Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of a new self-rating scale for post-traumatic stress disorder

Background. In post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) there is a need for self-rating scales that are sensitive to treatment effects and have been tested in a broad range of trauma survivors. Separate measures of frequency and severity may also provide an advantage. Methods. Three hundred and fifty-three men and women completed the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), a 17-item scale measuring each DSM-IV symptom of PTSD on 5-point frequency and severity scales. These subjects comprised war veterans, survivors of rape or hurricane and a mixed trauma group participating in a clinical trial. Other scales were included as validity checks as follows: Global ratings, SCL-90-R, Eysenck Scale, Impact of Event Scale and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. Results. The scale demonstrated good test–retest reliability (r = 0·86), internal consistency (r = 0·99). One main factor emerged for severity and a smaller one for intrusion. In PTSD diagnosed subjects, and the factor structure more closely resembled the traditional grouping of symptoms. Concurrent validity was obtained against the SCID, with a diagnostic accuracy of 83% at a DTS score of 40. Good convergent and divergent validity was obtained. The DTS showed predictive validity against response to treatment, as well as being sensitive to treatment effects. Conclusions. The DTS showed good reliability and validity, and offers promised as a scale which is particularly suited to assessing symptom severity, treatment outcome and in screening for the likely diagnosis of PTSD.
Tidal hyperinflation during low tidal volume ventilation in acute respiratory distress syndrome.

RATIONALE Tidal volume and plateau pressure limitation decreases mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome. Computed tomography demonstrated a small, normally aerated compartment on the top of poorly aerated and nonaerated compartments that may be hyperinflated by tidal inflation. OBJECTIVES We hypothesized that despite tidal volume and plateau pressure limitation, patients with a larger nonaerated compartment are exposed to tidal hyperinflation of the normally aerated compartment. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Pulmonary computed tomography at end-expiration and end-inspiration was obtained in 30 patients ventilated with a low tidal volume (6 ml/kg predicted body weight). Cluster analysis identified 20 patients in whom tidal inflation occurred largely in the normally aerated compartment (69.9 +/- 6.9%; "more protected"), and 10 patients in whom tidal inflation occurred largely within the hyperinflated compartments (63.0 +/- 12.7%; "less protected"). The nonaerated compartment was smaller and the normally aerated compartment was larger in the more protected patients than in the less protected patients (p = 0.01). Pulmonary cytokines were lower in the more protected patients than in the less protected patients (p < 0.05). Ventilator-free days were 7 +/- 8 and 1 +/- 2 d in the more protected and less protected patients, respectively (p = 0.01). Plateau pressure ranged between 25 and 26 cm H(2)O in the more protected patients and between 28 and 30 cm H(2)O in the less protected patients (p = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS Limiting tidal volume to 6 ml/kg predicted body weight and plateau pressure to 30 cm H(2)O may not be sufficient in patients characterized by a larger nonaerated compartment.
Autobiographical memory of the recent past following frontal cortex or temporal lobe excisions

Previous research has raised questions regarding the necessity of the frontal cortex in autobiographical memory and the role that it plays in actively retrieving contextual information associated with personally relevant events. Autobiographical memory was studied in patients with unilateral excisions restricted to the frontal cortex or temporal lobe involving the amygdalo‐hippocampal region and in normal controls using an event‐sampling method. We examined accuracy of free recall, use of strategies during retrieval and memory for specific aspects of the autobiographical events, including temporal order. Patients with temporal lobe excisions were impaired in autobiographical recall. By contrast, patients with frontal cortical excisions exhibited normal autobiographical recall but were less likely to use temporal order spontaneously to organize event retrieval. Instruction to organize retrieval by temporal order failed to improve recall in temporal lobe patients and increased the incidence of plausible intrusion errors in left temporal patients. In contrast, patients with frontal cortical excisions now surpassed control subjects in recall of autobiographical events. Furthermore, the retrieval accuracy for the temporal order of diary events was not impaired in these patients. In a subsequent cued recall test, temporal lobe patients were impaired in their memory for the details of the diary events and their context. In conclusion, a basic impairment in autobiographical memory (including memory for temporal context) results from damage to the temporal lobe and not the frontal cortex. Patients with frontal excisions fail to use organizational strategies spontaneously to aid retrieval but can use these effectively if instructed to do so.
Optimal Power Control and Beamforming for Full-Duplex Small Cell Wireless Networks

