Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Executive functioning in men and women with an autism spectrum disorder

Executive functioning (EF) is thought to be linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) specific symptoms. The majority of research has focused on children and adolescents with ASD and, therefore, little is known about EF in adults. Furthermore, little is known about gender differences. Ninety‐nine men and forty women with ASD were compared with and 35 neurotypical men 25 neurotypical women. Participants were matched on age, total intelligence, and verbal ability. The following instruments were used to measure executive functioning: digit span and letter and number sequencing of the WAIS‐III, Tower of Hanoi, WCST, and Verbal fluency. Multiple analysis of variance was conducted to determine group differences. Women with ASD performed worse on the working memory tasks of the WAIS‐III than neurotypical women. Furthermore, women with ASD had more perseverations on the WCST than neurotypical women. The gender comparison in the ASD group showed differences in performance on mental flexibility (WCST), working memory (WAIS‐III), generativity and self‐monitoring (Verbal fluency). However, these differences were unequivocal and no gender specific cognitive profile could be pinpointed. Individual strengths and frailties should be highlighted in clinical practice, as impairments in EF can be under influence of the overall cognitive abilities of the individual. Furthermore, gender differences were found. This could explain differences in representation of ASD symptoms in both groups. These differences show how important thorough diagnostics are. Autism Res 2017, 10: 940–948. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Polarized secretion of IL‐6 and IL‐8 by human retinal pigment epithelial cells

A number of cell types situated along interfaces of various tissues and organs such as the peritoneum and the intestine have been shown to secrete inflammatory cytokines in a polarized fashion. Retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells are positioned at the interface between the vascularized choroid and the avascular retina, forming part of the blood–retina barrier. These cells are potent producers of inflammatory cytokines and are therefore considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of ocular inflammation. Whether cytokine secretion by these cells also follows a vectorial pattern is not yet known, and was therefore the subject of this study. Monolayers of human RPE cells (primary cultures and the ARPE‐19 cell line) cultured on transwell filters were stimulated to produce IL‐6 and IL‐8 by adding IL‐1β (100 U/ml) to either the upper or the lower compartment. After stimulation, the human RPE cell lines showed polarized secretion of IL‐6 and IL‐8 towards the basal side, irrespective of the side of stimulation. The ARPE‐19 cell line also secreted IL‐6 and IL‐8 in a polarized fashion towards the basal side after basal stimulation; polarized secretion was, however, not apparent after apical stimulation. The observation that human RPE cells secrete IL‐6 and IL‐8 in a polarized fashion towards the choroid may represent a mechanism to prevent damage to the adjacent fragile retinal tissue.
Post‐transcriptional regulation of the Ras‐ERK/MAPK signaling pathway

The Ras‐ERK/MAP (Mitogen‐Activated Protein) kinase signaling pathway governs many cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, cell fate, homeostasis, and survival in all eukaryotes. Constitutive activation of the Ras‐ERK/MAPK signaling pathway often leads to promotion of abnormal cell growth and tumorigenesis. Although the regulation of the Ras‐ERK/MAPK signaling pathway by post‐translational modification has been well elucidated, post‐transcriptional regulations of this pathway are beginning to emerge in invertebrates and this work is extended to humans. In this review, we describe the conserved regulation of Ras‐ERK/MAPK signaling by RNA‐binding proteins (PUF, KH‐domain, HuR, and LARP) and microRNAs (let‐7 family miRNAs) and important implications for human diseases including cancers. J. Cell. Physiol. 227: 1235–1241, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A persistent link layer transmission strategy for efficient dynamic spectrum access

In this paper, we propose an efficient dynamic spectrum access protocol for secondary users (SU) communication over an agile single primary user (PU) channel. The proposed access scheme is optimized with respect to different SU back-off times and SU packet length. Via Markov chain models and numerical analysis, we derive the optimal SU packet length for optimal SU performance at a given PU traffic load. We evaluate the protocol performance in terms of SU goodput and PU collision ratio. An outline of the proposed protocol operation is also given, where the protocol adapts to the changing PU traffic load for optimized spectrum access performance. Our performance studies demonstrate that the proposed protocol offers significantly high channel utilization while keeping the PU collisions below a predefined acceptable threshold.
Computer-Guided, Population-Based Screening System for Growth Disorders (CrescNet®) and On-Line Generation of Normative Data for Growth and Development

