Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Efficacy of Equine Assisted Group Counseling with At-Risk Children and Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of equine assisted group counseling as compared to in-school curriculum group guidance/counseling. Research examined externalizing, internalizing, maladaptive, and adaptive behaviors of elementary and middle school students who were considered at-risk of academic or social failure. Two types of behavior instruments, the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC)-Self-Rating, Parent-Rating, and Teacher-Rating Scales; and the Animal Assisted Therapy-Psychosocial Session Form (AAT-PSF), were used in a pretest-posttest comparison group quasi experimental design. Results of the paired sample t-test analysis of the BASC Self-Report indicated that the equine assisted counseling group showed statistically significant improvement in five behavior areas, and the in-school curriculum group guidance/counseling group showed statistically significant improvement in four areas, with only one behavior area the same as the equine assisted counseling group. Results of the paired sample t-test analysis of the BASC Parent-Report indicated that the equine assisted counseling group showed statistically significant improvement in twelve behavior areas, whereas the in-school curriculum group guidance/counseling showed statistically significant improvement in only one behavior area. Results of the paired sample t-test analysis of the BASC Teacher-Report indicated that the equine assisted counseling group showed no statistically significant improvement; however the in-school curriculum group guidance/counseling group showed statistically significant improvement in one area. An ANCOVA comparison of equine assisted counseling group verses in-school curriculum guidance/counseling group using the BASC Self, Parent, and Teacher-Reports indicated that the equine assisted counseling group showed statistically significant improvement in seven behavior areas that the in-school curriculum guidance/counseling group did not. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA of the AAT-PSF (equine assisted counseling group only) showed statistically significant improvement in all 3-scale scores: 1) overall total behaviors; 2) increased positive behaviors; and 3) decreased negative behaviors.
Phenotypic plasticity of invasive Spartina densiflora (Poaceae) along a broad latitudinal gradient on the Pacific Coast of North America.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Phenotypic acclimation of individual plants and genetic differentiation by natural selection within invasive populations are two potential mechanisms that may confer fitness advantages and allow plants to cope with environmental variation. The invasion of Spartina densiflora across a wide latitudinal gradient from California (USA) to British Columbia (Canada) provides a natural model system to study the potential mechanisms underlying the response of invasive populations to substantial variation in climate and other environmental variables. METHODS We examined morphological and physiological leaf traits of Spartina densiflora plants in populations from invaded estuarine sites across broad latitudinal and climate gradients along the Pacific west coast of North America and in favorable conditions in a common garden experiment. KEY RESULTS Our results show that key foliar traits varied widely among populations. Most foliar traits measured in the field were lower than would be expected under ideal growing conditions. Photosynthetic pigment concentrations at higher latitudes were lower than those observed at lower latitudes. Greater leaf rolling, reduced leaf lengths, and lower chlorophyll and higher carbon concentrations were observed with anoxic sediments. Lower chlorophyll to carotenoids ratios and reduced nitrogen concentrations were correlated with sediment salinity. Our results suggest that the variations of foliar traits recorded in the field are a plastic phenotypic response that was not sustained under common garden conditions. CONCLUSIONS SPARTINA DENSIFLORA shows wide differences in its foliar traits in response to environmental heterogeneity in salt marshes, which appears to be the result of phenotypic plasticity rather than genetic differentiation.
Evaluating and treating co-morbid pain and depression

Pain and depression are among the most pervasive conditions to confront a physician. In any given year, 10-15% of the adults in the US have some form of work disability owing to back pain alone and pain disorders are estimated to cost the American health economy over $100 billion annually in healthcare, workers' compensation and lost productivity (Osterweis et al., 1987). Depression is often overlooked or inadequately treated and causes refractoriness to pain treatment (Depression Guideline Panel, 1993). The problem of identifying depression in patients seeking pain treatment challenges all clinicians. Whether in primary care clinics, where chronic pain first presents, in traditional specialty offices where pain cases are frequently referred for unproductive and expensive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, or in pain clinics, which may be the patients' last hope, identifying depression must be a high priority. Although most pain disorders begin with injury or disease, their course, outcome and costs are affected by behavioral, social, and economic factors (Gallagher et al., 1989). A patient's emotional reaction to and capacity to cope with the fluctuating course of a chronic pain disorder and complications, such as physical impairment, disability and loss of role functioning, will also affect outcome and costs. Depression may result from poor outcome of the pain disorder, but depression also magnifies the negative effects of pain on social and occupational functioning, which worsens outcome (Wells et al., 1988). Early intervention, to help prevent the complications of chronic depression and its negative effects should be a priority of clinicians from all health care disciplines.
Relationship of 1-β-d-Arabinofuranosylcytosine in Plasma to 1-β-d-Arabinofuranosylcytosine 5′-Triphosphate Levels in Leukemic Cells during Treatment with High-Dose 1-β-d-Arabinofuranosylcytosine

