Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving word finding: Practice makes (closer to) perfect?

Background: One application of a task, such as word-picture matching or repetition, has been demonstrated to affect subsequent picture naming (‘facilitation’ or ‘priming’) in both aphasic and non-aphasic subjects. As aphasia assessment frequently involves repeated use of the same stimuli in different tasks, it is suggested that some aphasic individuals may have improved performance in picture naming as a result of assessment. Aims: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that there can be improvements in picture naming as a result of repeated presentation of stimuli and promote discussion regarding the mechanisms that may have caused such effects and their corresponding implications for treatment. Methods & Procedures: This paper describes a single case study of JAW, a man with aphasia. JAW's picture naming had been observed to improve over time while other tasks remained stable. An investigation was performed to identify the source of this improvement. Three treatment tasks were used, attempting to name the picture, reading aloud and delayed copying of the picture names. Outcomes and Results: All three tasks significantly improved subsequent picture naming of the treated items despite the fact that no feedback or error correction was provided. It is argued that the source of this improvement is from priming of retrieval of the phonological form. In the ‘attempted naming’ condition, this priming occurred every time a picture name was successfully produced. As JAW was not perfectly consistent, on each attempt at naming some additional items were primed. Thus, over time an increasing proportion of stimulus items were primed and were hence more likely to be successfully produced. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that for at least one aphasic man, JAW, practice makes (closer to) perfect, even without correction. Not only was there significant improvement from tasks that provided the word form (reading aloud and delayed copying) as has been shown in the past, but also there was the novel finding that simply attempting to name a picture can improve subsequent word retrieval. It is argued that this novel finding could be applicable to other aphasic individuals and has functional significance.
Inhibition of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor or Its Receptor (CD74) Attenuates Growth and Invasion of DU-145 Prostate Cancer Cells1

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), a proinflammatory cytokine, is overexpressed in prostate cancer, but the mechanism by which MIF exerts effects on tumor cells remains undetermined. MIF interacts with its identified membrane receptor, CD74, in association with CD44, resulting in ERK 1/2 activation. Therefore, we hypothesized that increased expression or surface localization of CD74 and MIF overexpression by prostate cancer cells regulated tumor cell viability. Prostate cancer cell lines (LNCaP and DU-145) had increased MIF gene expression and protein levels compared with normal human prostate or benign prostate epithelial cells (p < 0.01). Although MIF, CD74, and CD44 variant 9 expression were increased in both androgen-dependent (LNCaP) and androgen-independent (DU-145) prostate cancer cells, cell surface of CD74 was only detected in androgen-independent (DU-145) prostate cancer cells. Therefore, treatments aimed at blocking CD74 and/or MIF (e.g., inhibition of MIF or CD74 expression by RNA interference or treatment with anti-MIF- or anti-CD74- neutralizing Abs or MIF-specific inhibitor, ISO-1) were only effective in androgen-independent prostate cancer cells (DU-145), resulting in decreased cell proliferation, MIF protein secretion, and invasion. In DU-145 xenografts, ISO-1 significantly decreased tumor volume and tumor angiogenesis. Our results showed greater cell surface CD74 in DU-145 prostate cancer cells that bind to MIF and, thus, mediate MIF-activated signal transduction. DU-145 prostate cancer cell growth and invasion required MIF activated signal transduction pathways that were not necessary for growth or viability of androgen-dependent prostate cells. Thus, blocking MIF either at the ligand (MIF) or receptor (CD74) may provide new, targeted specific therapies for androgen-independent prostate cancer.
First Smart Spaces

This document describes the Gloss software currently implemented. The description of the Gloss demonstrator for multi-surface interaction can be found in D17. The ongoing integration activity for the work described in D17 and D8 constitutes our development of infrastructure for a first smart space. In this report, the focus is on infrastructure to support the implementation of location aware services. A local architecture provides a framework for constructing Gloss applications, termed assemblies, that run on individual physical nodes. A global architecture defines an overlay network for linking individual assemblies. Both local and global architectures are under active development.
Meaningful Tone: A Study of Tonal Morphology in Compounds, Form Classes, and Expressive Phrases in White Hmong