The mean age at which the diagnosis of growth disorders such as Turner’s syndrome, growth hormone (GH) deficiency or true GH-dependent gigantism is established is still rather late in many countries around the world. In addition, the question of secular trends in a given population and the rate at which childhood obesity is increasing in industrialized countries make it mandatory to establish a time-adapted system to develop percentiles for body height, weight and body mass index (BMI) and also to develop a screening system for growth disorders. In 1998 we established a network, now involving more than 160 paediatric practices in Germany and seven paediatric endocrinology departments. Paediatricians record heights, weights and growth velocities of all children in their care and systematically feed the data into the database at our centre usually by mailing formatted, structured data tickets. Data are then continuously analysed at the centre and the paediatricians in the network are informed immediately about their individual patients’ growth situations via phone or E-mail (feedback system). Regular annual conferences including structured reports, scientific presentations and discussion groups are organized for all participants at our centre. By May 2001, the data of 83,721 children and adolescents had been analysed. The mean values for height were 1–1.5 cm higher than the mean values in the German Synthetic Growth Curve, which serves as an internal standard. However, and most importantly, in comparison with the internal standard and historical normative data from Germany and Switzerland, there is a continuous increase in the 97th percentile for weight and BMI, while the third percentile remains unchanged. In addition, many children with short stature and tall stature due to a variety of endocrine disorders and genetic diseases which had not been diagnosed previously are now being identified. In conclusion, the databank allows for a continuous adaptation of normative curves based on a large number of children in a given population, i.e. eastern Germany. Secondly, the system allows for detection of pathological growth curves and is already serving to diagnose growth disorders in a defined population in a systematic way.
Race and General Strain Theory: Examining the Impact of Racial Discrimination and Fear on Adolescent Marijuana and Alcohol Use

ABSTRACT Background: To extend our knowledge of general strain theory by exploring how under-researched strains such as racial discrimination, witnessing violence, physical victimization and verbal bullying affect adolescent substance use while considering differences according to racial identification. Methods: This research utilized data from wave three of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Statistical analysis was primarily composed of path analysis using full information maximum likelihood parameter estimates. Results: The findings reveal that reporting fear decreased alcohol and marijuana use among adolescents and that racial discrimination, witnessing violence, and being the victim of verbal bullying indirectly affected marijuana and alcohol use through fear. No support was found for depression as a mediating variable. Physical victimization was the only social strain that had a direct positive effect on marijuana and alcohol use but only for Hispanics and African Americans. Conclusions: The results suggest that strains may be operating differently and there may be differential levels of exposure to certain strains according to one's race.
Cost of bowel obstruction resulting from adhesions.

OBJECTIVE To assess the direct costs associated with bowel obstruction resulting from adhesions. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING University Hospital, Sweden. SUBJECTS 57 patients aged 16 years or older who fulfilled the clinical and radiological criteria of bowel obstruction. INTERVENTIONS None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Course of, and direct costs associated with, the illness. RESULTS In 34 of the 57 patients (60%) bowel obstruction was caused by adhesions, and in all 34 the small bowel was obstructed (85% of all cases of small bowel obstruction). 22 of the 42 patients who required a hospital stay of more than 24 hours (52%) had adhesive obstruction, and 10 of these (45%) had to be operated on, 2 of them twice. Major complications occurred in 6 (60%) and one died. In a national perspective, adhesive bowel obstruction may cause 2330 hospital admissions annually, which is associated with an estimated direct cost of about US$13 million. CONCLUSIONS Adhesions are a serious, common, and costly complication of surgery. Efforts have to be undertaken to control their formation.
The myocardin-related transcription factor MKL co-regulates the cellular levels of two profilin isoforms

Megakaryoblastic leukemia (MKL)/serum-response factor (SRF)-mediated gene transcription is a highly conserved mechanism that connects dynamic reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton to regulation of expression of a wide range of genes, including SRF itself and many important structural and regulatory components of the actin cytoskeleton. In this study, we examined the possible role of MKL/SRF in the context of regulation of profilin (Pfn), a major controller of actin dynamics and actin cytoskeletal remodeling in cells. We demonstrated that despite being located on different genomic loci, two major isoforms of Pfn (Pfn1 and Pfn2) are co-regulated by a common mechanism involving the action of MKL that is independent of its SRF-related activity. We found that MKL co-regulates the expression of Pfn isoforms indirectly by modulating signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and utilizing its SAP-domain function. Unexpectedly, our studies revealed that cellular externalization, rather than transcription of Pfn1, is affected by the perturbations of MKL. We further demonstrated that MKL can influence cell migration by modulating Pfn1 expression, indicating a functional connection between MKL and Pfn1 in actin-dependent cellular processes. Finally, we provide initial evidence supporting the ability of Pfn to influence MKL and SRF expression. Collectively, these findings suggest that Pfn may play a role in a possible feedback loop of the actin/MKL/SRF signaling circuit.
Angiogenesis and growth of isografted bone: quantitative in vivo assay in nude mice.

