisehir, Turkey. SETTING Children’s health and diseases clinic. PATIENTS AND METHODS For the purpose of this study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with inpatients (children aged between 6 and 11 years staying in the hospital) and healthy children (children aged between 6 and 11 years attending a private elementary school in the spring semester of 2010–2011). The Turkish version of CHIP-CE (6–11) was administered after the original version of CHIP-CE in English was translated into Turkish, and then back translated into English. All steps in the cultural adaptation process were undertaken meticulously by an expert committee. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test construct validity. The Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations were used to evaluate internal consistency for reliability testing. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Domain scores on the CHIP-CE questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations. RESULTS The Turkish version of CHIP-CE (6–11) was administered to 235 children, including 109 (46.4%) girls and 126 (53.6%) boys receiving inpatient treatment in the hospital, and 194 healthy children, including 89 (45.9%) girls and 105 (54.1%) boys. The mean (standard deviation) age was 6.9 (1.6) years in the group of children receiving inpatient treatment, and 9.2 (1.6) years in the healthy children. In the reliability testing of the CHIP-CE form, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.79 in children receiving inpatient treatment, and 0.80 in healthy children. These values indicate excellent reliability. The CFA measurement model produced results consistent with standards: χ2=185.76 df=160 P=. 07986 RMSEA=0.026 in the children receiving inpatient treatment, and χ2=180.20 df=109 P=. 00002 RMSEA=0.058 in healthy children. CONCLUSION CHIP-CE proved to be a reliable and valid measurement instrument for children receiving treatment for various diseases and healthy children. The internal consistency of the Turkish version of CHIP-CE is acceptable. LIMITATIONS The sample, although large and diverse, was self-selected and does not represent the population of children in Turkey.
Effect of Information and Communication Technology on Nursing Performance

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of information and communication technology use and skills on nursing performance. Questionnaires were prepared relating to using the technology, practical skills in utilizing information, the Six-Dimension Scale of Nursing Performance, and demographics. In all, 556 nurses took part (response rate, 72.6%). A two-way analysis of variance was used to determine the influence of years of nursing experience on the relationship between nursing performance and information and communication technology use. The results showed that the group possessing high technological skills had greater nursing ability than the group with low skills; the level of nursing performance improved with years of experience in the former group, but not in the latter group. Regarding information and communication technology use, the results showed that nursing performance improved among participants who used computers for sending and receiving e-mails, but it decreased for those who used cell phones for e-mail. The results suggest that nursing performance may be negatively affected if information and communication technology are inappropriately used. Informatics education should therefore be provided for all nurses, and it should include information use relating to cell phones and computers.
Design of survivable VPN based VoIP networks

This paper addresses the issue of survivable voice over IP (VoIP) network design. In the applied model the whole VoIP network is divided into two logical components: the access network and the transport network. The access network consists of VoIP end-points, which connect to the transport network through edge routers serving as gateways. Thus, one task of the design process is to assign gateways to the VoIP end-points. To assure security and availability for the VoIP traffic, a virtual private network (VPN) is assumed as transport network in this paper; therefore, the other task is to specify the transport VPN in the most economical way, while also taking the possible failures of transport network elements into consideration. Assuming a single failure at a time, the survivability of the VoIP network can be assured by assigning two gateways, namely a primary and a backup one, to each VoIP end-point, and calculating two disjoint paths between each pair of gateways. The two tasks of survivable VoIP network design can be solved separately; however, in this paper, a novel solution is proposed in which the edge router assignment process takes both the objective function of VPN specification and the issues of survivability into consideration. Multiple methods realizing the novel approach are presented, which are based on the paradigms of evolutionary algorithms and simulated annealing. The performance of the presented methods is evaluated with the help of simulations, using a well-known greedy algorithm as reference. It is shown that the proposed methods outperform the reference algorithm significantly in the simulation scenarios investigated.
Looking into the black box of boosting: the case of Germany

ABSTRACT This article looks into the ‘fine print’ of boosting for economic forecasting. By using German industrial production for the period from 1996 to 2014 and a data set consisting of 175 monthly indicators, we evaluate which indicators get selected by the boosting algorithm over time and four different forecasting horizons. It turns out that a number of hard indicators like turnovers, as well as a small number of survey results, get selected frequently by the algorithm and are therefore important to forecasting the performance of the German economy. However, there are indicators such as money supply that never get chosen by the boosting approach at all.
Myrdal contra Ohlin: Accounting for the Sources of U.S. County Per Capita Income Convergence Using a Flexible Decomposition Approach

