Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of dyslipidemia in Thai schoolchildren.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prevalence and risk factor of dyslipidemia in Thai schoolchildren. MATERIAL AND METHOD A cross section- study of 348 schoolchildren aged 6-17.8 years in Nakork Nayok province, Thailand between May and June 2009 was conducted. Total cholesterol and triglyceride were measured from a 10-hour fasting blood. Dyslipidemia (hypercholesterolemia and/or hypertriglyceridemia) was defined according to the American Academy of Pediatrics AAP) guidelines. Demographic and anthropometric data were recorded. Odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were used to compare the prevalence of dyslipidemia. RESULTS The prevalence of hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia were 1.2% and 10.6%, respectively, with none of the children who simultaneously had high cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Overweight, obesity and thinness were defined in 34 (9.8%), 34 (9.8%) and 25 (7.2%) children, respectively. Odds ratio ofhaving dyslipidemia in overweight and/or obese children compared to non-obese children was 4.0 (95% CI 2.0-8.0). Odd ratios ofhaving dyslipidemia were not significant differences by other risk factors such as gender [1.2 (0.6-2.2)], age [1.3 (0.7-2.5)], hypertension [0.9 (0.2-4.2)], family history of dyslipidemia [2.4 (0.6-8.0)], family history of diabetes mellitus [0.5 (0.1-2.1)], presence ofa smoker in the family [1.5 (0.8-3.1)] and differentABO blood types. CONCLUSION The overall prevalence of dyslipidemia in Thai schoolchildren was 11.8%. Overweight and/or obesity were the sole risk factor for dyslipidemia in Thai schoolchildren aged 6-17.8 years.
Preservice Music Teacher Electronic Portfolios Integrating Reflection and Technology

Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in the use of teaching portfolios inteacher education. Teacher educators have reported that the process of developing portfolios canhelp preservice teachers better understand the complexities of teaching, make connectionsbetween classroom learning and field experiences, and develop into flexible and reflectivepractitioners (Carroll, Potthoff, & Huber, 1996; Krause, 1996; McKinney, 1998). The research specific to electronic forms of portfolio development is just beginning to appear;however, there seems to be a great deal of promise in the digital format (McKinney, 1998;Milman, 1999; Polonoli, 2000). Many of the same benefits are reported with electronicportfolios as with the more traditional hard-copy format. Students reflect about themselves, theirwork as students, and their future in the teaching profession through their work in developingelectronic teaching portfolios (Milman, 1999; Polonoli, 2000). In addition, there are specificadvantages to using a digital format. McKinney (1998) reported that the “nonlinear nature ofmultimedia software allowed [students] to more easily show connections, and technologysupported the ability to personalize the way they showed their learning” (p. 94). Polonoli (2000)echoed McKinney’s findings and stated that the digital portfolio was a “unique vehicle” thatallowed students to express themselves and show what they could do. These early reports alsoindicate that the electronic medium can facilitate storage and makes it easier for students andfaculty to access the information (McKinney, 1998). One component of electronic portfolios thatDownloaded from jmt.sagepub. com
An empirical evaluation of a psychoanalytic theory of mothering orientation: implications for the antenatal prediction of postnatal depression

This study was designed to determine (a) whether women's antenatal expectations of childbirth, their future baby and early motherhood vary in line with Raphael‐Leff's Facilitator–Reciprocator–Regulator model of mothering orientation, and (b) whether a Regulator orientation confers greater relative risk for early postnatal depression. A sociodemographically representative sample of 205 primiparous women completed a maternal orientation measure and the General Health Questionnaire in late pregnancy and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 6–8 weeks postpartum. Hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to cluster cases on the basis of antenatal expectations of their future baby and early motherhood and yielded a clear three‐cluster solution. Between‐cluster comparisons of women's ratings on these variables, and of childbirth and feeding expectations, suggested cluster membership did correspond with Facilitator, Regulator and Reciprocator mothering orientations. In line with theory, women reporting a Regulator mothering orientation were at increased independent risk (OR 3.28, 95% CI 1.23–9.25) for above‐threshold postnatal depression symptom levels (EPDS>10.5). Furthermore, in a hierarchical regression analysis, Regulator mothering orientation accounted for a significant proportion of variance in postnatal symptom level even after controlling for antenatal depression symptom level.
Conceptual modeling by analogy and metaphor

Metaphor is not merely a rhetorical device, characteristic of language alone, but rather a fundamental feature of the human conceptual system. A metaphor is understood by finding an analogy mapping between two domains. This paper argues that analogy mappings facilitate conceptual modeling by allowing the designer to reinterpret fragments of familiar conceptual models in other contexts. The contributions of the paper are expressed within the tradition of the Entity-Relation model.
Early Postoperative Decrease of Serum Albumin Predicts Surgical Outcome in Patients Undergoing Colorectal Resection

