Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of a meta-cognitive strategy to improve the information gained from a stroke information pack

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of a meta-cognitive strategy for processing information about stroke. Three groups of subjects who had recently suffered a stroke received either no information, an information booklet or an information booklet with instructions to monitor comprehension. Subjects receiving an information pack coupled with the meta-cognitive strategy recalled significantly more information than the other groups. There were not differences on subjective measures such as consumer satisfaction.
Liquid-solid transition in nuclei of protein crystals

It is generally assumed that crystallization begins with a small, crystalline nucleus. For proteins this paradigm may not be valid. Our numerical simulations show that under conditions typically used to produce protein crystals, small clusters of model proteins (particles with short-range, attractive interactions) cannot maintain a crystalline structure. Protein crystal nucleation is therefore an indirect, two-step process. A nucleus first forms and grows as a disordered, liquid-like aggregate. Once the aggregate grows beyond a critical size (about a few hundred particles) crystal nucleation becomes possible.
The Number of Direct Repeats in hagA Is Variable among Porphyromonas gingivalis Strains

ABSTRACT The coding sequence for the surface protein hemagglutinin A (HagA) of Porphyromonas gingivalis 381 has previously been shown to contain four direct 1.35-kb repeats, designatedrepHA. This study was performed to determine if the number of repHA units in hagAis consistently 4 or if allelic polymorphism exists among strains and/or upon multiple passage of P. gingivalis. To this end, primers which were homologous to the regions directly 5′ and 3′ of the repeat domain in hagA were synthesized. PCR conditions which allowed amplification of the 8.4-kb repeat region between the primers in P. gingivalis 381 were established. Genomic DNA templates from 13 other P. gingivalis strains and 9 fresh clinical isolates from patients were analyzed under the same conditions as used above. Analysis of these PCR products demonstrated that the strains tested had different numbers (two to four) ofrepHA units in the respective hagAgenes. The PCR products of 8.4, 7.0, and 5.7 kb represent four, three, and two repeats, respectively. One strain from each group (381, four repeats; W83, three repeats; and AJW4, two repeats) was also tested to determine if the number of repeats remained invariant upon passaging onto solid medium. No variability in the number of repeats inhagA within a strain was detected after 18 passages.P. gingivalis 381 was chosen for further testing in a mouse abscess model to determine if conditions of in vivo growth would select for deletions or duplications of the repeated sequences. Five days after infection, no change in the number of repeats was detected in cells recovered from either nonimmunized or preimmunized mice. This data indicates an interstrain variability of the number of repeat units and hence a size variability of the HagA protein of P. gingivalis, but unlike some surface antigens of other pathogenic species, the number of repeats remains relatively stable given the conditions of growth tested here.
Sequence determinants of amyloid fibril formation

The establishment of rules that link sequence and amyloid feature is critical for our understanding of misfolding diseases. To this end, we have performed a saturation mutagenesis analysis on the de novo-designed amyloid peptide STVIIE (1). The positional scanning mutagenesis has revealed that there is a position dependence on mutation of amyloid fibril formation and that both very tolerant and restrictive positions to mutation can be found within an amyloid sequence. In this system, mutations that accelerate β-sheet polymerization do not always lead to an increase of amyloid products. On the contrary, abundant fibrils are typically found for mutants that polymerize slowly. From these experiments, we have extracted a sequence pattern to identify amyloidogenic stretches in proteins. The pattern has been validated experimentally. In silico sequence scanning of amyloid proteins also supports the pattern. Analysis of protein databases has shown that highly amyloidogenic sequences matching the pattern are less frequent in proteins than innocuous amino acid combinations and that, if present, they are surrounded by amino acids that disrupt their aggregating capability (amyloid breakers). This study provides the potential for a proteome-wide scanning to detect fibril-forming regions in proteins, from which molecules can be designed to prevent and/or disrupt this process.
Assistance in Maintaining a Positive Self-image in People with Dementia

Dementia is a disrupting disease, most of all for those suffering from it. In essence, the disease increasingly dismantles the patient as an autonomously acting and thinking person. People with dementia continue being aware of their deterioration to varying degrees during the course of their disease. Feelings of loss of control, uncertainty, fear and grief are experienced, permanently threatening their well-being. In these difficult circumstances, maintaining a positive self-image can contribute to an optimal quality of life. Up until now little research has been done on the effectiveness of interventions that could contribute to maintaining a positive self-image. The authors will systematically discuss a number of possible interventions by means of real-life case histories. They will make recommendations for further research.
The effects of an occupationally embedded exercise on bilaterally assisted supination in persons with hemiplegia.

