Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status for Hearing Impaired Individuals (RBANS-H) before and after Cochlear Implantation: A Protocol for a Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort Study

Background: Currently, an independent relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline in older adults is suggested by large prospective studies. In general, cochlear implants improve hearing and the quality of life in severely to profoundly hearing impaired older persons. However, little is known about the effects of cochlear implantation on the cognitive evolution in this population. Aim of the study: The primary goal of this prospective, longitudinal cohort study is to explore the cognitive profile of severely to profoundly postlingually hearing impaired subjects before and after cochlear implantation. In addition, the current study aims to investigate the relationship between the cognitive function, audiometric performances, quality of life, and self-reliance in these patients. Methods: Twenty-five patients aged 55 or older, scheduled for cochlear implantation, will be enrolled in the study. They will be examined prior to implantation, at 6 and 12 months after implantation and annually thereafter. The test battery consists of (1) a cognitive examination, using the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status adapted for Hearing impaired persons (RBANS-H), (2) an audiological examination, including unaided and aided pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry in quiet and speech audiometry in noise, (3) the administration of four questionnaires evaluating quality of life and subjective hearing benefit and (4) a semi-structured interview about the self-reliance of the participant. Discussion: Up until now only one study has been conducted on this topic, focusing on the short-term effects of cochlear implantation on cognition in older adults. The present study is the first study to apply a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment adapted for severely to profoundly hearing impaired subjects in order to investigate the cognitive capabilities before and after cochlear implantation. Trial registration: The present protocol is retrospectively registered at Clinical Trials (ClinicalTrials.gov) on June 9th, 2016. The first participant was enrolled on June 22nd, 2015. The protocol identifier is NCT02794350.
Positive Psychology

Positive psychology has figured itself as no less than a revolutionary reorientation of psychology, one that makes individual `flourishing' the primary object of study and intervention. There are clear comparisons to be made between this movement and earlier ones that have embraced both individualism and an ethos of adjustment, such as the popular mind cures of the late 19th century and the influential mental hygiene movement of the early 20th century. We argue for a focus beyond the individual in isolation, a perspective that takes in the totality of the social environment and an ethical stance that values social engagement and activism. We further call for more nuanced conceptions of happiness, virtue, and strengths, as well as for more socially informed theorizing about human flourishing. Finally, we suggest that positive psychology, with its growing assortment of applied uses, serves to address the acute market pressures facing clinical psychologists today.
Optimal Power Allocation for Decode-and-Forward Cooperative Diversity Under an Outage Performance Constraint

In this work, we study the problem of optimal power allocation for decode-and-forward cooperative communications. From the perspective of service quality, rather than minimize the outage probability as much as possible, our goal is to use the minimum power to maintain the outage performance below a specific threshold and thereby conserve the power/energy resource. We investigate two scenarios, a system with diversity and a system without diversity, and propose efficient schemes for finding the optimal power allocation under an outage performance constraint.
Out in the midday Sun: Risk behaviour and optimistic beliefs among residents and visitors on tenerife

Abstract A questionnaire was distributed to 107 local residents on a beach on the island of Tenerife and to 108 visitors from Britain and continental Europe. Measures included perceived danger of sun exposure. environmental concern. value of a suntan, optimism regarding personal risk of skin damage relative to others of one's age and gender, amount of midday sun exposure, sunscreen use and skin type. Use of sunscreen protection was greatly below recommended levels, though higher for women (N = 103). Among visitors, the British (N = 54) showed the riskiest behaviour. Relationship between behaviour. beliefs and background variables varied between groups. Overall there was a significant optimistic bias. This was stronger for the British, and for men. The relationships between optimism and other measures varied between the different national groups. In particular, among the British. greater optimism was associated with placing a higher value on a suntan, with having a more sensitive skin type, with using less.
Peroxynitrite Toxicity in Escherichia coli K12 Elicits Expression of Oxidative Stress Responses and Protein Nitration and Nitrosylation*