In this paper, we propose an optimization framework for selecting an optimal downlink beamforming vector and an optimal uplink transmission power level in full-duplex small cell wireless networks. We study the case in which the full-duplex base station is equipped with multiple antennas and each half-duplex UE is equipped with a single antenna. To benefit from recent progresses in all-digital self- interference cancellation, we formulate an optimization problem to achieve optimal beamforming and power control. Since the studied optimization problem is not convex, we first choose the optimal direction for the beamforming vector. Next, we adopt difference of concave programming to obtain the optimal magnitude of the beamforming vector and the optimal uplink transmission power level. Simulation results show that the proposed approach could significantly improve the performance of small cell wireless networks, especially when the residual self-interference is small.
HUMAN INTERDEPENDENCY FOR SUSTAINABLE WELL-BEING: STRUCTURAL INVARIANCE ACROSS SETTLEMENT AREAS

This survey research examined the underlying structure of subjective sustainable well-being (SSWB) discovered in the relationships of (i) Human Interdependence with other Humans (HIH), (ii) Human Interdependence with the Environment (HIE), and (iii) subjective well-being (SWB). The objectives of the empirical analysis were (i) to assess the causal relationship between human interdependence and SWB which instituted the SSWB structural model, and (ii) to evaluate the settlement areas-invariant of the causal structure of SSWB. The data was collected from self-reported questionnaires administered to 4315 working Malaysians. The findings of the structural equation modelling supported the adequacy of SSWB. The results also found that settlement areas, in particular the urban, sub-urban and rural areas, appeared to moderate the structural relationships of SSWB.
“We Wish We Could Be Heard”: Teachers’ Voices in Botswana Primary Schools

Education is a vehicle that can be used to oppress or liberate people in the society. Schools are places where democratic values are instilled into the individual learners. Teachers are curriculum implementers who play significant roles in instilling the democratic ideals. The purpose of this study was to investigate in-service student teachers’ perceptions of the extent to which democracy ideals are practicable in Botswana primary/elementary classrooms. The data were collected through written reflective essays from 25 bachelor of education final year in-service student teachers at the University of Botswana and two focus groups of 10 participants each. The findings of the study revealed that the promotion of democratic ideals in the classroom is a challenge. The emergent themes and reasons for this challenge is due to centralized curriculum-driven examinations, high student–teacher ratios, and a shortage of materials. The in-service teachers voiced a need for adherence to democratic ideals and concluded that infusion of those principles would result in learner friendly schools that develop critical thinkers who are self-reliant, and active participates in making decisions that affect their lives, thereby furthering the development of democracy in Botswana.
Acanthamoeba Keratitis: A Parasite on the Rise

Purpose: To report a recent significant increase of the number of patients diagnosed with Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) at Wills Eye Hospital between 2004 and 2005. To determine the risk factors, clinical characteristics, treatments, and outcomes of patients with AK. Methods: Retrospective consecutive case series of 20 eyes with AK. The information included the incidence from 1995 to 2005, initial and final best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at 3-month follow-up, risk factors [contact lenses (CL) history, history of swimming with CL, and exposure to well water and/or contaminated water], clinical characteristics, methods of diagnosis, and treatments. Results: A statistically significant increased incidence of AK was seen in 2004 and 2005 compared with cases from 1995 to 2003 (P < 0.01). All patients wore CL; 19 of 20 wore frequent-replacement soft CL and used multipurpose disinfecting solutions. Other risk factors were exposure to well water in 40%, swimming with CL in 25%, and overnight wear in 25%. The diagnosis was made by histopathology in 50%, by microbiology in 15%, and by initial classic clinical signs and response to treatments in 35%. Herpes simplex virus was the misdiagnosis in 70%. Patients who presented with dendritiform keratitis or radial keratoneuritis had a BCVA better than 20/30 in 8 of 9 (89%) and patients with ring ulcers or stromal disease who had a BCVA less than finger counting in 5 of 8 (62.5%). Conclusions: We observed an increased incidence of AK. Patients with proper use of frequent-replacement CL and multipurpose solutions can develop AK. Advanced stromal disease at diagnosis is associated with worse outcome.
Reliability and Validity Testing of the Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale in Evaluating Linear Scars after Breast Cancer Surgery