OBJECTIVES Occupationally embedded exercise is a central idea in the profession of occupational therapy. This experiment compared the effect of an occupationally embedded exercise involving a simple dice game with a rote exercise in persons with stroke with pronator spasticity. Both exercise conditions involved bilaterally assisted supination, consistent with the neurodevelopmental model of practice. METHODS The sample consisted of 14 men and 12 women post-cerebrovascular accident with a mean age of 68.4 years (SD = 11.2) at six clinical sites in California, Texas, and Michigan. Subjects had pronator spasticity, full passive range for supination after a brief warm-up, and no functional supination. After random assignment for experimental condition, the subjects engaged in two sets of 10 repetitions of bilaterally assisted supination in either the occupationally embedded condition (dice game) or the rote condition (no game). A pen recorder electronically documented degrees of rotation of the handle that was grasped during the exercise. RESULTS The occupationally embedded exercise resulted in significantly more handle rotation (requiring more supination) than the rote exercise, t (24) = 2.28, p (one tailed) < . 05. The effect size was large. CONCLUSION This study advances the experimental analysis of therapeutic occupation in the area of occupationally embedded exercise. Clinicians are urged to consider the multidimensional nature of occupationally embedded exercise.
CC Health Care Management Discussion Paper 72-2013 HOW DOES SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING EVOLVE WITH AGE ? A LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical research in several disciplines on the relation between ageing and subjective well-being, i.e., how subjective well-being evolves across the lifespan. Because of the different methodologies, data sets and samples used, comparison among disciplines and studies is difficult. However, extant studies do show either a U-shaped, inverted U-shaped or linear relation between ageing and subjective well-being.
Active Exploration Planning for SLAM using Extended Information Filters

It is well-known that the Kalman filter for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) converges to a fully-correlated map in the limit of infinite time and data [3]. However, if the exploration trajectory accumulates new information about the world slowly, then convergence of the map can be slow. By making use of the recent development of constant-time SLAM algorithms, we show how information gain for a single step can be computed in constant time. We describe the concept of an “information surface”, which represents at each point in the environment the total potential information gain that results from a complete trajectory to that point. We demonstrate an algorithm for finding this surface that leads to an efficient, global planning algorithm for exploration that is linear in the number of states to be explored in the world and the length of the trajectory.
Leading to Decide or Deciding to Lead? Understanding the Relationship Between Teacher Leadership and Decision Making

This article, first, examines how Egyptian teachers and senior teachers (formal leaders) define leadership and whether the length of their teaching experience has an effect on their views. Second, it explores their perspectives on the relationship between teacher leadership and decision making. The research sample is a mixed group of 20 Egyptian teachers of English language, three of them are senior teachers. The length of their teaching experience varies from 2 to 13 years. The findings show that the group defines teacher leadership in terms of characteristics of leaders; styles of leadership and what teacher leaders do both inside and outside classroom. Almost all of them see a link between leadership and decision making. In general, length of experience does not seem to have a major impact on their views. This is a key finding because it raises questions about the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) selection of teachers for leadership responsibilities, which is based on the length of their teaching experience. The implications of these findings are examined in relation to the proposal of the MoE for decentralizing education in Egypt.
University Students' Smartphone Addiction Propensities according to Self-efficacy and Leisure-related Variables

Recently, in our society, the use of smartphones has been widespread and changed our lives positively; however, the excessive use of smartphones has also produced many side effects. In particular, we can see that the reckless use of smartphones has constantly increased smartphone addiction propensities. University students, too, show smartphone addiction propensities more and more gradually; therefore this study intends to perform research related with smartphone addiction propensities with university students as the subjects. Since it is more and more important to perform leisure activities to prevent smartphone addiction and reduce addiction propensities, it can be said that the research on the correlation between leisure activities and smartphone addiction propensities is significant. The major findings of the research are as follows: First, among the smartphone addiction propensities, their tolerance and disturbance of adaptive function were relatively higher than other factors. Second, overall smartphone addiction affects the variables of gender (male), school year (freshmen), economic leisure constraints, time leisure constraints, and the adequacy of travel behavior, sports behavior, media use behavior, reading behavior, volunteer work and religious behavior. The adequacy of the media use behavior variables showed the greatest impact.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Functional Reorganisation in Chronic Pain and Neural Correlates of Pain Sensitisation: a Coordinate Based Meta-analysis of 266 Cutaneous Pain Fmri Studies