Peroxynitrite is formed in macrophages by the diffusion-limited reaction of superoxide and nitric oxide. This highly reactive species is thought to contribute to bacterial killing by interaction with diverse targets and nitration of protein tyrosines. This work presents for the first time a comprehensive analysis of transcriptional responses to peroxynitrite under tightly controlled chemostat growth conditions. Up-regulation of the cysteine biosynthesis pathway and an increase in S-nitrosothiol levels suggest S-nitrosylation to be a consequence of peroxynitrite exposure. Genes involved in the assembly/repair of iron-sulfur clusters also show enhanced transcription. Unexpectedly, arginine biosynthesis gene transcription levels were also elevated after treatment with peroxynitrite. Analysis of the negative regulator for these genes, ArgR, showed that post-translational nitration of tyrosine residues within this protein is responsible for its degradation in vitro. Further up-regulation was seen in oxidative stress response genes, including katG and ahpCF. However, genes known to be up-regulated by nitric oxide and nitrosating agents (e.g. hmp and norVW) were unaffected. Probabilistic modeling of the transcriptomic data identified five altered transcription factors in response to peroxynitrite exposure, including OxyR and ArgR. Hydrogen peroxide can be present as a contaminant in commercially available peroxynitrite preparations. Transcriptomic analysis of cells treated with hydrogen peroxide alone also revealed up-regulation of oxidative stress response genes but not of many other genes that are up-regulated by peroxynitrite. Thus, the cellular responses to peroxynitrite and hydrogen peroxide are distinct.
Teriparatide in the management of osteoporosis

Fracture of the hip is frequently a catastrophic event in the elderly, often resulting in death within a year and of the survivors, few regain pre-fracture quality of life. Although less appreciated, fractures of the spine result in significant morbidity and are also associated with increased mortality compared with individuals without a fracture. In recent years there has been an explosion in the development of new drugs for the treatment of osteoporosis. Recombinant human parathyroid hormone (1–34) (20 μg/day) is a recent addition to this armamentarium with a novel mechanism of action, which was approved by the US FDA for the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis and male osteoporosis secondary to hypogonadism in November 2002. It is the first osteoporosis treatment that leads to the formation of new bone with architecture similar to normal bone. Intense efforts have been made to understand the effect of teriparatide on antiresorptive therapy and vice versa. Although these relationships are not completely understood, the results of recent studies allow clinicians to begin to optimize therapeutic gains in bone mineral density and improve anti-fracture efficacy.
BP-LED Decoding Algorithm for LDPC Codes Over AWGN Channels

A new method is presented for low-complexity near-maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes over the additive white Gaussian noise channel. The proposed method termed belief-propagation–list erasure decoding (BP-LED) is based on erasing carefully chosen unreliable bits performed in case of BP decoding failure. A strategy of introducing erasures into the received vector and a new erasure decoding algorithm are proposed. The new erasure decoding algorithm, called list erasure decoding, combines ML decoding over the BEC with list decoding applied if the ML decoder fails to find a unique solution. The asymptotic exponent of the average list size for random regular LDPC codes from the Gallager ensemble is analyzed. Furthermore, a few examples of irregular quasi-cyclic LDPC as well as randomly constructed regular LDPC codes of short and moderate lengths are studied by simulations and their performance is compared to the tightened upper bound on the LDPC ensemble-average performance and the upper bound on the average performance of random linear codes under ML decoding. A comparison of the BP decoding and BP-LED performance of the WiMAX standard codes and performance of the near-ML BEAST decoding are presented. The new algorithm is applied to decoding a short nonbinary (NB) LDPC code over extensions of the binary Galois field. The obtained simulation results are compared to the tightened upper bound on the ensemble-average performance of the binary image of regular NB LDPC codes.
Small genets of Lactarius xanthogalactus, Russula cremoricolor and Amanita francheti in late‐stage ectomycorrhizal successions

We determined the size of genets of late‐stage ectomycorrhizal fungi in field sites in coastal Northern California. Basidiocarps were collected, mapped and subjected to genetic fingerprinting using amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs). The minimum size estimates for the largest genets of Amanita francheti, Lactarius xanthogalactus and Russula cremoricolor were 1.5, 9.3 and 1.1 m2, respectively. The molecular markers also showed that R. cremoricolor is dimorphic, with red‐ and white‐capped morphotypes of this species forming a continuous population. Our results suggest that spore propagation plays a much more important role in the life history of the Russulaceae in undisturbed forest settings than previously recognized. Fungi appearing late in the succession sequence and systems without obvious disturbance therefore do not necessarily colonize primarily by mycelium.
Explaining effervescence: Investigating the relationship between shared social identity and positive experience in crowds

We investigated the intensely positive emotional experiences arising from participation in a large-scale collective event. We predicted such experiences arise when those attending a collective event are (1) able to enact their valued collective identity and (2) experience close relations with other participants. In turn, we predicted both of these to be more likely when participants perceived crowd members to share a common collective identity. We investigated these predictions in a survey of pilgrims (N = 416) attending a month-long Hindu pilgrimage festival in north India. We found participants' perceptions of a shared identity amongst crowd members had an indirect effect on their positive experience at the event through (1) increasing participants' sense that they were able to enact their collective identity and (2) increasing the sense of intimacy with other crowd members. We discuss the implications of these data for how crowd emotion should be conceptualised.
Motivation, Interest, and Attention: Re-defining learning in the Autism Spectrum?