The neoclassical perspective, exemplified by Bertil Ohlin, predicts the fact of interregional per capita income convergence and is therefore often invoked in explaining its causes. However, convergence is also explained by other perspectives, such as Gunnar Myrdal's circular and cumulative causation. Applying a flexible growth-accounting decomposition to nominal per capita income changes in U.S. counties (1969-1996), this paper finds that AŸ convergence was generated by government transfer and wage spending, rather than the private sector forces postulated by Ohlin. Migration data suggest that the movement of retirees from rich counties to poor has been an important source of convergence.
Financial Structure, Income Inequality and Privatization of Risk in the EU

The global financial crisis of 2007/2008 was the painful peak of a decade of “financial euphoria” and inadequate financial re-regulation in the advanced economies. However, during that period of “financial euphoria”, the structure of the developed financial systems in the EU varied significantly, considering the importance of the banking market or that of the capital market in the system as a whole. Thus, an area for political economy research emerges, considering the institutions and the structural elements of an economy that could have contributed to this kind of differentiation. In this paper, the analysis is focused on the financial system’s funding from individuals and households as one of the three basic fields of the financial intermediation process. Particularly, we discuss and examine the relationshipbetween “privatization of risk” and income inequality -as characteristics of the households’ investment orientation- with the development of structurally varied financial systems in the EU. The descriptive and statistical results suggest that households’ investment orientation is related with the differentiation in the characteristics of the EU financial systems. However, this nexus can partially interpret -in terms of political economy- the varied financial systems in the EU, as the analysis must take into account the remaining fields of the financial intermediation process: the funding from international and interbank markets and the financial system’s funding to the economy.
Endoscopic ultrasound-guided Nd:YAG laser ablation of recurrent pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor: a promising revolution?

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) has developed from a diagnostic tool into a therapeutic one [1]. A 46-year-old woman was diagnosed with recurrent pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) by positive 68Ga-[1, 4, 7, 10-tetraazacyclododecane1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid]-1-NaI3-octreotide (68Ga-DOTA-NOC) positron emission tomography (PET) (●" Fig.1a). Two years earlier she had undergone curative distal pancreatectomy for previous PNET in the setting of multiple endocrine neoplasia type I. At computed tomography (CT) scan, the lesion appeared as a 9-mm nodular area with early contrast enhancement on the pancreatic residual body (●" Fig.2a). The patient refused total pancreatectomy. Laser ablation under EUS guidance was therefore performed using a neodymiumdoped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd: YAG) laser, at 4.0W for 300 seconds (●" Fig.3). No complications occurred during the procedure. At CT immediately after laser ablation, the ablated lesion appeared as a well-defined 35-mm coagulative necrotics area (●" Fig.2b). Neither perilesional parenchymal alteration nor vascular damages were observed. The 2month follow-up CT scan showed the ablated area to be 18mm (●" Fig.4a); at 1 year the area was 9mm (●" Fig.4b), with no metabolic activity on 68Ga-DOTA-NOC PET (●" Fig.1b). Laser ablation is a minimally invasive method for destroying tumors within solid organs, and works by directing lowpower laser light energy into the tissue. It has been used for primary and secondary liver tumors [2–4]. The potential advantage of laser ablation over other laser-inFig.1 Pre-treatment 68Ga-DOTA-NOC positron emission tomography (PET) revealed a lesion in the residual pancreatic body with metabolic activity (arrow). 68Ga-DOTANOC PET 1 year after laser ablation (on the right), showed no metabolic activity in the pancreatic region.
Adaptive Backstepping Control of Spacecraft Rendezvous and Proximity Operations With Input Saturation and Full-State Constraint

This paper presents a six-degree-of-freedom relative motion control method for autonomous spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations subject to input saturation, full-state constraint, kinematic coupling, parametric uncertainty, and matched and mismatched disturbances. Relative rotational and relative translational controllers are developed separately based on a unified adaptive backstepping technique. Both element-wise and norm-wise adaptive estimation techniques are used for handling parametric uncertainties, kinematic couplings, and matched and mismatched disturbances, where the bounds of disturbances are unknown. Two auxiliary design systems are employed to deal with input saturation in the relative rotational and relative translational control designs, and the stability of the saturated control solution is verified. Full-state constraint of the relative pose motion is handled by using barrier Lyapunov functions while achieving a satisfactory control performance. All signals in the closed-loop system are guaranteed to be uniformly ultimately bounded, and the relative motion states are all restricted within the known constraints. Compared with the previous control designs of spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations, the proposed control strategy in this paper can simultaneously deal with input saturation, full-state constraint, kinematic coupling, parametric uncertainty, and matched and mismatched disturbances. Experimental simulation results validate the performance and robustness improvement of the proposed control strategy.
Detours in long-distance migration across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: individual consistency and habitat associations