Background: The Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale is a promising new method incorporating observer and patient ratings in evaluating burn scars. The authors compared this tool to the Vancouver Scar Scale in a cohort of women with linear scars from breast cancer surgery. Methods: Twenty women with newly diagnosed breast cancer were prospectively accrued. Thirty-one scars were evaluated. The median time from surgery to scar assessment was 8 weeks (range, 3 to 25 weeks). Observer assessment was performed by three independent raters using the Vancouver scale and the observer component of the new tool. Patient self-assessment was performed using the patient component of the tool. Internal consistency, interobserver reliability, and convergent validity were examined. Results: Internal consistency was acceptable for the Vancouver scale and both components of the new tool (Cronbach’s alpha, 0.71, 0.74, and 0.77, respectively). Interobserver reliability was substantial with both the Vancouver scale and the observer tool (average measure intraclass coefficient correlation, 0.78 and 0.60, respectively). The observer tool and Vancouver scale correlated significantly with each other (p < 0.001), but only the observer tool correlated well with patients’ ratings (p = 0.04). Conclusions: In surgical scar assessment, the new Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale and Vancouver Scar Scale were both associated with acceptable internal consistency and interobserver reliability. The new tool is more comprehensive and has higher correlation with patients’ ratings. These findings support the use of the new tool as a reliable, valid, and comprehensive approach to assess linear surgical scars.
Patient experience of general practice and use of emergency hospital services in England: regression analysis of national cross-sectional time series data

Background The UK Government has introduced several national policies to improve access to primary care. We examined associations between patient experience of general practice and rates of visits to accident and emergency (A&E) departments and emergency hospital admissions in England. Methods The study included 8124 general practices between 2011–2012 and 2013–2014. Outcome measures were annual rates of A&E visits and emergency admissions by general practice population, according to administrative hospital records. Explanatory variables included three patient experience measures from the General Practice Patient Survey: practice-level means of experience of making an appointment, satisfaction with opening hours and overall experience (on 0–100 scales). The main analysis used random-effects Poisson regression for cross-sectional time series. Five sensitivity analyses examined changes in model specification. Results Mean practice-level rates of A&E visits and emergency admissions increased from 2011–2012 to 2013–2014 (310.3–324.4 and 98.8–102.9 per 1000 patients). Each patient experience measure decreased; for example, mean satisfaction with opening hours was 79.4 in 2011–2012 and 76.6 in 2013–2014. In the adjusted regression analysis, an SD increase in experience of making appointments (equal to 9 points) predicted decreases of 1.8% (95% CI −2.4% to −1.2%) in A&E visit rates and 1.4% (95% CI −1.9% to −0.9%) in admission rates. This equalled 301 174 fewer A&E visits and 74 610 fewer admissions nationally per year. Satisfaction with opening hours and overall experience were not consistently associated with either outcome measure across the main and sensitivity analyses. Conclusions Associations between patient experience of general practice and use of emergency hospital services were small or inconsistent. In England, realistic short-term improvements in patient experience of general practice may only have modest effects on A&E visits and emergency admissions.
Objective measurement of transmission losses and compression artefacts in stereoscopic 3D video

