Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Public Policy and Health

Public policies designed to improve health and well-being are challenged by people’s resistance. A social psychological perspective reveals how health policies can pose a psychological threat to individuals and result in resistance to following health recommendations. Self-affirmation, a brief psychological intervention that has individuals focus on important personal values, can help reduce resistance to behavior change and help promote health and well-being in four health-policy domains: graphic cigarette warning labels designed to get people to quit smoking, community health programs targeted at high-risk populations, alcohol intervention and prevention programs targeted at problem drinkers, and adherence to medical recommendations and treatment regimens among people coping with disease. Using self-affirmation has important strengths and limitations as a tool to help policymakers and practitioners encourage better health choices.
On the iron Kα complex in magnetic cataclysmic variables

We present a compilation of spectra of the iron Kα region in magnetic cataclysmic variables, using data from the Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating (HETG). The H-like, He-like and fluorescent components are clearly resolved, and there are hints of the structure within each component. The different shape of the He-like component in AM Her might be related to greater cyclotron cooling in this star. A surprising absence of Doppler shifts in the H- and He-like components implies that the X-ray emission is predominantly from the denser, lower velocity base of the accretion columns. This absence will allow Astro-E2 to resolve the structure in each component, leading to temperature diagnostics. We do not confirm the report that the H- and He-like components of AO Psc are Compton-broadened; however, we do detect a Compton-downshifted shoulder to the fluorescent line of GK Per. Further, a Doppler-shifted wing of this line arises in the high-velocity, pre-shock flow.
Association Study of IL-12B Polymorphisms Susceptibility with Ankylosing Spondylitis in Mainland Han Population

Objective This study aims to determine whether the genetic polymorphisms of IL-12B gene is a susceptibility factor to Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in mainland Han Chinese population. Method Eight single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs10045431, rs11167764, rs3212227, rs6556412, rs6556416, rs6871626, rs6887695 and rs7709212) in the IL-12B gene were genotyped by iMLDR Assay technology in 400 patients [96% (384/400) HLA-B27(+)] and 395 geographically and ethnically matched healthy controls in mainland Han Chinese population. The correlation between IL-12B genetic polymorphisms and AS activity index (BASDAI, BASFI) were tested. Results The significant difference was found in genotype distribution between AS and healthy controls (χ2 = 6.942, P-value = 0.031) of the SNP rs6871626. Furthermore, significant evidence was also detected under the recessive model for minor allele A. The AA genotype carrier had 1.830 fold risk compared with C allele carrier (with CC and AC genotypes) [OR (95% CI) = 1.830 (1.131-2.961), P-value = 0.014]. Nevertheless, the difference was no longer significant after Bonferroni correction. Subset analysis on cases with HLA-B27(+) did find the same results. Three genotypic groups (AA, CC and CA) in rs6871626 site was highly associated with the BASDAI and BASFI (P-value = 0.012 and P-value = 0.023, respectively), after adjustment for effect of age, sex, and disease duration, the P-value was 0.031 and 0.041, respectively. The AA genotype of rs6871626 was also significantly correlated with an increased BASDAI and BASFI compared to the AC and CC genotypes in AS patients. Conclusion Our findings suggest that rs6871626 may be associated AS susceptibility and with disease activity (BASDAI, BASFI) in mainland Han Chinese population.
Knowledge about the Greenhouse Effect and the Effects of the Ozone Layer among Norwegian Pupils Finishing Compulsory Education in 1989, 1993, and 2005—What Now?

The greenhouse effect and the effects of the ozone layer have been in the media and public focus for more than two decades. During the same period, Norwegian compulsory schools have had four national curricula. The two last‐mentioned prescribe explicitly the two topics. Media and public discourse might have been sources of information causing informal learning among pupils. The point of departure for this questionnaire‐based examination of the development of pupils’ knowledge about the greenhouse effect and the effects of the ozone layer from 1989 to 2005 is the changing curricula and formal and informal learning. In 2005 the trends seem to be that more pupils confuse the greenhouse effect with the effects of the ozone layer. At the same time, specific knowledge about the greenhouse effect is improving. This article will discuss some possible causes for these trends, and give some recommendations for teaching the topics in accordance with the last national curriculum implemented in 2006.
Emotions, Coping Strategies, and Performance: A Conceptual Framework for Defining Affect-Related Performance Zones

