Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The responses of staff towards people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities who engage in aggressive behaviour : a cognitive emotional analysis : & research portfolio

Research suggests -that the behaviour of staff towards people with intellectual disabilities who engage in challenging behaviour can play a significant role in the development and maintenance of such behaviour. As a consequence there has been a steady growth in literature which seeks to identify the factors which influence the responses taff make to challenging behaviour. Studies to date have been carried out from a behavioural, and more recently a cognitive behavioural perspective. Significant advances in developing models of staff behaviour have been achieved; in particular the beliefs held by staff, and the emotional impact of challenging behaviour, have been identified as important sources of influence. Existing research has focused on the immediate interpersonal context surrounding challenging behaviours. However, it is suggested that there has been a tendency to overlook the individual who engages in the behaviour, and their relationship with staff. As such, this paper aims to critically review the existing literature, and suggests how such research might be further developed.
[Efficacy of the therapeutic community model in the treatment of drug use-related problems: a systematic review].

OBJECTIVE To summarize the scientific evidence about the efficacy of therapeutic communities (TC) to reduce substance use and related problems among people with substance use disorders. METHODS This systematic review builds from the work performed by Smith et al. (2006). We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scielo, and LILACS for randomized trials that compare a TC with no treatment, a different type of treatment or another type of TC published from March 2004 to May 2011. RESULTS 5 publications from 4 randomized trials were identified. All the studies had serious methodological limitations according to the CONSORT. The heterogeneity among studies did not allow for metaanalytic analysis to calculate pooled estimates. The primary analysis showed that, in prison, certain models of TC might be marginally superior to other types of treatments regarding levels of alcohol use, days in prison and re-incarceration rates. Also, evidence from a community setting (i.e., not in-prison) suggests that a community-based TC is not superior to an outpatient treatment model regarding levels of substance use, crime and unemployment at the 12-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS In general, there is no evidence to support superiority of TC over other more accessible and less costly types of treatment for drug use. However, in a prison context, TC might be of more benefit than other types of treatment. More research with solid experimental methodology is needed to add to the still weak body of evidence that supports the use of TC over other more affordable types of treatment for drug use disorders.
Vitamin B12 absorption in some neurological and neuroendocrine disorders

An assessment of vitamin B12 absorption in neurological patients has been made by both serum and urine counting of 57Co cyanocobalamin during the conventional Schilling test. Although patients with pernicious anaemia, some with subacute combined degeneration of the cord, have been studied, emphasis in the discussion is placed on the significantly increased excretion of the radioactive vitamin in a group of patients with pituitary insufficiency. Results are also given for epileptic patients who have developed folate deficiency (as assessed by serum folate levels) coincidental with anticonvulsant therapy, as well as for some patients who have had neurological symptoms or signs following partial gastrectomy operations.
Distribution of the serotonin 2C (5HT2C) receptor gene −759C/T polymorphism in patients with schizophrenia and normal controls

Background In patients with schizophrenia, the percentage of patients with diabetes has been found to be twice that of the normal population. The risk factors for this higher rate are unknown, although dietary, lifestyle, and genetic factors have all been suggested. Recently, a polymorphism (–759C/T) in the serotonin 2C (5HT2C) receptor promoter region has been associated with the development of diabetes in a normal control population, with the frequency of the T allele being higher in subjects without diabetes. Aim To determine whether the distribution of the –759C/T polymorphism of the 5HT2C receptor is different among patients with schizophrenia and normal controls. Methods DNA from 100 patients with schizophrenia and 81 normal controls were analyzed for the 5HT2C receptor –759C/T polymorphism to determine its allelic frequencies in these two groups. Results Using a chi-squared analysis, no statistical differences in the distribution of C alleles and T alleles were found between the two groups (P=0.2931). Conclusions Patients with schizophrenia have a higher risk for developing diabetes than the general population. We did not find a higher distribution of the –759 T allele of the 5HT2C receptor in normal controls compared with in patients with schizophrenia. This suggests the higher prevalence of diabetes in schizophrenia is not due to this polymorphism.
Towards unbiased bacterial community analysis in lower respiratory infections 1 2

The NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. 20 the NCBI, under the study accession number SRA051980. Abstract 25 High-throughput pyrosequencing and quantitative PCR analysis offer greatly improved accuracy and 26 depth of characterisation of lower respiratory infections. However, such approaches suffer from an inability to 27 distinguish between DNA derived from viable and non-viable bacteria. This discrimination represents an 28 important step in characterising microbial communities, particularly in contexts with poor clearance of 29 material or high antimicrobial stress, as non-viable bacteria and extracellular DNA can contribute significantly 30 to analyses. Pre-treatment of samples with propidium monoazide (PMA) is an effective approach to non-31 viable cell exclusion (NVCE). However, the impact of NVCE on microbial community characteristics 32 (abundance, diversity, composition and structure) is not known. Here, we use adult cystic fibrosis (CF) 33 sputum samples as a paradigm. The effects of PMA treatment on CF sputum bacterial community 34 characteristics, as analysed by pyrosequencing and enumeration by species-specific (Pseudomonas 35 aeruginosa) and total bacterial Q-PCR, were assessed. At the local community level, abundances of both 36 total bacteria and of P. aeruginosa were significantly lower in PMA treated sample portions. Meta-analysis 37 indicated no overall significant differences in diversity; however, PMA treatment resulted in a significant 38 alteration in local community membership in all cases. In contrast, at the metacommunity level, PMA 39 treatment resulted in an increase in community evenness, driven by an increase in diversity, predominately
Equivalent disruption of regional white matter microstructure in ageing healthy men and women

Diffusion tensor imaging was used to measure regional differences in brain white matter microstructure (intravoxel coherence) and macrostructure (intervoxel coherence) and age-related differences between men and women. Neuropsychiatrically healthy men and women, spanning the adult age range, showed the same pattern of variation in regional white matter coherence. The greatest coherence measured was in corpus callosum, where commissural fibers have one primary orientation, lower in the centrum semiovale, where fibers cross from multiple axes, and lowest in pericallosal areas, where fibers weave and interstitial fluid commonly pools. Age-related declines in intravoxel coherence was equally strong and strikingly similar in men and women, with evidence for greater age-dependent deterioration in frontal than parietal regions. Degree of regional white matter coherence correlated with gait, balance, and interhemispheric transfer test scores.
Measuring place-based accessibility under travel time uncertainty

ABSTRACT Travel time uncertainty has significant impacts on individual activity-travel scheduling, but at present these impacts have not been considered in most accessibility studies. In this paper, an accessibility evaluation framework is proposed for urban areas with uncertain travel times. A reliable space-time service region (RSTR) model is introduced to represent the space-time service region of a facility under travel time uncertainty. Based on the RSTR model, four reliable place-based accessibility measures are proposed to evaluate accessibility to urban services by incorporating the effects of travel time reliability. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework, a case study using large-scale taxi tracking data is carried out. The results of the case study indicate that the proposed accessibility measures can evaluate large-scale place-based accessibility well in urban areas with uncertain travel times. Conventional place-based accessibility indicators ignoring travel time reliability can significantly overestimate the accessibility to urban services.
Control over band structure and tunneling in bilayer graphene induced by velocity engineering