This pioneering and innovative morpho-phonological study focuses on the White Hmong language to infer similarities among other Southeast Asian languages. Following U.S. military involvement in Indo-China in 1975, many of the Hmong - an ethnic group originating in Southwestern China and Southeast Asia who were persecuted by the communist organization Pathet Lao - became refugees. A large portion of them originally resettled in the Upper-Midwestern United States, but the largest population of Hmong is now in Minnesota and California. Today, there are diasporic communities in countries around the world, with over 200,000 in the United States alone. The commitment of these communities to their language and culture, their accessibility, and outside interest has combined to create an explosion of scholarship and Hmong language literature. The interest in and utility of the Hmong language are perpetually renewed by growing Hmong enrollment in schools and the number and strength of Hmong community groups. The migration and growth of Hmong and other Southeast Asian groups worldwide make this landmark language study crucial for ongoing research. In this pioneering and innovative morpho-phonological study, Ratliff, building on the 1965 and 1967 works of E. J. A. Henderson, describes the morphological functions of tone in Southeast Asian languages. While focusing specifically on the White Hmong language, one of the languages of the larger Hmong-Mien language family, the book investigates underlying ideas about the function of tone as an organizational tool in what Ratliff calls 'small word' languages. She focuses on tone and its role in compounds, form classes, and expressives.
Commentary - When Is Less More, and How Much More? Thoughts on the Psychological and Economic Implications of Online Targeting and Obtrusiveness

In a very intriguing and groundbreaking study, Goldfarb and Tucker [Goldfarb, A. , C. Tucker. 2011. Online display advertising: Targeting and obtrusiveness. Marketing Sci.30(3) 389--404] show that online advertising targeting and obtrusiveness boost purchase intent independently, but not jointly. The authors rule out recall as an explanatory mechanism and provide preliminary evidence that the effect may be driven by privacy concerns. We comment on the substantive importance of this finding by discussing the psychological and economic implications of the effect.
Experimental Studies of Music Reading: A Review

Studies of music reading are reviewed with respect to two principal questions: (1) What differences are there between the reading processes of good and poor readers? and (2) To what extent is musical knowledge implicated in reading for performance? The evidence reviewed shows (1) a typical "skill effect" such that better readers have better visual memories for notation and show more sensitivity to structural configurations in the stimuli and (2) that much of what is read is analyzed for musical significance prior to the formulation of motor commands for response. Music reading is in this respect, despite its atypical input modality, a true species of music perception.
2 en 1 ou lorsque l’effet de format dépend de l’effet d’ordre : le cas du problème des avocats et des ingénieurs

EnglishThree studies investigated the base-rate sensitivity in the list version of Kahneman and Tversky�s (1973) lawyer-engineer problem (Ginossar & Trope 1987). Study 1 replicated Ginossar and Trope�s results : individuals solving the task within the standard version failed to integrate base rates into their judgment, whereas individuals presented with the list format were rather base rate sensitive. Studies 2 and 3 investigated the extent to which the latter effect was due to the ordinal position of base rates information within the list. Results from these studies suggest that participants attend to base-rate information only when it is presented at the beginning or in the end of the list. The implications of these results for the original explanation (in terms of equalized salience of information) are discussed and an alternative explanation is offered. francaisNous avons etudie la prise en compte des probabilites a priori dans le cadre du probleme des avocats et des ingenieurs (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973), presente sous format liste (Ginossar & Trope, 1987). Dans la premiere etude, nous repliquons les resultats obtenus anterieurement par Ginossar et Trope (1987) selon lesquels les individus ignorent les probabilites a priori lorsqu' elles sont presentees dans le probleme classique mais qu' ils en tiennent compte lorsque celles-ci sont formulees sous forme de liste. Les deux etudes suivantes ont pour objectif de savoir si cet effet est du egalement a la position des probabilites a l' interieur de la liste. Les resultats de ces deux etudes suggerent que les participants sont sensibles aux probabilites a priori uniquement dans la mesure ou ces dernieres apparaissent au debut ou a la fin de la liste. L? explication classique de Ginossar et Trope (1987), en termes d? « egalisation de la saillance » des informations, est discutee. Une explication alternative, en terme d' "egalisation de la pertinence" est apportee.
Young Children's Spatial Orientation with Respect to Multiple Targets When Walking without Vision.