How do people with autism learn? Despite the simplicity with which this question is posed, the answer is far from simple. In The Passionate Mind: How People with Autism Learn, Wendy Lawson presents readers with various cognitive theories of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Throughout the book, Lawson makes reference to the medical and social models of disability, urging readers to consider disability from a social rather than a medical or deficit-driven perspective. Each chapter also contains comic-like illustrations as well as poems related to the chapter’s focus. Written by an individual with autism spectrum disorder, The Passionate Mind is an intriguing and thought-provoking book. This review consists of an overview and discussion of some of the recurring themes of the book.
Appendectomy in the surgical treatment of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas - is it necessary?

OBJECTIVES To determine if appendectomy as an adjunctive procedure is necessary in the surgical treatment of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective analysis of clinical data: in a research hospital, obstetrics and gynecology depart-ment setting, 63 cases of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas confirmed in the pathological evaluation were revised. 59 had the complete clinical, final pathological and follow-up data available and were included. RESULTS 20.6% (13/59) went through an appendectomy. Basic characteristics of patients with different appendiceal pathologies did not show any significant differences. In the study group the mean age, parity, adnexial mass size were (40.1 ± 12.4); (1.3 ± 1.1) and (9.1 ± 5.3 cm), respectively. Patients were either operated laparoscopically (20), laparotomically (39) to perform a unilateral salpingoopherectomy/cystectomy. In 7 patients, oopherectomy was an additional procedure with: 2 abdominal hysterectomies, 4 cesarean sections and 1 total laparoscopic hysterectomy. 2 synchronous appendiceal pathologies (mucinous cystadenomas of the appendix) were defined in appendectomies performed. In these cases, the ovarian tumour sizes were: 7 cm and 4 cm. CONCLUSIONS In the presence of a benign or borderline unilateral ovarian mucinous tumour as defined during the operation and especially if it is larger than 10-12 cm and with normal peritoneal and appendiceal gross morphology, appendectomy is not a necessary adjunctive procedure.
Using Graphic Organizers to Access the General Curriculum at the Secondary Level

Federal law requires that students with disabilities have access to the general curriculum. Specifically, students with disabilities must have access to, be involved in, and make progress in the same standards-based curriculum that students without disabilities receive. Intense demands of secondary settings as well as learning challenges present barriers for successful access for adolescents with learning disabilities (LD). Secondary teachers can use graphic organizers to minimize the barriers and increase the success of adolescents with LD. This article provides an introduction to the barriers experienced by adolescents, an overview of graphic organizers, and suggestions for use with adolescents with LD in secondary classroom settings.
Bounded Context Parsing and Easy Learnability

Natural languages are often assumed to be constrained so that they are either easily learnable or parsable, but few studies have investigated the connection between these two "functional" demands. Without a formal model of parsability or learnability, it is difficult to determine which is more "dominant" in fixing the properties of natural languages. In this paper we show that if we adopt one precise model of "easy" parsability, namely, that of bounded context parsability, and a precise model of "easy" learnability, namely, that of degree 2 learnability, then we can show that certain families of grammars that meet the bounded context parsability condition will also be degree 2 learnable. Some implications of this result for learning in other subsystems of linguistic knowledge are suggested.1
Improving dynamic binary optimization through early-exit guided code region formation

Most dynamic binary translators (DBT) and optimizers (DBO) target binary traces, i.e. frequently executed paths, as code regions to be translated and optimized. Code region formation is the most important first step in all DBTs and DBOs. The quality of the dynamically formed code regions determines the extent and the types of optimization opportunities that can be exposed to DBTs and DBOs, and thus, determines the ultimate quality of the final optimized code. The Next-Executing-Tail (NET) trace formation method used in HP Dynamo is an early example of such techniques. Many existing trace formation schemes are variants of NET. They work very well for most binary traces, but they also suffer a major problem: the formed traces may contain a large number of early exits that could be branched out during the execution. If this happens frequently, the program execution will spend more time in the slow binary interpreter or in the unoptimized code regions than in the optimized traces in code cache. The benefit of the trace optimization is thus lost. Traces/regions with frequently taken early-exits are called delinquent traces/regions. Our empirical study shows that at least 8 of the 12 SPEC CPU2006 integer benchmarks have delinquent traces. In this paper, we propose a light-weight region formation technique called Early-Exit Guided Region Formation (EEG) to improve the quality of the formed traces/regions. It iteratively identifies and merges delinquent regions into larger code regions. We have implemented our EEG algorithm in two LLVM-based multi-threaded DBTs targeting ARM and IA32 instruction set architecture (ISA), respectively. Using SPEC CPU2006 benchmark suite with reference inputs, our results show that compared to an NET-variant currently used in QEMU, a state-of-the-art retargetable DBT, EEG can achieve a significant performance improvement of up to 72% (27% on average), and to 49% (23% on average) for IA32 and ARM, respectively.
Primate facial gestures: A study of communication