The band structure and transport properties of massive Dirac fermions in bilayer graphene with velocity modulation in space are investigated in the presence of a previously created band gap. It is pointed out that velocity engineering may be considered as a factor to control the band gap of symmetry-broken bilayer graphene. The band gap is direct and independent of velocity value if the velocity modulated in two layers is set up equally. Otherwise, in the case of interlayer asymmetric velocity, not only is the band gap indirect, but also the electron–hole symmetry fails. This band gap is controllable by the ratio of the velocity modulated in the upper layer to the velocity modulated in the lower layer. In more detail, the shift of momentum from the conduction band edge to the valence band edge can be engineered by the gate bias and velocity ratio. A transfer matrix method is also elaborated to calculate the four-band coherent conductance through a velocity barrier possibly subjected to a gate bias. Electronic transport depends on the ratio of velocity modulated inside the barrier to that for surrounding regions. As a result, a quantum version of total internal reflection is observed for thick enough velocity barriers. Moreover, a transport gap originating from the applied gate bias is engineered by modulating the velocities of the carriers in the upper and lower layers.
High Frequency Buck Converter Design Using Time-Based Control Techniques

Time-based control techniques for the design of high switching frequency buck converters are presented. Using time as the processing variable, the proposed controller operates with CMOS-level digital-like signals but without adding any quantization error. A ring oscillator is used as an integrator in place of conventional opamp-RC or G m-C integrators while a delay line is used to perform voltage to time conversion and to sum time signals. A simple flip-flop generates pulse-width modulated signal from the time-based output of the controller. Hence time-based control eliminates the need for wide bandwidth error amplifier, pulse-width modulator (PWM) in analog controllers or high resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital PWM in digital controllers. As a result, it can be implemented in small area and with minimal power. Fabricated in a 180 nm CMOS process, the prototype buck converter occupies an active area of 0.24 mm2, of which the controller occupies only 0.0375 mm2. It operates over a wide range of switching frequencies (10-25 MHz) and regulates output to any desired voltage in the range of 0.6 V to 1.5 V with 1.8 V input voltage. With a 500 mA step in the load current, the settling time is less than 3.5 μs and the measured reference tracking bandwidth is about 1 MHz. Better than 94% peak efficiency is achieved while consuming a quiescent current of only 2 μA/MHz.
A Comparison of Social Cognitive and Psychosocial Predictors of Alcohol Use by College Students

The relative contributions of social cognitive (alcohol-related outcome expectancies, alcohol-related self-efficacy, norms) and psychosocial factors towards predicting self-reported alcohol consumption were assessed in a sample of 206 college students. Social cognitive variables accounted for 76% of the variance in self-reported alcohol use, suggesting that alcohol use may be a reasoned decision by college students. Implications are discussed.
Entscheiden

E benso wie wir sprechen, ohne über Grammatik oder Semantik nachzudenken, entscheiden wir uns, ohne über Ethik oder Moral nachzudenken. Die meisten Entscheidungen sind ja auch trivial: Nehme ich den Schirm mit oder nicht? Esse ich jetzt ein Wurstoder Käsebrot? Stehe ich auf oder bleibe ich noch fünf Minuten liegen? Andere Entscheidungen sind alles andere als trivial: Werde ich Arzt oder Architekt? Soll ich ein Haus bauen oder zur Miete wohnen? Soll ich Kinder bekommen? Mit Elke oder Claudia? Soll die israelische Bodenoffensive starten oder nicht? „Das menschliche Leben geschieht nur einmal, und der Grund warum wir nicht herausfinden können, welche unserer Entscheidungen gut sind und welche schlecht, liegt darin, dass wir uns in einer bestimmten Situation nur einmal entscheiden können. Ein zweites, drittes oder viertes Leben, in denen wir die Entscheidungen vergleichen könnten, ist uns nicht gegeben“ (Milan Kundera, zit. nach 5, S. 289). Über Sprache denken nicht nur Linguisten nach, sondern auch Philologen und Philosophen, Mathematiker und Ingenieure, Übersetzer und Programmierer, Psychologen und Psychiater, Logopäden und Logiker. Nicht anders ist es beim Entscheiden, mit dem sich Mathematiker und Statistiker, Ökonomen und Politiker, Ethiker und Vorstandsvorsitzende sowie Soziologen, Psychologen und Psychiater beschäftigen. Die Wissenschaft vom Entscheiden ist also – wie die von der Sprache – genuin interdisziplinär. Das Nachdenken über Sprache hat sowohl einen beals auch einen vorschreibenden Aspekt. Wer die Grammatik einer Sprache erforscht, beschreibt, was ist. Keineswegs sagt er den Leuten, wie sie zu reden haben. Ist jedoch einmal eine Sprache formal gut charakterisiert, so kann man fragen, ob eine bestimmte Äußerung diesen formalen Gesichtspunkten entspricht. Und so lassen sich durchaus Sätze als grammatikalisch falsch bezeichnen. – Wiederum verhält es sich beim Entscheiden nicht anders. Man
Design in the absence of practice: breaching experiments