In 4 experiments concerning spatial orientation while walking without vision, 4-year-olds and adults viewed 1 or more targets, were blindfolded, were guided to a new point of observation, and were asked to aim a pointer at the target(s). Spatial orientation was assessed as a function of the number of target objects (1, 3, or 5), the complexity of the route walked, and the time delay between last viewing the targets and responding.
The Design of UWB Bandpass Filter-Combined Ultra-Wide Band Antenna

We have proposed a compact filter-combined ultra-wide band antenna for the use of DS-UWB low band or MB-OFDM lower three bands (3.1-5.2 GHz). The designed antenna has a microstrip-fed trapezoidal radiating patch, UWB band pass filter using the dumbbell-shaped DGS (defected ground structure) and IDC (interdigital capacitor), two steps for impedance matching, and microstrip feeding. Three kinds of prototypes (trapezoidal UWB antenna, UWB band pass filter, and the compact filter-combined ultra wideband antenna) are fabricated and measured. The designed antenna has the figure-of-eight radiation pattern, wide bandwidth, and negligible dispersion over the operating frequency band. Details of the proposed antenna design and the simulated and measured results are presented and discussed.
Risk of Hip/Femur Fracture After Stroke: A Population-Based Case-Control Study

Background and Purpose— Stroke increases the risk of hip/femur fracture, as seen in several studies, although the time course of this increased risk remains unclear. Therefore, our purpose is to evaluate this risk and investigate the time course of any elevated risk. Methods— We conducted a case-control study using the Dutch PHARMO Record Linkage System database. Cases (n=6763) were patients with a first hip/femur fracture; controls were matched by age, sex, and region. Odds ratio (OR) for the risk of hip/femur fracture was derived using conditional logistic regression analysis, adjusted for disease and drug history. Results— An increased risk of hip/femur fracture was observed in patients who experienced a stroke at any time before the index date (adjusted OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.65–2.33). The fracture risk was highest among patients who sustained a stroke within 3 months before the index date (adjusted OR, 3.35; 95% CI, 1.87–5.97) and among female patients (adjusted OR, 2.12; 95% CI, 1.73–2.59). The risk further increased among patients younger than 71 years (adjusted OR, 5.12; 95% CI, 3.00–8.75). Patients who had experienced a hemorrhagic stroke tended to be at a higher hip/femur fracture risk compared with those who had experienced an ischemic stroke. Conclusions— Stroke is associated with a 2.0-fold increase in the risk of hip/femur fracture. The risk was highest among patients younger than 71 years, females, and those whose stroke was more recent. Fall prevention programs, bone mineral density measurements, and use of bisphosphonates may be necessary to reduce the occurrence of hip/femur fractures during and after stroke rehabilitation.
The Use on Commercial Reading Materials in American Elementary Schools.

