Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Cross-Sectional View of Fear of Death and Dying Among Skydivers

The literature lacks a consistent pattern on the relationship between attitudes toward death and dying across occupations and recreational pursuits. The present cross-sectional study categorized a group of individuals engaging in a high-risk recreational activity (i.e., skydivers) on the basis of experience and classified them into student, intermediate, and experts. There were more negative attitudes of death and dying among student skydivers compared with more experienced skydivers. It was also found that expert skydivers had more negative attitudes toward death and dying on some of the measures compared with the intermediate level experienced skydivers. It may be the case that factors such as perceived personal control, overconfidence, and metacognition may be related to these observed differences between the two more experienced groups of skydivers. The possibility of the factors playing a role in skydivers’ attitudes toward death and dying should be taken into consideration in the training programs for skydiving.
Modelling molecular iodine emissions in a coastal marine environment: The link to new particle formation

A model of iodine chemistry in the marine boundary layer (MBL) has been used to investigate the impact of daytime coastal emissions of molecular iodine (I 2 ). The model contains a full treatment of gas-phase iodine chemistry, combined with a description of the nucleation and growth, by condensation and coagulation, of iodine oxide nano-particles. In-situ measurements of coastal emissions of I 2 made by the broadband cavity ring-down spectroscopy (BBCRDS) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP/MS) techniques are presented and compared to long path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) observations of I 2 at Mace Head, Ireland. Simultaneous measurements of enhanced I 2 emissions and particle bursts show that I 2 is almost certainly the main precursor of new particles at this coastal location. The ratio of IO to I 2 predicted by the model indicates that the iodine species observed by the DOAS are concentrated over a short distance (about 8% of the 4.2 km light path) consistent with the intertidal zone, bringing them into good agreement with the I 2 measurements made by the two in-situ techniques. The model is then used to investigate the effect of iodine emission on ozone depletion, and the production of new particles and their evolution to form stable cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).
Mixing Time of Random Walk on Poisson Geometry Small World

This article focuses on the problem of modeling for small world effect on complex networks. Let’s consider the supercritical Poisson continuous percolation on d-dimensional torus Tdn with volume nd. By adding “long edges (short cuts)” randomly to the largest percolation cluster, we obtain a random graph . In the present study, we first prove that the diameter of grows, at most, polynomially fast in , and we call it the Poisson Geometry Small World. Second, we prove that the random walk on possesses the rapid mixing property, that is, the random walk mixes in time, at most, polynomially large in .
Attending to the Body Action and Self-Experience in the Active Inference Framework

Endogenous attention is crucial and beneficial for learning, selecting, and supervising actions. However, deliberately attending to action execution usually comes with costs like decreased smoothness and slower performance; it may severely impair normal functioning and, in the worst case, result in pathological behavior and self-experience. These ambiguous modulatory effects of attention to action have been examined on phenomenological, computational, and implementational levels of description. The active inference framework offers a novel and potentially unifying view on these aspects, proposing that actions are enabled by attentional modulation based on expected precision of prediction errors in a brain’s hierarchical generative model. The implications of active inference fit well with empirical results, they resonate well with ideomotor action theories, and they also tentatively reflect many insights from phenomenological analysis of the “lived body”. A particular strength of active inference is its hierarchical account of motor control in terms of adaptive behavior driven by the imperative to maintain the organism’s states within unsurprising boundaries. Phenomena ranging from movement production by spinal reflex arcs to intentional, goal-directed action and the experience of oneself as an embodied agent are thus proposed to rely on the same mechanisms operating universally throughout the brain’s hierarchical generative model. However, while the explanation of movement production and sensory attenuation in terms of low-level attentional modulation is quite elegant on the active inference view, there are some questions left open by its extension to higher levels of action control—particularly about the accompanying phenomenology. I suggest that conceptual guidance from recent accounts of phenomenal selfand world-modeling may help refine the active inference framework, leading to a better understanding of the predictive nature of embodied agentive self-experience. Keywords
An Analysis on the Acute Effects of Blood Lactate Level and the Exercises Performed with Different Loading-Intensity on the Performance of Hand-Eye Coordination