IT research is often informed by studies of the practices that new technologies are to be embedded in and which they transform in their use. The development of mixed reality, tangible, ambient, ubiquitous, mobile, and wearable computing have seen the emergence of a range of technological innovations that have little or no grounding in current practices, however. Such developments create new practices where none existed before and the challenge for multi-disciplinary research is to adapt to this situation. This paper articulates a novel methodology that treats technological innovations as 'breaching experiments', whose situated use beyond the confines of the research lab may be studied ethnographically to support innovation.
A Randomized Controlled Effectiveness Trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has a small but growing database of support. One hundred and one heterogeneous outpatients reporting moderate to severe levels of anxiety or depression were randomly assigned to traditional cognitive therapy (CT) or to ACT. To maximize external validity, the authors utilized very minimal exclusion criteria. Participants receiving CT and ACT evidenced large, equivalent improvements in depression, anxiety, functioning difficulties, quality of life, life satisfaction, and clinician-rated functioning. Whereas improvements were equivalent across the two groups, the mechanisms of action appeared to differ. Changes in “observing” and “describing” one's experiences appeared to mediate outcomes for the CT group relative to the ACT group, whereas “experiential avoidance,” “acting with awareness,” and “acceptance” mediated outcomes for the ACT group. Overall, the results suggest that ACT is a viable and disseminable treatment, the effectiveness of which appears equivalent to that of CT, even as its mechanisms appear to be distinct.
A Generic Methodology for Clustering to Maximises Inter-Cluster Inertia

This paper proposes a novel clustering methodology which undeniably manages to offer results with a higher inter-cluster inertia for a better clustering. The advantage obtained with this methodology is due to an algorithm that showed beforehand its efficiency in clustering exercises, MC- DBSCAN, which is associated to an iterative process with a potential of auto-adjustment of the weights of the pertinent criteria that allows the reclassification of objects of the two closest clusters through each iteration, as well as the aptitude of the auto-evaluation of the precision of the clustering during the clustering process. This work conducts the experiments using the well-known benchmark, ‘Seismic’, ‘Landform-Identification’ and ‘Image Segmentation’, to compare the performance of the proposed methodology with other algorithms (K-means, EM, CURE and MC-DBSCAN). The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution has good quality of clustering results.
STUDIES ON THE LIFE HISTORY OF LYMPHOCYTES I . THE LIFE-SPAN OF CELLS RESPONSIVE IN THE MIXED LYMPHOCYTE INTERACTION