BACKGROUND: A simple and accurate predictor of postoperative complications is needed for early and safe discharge after surgery. A decrease in serum albumin is commonly observed early after surgery, even in patients with normal preoperative levels. However, whether it predicts patient postoperative outcome is unknown. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the reduction in serum albumin within 2 postoperative days compared with the preoperative level could serve as an independent predictor of postoperative complications after colorectal surgery. DESIGN: This was a retrospective study from a single institution. SETTINGS: The study was conducted in a tertiary referral hospital. PATIENTS: A total of 626 patients undergoing major colorectal surgery between December 2012 and January 2016 were eligible for this study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify risk factors for postoperative complications and to identify the factors associated with &Dgr;albumin. Receiver operating characteristic curves were developed to examine the cutoff value of the change in albumin in predicting postoperative complications. RESULTS: Among all of the patients, the median &Dgr;albumin after surgery was 15%. &Dgr;Albumin was an independent risk factor for overall complications (p < 0.01). The cutoff value was 15%, and an increased area under the curve compared with C-reactive protein occurred on postoperative day 3 or 4. Patients with a &Dgr;albumin ≥15% experienced more postoperative major complications, a higher comprehensive complication index, a longer postoperative stay, and increased surgical site infections (p < 0.05) than those <15%. &Dgr;Albumin correlated with sex, type of surgery, stoma creation, C-reactive protein on postoperative day 3 or 4, and intraoperative blood transfusion. Postoperative C-reactive protein remained independently associated with &Dgr;albumin (p < 0.01). LIMITATIONS: The study was limited by its retrospective nature. CONCLUSIONS: A cutoff value of a 15% reduction in serum albumin within 2 postoperative days could help to identify patients with a high probability of postoperative complications and permit safe and early discharge after colorectal surgery.
New work attitude measures of trust, organizational commitment and personal need non‐fulfilment

Within research on the quality of working life the variables of trust, organizational commitment and the fulfilment of personal needs play an important part. Yet relevant measures with adequate psychometric support are ditTicult to locate, especially ones applicable to blue-collar British working populations. The present paper introduces new measures of these variables, each of which has a number of subscales. Internal homogeneity, reliability and factor analytic data are described which show the scales to be psychometrically adequate and stable. To support the future use of the measures for diagnostic and evaluative purposes, normative data are also provided. The three scales reported in this paper add to the work previously reported in Warr et al. (1979), where it was argued that there exists a need to develop robust, short and generally applicable instruments relevant to multivariate research into the quality of working life. To that end the paper presented psychometric data in support of seven new measures covering work involvement, intrinsic job motivation, higher order need strength, perceived intrinsic job characteristics, self-rated anxiety, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. The latter two measures included a number of subscales. The present paper extends this work by introducing three additional instruments, each with subscales, together with details of their psychometric properties and standardization data. These measures are, (a) interpersonal trusi al work, (b) organizational commilment, and (c) personal need non-futfthnent. All the scales have been developed primarily for use with UK blue-collar employees, and for that reason have been kept fairly brief, with the content of items easily understood.
Impact of BTI on dynamic and static power: From the physical to circuit level

We investigate in this work, for the first time, the impact that BTI has on dynamic and static power from the physical level all the way up to the circuit level. Unlike the impact of BTI on delay, which has been largely explored during the last decade, only a few works recently aimed to study the impact of BTI on circuits' power. Our investigation revealed that because state of the art considers solely the effect of BTI on the threshold voltage of transistors, it significantly (> 50%) overestimates the beneficial impact of BTI on power. We demonstrate how, in fact, beside threshold voltage, the impact of BTI on other crucial MOSFET parameters like carriers mobility, sub-threshold slope and gate-drain capacitance together with the existing interdependencies between them must additionally be considered for correct power modeling. We also demonstrate that the impact of BTI on the dynamic and static power is non-uniform across standard cells. Therefore, studying the impact of BTI on solely one or a couple of cells, as state of the art does, is very insufficient. Hence, to accurately capture the impact of BTI on the total power of a circuit, the standard cell library needs to be fully re-characterized in the scope of all BTI-induced degradations and then be employed within existing EDA tool flows towards performing an aging-aware power analysis. Achieving this goal concisely represents the core of this paper.
The immunogenicity of the liposome-associated outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of Moraxella catarrhalis