Keywords: Chronic pain fMRI Coordinate based meta-analysis Hyperalgesia Neural pain signature a b s t r a c t Maladaptive mechanisms of pain processing in chronic pain conditions (CP) are poorly understood. We used coordinate based meta-analysis of 266 fMRI pain studies to study functional brain reorganisation in CP and experimental models of hyperalgesia. The pattern of nociceptive brain activation was similar in CP, hyperalgesia and normalgesia in controls. However, elevated likelihood of activation was detected in the left putamen, left frontal gyrus and right insula in CP comparing stimuli of the most painful vs. other site. Meta-analysis of contrast maps showed no difference between CP, controls, mood conditions. In contrast, experimental hyperalgesia induced stronger activation in the bilateral insula, left cingulate and right frontal gyrus. Activation likelihood maps support a shared neural pain signature of cutaneous nociception in CP and controls. We also present a double dissociation between neural correlates of transient and persistent pain sensitisation with general increased activation intensity but unchanged pattern in experimental hyperalgesia and, by contrast, focally increased activation likelihood, but unchanged intensity, in CP when stimulated at the most painful body part.
Effects of Message Valence, Communicator Credibility, and Source Anonymity on Reactions to Peer Feedback

Abstract Three possible determinants of subordinates' intended performance and affective reactions to simulated peer feedback received via superiors in an American context were examined. Valence of feedback, credibility of supervisor, and anonymity or identity of peer sources of feedback were manipulated in a 2 × 2 × 2 design. Subjects responded to two scenarios depicting a superior relating peer feedback to a subordinate. The results indicated that feedback valence had a strong effect on both dependent measures. Contrary to expectations, neither supervisor credibility nor anonymity of source interacted significantly with valence. Credibility and anonymity did significantly interact with each other when male and female subjects were separately analyzed.
Asymptotics of RNA Shapes

RNA shapes, introduced by Giegerich et al. (2004), provide a useful classification of the branching complexity for RNA secondary structures. In this paper, we derive an exact value for the asymptotic number of RNA shapes, by relying on an elegant relation between non-ambiguous, context-free grammars, and generating functions. Our results provide a theoretical upper bound on the length of RNA sequences amenable to probabilistic shape analysis (Steffen et al., 2006; Voss et al., 2006), under the assumption that any base can basepair with any other base. Since the relation between context-free grammars and asymptotic enumeration is simple, yet not well-known in bioinformatics, we give a self-contained presentation with illustrative examples. Additionally, we prove a surprising 1-to-1 correspondence between pi-shapes and Motzkin numbers.
Visitor Loyalty at a Private South Carolina Protected Area

Visitor loyalty is necessary to generate a virtuous cycle of people—park symbiosis, but knowledge about loyalty expectations is insufficient. A survey of 300 repeat visitors to South Carolina’s Francis Beidler Forest, a private protected area, yielded a hierarchical pattern of loyalties, with positive overall place identity attitudes and positive intentions on site referrals, future visits, and engagement in advocacy. However, also evident were ambivalent place dependency attitudes, ambivalent intentions about donating and paying higher entry fees, and unwillingness to volunteer. Cluster analysis yielded exclusive loyalists (23%) preferring Beidler above other sites, nonexclusive loyalists (31%) not preferring the site, referral and repeat loyalists (33%), and ambivalent loyalists (13%) displaying low levels of loyalty uniformly. Attribute satisfaction levels were very high across clusters. Income, education, residency, and birding skill level all significantly differentiated the clusters. Implications for the marketing and product development of such sites are considered.
Prediction in Economic Networks: Using the Implicit Gestalt in Product Graphs

We define an economic network as a linked set of products, where links are created by realizations of shared outcomes between entities. We analyze the predictive information contained in an increasingly prevalent type of economic network, a “product network” that links the landing pages of goods frequently co-purchased on e-commerce websites. Our data include one million books in 400 categories spanning two years, with over 70 million observations. Using autoregressive and neural-network models, we demonstrate that combining historical demand of a product with that of its neighbors improves demand predictions even as the network changes over time. Furthermore, network properties such as clustering and centrality contribute significantly to predictive accuracy. To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale study showing that a non-static product network contains useful distributed information for demand prediction, and that this information is more effectively exploited by integrating composite structural network properties into one’s predictive models.
Association of Serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae with Age in Invasive Pneumococcal Disease

ABSTRACT A total of 7,764 isolates from patients with invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) were collected from 1992 to June 2006. Data on serotypes were available for 5,022 isolates (64.7% of all invasive isolates). Some 54.0% of the isolates originated from adults ≥16 years of age, and 46.0% were from children <16 years of age. The leading serotypes were 14, 23F, 1, 6B, 7F, 3, and 4. The serotypes significantly more common in children were 14, 6B, 19F, and 18C, while among adults, serotypes 3 and 4 were predominant. Serotype 7F was statistically more prevalent among children <4 months old than among the other age groups. Among children aged ≥4 months and <1 year, serotype 19F occurred statistically more frequently; and among children aged ≥1 year to <5 years, serotypes 14, 6B, and 18C were overrepresented. The serotypes predominantly affecting patients younger than the remaining collective of patients were 14, 6B, 19F, and 18C, while patients with IPD caused by serotypes 3, 4, and 9V were older than the collective, on average.
Molecular hyperdiversity defines populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis brenneri