A MODEL of reading programs in general is proposed to explain teachers' reliance on commercial materials during their reading instruction. The model is based on three tenets: a) Reading programs attempt to actualize the principles of formal rationality; b) Participants in those programs reify reading instruction as the application of commercial materials; and c) The combination of rationalization and reification leads to the alienation of teachers from their reading instruction. The usefulness of the model is tested quantitatively and qualitatively in one exemplary school district. Results suggest that the model is useful to explain teachers' reliance on commercial reading materials and imply that there is not an easy solution to the problem.
The Effects of Ketamine on Cardiovascular Dynamics During Halothane and Enflurane Anesthesia

The cardiovascular effects of a single dose of ketamine administered during halothane or enflurane anesthesia were studied in 24 patients. During halothane anesthesia, ketamine caused a rapid and significant increase in arteriolar peripheral resistance (p<0.01) and a decrease in cardiac output, stroke volume, and systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressures. Heart rate was not significantly changed. Ketamine resulted in similar, though less dramatic and slower developing, changes in patients anesthetized with enflurane. These results demonstrate that general anesthesia blocks the cardiovascular-stimulating properties of ketamine. They also indicate thajjceja-mine has significant cardiovascular-depressant qualities when used during halothane or enflurane anesthesia.
Factors influencing theme park visitor brand-switching behaviour as based on visitor perception

With the development of theme parks, which represent a multi-million-pound industry worldwide, research investigating the factors affecting theme park visitor brand-switching behaviour is an important method for improving theme park competitiveness. In the present work, models and research hypothesis are constructed based on visitor perception, and the survey data are collected and analysed to assess the hypothesis and to revise the conceptual model in this paper. The results indicate that there are seven factors influencing visitor brand-switching behaviour: ‘visitor variety-seeking', ‘visitor satisfaction', ‘switching cost', ‘perceived value', ‘competitor attraction', ‘theme park image' and ‘visitor involvement'. The perceived value and visitor satisfaction strongly influence brand-switching behaviour as intermediate variables. Visitor variety-seeking and competitor attraction are positively related to visitor brand switching behaviour, whereas the other five factors are negatively related to visitor brand-switching behaviour.
Dermatological disease diagnosis using color-skin images

This paper presents an automated dermatological diagnostic system. Etymologically, dermatology is the medical discipline of analysis and treatment of skin anomalies. The system presented is a machine intervention in contrast to human arbitration into the conventional medical personnel based ideology of dermatological diagnosis. The system works on two dependent steps - the first detects skin anomalies and the latter identifies the diseases. The system operates on visual input i.e. high resolution color images and patient history. In terms of machine intervention, the system uses color image processing techniques, k-means clustering and color gradient techniques to identify the diseased skin. For disease classification, the system resorts to feedforward backpropagation artificial neural networks. The system exhibits a diseased skin detection accuracy of 95.99% and disease identification accuracy of 94.016% while tested for a total of 2055 diseased areas in 704 skin images for 6 diseases.
YPXL/I Is a Protein Interaction Motif Recognized by Aspergillus PalA and Its Human Homologue, AIP1/Alix

ABSTRACT The zinc finger transcription factor PacC undergoes two-step proteolytic activation in response to alkaline ambient pH. PalA is a component of the fungal ambient pH signal transduction pathway. Its mammalian homologue AIP1/Alix interacts with the apoptosis-linked protein ALG-2. We show that both PalA and AIP1/Alix recognize a protein-protein binding motif that we denote YPXL/I, where Tyr, Pro, and Leu/Ile are crucial for its interactive properties. Two such motifs flanking the signaling protease cleavage site mediate direct binding of PalA to PacC, required for the first and only pH-regulated cleavage of this transcription factor. PalA can bind the “closed” (i.e., wild-type full-length) conformer of PacC, suggesting that PalA binding constitutes the first stage in the two-step proteolytic cascade, recruiting or facilitating access of the signaling protease, presumably PalB. In addition to recognizing YPXL/I motifs, both PalA and AIP1/Alix interact with the Aspergillus class E Vps protein Vps32 homologue, a member of a protein complex involved in the early steps of the multivesicular body pathway, suggesting that this interaction is an additional feature of proteins of the PalA/AIP1/Alix family.
Imitated Prosodic Fluency Predicts Reading Comprehension Ability in Good and Poor High School Readers