The outer membrane proteins (OMPs) are the most immunogenic and attractive of the Moraxella catarrhalis vaccine antigens that may induce the protective immune response. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of two types of OMP-associated phosphatidylcholine (PC) liposomal formulations (OMPs-PC, PC-OMPs) and of Zwittergent-based proteomicelles (OMPs-Z) in potentiating an anti-OMP systemic immune response in mice. The immunogenicities of the above preparations were evaluated by assessing serum anti-OMP IgG and IgA reactivity in the post-immunized mouse antisera using ELISA and Western blotting. Additionally, the cross-reactivity of the most effective anti-OMP response was determined using heterologous sera from both humans and mice. Both the proteoliposomes and the proteomicelles showed high immunogenic properties and did not elicit any distinct quantitative differences in the antibody titer or qualitative differences in the pattern of the mouse antisera. The post-immunized mouse antisera predominantly recognized a ∼60-kDa OMP of M. catarrhalis. That protein was also found to be a highly cross-reactive antigen interacting with a panel of pooled mouse antisera produced by immunization either with whole cells or the purified OMPs of heterologous M. catarrhalis strains. Furthermore, normal sera collected from healthy children were found to be preferentially reactive with the 60-kDa OMP. The serum-specific IgG, IgA and IgM were respectively detected via immunoblotting in 90%, 85% and 30% of heterologous human sera. This similar immunogenic effectiveness of both OMP-associated liposomal formulations could contribute to the practical use of such formulations in the future in human vaccination. Moreover, the highly cross-reactive 60-kDa OMP seems to be an important antigenic marker of M. catarrhalis, and, as it is responsible for the induction of an antibody-mediated and long-lasting immune response, studying it may partially aid us in understanding the relatively low degree of pathogenicity of the bacterium in immunocompetent individuals.
Membrane insertion of the bacterial signal transduction protein ToxR and requirements of transcription activation studied by modular replacement of different protein substructures.

The Vibrio cholerae protein ToxR is an integral membrane protein that acts as a transcription activator in response to environmental signals; it controls expression of toxin genes ctxA and ctxB, along with a variety of other genes related to pathogenicity. Here it is shown that: (i) ToxR has a modular architecture and that activation of transcription starting at the ctx promoter depends strictly on dimerization of the periplasmic ToxR domain; (ii) the transmembrane (TM) region of ToxR is sufficient as a topogenic signal but not for stable membrane anchoring of the protein; (iii) the TM region has no special function in signal transduction and (iv) a proline residue located within the TM region minimizes background transcription activation, most plausibly by reducing TM‐TM interaction. Possible applications of ToxR as a technical tool for analysing protein‐protein interactions between pairs of arbitrary TM domains are discussed.
Industry Categories and the Politics of the Comparable Firm in CEO Compensation

We examine the blending of informational and political forces in organizational categorizations in the context of chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. By law, corporate boards are required to provide shareholders with annual justifications for their CEO pay allocations that contain an explicit performance comparison with a set of peer companies that are selected by the board. We collected and analyzed information on the industry membership of chosen peers from a 1993 sample of 280 members of the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500. Our results suggest that boards anchor their comparability judgments within a firm's primary industry, thus supporting the argument that boards' peer definitions center around commonsense industry categories. At the same time, however, we found that boards selectively define peers in self-protective ways, such that peer definitions are expanded beyond industry boundaries when firms perform poorly, industries perform well, CEOs are paid highly, and when shareholders are powerful and active.
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Decisions: Testing a Modified Version of the Theory of Trying

This study investigates the decision-making processes of managers in small- and medium-sized hospitality enterprises toward corporate social responsibility. Drawing on attitude–behavior theory we use a revised version of the theory of trying to examine these decision-making processes. A scenario-based experimental design was employed, presenting four different CSR-related choices to the respondents. Standard multiple regression analysis was run to test our revised model. The results indicate that the model receive moderate empirical support when examining the explanatory power of the theory of trying on the decision-making processes toward CSR. Attitude toward trying, self-efficacy, subjective norms and past behavior are all to a various extent predictors of the decision-making processes, with attitude toward trying having the strongest influence on the processes.
Co-targeting the tumor endothelium and P-selectin-expressing glioblastoma cells leads to a remarkable therapeutic outcome