The biology of Sydney Brenner’s eponymous species of nematode, Caenorhabditis brenneri, is little known to science, despite its famous sibling Caenorhabditis elegans. Here we demonstrate that C. brenneri harbors the most molecular diversity of any eukaryote, with its 14.1% of polymorphic synonymous sites between individuals being 150-fold greater than humans and most comparable to hyperdiverse bacteria. This diversity is not an artifact of cryptic species divergence but reflects an enormous pan-tropical population, confirmed by fully viable genetic crosses between continents, extensive intralocus recombination, selection on codon use, and only weak geographic genetic structure. These findings in an animal galvanize tests of theory about the evolution of complexity in genomes and phenotypes and enable molecular population genetics methods to finely resolve uncharacterized functional noncoding elements.
A virus from epidemic vomiting disease.

I do not share their pessimism with regard to staffing since I feel that a multidisciplinary approach to sexual matters will appeal to a new generation of doctors, particularly if abortion services were part and parcel of a unified family planning service with the problems of contraception, sterilization, and sexual difficulties well represented. The problems are complex but since there is public demand, it is our duty to give carefully thought-out advice. If a new specialty is needed should the medical profession demur; has there ever been a time that a new challenge has been ignored successfully? -I am, etc.,
Country size and publicly provided goods

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in small countries have greater influence over the nature of political decision making while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more public goods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists excessive incentives to separate, though this need not be the case for all sets of secession rules studied; (ii) an exogenous increase in public spending decreases country size; (iii) countries with a presidential-congressional democracy are larger than countries with a parliamentary democracy.
Low cost ZVS PFC driver for power LEDs

This paper presents a low cost converter for driving power light emitting diodes (LEDs). The converter is a series-resonant half-bridge with reduced DC-link capacitor which increases the conduction angle of the bridge rectifier and the power factor. It also allows the elimination of electrolytic capacitors, making the converter suitable for long life applications. Due to the resonant operation, there is no need for a current sensor to stabilize the average current through the LED string and it operates with zero-voltage-switching clamped-voltage (ZVS-CV). The simplification of the control design, and of the converter, reduces the component count and the cost. Analytical results are verified by laboratory experiment.
Combined Use of Hexamethonium Bromide and Procaine Amide in Controlled Hypotension

explain all our cases of seminal reflux except the case in which a return of ejaculatory power occurred after a sixmonths interval. This patient had noticed a post-coital cloudiness of the urine at first-a sign common to the other cases which showed reflux-although there was no actual emission. Later, with the return of emission, the cloudiness had become less obvious. A further point of extreme interest was the fact that he believed the return of seminal emission coincided with a much more virile erection. He was one of the few patients who thought he had not been quite normal in this respect after operation. This case raises the point of production of urethral obstruction by erection. Apart from the narrowing produced by the erect corpus spongiosum, it is obvious that if the erectile verumontanum enlarges proportionately it would help to block the posterior urethra. This would account for the well-known difficulty of micturition in full erection, and is beautifully illustrated, for example, by a case reported by INTERNAL SPHINCTER Swift Joly (1929). (T I G H T) T h i s unfortunate
Conflict: Toward Conceptual Clarity.

The mainstream of organizational literature is generally ambiguous in delineating the concept of conflict. This paper distinguishes conflict from competition in the intraorganizational context and presents a behavioral conceptualization of the process of conflict. It is proposed that goal incompatibility, perceived opportunity for interference, and interdependent activities among organizational subunits increase the potential for conflict. This conceptual scheme is then applied to a situation involving city government officials engaged in bargaining with a city employee union. '
Nonlinear coupling control laws for an underactuated overhead crane system

In this paper, we consider the regulation control problem for an underactuated overhead crane system. Motivated by recent passivity-based controllers for underactuated systems, we design several controllers that asymptotically regulate the planar gantry position and the payload angle. Specifically, utilizing LaSalle's invariant set theorem, we first illustrate how a simple proportional-derivative (PD) controller can be utilized to asymptotically regulate the overhead crane system. Motivated by the desire to achieve improved transient performance, we then present two nonlinear controllers that increase the coupling between the planar gantry position and the payload angle. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the improved performance of the nonlinear controllers over the simple PD controller.