Stereoscopic 3D video is an important technology for immersive and interactive multimedia. Quality of Experience (QoE) provision is a key objective of the emerging multimedia delivery systems. While subjective assessment of QoE remains the most reliable option, objective metrics are often sought after while engineering practical media distribution solutions. While there have been several efforts in the recent past to develop metrics for stereoscopic video/image quality measurement, an objective metric to measure artefacts caused by transmission packet losses is yet to be realised. Furthermore, most of the existing metrics rely on disparity estimation techniques to provide a quality measure. This paper proposes two metrics for the measurement of compression artefacts and artefacts caused due to packet losses and concealment. The metrics are based on ANSI Video Quality Metric (VQM) metric, and do not rely on disparity estimation. The metrics are trained and validated by conducting two separate sets of subjective experiments, and which illustrate promising results.
SMOKERS ARE DIFFERENT: THE HETEROGENEITY OF SMOKERS’ RESPONSES TO PRICE INCREASES

This paper contributes to the understanding of smokers’ responses to cigarette prices increases, with a focus on heterogeneity across individuals and over price changes. A stated preference quasi-experimental design grounded on a random utility framework is proposed, based on individual-level data drawn from a survey gathering detailed information on Italian smokers’ habits. On average, the predicted probability of reducing cigarettes consumption increases with the price variation, even though a huge heterogeneity of price responsiveness is found. In terms of potential price elasticity, a polarisation between low and high responsiveness individuals has also been identified. Finally, by comparing even and uneven price variations across price classes, it is shown that uniform across-brand price increases limit product substitutions and downtrading. Estimated heterogeneity provides information to forecast the effect on tax revenue of a tax-driven price change, and some guidance on how to design tax reforms to balance health and revenue goals.
Africa-China investment and growth link

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate China–Africa Investment link, using over two decades of FDI’s data. During the specified periods, African economic growth path has been predominantly upward trending, despite multiple external threats. This impressive growth was partly because of the growth of FDI stock across the region. This study explores the various sources of FDI to Africa, mainly China’s FDI’s and how they influence African macroeconomic indicators, i.e. unemployment, export and import activities.Design/methodology/approachPesaran autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) is used as a framework to test the short-run and long-run relationship of indicators. Granger causality test checked the causality between growth and macroeconomic indicators.FindingsThe link between China’s FDI and African economic growth reported a negative/declining effect in both short and long run. In the long run, the effect of world FDI on growth was significant but not the in the short run. However, US FDI to Africa, China Export and Import from Africa reported an insignificant effect on growth. There was no evidence of Okun’s law, as a decrease in Africa unemployment does not increase growth. Overall, China’s FDI’s inflows to Africa are allocated to capital-intensive activities which has less labor employability. The Granger causality test reported a uni-directional link between growth and all series, except for human capital which experienced no link at all in all directions. Despite the issue of socio-infrastructure militating against growth in the region, African economy is likely to perform better, if more FDI’s are channeled into labor-intensive activities, because it has a reductive effect on unemployment.Research limitations/implicationsThe research considered point annual FDI data but not accumulated stock and is a macro-based study, i.e. regional economy.Practical implicationsThis paper bridged the literature gap in African investment performance by providing an empirical justification in understanding the inflow of FDI, especially China. This is a useful guard in policy design and implementations in the attraction of the right type of investment, so as to reduce unemployment and promote growth.Originality/valueThe authors confirm that this study has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration in whole or in part by another journal.
Detecting Spammers in E-Commerce Website via Spectrum Features of User Relation Graph