Migratory birds often follow detours when confronted with ecological barriers, and understanding the extent and the underlying drivers of such detours can provide important insights into the associated cost to the annual energy budget and the migration strategies. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is the most daunting geographical barrier for migratory birds because the partial pressure of oxygen is dramatically reduced and flight costs greatly increase. We analyzed the repeated migration detours and habitat associations of four Pallas’s Gulls Larus ichthyaetus across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau over 22 migration seasons. Gulls exhibited notable detours, with the maximum distance being more than double that of the expected shortest route, that extended rather than reduced the passage across the plateau. The extent of longitudinal detours significantly increased with latitude, and detours were longer in autumn than in spring. Compared with the expected shortest routes, proximity to water bodies increased along autumn migration routes, but detour-habitat associations were weak along spring migration routes. Thus, habitat availability was likely one, but not the only, factor shaping the extent of detours, and migration routes were determined by different mechanisms between seasons. Significant between-individual variation but high individual consistency in migration timing and routes were revealed in both seasons, indicating a stronger influence of endogenous schedules than local environmental conditions. Gulls may benefit from repeated use of familiar routes and stopover sites, which may be particularly significant in the challenging environment of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
The Cryptococcus neoformans STE12α gene: a putative Saccharomyces cerevisiae STE12 homologue that is mating type specific

Cryptococcus neoformans possesses two mating types, MATα and MATa. α‐Cells are more virulent than a‐cells and are also, unlike a‐cells, capable of producing extensive hyphae in the haploid phase. The molecular analysis of hyphae production in C. neoformans has resulted in the identification of a gene which displays substantial similarity to other fungal STE12 genes, including the presence of a highly conserved homeodomain. Overexpression of the C. neoformans gene resulted in poor growth, altered morphology and the presence of hyphal projections, phenotypes reported in similar studies of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae STE12 gene. Overexpression was also found to induce MFα, a pheromone, and CNLAC1, a confirmed C. neoformans virulence gene. The C. neoformans STE12α gene, however, has one striking difference from other fungal STE12 genes; it is found only in α‐cells. The existence of STE12α in C. neoformans suggests that this fungus has elements of a conserved MAP kinase cascade, which may be organized in a novel manner.
Testing a theoretical model of mortgage demand on UK data

Mortgage demand is a poorly understood and under-researched aspect of the financial behaviour of households. This paper tests empirically the basic results of Brueckner's model of mortgage demand on UK mortgage market data. The choice of mortgage instrument is used to identify impatient debt maximizers and patient borrowers who borrow at intermediate levels. Thus the research confirms the conditions under which households will use the largest possible mortgage and the circumstances under which savings are invested in the property. A unique contribution of the work is the estimation of mortgage demand equations corrected for endogenous housing demand, for a single housing finance system, where borrowers face different opportunity costs of equity in their owner occupied property, allowing a purer test of the theoretical model.
A Trade Institution as a Peaceful Institution? A Contribution to Integrative Theory

Recent studies emphasize the occurrence of conflict as a rational economic activity along with production and exchange. Agents are assumed to divide their efforts into fighting and productive activities, as commonly denoted by “guns” and “butter. ” This article tries to go beyond this “manichean” idea, assuming Boulding's concept of “integrative system. ” In particular, the article investigates whether a trade institution committed to free and fair trade could foster “peaceful” benefits for member countries. The analysis, produced in a very simplified world, counts as a founding pillar of the Contest Success Function. The results of the model suggest that in an institutionalized scenario, agents gain more both in terms of economic utility and in terms of peace than in “continuing conflict” and “obstructed trade” scenarios.
Inequality in the Context Development Theories: Dependencia Theory and Washington Consensus

This paper describes the characteristics of two important development theories: The Dependencia theory and the Washington consensus as a policy guideline for promoting development, and analyzes the role that inequality plays on their postulates according to the results from the previous analysis. This theoretical exercise is intended to illustrate the relevance of issues related to inequality on any set of policies that intend to generate development and discusses the fact that inequality does matter for growth due to the fact that distributional issues are embedded in the basic principles of economic systems. Any growth promoting policy should incorporate distributional arguments as an element that generates optimal conditions for economic growth by hampering the negative effects on the economy of high income inequality levels.
Patch based yarn defect detection using Gabor filters