This article presents the crisis theory (Bar Eli & Tenenbaum, 1989) and its related approach for determining individual affect-related performance zones (IAPZ: Kamata, Tenenbaum, & Hanin, 2002). The theory and methodology delineate the uniqueness of each individual's ability to appraise stressful conditions and perceive them as functional or dysfunctional to his performance. In addition, the theory and methodology allow incorporating self-regulatory behaviors and coping strategies used during the encounter with situations, which vary in stress appraisal. The article also describes coping mechanisms used to energize (i.e., activate) and relax persons facing situations that vary in cognitive, physical, and affective demands. In particular, the use of imagery and self-talk as coping strategies in stressful situations are presented in more details. Since performance of military personnel involves substantially stressful circumstances (Wallenius, Larsson, & Johansson, 2004), the article advises how sport psychology theories, methodology, and findings can be used in the military environment.
Must Feedback Disrupt Presence in Serious Games?

Serious games are generally designed with two goals in mind: promoting learning and creating compelling and engaging experiences (sometimes termed a sense of presence). Presence itself is believed to promote learning, but serious games often attempt to further increase pedagogical value. One way to do so is to use an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to provide feedback during gameplay. Some researchers have expressed concern that, because feedback from an ITS is often extrinsic (i.e., it operates outside of the primary game mechanic), attending to it disrupts players’ sense of presence. As a result, learning may be unintentionally hindered by an ITS. However, the most beneficial conditions of instruction are often counterintuitive; in this paper, we challenge the assumption that feedback during learning hinders sense of presence. Across three experiments, we examined how an ITS that provided extrinsic feedback during a serious game affected presence. Across different modalities and conditions, we found that feedback and other ITS features do not always affect presence. Our results suggest that it is possible to provide extrinsic feedback in a serious game without detracting from the immersive power of the game itself.
Optimal kernels for Wigner-Ville spectral estimation

Current theories of a time-varying spectrum of a nonstationary process all involve, either by definition or by implementation, an assumption that the signal statistics vary slowly over time. This restrictive quasi-stationarity assumption limits the use of existing estimation techniques to a small class of nonstationary processes. We overcome this limitation by deriving a statistically optimal kernel, within Cohen's (1989) class of time-frequency representations, for estimating the Wigner-Ville spectrum of a nonstationary process. Both time-frequency invariant and time-frequency varying kernels are derived. It is shown that, in the presence of any noise, optimal performance requires a nontrivial kernel, and that optimal estimation may require smoothing filters very different from those based on a quasi-stationarity assumption. An example illustrates that the optimal estimators can potentially yield tremendous improvements in performance over existing methods. <<ETX>>
Enhancing Spatial Ability Through Sport Practice Evidence for an Effect of Motor Training on Mental Rotation Performance

This experiment investigated the relationship between mental rotation and sport training. Undergraduate university students (n = 62) completed the Mental Rotation Test (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978), before and after a 10-month training in two different sports, which either involved extensive mental rotation ability (wrestling group) or did not (running group). Both groups showed comparable results in the pretest, but the wrestling group outperformed the running group in the posttest. As expected from previous studies, males outperformed women in the pretest and the posttest. Besides, self-reported data gathered after both sessions indicated an increase in adaptive strategies following training in wrestling, but not subsequent to training in running. These findings demonstrate the significant effect of training in particular sports on mental rotation performance, thus showing consistency with the notion of cognitive plasticity induced from motor training involving manipulation of spatial representations. They are discussed within an embodied cognition framework.
Java Tutoring System with Facial and Text Emotion Recognition

This paper presents the design and implementation of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for teaching JAVA, which can recognize the user's emotional state through facial expressions and textual dialogues. For facial emotion recognition we implemented a neural network with WEKA library and a facial feature extractor with OPENCV library. The ITS applies a semantic algorithm (ASEM) to extract textual emotions through dialogues, which has shown a degree of assertiveness of 80% in tests for graduate students. In addition, the tutor uses a set of fuzzy rules to determine the complexity of the next exercise, considering the program implementation time, program executions and compilations, and current difficulty level.
Dysregulation of microRNAs after myocardial infarction reveals a role of miR-29 in cardiac fibrosis