Researchers have established a relationship between beginning readers' silent comprehension ability and their prosodic fluency, such that readers who read aloud with appropriate prosody tend to have higher scores on silent reading comprehension assessments. The current study was designed to investigate this relationship in two groups of high school readers: Specifically Poor Comprehenders (SPCs), who have adequate word level and phonological skills but poor reading comprehension ability, and a group of age- and decoding skill-matched controls. We compared the prosodic fluency of the two groups by determining how effectively they produced prosodic cues to syntactic and semantic structure in imitations of a model speaker's production of syntactically and semantically varied sentences. Analyses of pitch and duration patterns revealed that speakers in both groups produced the expected prosodic patterns; however, controls provided stronger durational cues to syntactic structure. These results demonstrate that the relationship between prosodic fluency and reading comprehension continues past the stage of early reading instruction. Moreover, they suggest that prosodically fluent speakers may also generate more fluent implicit prosodic representations during silent reading, leading to more effective comprehension.
EEG responds to conceptual stimuli and corpus semantics

Mitchell et al. (2008) demonstrated that corpus-extracted models of semantic knowledge can predict neural activation patterns recorded using fMRI. This could be a very powerful technique for evaluating conceptual models extracted from corpora; however, fMRI is expensive and imposes strong constraints on data collection. Following on experiments that demonstrated that EEG activation patterns encode enough information to discriminate broad conceptual categories, we show that corpus-based semantic representations can predict EEG activation patterns with significant accuracy, and we evaluate the relative performance of different corpus-models on this task.
Measurement of Outcomes in Adults Receiving Pharmaceutical Care in a Comprehensive Asthma Outpatient Clinic

We hypothesized that a pharmacist‐provided comprehensive education program in conjunction with care provided by a pulmonologist would lead to improved economic, clinical, and humanistic outcomes in adults with asthma, compared with similar patients receiving care from a pulmonologist alone. The experimental group reported receiving more information about asthma self‐management (p=0.001), were more likely to monitor peak flow readings (p=0.004), and had increased satisfaction with care, and perceived higher quality of care. Both groups had less lost productivity, fewer emergency department visits, fewer hospitalizations, and fewer physician visits, as well as improvement in symptoms scores within 45 days. Both groups improved in all functional status domains except the mental component score of the SF‐12. Our results show a positive impact on outcomes in adults with asthma who received pharmaceutical care.
Fluorescence and Spectral Imaging

Early identification of dysplasia remains a critical goal for diagnostic endoscopy since early discovery directly improves patient survival because it allows endoscopic or surgical intervention with disease localized without lymph node involvement. Clinical studies have successfully used tissue autofluorescence with conventional white light endoscopy and biopsy for detecting adenomatous colonic polyps, differentiating benign hyperplastic from adenomas with acceptable sensitivity and specificity. In Barrett's esophagus, the detection of dysplasia remains problematic because of background inflammation, whereas in the squamous esophagus, autofluorescence imaging appears to be more dependable. Point fluorescence spectroscopy, although playing a crucial role in the pioneering mechanistic development of fluorescence endoscopic imaging, does not seem to have a current function in endoscopy because of its nontargeted sampling and suboptimal sensitivity and specificity. Other point spectroscopic modalities, such as Raman spectroscopy and elastic light scattering, continue to be evaluated in clinical studies, but still suffer the significant disadvantages of being random and nonimaging. A recent addition to the fluorescence endoscopic imaging arsenal is the use of confocal fluorescence endomicroscopy, which provides real-time optical biopsy for the first time. To improve detection of dysplasia in the gastrointestinal tract, a new and exciting development has been the use of exogenous fluorescence contrast probes that specifically target a variety of disease-related cellular biomarkers using conventional fluorescent dyes and novel potent fluorescent nanocrystals (i.e., quantum dots). This is an area of great promise, but still in its infancy, and preclinical studies are currently under way.