Abstract The purpose of this research is to investigate the acute effects of the exercises performed at the intensity of seventy percent and ninety percent on the performance of hand-eye coordination, and to examine the relationship between blood lactate level and the performance of hand-eye coordination. Twenty-one male athletes participated in this paper voluntarily. In the analysis of the data, Paired T- test and Pearson’s Correlation Test were used. As the result of the statistical analyses, a significant difference was found between the exercises performed at the intensity of seventy percent and ninety percent during the turning and placement tests (p<0.05). A significant positive relationship was found between the blood lactate level measured after the exercise performed at the intensity of ninety percent and the hand-eye coordination (turning test) measured 20 seconds after the measurement of lactate level (p<0.05). Consequently; it can be stated that the performance of hand-eye coordination during the exercises with high intensity was affected in a negative way with the increase in lactate; thus, such points should be taken into consideration while planning the training programs.
Improvement in quality of life after nasal surgery alone for patients with obstructive sleep apnea and nasal obstruction.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of nasal surgery alone on quality of life (QOL) in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and nasal obstruction using generic and disease-specific QOL questionnaires. DESIGN Prospective, longitudinal cohort study. PATIENTS Fifty-one consecutive patients with obstructive sleep apnea (50 men and 1 woman; mean age, 39 years; mean [SD] apnea-hypopnea index, 37.4 [28.9] events/h; and mean +/- SD body mass index [calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 26.0 [3.5]) with symptoms of nasal obstruction due to a deviated nasal septum. INTERVENTION Septomeatoplasty. OUTCOME MEASURES Surgical outcomes were measured using the Snore Outcomes Survey, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) 3 months after surgery. We compared baseline and postoperative scores. Normative SF-36 data obtained from 4591 age- and sex-matched adults were used as references. RESULTS Nasal obstruction symptoms significantly improved (mean [SD] visual analog scale score, -5.2 [1.4]; P < .001). Assessments also showed significant improvement in the Snore Outcomes Survey (P < .001) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (P < .001) scores and 6 of the 8 SF-36 subscale scores (P < .05). Remarkable improvements were observed in disease-specific Snore Outcomes Survey (by 43.1%), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (by 27.3%), and generic SF-36 role-emotional (by 30.4%) and role-physical (by 20.7%) QOL subscales. The postoperative role-emotional, bodily pain, and social function dimensions of health were indistinguishable from referential population data (P > .05). CONCLUSIONS Correction of an obstructed nasal airway significantly improves disease-specific and generic QOL in adult patients with obstructive sleep apnea who also have nasal obstruction symptoms. After nasal surgery, patients may experience greater improvement in snoring and daytime sleepiness than in other generic health status. Our findings substantiate the role of nasal surgery in treating patients with obstructive sleep apnea and nasal obstruction.
Legitimacy versus Morality: Why Do the Chinese Obey the Law?

This study explored two aspects of the rule of law in China: (1) motivations for compliance with 4 groups of everyday laws and regulations and (2) determinants of the legitimacy of legal authorities. We applied a structural equations model, constructed from Tyler’s conceptual process-based self-regulation model with morality added as a motivation, to online questionnaire responses from 1,000 Shanghai drivers. We explored the compliance with four particular groups of laws: public disturbance; conventional traffic laws; illegal downloading; and distracted driving. The results were threefold. First, for all four groups of laws, the perceived morality influenced compliance consistently and more strongly than the perceived legitimacy of the authorities and all other motivations. The influence of perceived legitimacy of authorities was inconsistent across the four groups of laws tested. Second, the influence of perceived severity of punishment was consistent and significant across all four groups of laws, whereas perceived risk of apprehension had no significant impact on compliance. Third, evaluations of procedural fairness, not those concerning the equitable distribution of law enforcement services and effectiveness of law enforcement, were most strongly linked to legitimacy. In addition to showing that China is a law-abiding society governed by morality, these results underscore the importance of examining morality and magnitude of punishment as potential motivations for compliance in addition to legitimacy and certainty of punishment. They also illustrate the necessity to examine different groups of laws separately when studying compliance. Finally, these results challenge the linkage between legitimacy and compliance previously established in the literature.
Non-Invasive Detection of Alzheimer's Disease-Multifractality of Emotional Speech

Speech emotion recognition has become crucial in the field of human computer interaction for important applications like early detection of Alzheimer's Disease- (hereafter AD). The aim of the present paper is to introduce a new feature for emotion detection from speech using the Multi Fractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MFDFA) method. We propose a quantitative parameter for categorizing various emotions by analyzing the non-stationary details of the dynamics of speech signal, generated out of differing emotions. The observed contrast in this parameter on Angry and Sad emotion can be used for diagnosis of AD. It will be a positive step towards early detection of AD using speech analysis.
Myocarditis in Childhood: An Update on Etiology, Diagnosis and Management