BACKGROUND Understanding the regulation of vascularization and formation of bone after skeletal trauma is essential for the development of methods to promote healing. The lack of information on the biology of bone healing led us to establish an experimental model that facilitates the in vivo assessment of angiogenesis and growth of bone. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Fresh, cryopreserved (frozen in the presence or absence of 10% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)) or boiled neonatal femora were transplanted into dorsal skin fold chambers in adult mice of the identical strain, and angiogenesis and growth were monitored over 16 days. Computerized analysis of brightfield and epifluorescence images was employed to characterize the process of angiogenesis. Bone formation was quantified in vivo by the use of oxytetracycline. RESULTS Reperfusion of pre-existing blood vessels of the graft was observed only in fresh transplanted femora, whereas femora of all experimental groups elicited angiogenic response from the host tissue. The rank order of the angiogenic response was: fresh > cryopreservation with DMSO > cryopreservation without DMSO > boiled. Growth of femora was completely abolished after cryopreservation or boiling. Only fresh transplanted femora increased in length (95 microns/day) and in cartilage diameter (41 microns/day). CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrates that (a) angiogenesis and growth of transplanted femora can be chronically assessed using in vivo microscopy; (b) the introduction of oxytetracycline for in vivo fluorescence microscopy allows the differential quantification of bone and cartilage growth; and (c) cryoprotection using DMSO enhances restoration of angiogenic potency after freezing. We consider this assay an excellent experimental model to study in vivo effects of agents or procedures that potentially modulate angiogenesis and growth of bone.
Prefetching Scheme for Massive Spatiotemporal Data in a Smart City

Employing user access patterns to develop a prefetching scheme can effectively improve system I/O performance and reduce user access latency. For massive spatiotemporal data, traditional pattern mining methods fail to directly reflect the spatiotemporal correlation and transition rules of user access, resulting in poor prefetching performance. This paper proposed a prefetching scheme based on spatial-temporal attribute prediction, named STAP. It maps the history of user access requests to the spatiotemporal attribute domain by analyzing the characteristics of spatiotemporal data in a smart city. According to the spatial locality and time stationarity of user access, correlation analysis is performed and variation rules are identified for the history of user access requests. Further, the STAP scheme mines the user access patterns and constructs a predictive function to predict the user's next access request. Experimental results show that the prefetching scheme is simple yet effective; it achieves a prediction accuracy of 84.3% for access requests and reduces the average data access response time by 44.71% compared with the nonprefetching scheme.
Non-Cointegration and Econometric Evaluation of Models of Regional Shift and Share

This paper tests for cointegration between regional output of an industry and national output of the same industry. An equilibrium economic theory is presented to argue for the plausibility of cointegration, however, regional economic forecasting using the shift and share framework often acts as if cointegration does not exist. Data analysis on broad industrial sectors for 20 states finds very little evidence for cointegration. Forecasting models with and without imposing cointegration are than constructed and used to forecast out of sample. The simplest, non-cointegrating models are the best.
A genre-theoretic analysis of sports texts in Sepedi

This study utilises the theoretical framework of text construction developed by Grabe and Kaplan (1996) for the analysis of Sepedi sports articles from Bona Magazine. This includes linguistic elements which are applicable in language learning to equip learners with analytic skills. These skills are indicated in the Curriculum 2005 for the learning area: languages. These skills will enable learners to analyse the discourse structure of written texts effectively. Use is made of various textlinguistic strategies for analysing written genre texts on sports matters. Including these strategies in language learning and teaching situation will help learners to understand how language is used in text analysis. In order to demonstrate how to analyse texts practically, these strategies are investigated through sports texts from Bona Magazine. This study demonstrates the importance of generic factors for a proper analysis of texts. These factors include the community in which the text is produced, cultural factors and the communicative purpose of a text. In exploring the generic features of texts, the definition of the term text is investigated, including all its characteristics, textlinguistic construction and levels of text analysis are also identified. This study demonstrates the importance of including the parameters of the ethnography of writing advanced by Grabe and Kaplan (1996) in the analysis of the linguistic structure of texts. The ethnography of writing entails that a thorough text analysis should address the following question: AWho writes what to whom for what purpose, why, when and hews. The study examines the importance of utilising text analysis in language learning and teaching. The study also demonstrates the relationship between the theoretical aspects examined and the learning outcomes of Curriculum 2005. The study thus demonstrates how the theoretical framework discusses is applicable in the analysis of Sepedi texts. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
3-Carboxymethyl-1,3-benzimidazolium-1-acetate monohydrate

The title compound, C11H10N2O4·H2O, has a zwitterionic structure, in which the benzimidazole ring system is planar, with a maximum deviation of 0.007 (3) Å. The carboxyl/carboxylate groups adopt a trans configuration. In the crystal structure, intermolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds involving the hydroxy/oxide O atoms link the molecules into a one-dimensional chain. These chains are further linked by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds involving the water molecules into a two-dimensional network. π–π contacts between the benzimidazole rings [centroid–centroid distance = 3.5716 (4) Å] lead to the formation of a three-dimensional supramolecular structure.
Identification of risk-related haplotypes with the use of multiple SNPs from nuclear families.