Glioblastoma is a highly aggressive brain tumor. Current standard-of-care results in a marginal therapeutic outcome, partly due to acquirement of resistance and insufficient blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration of chemotherapeutics. To circumvent these limitations, we conjugated the chemotherapy paclitaxel (PTX) to a dendritic polyglycerol sulfate (dPGS) nanocarrier. dPGS is able to cross the BBB, bind to P/L-selectins and accumulate selectively in intracranial tumors. We show that dPGS has dual targeting properties, as we found that P-selectin is not only expressed on tumor endothelium but also on glioblastoma cells. We delivered dPGS-PTX in combination with a peptidomimetic of the anti-angiogenic protein thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1 PM). This combination resulted in a remarkable synergistic anticancer effect on intracranial human and murine glioblastoma via induction of Fas and Fas-L, with no side effects compared to free PTX or temozolomide. This study shows that our unique therapeutic approach offers a viable alternative for the treatment of glioblastoma.
The Role of Comprehension Monitoring, Theory of Mind, and Vocabulary Depth in Predicting Story Comprehension and Recall of Kindergarten Children

Recent studies have revealed that preschoolers' story comprehension is influenced by several basic as well as complex cognitive and linguistic processes. Among the abilities known to be relevant for young children's understanding of stories are the size of their vocabulary, their inference-making ability, and their working memory. In this study, we examine the role of other processes in explaining preschool children's story comprehension, in a sample of 257 Chilean kindergarten children from middle-income families. The processes we examine are comprehension monitoring, theory of mind, inhibition, and attention control. Mediation relations suggested by theory and previous research are examined between working memory and comprehension, through integrative processes, and between vocabulary breadth and comprehension, through vocabulary depth. We use two different measures of story comprehension to clarify the role that each predictor plays in different aspects of this complex skill. Results suggest that when the story comprehension measure requires construction of a coherent representation, vocabulary, monitoring, inferences, working memory, inhibitory skill, and attention, but not theory of mind, make a significant contribution. Effects of vocabulary breadth are mediated by vocabulary depth, and effects of working memory are partially mediated by monitoring and inferences. When story comprehension is measured through recall of isolated story elements, only working memory and vocabulary explain significant variance. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.
Building security requirements with CLASP

Traditionally, security requirements have been derived in an ad hoc manner. Recently, commercial software development organizations have been looking for ways to produce effective security requirements.In this paper, we show how to build security requirements in a structured manner that is conducive to iterative refinement and, if followed properly, metrics for evaluation. While requirements specification cannot be a complete science, we provide a framework that is an obvious improvement over traditional methods that do not consider security at all.We provide an example using a simple three-tiered architecture. The methodology we document is a subset of CLASP, a set of process pieces for application security that we have recently published, in conjunction with IBM/Rational.
Expression of polyomavirus large T antigen by using a baculovirus vector

A gene encoding the large T antigen of polyomavirus was inserted into the baculovirus Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus so that gene expression was under the control of the strong, very late polyhedrin gene promoter. Significantly more large T antigen was produced in recombinant virus-infected insect cells than was observed in polyomavirus-transformed mouse cells. The insect-derived T antigen exhibited polyomavirus origin-specific DNA binding. The baculovirus expression system provides a convenient source of T antigen for in vitro studies.
Multiple proportion case-basing driven CBRE and its application in the evaluation of possible failure of firms

Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a unique tool for the evaluation of possible failure of firms (EOPFOF) for its eases of interpretation and implementation. Ensemble computing, a variation of group decision in society, provides a potential means of improving predictive performance of CBR-based EOPFOF. This research aims to integrate bagging and proportion case-basing with CBR to generate a method of proportion bagging CBR for EOPFOF. Diverse multiple case bases are first produced by multiple case-basing, in which a volume parameter is introduced to control the size of each case base. Then, the classic case retrieval algorithm is implemented to generate diverse member CBR predictors. Majority voting, the most frequently used mechanism in ensemble computing, is finally used to aggregate outputs of member CBR predictors in order to produce final prediction of the CBR ensemble. In an empirical experiment, we statistically validated the results of the CBR ensemble from multiple case bases by comparing them with those of multivariate discriminant analysis, logistic regression, classic CBR, the best member CBR predictor and bagging CBR ensemble. The results from Chinese EOPFOF prior to 3 years indicate that the new CBR ensemble, which significantly improved CBR's predictive ability, outperformed all the comparative methods.
An indoor localization of WiFi Based on branch-bound algorithm

Indoor localization based on existing WiFi signal strength is becoming increasingly prevalent. Many indoor localization algorithms have been proposed, such as NN, KNN and WKNN. In this paper, we propose an indoor localization of WiFi based on branch-bound algorithm(ILBBA). The ILBBA consists of offline and online phase. In the offline phase, the received signal strength(RSS) is collected by mobile devices, and is dealt with ILBBA to build fingerprint map; while in the online phase, real-time measured RSS is matched with the fingerprint map. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves high localization accuracy while reducing the computation complexity.