The pharmacokinetic values of 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine (ara-C) in plasma and its active metabolite 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine 5′-triphosphate (ara-CTP) in circulating blast cells were studied in 11 patients with acute leukemia. ara-C was administered as a 2-h infusion (3 g/m2) followed in 12 to 24 h by a continuous infusion for 4 days in 10 patients and for 7 days in one. A steady-state concentration of ara-C in plasma (94 ± 32 µm) was reached by the end of the 2-h infusion. Its elimination was biphasic with an initial and terminal t v2 of 0.44 ± 0.10 h and 2.8 ± 0.9 h, respectively. The accumulation of ara-CTP in leukemic cells was linear and continued for up to 2 h after the bolus infusion. ara-CTP elimination was monophasic with a median t v2 of 3.4 h (range, 1.25 to 18.9 h). The disposition of ara-C and 1-β-d-arabinofuranosyluracil during continuous infusion was linear with dose rate over the dose range of 70 to 3000 mg/m2/day. The area under the concentration versus time curve for ara-CTP in leukemic cells was not related to the dose infused, but rather appeared to be intrinsic to the cells of each individual. As a general finding, the pharmacokinetic values of ara-CTP in circulating blasts were more heterogeneous than those of ara-C in plasma. There were marked differences in the absolute concentrations of ara-C in plasma and ara-CTP in leukemic cells at different times after the bolus infusion and also during continuous infusion. No correlation was evident between the determinants of ara-C pharmacokinetic values and those of ara-CTP. Thus, it is concluded that the pharmacokinetics of ara-C in plasma cannot predict for the metabolism of ara-CTP in leukemic cells.
Speaking Our Minds: What it's Like to Have Alzheimer's (rev. ed.), by Lisa Snyder

Speaking Our Minds is Lisa Snyder’s insightful accounts of seven interviews with individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The major focus of the book is to bring “the voices” of persons living with Alzheimer’s from behind the scenes to the forefront. Ms. Snyder successfully accomplishes this by allowing each individual to share, in his or her words, few ormany, his or her personal story. The descriptive narratives allow the reader to gradually see the human face that can often get lost in the symptoms of the disease. For example, the content of the interviews illustrates a diversity of backgrounds that often get overlooked such as issues for younger individuals and their families. In the foreword, Steven Sabat states,
Validation of FRAX® WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool with and without the Alara Metriscan Phalangeal Densitometer as a Screening Tool to Identify Osteoporosis in Thai Postmenopausal Women

Objective: To compare the performance of the WHO fracture risk assessment FRAX ฎ tool and Alara Metriscan for screening osteoporosis in elderly Thai women using spine and hip BMD measurement by DXA. Materials and Methods: This study included postmenopausal Thai women, aged between 50 and 90 years, who came to check for osteoporosis at Banpho Hospital. Those met at least one of the criteria for routine axial densitometry according to the Thai Osteoporosis Foundation (TOPF) were recruited. The correlation between the FRAX ฎ tool and Alara Metriscan, or FRAX ฎ tool combined with Alara Metriscan classification and the actual BMD-based classification (by DXA) are summarized. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed for FRAX ฎ tool and Alara Metriscan. Results: This study included 438 postmenopausal Thai women, of whom 122 (27.9%) had osteoporosis. The meanฑSD of age, body mass index were 66. 4ฑ10. 6 years, 23. 3ฑ. 3.5 kg/m 2 , respectively. The sensitivity of FRAX ฎ and Alara Metriscan to identify osteoporosis were high (83.6% and 96.7% respectively) but the specificity (72.1%) and PPV (53.6%) of FRAXฎ were better. However, there is no difference in the AUCs (SE) of FRAX ฎ (0.857(0.021)) and the AUCs (SE) of Alara metriscan (0.861(0.019)). The combination of FRAX ฎ and Alara Metriscan had lower sensitivity (81.9%) but high specificity (79.4%) to identify women with osteoporosis. When combined FRAX ฎ with Alara Metriscan the LR+ was 3.98 (95%CI :3.16-5.03) and LR- was 0.23 (95%CI:0.15-0.33). Conclusions : FRAX ฎ WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool and Alara Metriscan may be helpful to identify women at risk of osteoporosis. Combination of both tools were significantly improve the screening of osteoporosis in postmenopausal Thai women.
The SYNTAX trial: a perspective.