The review system promoted the prosperity of the E-commerce market, but it has also been improperly exploited by spammers who found it profitable to write fake reviews to mislead the consumers. Detecting spams accurately has been a challenging problem, since spammers alter their writing style and imitate normal users. The majority of the existing work tried to solve this problem by designing an indicator system using behavioral features, which often suffers from the lack of large-scale labeled datasets. This paper proposes a novel user relation graph model based on a bipartite graph built directly from the review data and introduces two novel algorithms called Finding Abnormal Dimensions by Kurtosis function (FADK) and Finding Abnormal Dimensions by Shapiro-Wilk test (FADSW) to find small groups of spammers in the large user-relation graph. FADK focus on each eigenvector and its neighborhood, which uses the kurtosis function as a crucial measure. In FADSW, the hypothesis test theory is introduced to solve this problem for the first time. This combination is a novel interdisciplinary research methodology. To get an unbiased performance evaluation, we evaluated our two algorithms using two different real-world datasets: 1) Amazon dataset from the US; and 2) JD.com dataset from China. While both algorithms showed relatively high distinguishing power, FADSW outperforms FADK on both the JD and the Amazon datasets.
A New Methodology for Early Stage Magnetic Modeling and Simulation of Complex Electronic Systems

This paper presents a new methodology called Flex-CM for Flexible Compact Modeling to generate and reuse compact models, in order to build a full model of a complex electronic system at an early stage of the design flow. The system is split into independent parts. Each part is numerically modeled using a discrete approach then reduced to save memory and time at the simulation stage. The resulting pluggable and reduced model is called a micro-model. Then, a fast-to-simulate macro-model of a full system can be obtained by assembling the micro-models. The Flex-CM model is presented as a trade-off between reluctance networks and numerical models to perform a magnetic analysis at an early stage of the system design. The Flex-CM models are found to have number of advantages over both methods, resulting however on larger models than reluctance networks.
[A study of protein kinase C signal pathway in regulating airway smooth muscle cell proliferation in asthmatic rats].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of protein kinase C (PKC) signal pathway in airway smooth muscle cell (ASMCs) proliferation in asthmatic rats. METHODS (1) Forty-eight Wistar rats were divided into an asthmatic group (group A) and a control group (group B), and then subdivided into group A(1), A(2), A(3) and group B(1), B(2), B(3) based on the time of challenge (2, 4, 8 weeks). The proliferation of ASMCs isolated from group A and B was examined with cell cycle analysis, MTT colorimetric assay and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) immunocytochemical staining. (2) ASMCs from group A(1) and B(1) were treated with PKC agonist PMA and inhibitor Ro-31-8220, and their proliferations were examined. (3) The expression of PKC-alpha in group A(1), A(2), A(3) and B(1) was observed by immunocytochemical staining and RT-PCR, respectively. RESULTS (1) The percentage of S phase, absorbance (A) value and the expression rate of PCNA protein in ASMCs from group A were significantly increased compared to those of group B (P < 0.01). (2) Before ASMCs from A(1) group were treated, the percentage of S phase, A value and the expression rate of PCNA were (19 +/- 3)%, 0.459 +/- 0.036, and (80 +/- 10)% respectively; After treated with 10 nmol/L PMA, these values reached (27 +/- 4)%, 0.599 +/- 0.078, and (95 +/- 9)% respectively; After treated with 50 nmol/L PMA, these values were (14 +/- 3)%, 0.346 +/- 0.038, and (53 +/- 8)% respectively; After treatment with Ro-31-8220, these values were (14 +/- 3)%, 0.343 +/- 0.048, and (49 +/- 8)% respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that there were significant differences in the percentage of S phase, A value and the expression of PCNA before and after treatment (P < 0.01). After treatment with 50 nmol/L PMA, there was a significant difference as compared to 10 nmol/L PMA treatment (P < 0.01), whereas there was no statistical significance as compared to Ro-31-8220 treatment (P > 0.05). (3) Compared with that of group B(1) (0.84 +/- 0.07), the ratios of A value of PKC-alpha mRNA in group A(1) (1.08 +/- 0.06), group A(2) (1.12 +/- 0.05), and group A(3) (1.10 +/- 0.08) were significantly increased (P < 0.01). Compared with that of group B(1) (28 +/- 4)%, the expression rates of PKC-alpha protein in group A(1) (54 +/- 5)%, group A(2) (56 +/- 5)%, and group A(3) (53 +/- 6)% were significantly increased (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS Airway smooth muscle cell proliferation increases in asthmatic rats. PKC and it's alpha subtype may contribute to this process.