Myocarditis is the term used to describe acute or chronic inflammation of the myocardium. For two decades, there has been increasing confrontations concerning the diagnosis, management and clinical outcome of the myocarditis. The cause of myocarditis frequently remains unknown. However, infections, systemic diseases, toxins and drugs have been reported being associated with inflammation of the myocardium (Kearney et al., 2001 & Mahrholdt H et al, 2006). The majority of cases are supposed to be due to infectious agents and it was recognized that any infectious agents could initiate myocarditis (Brodison & Swann, 2001). In North America and Europe, viral infection is the most common causes of myocarditis (Magnani & Dec, 2006). The true overall incidence of myocarditis remain obscure due to inconsistency of its definition and clinical manifestation in the paediatric population. Post-mortem study from Sweden reported incidence of myocarditis to be 1.06 % in 12.747 consecutive autopsies (Gravanis & Sternby, 1991). Since the clinical presentation of myocarditis is so variable, high index of suspicion is essential. Patients are asymptomatic and diagnosis is incidental in the majority of cases. The spectrum of disease ranges from nonspecific findings (chest pain, fever, myalgia, atrial or ventricular tachycardia) to acute heart failure and sudden death. Myocarditis as a cause of sudden death has been reported in up to 12% of young adults (Doolan et al., 2004). However, population based study from Finland (Kyto et al, 2007) documented that the incidence of fatal myocarditis (1.59 per 100000) was highest in infants under one year of age and incidence was lowest in young adults (5-24 years, 0.12-0.17/100000). Recently, Weber et al have also suggested that myocarditis is an infrequent, corresponding to approximately 2% of paediatric deaths (Weber et al., 2008). Previous researches (Felker et al, 1999 & Lipshultz et al, 2003) strongly suggested that acute myocarditis may proceed to dilated cardiomyopathy. Diagnostic evaluation of a series of 1.278 patients (mean age: 50 years, range 15-87 years) with cardiomyopathy revealed that 9.8% of cases was diagnosed with myocarditis (Felker et al, 1999). In a paediatric study assessing the incidence of cardiomyopathy, viral myocarditis was found to be responsible for 27% of cases with dilated cardiomyopathy (Lipshultz et al, 2003). Moreover, in a prospective cohort study (Towbin et al, 2006), it has been shown that most common known cause of dilated cardiomyopathy is myocarditis (46%). Several mechanisms were postulated for progression of myocarditis to dilated cardiomyopathy, including direct viral injury,
A Fingerprinting Approach to Compute Blood Volume , Vessel Diameter and Blood Oxygenation Maps in the Human Brain

Introduction: In vivo, the MR signal contains various information about the vascular network such as blood volume fraction, blood vessels geometry, and blood oxygenation. All these parameters are important biomarkers for studying angiogenesis or hypoxic processes in cancer or stroke. Quantitative BOLD approaches [1] have tried to extract blood oxygen and blood volume information by analyzing the formation of the spin echo (SE) signal using a mathematical model. While the results were encouraging, recent studies [2] have shown that the use of an analytical model was inadequate due to the complex influence of the water diffusion process. In the present study, we used a fingerprinting approach to analyze the time evolution of the FID and SE (Fig.1). The MR signal evolution was sampled voxelwise with a Gradient Echo Sampling of the FID and SE (GESFIDE) sequence (Fig.1c). Because other parameters such as B0 inhomogeneities and T2 also influence the signal evolution in vivo, we used in this work the ratio between GESFIDE signal pre and post injection of an iron based contrast agent (Feraheme, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Cambridge, MA) as a fingerprint. We then simulated the same experiment with an advanced numerical tool and varied the parameters inputs to obtain a dictionary of curves (Fig.1a b). Fingerprint and dictionary were finally compared with a least square minimization approach.
A functional approach to the Facebook Like button: An exploration of meaning, interpersonal functionality, and potential alternative response buttons

This study employed a functional approach to conceptualize the Facebook Like button as a social cue that allows users to convey various meanings while enacting multiple interpersonal functions. Participants reported on their general reasons for using the Facebook Like button, as well as their most recent actual uses. Results discussed the following: the general predictors of Liking frequency, the specific meanings that participants sought to express by clicking Like (i.e. relational-based and content-based), the larger interpersonal functions that participants hoped to accomplish (i.e. relational facilitation, self-presentation, and metacommunication), the associations between intended meaning and interpersonal functionality, and finally, the additional response buttons that participants wish Facebook offered (e.g. Dislike, Sympathy, Congratulations, Agree, Disagree, Interesting, Funny, Love, and Got It).
Locomotion with flexible propulsors: I. Experimental analysis of pectoral fin swimming in sunfish