A series of studies has provided considerable evidence that the mixed lymphocyte interaction (MLI) 1 with rat cells can be a useful model for investigating the initial steps in the immune response to major transplantation antigens (H antigens) (1-6). The specificity, kinetics, and cell numbers involved in the reaction have been demonstrated (2, 3), as well as the fact that most of the lylnphocytes involved in the response are of thymic origin (6). One finding, that the proportion of antigen-reactive cells (ARC) to H isoantigens is large and is not significantly increased by immunization, suggests that immune responses to major transplantation antigens may be unique in some respects compared to reactions to other types of antigens (3, 5). The present studies were designed to extend our knowledge of the life history within the animal of those lymphocytes responsive to H isoantigens (hereafter called H-ARC) with particular emphasis on the life-span of these cells. Through the use of in vivo labeling with tritiated thymidine and subsequent examination of both peripheral blood smears and mixed lymphocyte reactions for labeled cells, the following questions about H-ARC were investigated: (a) Are H-ARC part of a "short-lived" or a "long-lived" lymphocyte pool; or more precisely, are these cells which have been recently produced in the intact animal through single or multiple divisions; or, by contrast, are these cells which have survived for a long period in vivo (with or without occasional divisions)? (b) Regardless of whether H-ARC are short-lived or long-lived in vivo, are they recently derived from the thymus or Call they be produced at extrathymic sites, perhaps by cells themselves derived from the ,thymus? (c) Are H-ARC a radiosensitive cell population?
A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study of High-Frequency Yoga Breathing Compared to Breath Awareness

Background High-frequency yoga breathing (breath rate of 2.0 Hz) has been associated with changes in oxy-hemoglobin in the prefrontal region of the brain. The present study assessed the effects of high-frequency yoga breathing (HFYB) at 1.0 Hz on frontal oxy-hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) and deoxy-hemoglobin (deoxy-Hb). Material/Methods Forty healthy male participants were recruited for the study. The experimental group consisted of 20 participants 23–40 years old (group mean ±S.D., 26.4±4.7 years) with at least 3 months of experience performing HFYB (group mean ±S.D., 16.3±9.8 months). The control group consisted of 20 participants ages 23–38 years (group mean age ± S.D., 27.4±4.1 years), who were seated quietly for the same duration and their average experience of yoga practice was (±S.D.) 4.3±2.7 months. Each participant in the experimental group was assessed at 2 sessions (HFYB and breath awareness [BAW]) on alternate days. Hemodynamic changes were assessed using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy sensor placed over the forehead. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analyses of variance followed by post hoc Bonferroni adjustment. Results A significant reduction was observed in oxy-Hb during and after HFYB on the left and right sides compared to values before. We also found a significant reduction in deoxy-Hb during and after the quiet sitting control session compared to pre-session values on left and right sides. Conclusions The decrease in oxy-Hb during and after HFYB suggests that there was no frontal activation during HFYB when practiced at the rate of 1.0 Hz.
High-Frequency Pressure Measurements for Unstart Detection in Scramjet Isolators

This paper describes an experimental investigation using an array of high-frequency pressure transducers located in the isolator/combustor region of a direct-connect hydrocarbon-fueled, scramjet combustor. Isolator/combustor entrance conditions were fixed and representative of a Mach-5.5 flight condition. Mean, standard deviation, and spectral content of measured pressures were similar to those measured in previous studies. A simple model relating the sum of measured pressures and the fuel flow rate delivered to the primary injectors was developed. Pressure measurements were post-processed and evaluated for use in a shock-position-control sensor to detect engine unstart. Four methods of post-processing the pressure data and corresponding detection criteria were evaluated: a) 150% pressure rise, b) 150% increase in standard deviation, c) 150% increase in power spectral density (PSD), and d) summation of pressures. Pressure summation typically provided 1 – 2 s more lead time in detecting unstart then any other method.
Stability and tracking of linear Gaussian systems over AWGN channel with intermittent deterministic feedback channel

This paper shows that innovation encoder, the Kalman filter decoder and certainty equivalent controller are still good choices for stability and tracking of linear Gaussian systems over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel in the presence of intermittent deterministic noiseless feedback channel. When feedback channel is described by a deterministic switch, for both stable and unstable systems, an innovation encoder, the Kalman filter decoder and a certainty equivalent controller are presented for stability and tracking over AWGN channel provided channel input power constraint is not violated and the system is controllable. Then, it is illustrated that when feedback channel is frequently available, performance of the system is similar to the optimal performance which corresponds to the case of full time availability of noiseless feedback channel.