This paper describes a simple and effective algorithm for texture defect detection in uniform and structured fabrics. The proposed approach is structured in two phases: feature extraction and defect identification. The texture features extraction phase relies on a complex symmetric Gabor filter bank and Principal Component Analysis for dimensionality reduction. Differently from most previous works, our analysis is performed on a patch basis, which has been more effective than simply considering raw pixels as features. The defect identification phase is fast as it is based on the evaluation of the Euclidean norm of the patch feature vectors, and on the comparison with fabric type specific parameters. A calibration procedure, performed offline, is adopted in order to estimate the optimal parameters. The performance of the algorithm has been extensively evaluated, via computer simulations, on the TILDA image database. The results show that our algorithm outperforms previous approaches in most of the considered cases, achieving a detection rate of 98.8% and a false alarm rate as low as 0.37%.
The Relationship between Subjective and Objective Memory in the Oldest Old: Comparisons of Findings from a Representative and a Convenience Sample

Objectives: To evaluate the hypotheses that subjective memory ratings are more accurate in the oldest old than in the young old and more accurate in a representative sample than in a convenience sample. Methods:Outcomes of hierarchical regressions of subjective ratings and participant characteristics on recall were compared between a nationally representative sample of 6,446 adults ages 70 to 103 and a convenience sample of 326 adults ages 70 to 97. Results:Education interacted with memory ratings in the prediction of performance in the representative sample, with better prediction for more highly educated participants than for participants with lower levels of education. Discussion:The general pattern of findings was consistent across both samples and neither hypothesis was supported. Possible explanations for the similarity of results across samples are considered.
A Sport Federation’s Attempt to Restructure a Coach Education Program Using Constructivist Principles

Building on Hussain et al.’s (2012) analysis of Triathlon Canada’s constructivist-informed coach education program from the perspective of the program designer, this case study explored the structure and initial implementation of the program, as well as coaches’ perspectives of their journey to certification. Through a series of document analyses and interviews with the inaugural group of coach participants (N = 4), strategies for the application of constructivist principles are presented and discussed in relation to the coaches’ perspectives and coach development literature. More specifically, through its innovative use of learning activities and formative evaluation and assessment strategies, the program is shown to place considerable emphasis on coaches’ biographies, refection, and representation of learning. Finally, recommendations for coach educators are presented.
Rationality and Bounded Rationality

Economists have for long expressed dissatisfaction with the complex models of strict rationality that are so pervasive in economic theory. There are several objections to such models. First, casual empiricism or even just simple introspection lead to the conclusion that even in quite simple decision problems, most economic agents are not in fact maximizers, in the sense that they do not scan the choice set and consciously pick a maximal element from it.
Phospholipase C-β1 and β4 Contribute to Non-Genetic Cell-to-Cell Variability in Histamine-Induced Calcium Signals in HeLa Cells

A uniform extracellular stimulus triggers cell-specific patterns of Ca2+ signals, even in genetically identical cell populations. However, the underlying mechanism that generates the cell-to-cell variability remains unknown. We monitored cytosolic inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) concentration changes using a fluorescent IP3 sensor in single HeLa cells showing different patterns of histamine-induced Ca2+ oscillations in terms of the time constant of Ca2+ spike amplitude decay and the Ca2+ oscillation frequency. HeLa cells stimulated with histamine exhibited a considerable variation in the temporal pattern of Ca2+ signals and we found that there were cell-specific IP3 dynamics depending on the patterns of Ca2+ signals. RT-PCR and western blot analyses showed that phospholipase C (PLC)-β1, -β3, -β4, -γ1, -δ3 and -ε were expressed at relatively high levels in HeLa cells. Small interfering RNA-mediated silencing of PLC isozymes revealed that PLC-β1 and PLC-β4 were specifically involved in the histamine-induced IP3 increases in HeLa cells. Modulation of IP3 dynamics by knockdown or overexpression of the isozymes PLC-β1 and PLC-β4 resulted in specific changes in the characteristics of Ca2+ oscillations, such as the time constant of the temporal changes in the Ca2+ spike amplitude and the Ca2+ oscillation frequency, within the range of the cell-to-cell variability found in wild-type cell populations. These findings indicate that the heterogeneity in the process of IP3 production, rather than IP3-induced Ca2+ release, can cause cell-to-cell variability in the patterns of Ca2+ signals and that PLC-β1 and PLC-β4 contribute to generate cell-specific Ca2+ signals evoked by G protein-coupled receptor stimulation.