A full understanding of the mechanics of locomotion can be achieved by incorporating descriptions of (1) three-dimensional kinematics of propulsor movement, (2) material properties of the propulsor, (3) power input and control and (4) the fluid dynamics effects of propulsor motion into (5) a three-dimensional computational framework that models the complexity of propulsors that deform and change area. In addition, robotic models would allow for further experimental investigation of changes to propulsor design and for testing of hypothesized relationships between movement and force production. Such a comprehensive suite of data is not yet available for any flexible propulsor. In this paper, we summarize our research program with the goal of producing a comprehensive data set for each of the five components noted above through a study of pectoral fin locomotion in one species of fish: the bluegill sunfish Lepomis macrochirus. Many fish use pectoral fins exclusively for locomotion, and pectoral fins in most fish are integral to generating force during maneuvering. Pectoral fins are complex structures composed of jointed bony supports that are under active control via pectoral fin musculature. During propulsion in sunfish, the fin deforms considerably, has two leading edges, and sunfish can rotate the whole fin or just control individual sections to vector thrust. Fin material properties vary along the length of fin rays and among rays. Experimental fluid dynamic analysis of sunfish pectoral fin locomotion reveals that the fin generates thrust throughout the fin beat cycle, and that the upper and lower edges each produce distinct simultaneous leading edge vortices. The following companion paper provides data on the computational approach taken to understand locomotion using flexible pectoral fins.
Comparison of mental health screening tools for detecting antenatal depression and anxiety disorders in South African women

Background Antenatal depression and anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in low and middle-income countries. Screening of pregnant women in primary care antenatal settings provides an opportunity for entry to care, but data are needed on the performance of different screening tools. We compared five widely-used questionnaires in a sample of pregnant women in urban South Africa. Method Pregnant women attending a primary care antenatal clinic were administered five tools by trained research assistants: the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Kessler Psychological Distress scale (K10) and a shortened 6-item version (K6), the Whooley questions and the two-item Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-2). Following this, a registered mental health counsellor administered the MINI Plus, a structured clinical diagnostic interview. The Area Under the Curve (AUC) from Receiver Operator Characteristic curve analysis was used to summarise screening test performance and Cronbach’s α used to assess internal consistency. Results Of 376 participants, 32% were diagnosed with either MDE and/or anxiety disorders. All five questionnaires demonstrated moderate to high performance (AUC = 0.78–0.85). The EPDS was the best performing instrument for detecting MDE and the K10 and K6 for anxiety disorder. For MDE and/or anxiety disorders, the EPDS had the highest AUC (0.83). Of the short instruments, the K10 (AUC = 0.85) and the K6 (AUC = 0.85) performed the best, with the K6 showing good balance between sensitivity (74%) and specificity (85%) and a good positive predictive value (70%). The Whooley questions (AUC = 0.81) were the best performing ultra-short instrument. Internal consistency ranged from good to acceptable (α = 0.89–0.71). However, the PPV of the questionnaires compared with the diagnostic interview, ranged from 54% to 71% at the optimal cut-off scores. Conclusions Universal screening for case identification of antenatal depression and anxiety disorders in low-resource settings can be conducted with a number of commonly used screening instruments. Short and ultra-short screening instruments such as the K6 and the Whooley questions may be feasible and acceptable for use in these settings.
Innovative Collagen Nano‐Hydroxyapatite Scaffolds Offer a Highly Efficient Non‐Viral Gene Delivery Platform for Stem Cell‐Mediated Bone Formation

The ability of nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) particles developed in-house to act as non-viral delivery vectors is assessed. These nHA particles are combined with collagen to yield bioactive, biodegradable collagen nano-hydroxyapatite (coll-nHA) scaffolds. Their ability to act as gene-activated matrices for BMP2 delivery is demonstrated with successful transfection of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) resulting in high calcium production.
When logics of party politics and online activism collide: The populist Finns Party’s identity under negotiation

This article portrays the relationship of populist parties, far-right online action and journalistic media by analysing the consequences of a Finnish populist party mobilizing resources created in an online community of anti-immigration activists. How have the traditionally centre-left-populist Finns Party’s attempts of utilizing the far-right-leaning online network Hommaforum contributed to the mediated negotiation over the party’s identity? The study analyses discursive exchanges between Finnish political journalists, the party leader Timo Soini and Hommaforum activists pertaining to the party’s affiliation with racism and extremism during 2008–2015. As a case study, the article discusses the implications of online action diffusing into institutionalized politics and the public sphere. The study suggests that due to the inherent publicness, connective nature and political smearing-applicability of controversial online action, the mobilization of online resources forces traditional organizations to use considerable communicative resources to compensate for the loss of centralized control over communicating party identity.