Abstract Research on Gibraltar macaques, (Mcacaca sylvanus) using film as a recording tool led to discoveries of new insights into the structure of the communication system, and the realization that social organization is cogently reflected in communication patterns. This study recorded 14 previously unrecognized components of macaque threat gestures, led to the realization that mouth components contribute most of the variability to gestures, while non‐mouth components provide the constant aspects, and indicated the surprising result that KIN connections are more consistently demarcated than differences in AGE and SEX. Both the techniques of research and the approach of utilizing detailed observations could provide Linguists with a mechanism for unlocking some of the communicative information present in human nonverbal modalities, without relying on unsupported intuition.
Optimal Distributed Generator Allocation Method Considering Voltage Control Cost

Up till now, the high penetration of intermittent distributed generation (DG) has posed great challenges to the planning and operation of the grid. To achieve the best balance between economic cost and acceptable capacity of DG, this paper proposes a new integrated planning method of the active distribution network while considering voltage control cost. Firstly, characteristics of decentralized and centralized voltage control methods were analyzed. The technical frameworks, voltage control strategies and economical models of different voltage control systems were put forward. Then, an integrated planning model with objectives to minimize the comprehensive cost and maximize clean energy utilization under the constraint of maintaining acceptable voltage was implemented. Simulations were conducted using the Multi-objective Differential Evolution Algorithm (MODE). IEEE 33-bus test systems were employed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to connect larger distributed generators and decrease the economic cost of Distribution Network Operators while maintaining voltage within the statutory limits.
Contemporary apprenticeship: international perspectives on an evolving model of learning

In their Introduction, the editors set out the way in which the themes this raises are clustered in the remaining 14 chapters. They identify three main thematic strands in the form of questions: ‘Is apprenticeship still a viable model for skill formation in industrialised countries? Can the concept of apprenticeship be stretched too far? And how is apprenticeship as a model of learning being refreshed? ’ (5). The remaining chapters – all of which are authored by leading international experts – tackle Canada, the USA, Australia and a number of individual European and African countries. Except for one chapter on the USA, each of the chapters in this 275-page book has previously been published in a comprehensive special issue of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training (JVET). Space constraints make it impossible to review each individual chapter, so the inclusion of authors here in no way signals a judgement on the quality of the chapters that have been omitted from this review. The first six chapters are devoted to the first strand, setting out impressively how apprenticeships are an important – if not the central – instrument for vocational skill formation. While there is sometimes considerable variety in the form apprenticeships take, the concept of learning from practice is the key aspect in all cases. Canada and the USA are covered in addition to the better known country-based models from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Alison Taylor and Sheryl Freeman, for example, consider the significance of apprenticeships in the Canadian context from the participants’ perspective (87–104). Their qualitative study shows clearly that hands-on learning and socialisation at work are key elements in training. Robert Lerman (105–124) paints an interesting portrait of apprenticeships in the USA. Against the backdrop of an existing skills mismatch, partly determined by the strong focus on academic training, there is a major shortage of workers at the intermediate skill level in the USA (116). It is, therefore, surprising that the USA has traditionally paid little attention to the apprenticeship model. Lerman sees society’s general unfamiliarity with it as a problem:
A New Upper Limit on the Large Angular Scale Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) is an invaluable probe of the conditions of the early universe. Recent measurements of its spatial anisotropy have allowed accurate determinations of several fundamental cosmological parameters, such as the curvature of the universe, the shape of the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations, and the contribution of baryons, dark matter, and dark energy to the overall energy density of the universe. In addition to being spatially non-uniform, the CMB is theorized to be slightly polarized. Measurements of this polarization, particularly at large angular scales, have the potential to provide information on primordial gravitational waves, theories of inflation, and the ionization history of the universe, as well as help further constrain cosmological parameters. Polarization has not yet been detected in the CMB. This thesis describes a recent search for CMB polarization at large angular scales, conducted in the spring of 2000 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a general introduction on both CMB polarization and general microwave polarimetry, details of the experiment itself are given, as well as a full description of the data selection and analysis techniques. Using these techniques, our data lead to a new upper limit on CMB polarization at large angular scales of 10 μK in both Eand B-type polarization at 95% confidence. If B-polarization is assumed to be zero, the limit for E-type polarization is lowered to 8 μK. This experiment is the first of a new breed of highly-sensitive instruments that will one day map out this interesting property of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.