The introduction of coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) in 1968 resulted in a paradigm shift in the management of coronary artery disease. Subsequent randomized studies in patients with chronic stable angina established the superiority of CABG over medical therapy in patients with left main coronary artery disease and multivessel disease with left ventricular dysfunction, especially if the proximal left anterior descending artery was involved. The beneficial effect of CABG on the relief of angina was noted in all trials.1–3 In many respects, these trials are obsolete because medical therapy at that time was extremely limited, as were methods of secondary prevention. Nonetheless, the important message of these trials still applies—the greatest benefit of revascularization is among those subgroups at greater risk based on the severity of symptoms or ischemia, the presence of multivessel disease and left ventricular dysfunction, and the extent of myocardial jeopardy.4 The introduction of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty as a nonsurgical alternative in 1977 by Gruntzig5 dramatically altered the landscape. Although it is noteworthy that 2 of the first 5 coronary balloon dilations ever performed were in the left main, complications from acute vessel closure precluded the widespread use of multivessel percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty in patients with severe coronary disease. The demonstration that bare-metal stents markedly reduced such short-term complications6–8 and improved subsequent long-term outcome (primarily through a reduction in restenosis compared with balloon angioplasty alone) raised the possibility that percutaneous intervention may offer an appealing alternative to CABG in the management of patients with multivessel disease. This, in turn, spawned a new generation of well-conducted, albeit somewhat small, randomized trials. Nonetheless, the benefits of bare-metal stent and drug-eluting stents (DES) have been on the end points of restenosis and repeat target vessel revascularization and not on death or myocardial infarction (MI). …
A Shared Control Policy for Center-Out Movement Decoding in Motor Brain-Machine Interface

Abstract Brain-Machine Interface provides a new way to control the peripheral devices directly using signals from brain. However, because of the uncertainty and instability of brain signals, the decoding method cannot fulfill the demand of accurate control of the intended movement. We proposed a shared control policy to involve environmental information into the decoding process of brain signals. While the monkey manipulated the joystick in a center-out task, the trajectory was updated with a control signal that derived from current decoded kinematic information considering the potential targets. Our results showed that using the proposed method combined with the decoding process, the correlation coefficient between the predicted trajectory and the true signals increased by 17.4% in average. It indicated the control policy involved the environmental information could greatly improve the performance of motor brain machine interfaces in practice.
A re-evaluation of the genus Myceliophthora (Sordariales, Ascomycota): its segregation into four genera and description of Corynascus fumimontanus sp. nov.

Based on a number of isolates of Myceliophthora (Chaetomiaceae, Sordariales, Ascomycota) recently isolated from soil samples collected in USA, the taxonomy of the genus was re-evaluated through phylogenetic analyses of sequences from the nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacer region and genes for the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II and translation elongation factor 1α. Members of Myceliophthora were split into four monophyletic clades strongly supported by molecular and phenotypic data. Such clades correspond with Myceliophthora, now restricted only to the type species of the genus Corynascus, which is re-established with five species, the new monotypic genus Crassicarpon and also the new genus Thermothelomyces (comprising four species). Myceliophthora lutea is mesophilic and a permanently asexual morph compared to the members of the other three mentioned genera, which also are able to sexually reproduce morphs with experimentally proven links to their asexual morphs. The asexual morph of M. lutea is characterized by broadly ellipsoidal, smooth-walled conidia with a wide, truncate base. Crassicarpon thermophilum is thermophilic and heterothallic and produces spherical to cuneiform, smooth-walled conidia and cleistothecial ascomata of smooth-walled, angular cells and ascospores with a germ pore at each end. Corynascus spp. are homothallic and mesophilic and produce spherical, mostly ornamented conidia and cleistothecial ascomata with textura epidermoidea composed of ornamented wall cells, and ascospores with one germ pore at each end. Thermothelomyces spp. are thermophilic, heterothallic and characterized by similar ascomata and conidia as Corynascus spp. , but its ascospores exhibit only a single germ pore. A dichotomous key to distinguish Myceliophthora from the other mentioned genera are provided, as well as dichotomous keys to identify the species of Corynascus and Thermothelomyces. A new species, namely Corynascus fumimontanus, characterized by verrucose ascomatal wall cells and irregularly shaped ascospores, is described and illustrated.
The building blocks of experience: an early framework for interaction designers

Design activity has recently attempted to embrace designing the user experience. Designers need to demystify how we design for user experience and how the products we design achieve specific user experience goals. This paper proposes an initial framework for understanding experience as it relates to user-product interactions. We propose a system for talking about experience, and look at what influences experience and qualities of experience. The framework is presented as a tool to understand what kinds of experiences products evoke.
The Prevalence of Cryptosporidium Infection Among Renal Transplanted Patients in Hamadan City, West of Iran