Family-based association studies offer robustness to population stratification and can provide insight into maternally mediated and parent-of-origin effects. Usually, such studies investigate multiple markers covering a gene or chromosomal region of interest. We propose a simple and general method to test the association of a disease trait with multiple, possibly linked SNP markers and, subsequently, to nominate a set of "risk-haplotype-tagging alleles. " Our test, the max_Zeta(2) test, uses only the genotypes of affected individuals and their parents without requiring the user to either know or assign haplotypes and their phases. It also accommodates sporadically missing SNP data. In the spirit of the pedigree disequilibrium test, our procedure requires only a vector of differences with expected value 0 under the null hypothesis. To enhance power against a range of alternatives when genotype data are complete, we also consider a method for combining multiple tests; here, we combine max_Zeta(2) and Hotelling's Gamma(2). To facilitate discovery of risk-related haplotypes, we develop a simple procedure for nominating risk-haplotype-tagging alleles. Our procedures can also be used to study maternally mediated genetic effects and to explore imprinting. We compare the statistical power of several competing testing procedures through simulation studies of case-parents triads, whose diplotypes are simulated on the basis of draws from the HapMap-based known haplotypes of four genes. In our simulations, the max_Zeta(2) test and the max_TDT (transmission/disequilibrium test) proposed by McIntyre et al. perform almost identically, but max_Zeta(2), unlike max_TDT, extends directly to the investigation of maternal effects. As an illustration, we reanalyze data from a previously reported orofacial cleft study, to now investigate both fetal and maternal effects of the IRF6 gene.
Partial unfolding and refolding for structure refinement: A unified approach of geometric simulations and molecular dynamics

The most successful protein structure prediction methods to date have been template‐based modeling (TBM) or homology modeling, which predicts protein structure based on experimental structures. These high accuracy predictions sometimes retain structural errors due to incorrect templates or a lack of accurate templates in the case of low sequence similarity, making these structures inadequate in drug‐design studies or molecular dynamics simulations. We have developed a new physics based approach to the protein refinement problem by mimicking the mechanism of chaperons that rehabilitate misfolded proteins. The template structure is unfolded by selectively (targeted) pulling on different portions of the protein using the geometric based technique FRODA, and then refolded using hierarchically restrained replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations (hr‐REMD). FRODA unfolding is used to create a diverse set of topologies for surveying near native‐like structures from a template and to provide a set of persistent contacts to be employed during re‐folding. We have tested our approach on 13 previous CASP targets and observed that this method of folding an ensemble of partially unfolded structures, through the hierarchical addition of contact restraints (that is, first local and then nonlocal interactions), leads to a refolding of the structure along with refinement in most cases (12/13). Although this approach yields refined models through advancement in sampling, the task of blind selection of the best refined models still needs to be solved. Overall, the method can be useful for improved sampling for low resolution models where certain of the portions of the structure are incorrectly modeled. Proteins 2015; 83:2279–2292. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease through population-wide motivational strategies: insights from using smartphones in stroke prevention

The fast increasing stroke burden across all countries of the world suggests that currently used primary stroke and cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention strategies are not sufficiently effective. In this article, we overview the gaps in, and pros and cons of, population-wide and high-risk prevention strategies. We suggest that motivating and empowering people to reduce their risk of having a stroke/CVD by using increasingly used smartphone technologies would bridge the gap in the population-wide and high-risk prevention strategies and reduce stroke/CVD burden worldwide. We emphasise that for primary stroke prevention to be effective, the focus should be shifted from high-risk prevention to prevention at any level of CVD risk, with the focus on behavioural risk factors. Such a motivational population-wide strategy could open a new page in primary prevention of not only stroke/CVD but also other non-communicable disorders worldwide.
Trade Liberalisation, the Balance of Payments and Growth in Latin America

The broad purpose of trade liberalisation is to raise the rate of growth of countries on a sustainable basis, consistent with the achievement of other macroeconomic objectives. In this paper we consider whether trade liberalisation in seventeen countries of Latin America has improved the trade-off between GDP growth and the trade balance, allowing the countries to grow faster without sacrificing foreign exchange. We find that in the aftermath of liberalisation, the majority of countries did grow faster, but at the expense of a deteriorating trade balance. Testing formally for the impact of trade liberalisation in a full model of trade balance determination, we find that only in Chile and Venezuela has the trade-off unequivocally improved. In other countries there has been a significant deterioration or no change. Nine out of the seventeen countries have grown faster post-liberalisation than pre-liberalisation but, except for Chile and Venezuela, at the expense of a wider trade or current account deficit.