Background: Opportunistic infections have become much more considerable in the last decades, especially in immunocompromised patients and due to the medical interventions. Cryptosporidium is a pathogenic protozoan parasite causing diarrhea in children and some times acts as a life threatening opportunistic pathogen in the immunocompromised adults. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the presence of Cryptosporidium infection among patients undergone renal transplantation, who are at risk for this infection. Patients and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study and the sample collection consisted of 180 renal transplanted patients referred to Shaheed-Beheshti Hospital, Hamadan city, Iran. The stool specimens were concentrated using formalin-ether technique and then the fecal smears were prepared from the sediments. Afterwards, the slides were stained using the Ziehl-Neelsen staining method and then examined for the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts. Results: One out of 180 fecal samples was positive for Cryptosporidium infection. The infected patient was a 51-year-old woman who had a renal transplantation six years earlier, with continuous use of CellCept® (mycophenolate mofetil) and prednisolone. The patient had been referred to the hospital with gastrointestinal symptoms. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study the prevalence of cryptosporidiosis was very low in renal transplanted patients in Hamadan city, Iran. It could be concluded that cryptosporidiosis is not a life threatening risk in this region and it probably showed well post-transplantation hygienic status of the patients and/or low oocysts load in the area.
Correlation between Surface Electromyography and Kinematics of the Hindlimb of Horses at Trot on a Treadmill

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of surface electromyography in the horse and to correlate electromyographic activity with kinematic data. Surface electromyography of seven hindlimb muscles was recorded in five horses at trot on a treadmill. Simultaneously, kinematic analysis of the hindlimb was performed using a three-dimensional system and a unidirectional accelerometer was attached to the hoof. Electromyographic activities of the gluteus medius, vastus lateralis and two parts of the biceps femoris started in the late part of the swing phase and ended in the late period of the stance phase or the early period of the next swing phase. The semitendinosus showed two bursts of activity. The tensor fasciae latae acted when the previous muscles were inactive. Activity of the extensor digitorum longus was of low level but lasted during most of the step cycle. Correlation between electromyography, kinematics and anatomy helps us to understand the complex role of biarticular muscles: the tensor fasciae latae flexes the hip joint during the swing phase and extends the stifle joint during the stance phase, whereas the semitendinosus extends the hip joint during the stance phase and flexes the stifle joint during the swing phase. Cranial and caudal regions of the biceps femoris were also found to be bifunctional. Surface electromyography correlated with kinematic analysis gives valuable information about the functions and the timing of activity of the hindlimb muscles.
The Relationship Between Job Characteristics and Work-Family Conflict Among Married Women Employed in Clinical Wards of Shiraz University- Affiliated Hospitals

Background: Work and life have the greatest and strongest bond with an individual and the society. Their balance has a high value. If the relationship between work and life is not managed, the conflict between these two will result in irreparable damage to individuals, organizations and communities. Objectives: The main objective of the current study is to investigate the relationship between job characteristics and work-family conflict among married women employed in clinical wards of Shiraz University-affiliated hospitals. Patients and Methods: The study population included 180 married women who work in clinical wards of four university-affiliated hospitals in Shiraz. We used the improved Leiden Quality of Work Life Questionnaire by Van der Doef and colleagues and the work-family conflict questionnaire by Kelloway and colleagues to measure participants' responses. One-way ANOVA and Pearson linear correlation coefficient were used for data analyses. Results: There was a negative relation between job characteristics and work-family conflict. Respondents experienced higher levels of work-to-family conflict than family-to-work conflict. There were significant negative relations between skill variety, task autonomy, task significance, job security, social support of colleagues and supervisors with work-family conflict and positive significant relations between time, work pressure and hazardous exposure with work-family conflict. Conclusions: work-family conflict of employed women could be reduced by rearranging job characteristics and conditions. Job resources such as social support should be strengthened and job demands should be adjusted commensurate with the physical and mental capabilities of staff.
MYC protein expression and genetic alterations have prognostic impact in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with immunochemotherapy

MYC alterations influence the survival of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Most studies have focused on MYC translocations but there is little information regarding the impact of numerical alterations and protein expression. We analyzed the genetic alterations and protein expression of MYC, BCL2, BCL6, and MALT1 in 219 cases of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. MYC rearrangement occurred as the sole abnormality (MYC single-hit) in 3% of cases, MYC and concurrent BCL2 and/or BCL6 rearrangements (MYC double/triple-hit) in 4%, MYC amplifications in 2% and MYC gains in 19%. MYC single-hit, MYC double/triple-hit and MYC amplifications, but not MYC gains or other gene rearrangements, were associated with unfavorable progression-free survival and overall survival. MYC protein expression, evaluated using computerized image analysis, captured the unfavorable prognosis of MYC translocations/amplifications and identified an additional subset of patients without gene alterations but with similar poor prognosis. Patients with tumors expressing both MYC/BCL2 had the worst prognosis, whereas those with double-negative tumors had the best outcome. High MYC expression was associated with shorter overall survival irrespectively of the International Prognostic Index and BCL2 expression. In conclusion, MYC protein expression identifies a subset of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with very poor prognosis independently of gene alterations and other prognostic parameters.