Acute myocardial infarction (MI) due to coronary artery occlusion is accompanied by a pathological remodeling response that includes hypertrophic cardiac growth and fibrosis, which impair cardiac contractility. Previously, we showed that cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure are accompanied by characteristic changes in the expression of a collection of specific microRNAs (miRNAs), which act as negative regulators of gene expression. Here, we show that MI in mice and humans also results in the dysregulation of specific miRNAs, which are similar to but distinct from those involved in hypertrophy and heart failure. Among the MI-regulated miRNAs are members of the miR-29 family, which are down-regulated in the region of the heart adjacent to the infarct. The miR-29 family targets a cadre of mRNAs that encode proteins involved in fibrosis, including multiple collagens, fibrillins, and elastin. Thus, down-regulation of miR-29 would be predicted to derepress the expression of these mRNAs and enhance the fibrotic response. Indeed, down-regulation of miR-29 with anti-miRs in vitro and in vivo induces the expression of collagens, whereas over-expression of miR-29 in fibroblasts reduces collagen expression. We conclude that miR-29 acts as a regulator of cardiac fibrosis and represents a potential therapeutic target for tissue fibrosis in general.
Selective impairment of semantics in lexical processing

Abstract We report the performance of a neurologically impaired patient, KE, whose frequent errors in reading, writing, naming, and comprehension were nearly always semantically related to the target response. To quantify this pattern, a large number of items were presented for tasks of verbal and written naming, oral reading, writing to dictation, word/picture matching, and naming from tactile exploration. Detailed analyses of his performance on these tasks show very similar rates and types of errors, regardless of the modality of stimulus or response. KE's homogeneous pattern of semantic errors across modalities is interpreted as evidence for selective damage to a semantic system common to all lexical processes. In addition, although KE demonstrated some spared knowledge of all items in response to picture stimuli, we were able to interpret all aspects of his performance without resorting to a proposal that there are modality-specific semantic systems. Finally, we show that our interpretation, which ass.
XE991 and Linopirdine Are State-Dependent Inhibitors for Kv7/KCNQ Channels that Favor Activated Single Subunits

M-channel inhibitors, especially XE991, are being used increasingly in animal experiments; however, insufficient characterization of XE991 at times confounds the interpretation of results when using this compound. Here, we demonstrate that XE991 and linopirdine are state-dependent inhibitors that favor the activated-subunit of neuronal Kv7/KCNQ channels. We performed patch-clamp experiments on homomeric Kv7.2 or heteromeric Kv7.2/3 channels expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells to characterize XE991 and linopirdine. Neither inhibitor was efficacious around the resting membrane potential of cells in physiologic conditions. Inhibition of Kv7.2 and Kv7.2/3 channels by XE991 was closely related with channel activation. When the voltage dependence of activation was left-shifted by retigabine or right-shifted by the mutation, Kv7.2(R214D), the shift in half-activation voltage proportionally coincided with the shift in the half-effective potential for XE991 inhibition. Inhibition kinetics during XE991 wash-in was facilitated at depolarized potentials. Ten-minute washout of XE991 resulted in ∼30% current recovery, most of which was attributed to surface transport of Kv7.2 channels. Linopirdine also exhibited similar inhibition characteristics, with the exception of near- complete current recovery after washout at depolarized potentials. Inhibition kinetics of both XE991 and linopirdine was not as sensitive to changes in voltage as would be predicted by open- channel inhibition. Instead, they were well explained by binding to a single activated subunit. The characteristics of XE991 and linopirdine should be taken into account when these M-channel inhibitors are used in experiments.
Cross-interactions of Two p38 Mitogen-activated Protein (MAP) Kinase Inhibitors and Two Cholecystokinin (CCK) Receptor Antagonists with the CCK1 Receptor and P38 MAP Kinase*

Although SB202190 and SB203580 are described as specific p38 MAP kinase inhibitors, several reports have indicated that other enzymes are also sensitive to SB203580. Using a pharmacological approach, we report for the first time that compounds SB202190 and SB203580 were able to directly and selectively interact with a G-protein-coupled receptor, namely the cholecystokinin receptor subtype CCK1, but not with the CCK2 receptor. We demonstrated that these compounds were non-competitive antagonists of the CCK1 receptor at concentrations typically used to inhibit protein kinases. By chimeric construction of the CCK2 receptor, we determined the involvement of two CCK1 receptor intracellular loops in the binding of SB202190 and SB203580. We also showed that two CCK antagonists, L364,718 and L365,260, were able to regulate p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activity. Using a reporter gene strategy and immunoblotting experiments, we demonstrated that both CCK antagonists inhibited selectively the enzymatic activity of p38 MAP kinase. Kinase assays suggested that this inhibition resulted from a direct interaction with both CCK antagonists. Molecular modeling simulations suggested that this interaction occurs in the ATP binding pocket of p38 MAP kinase. These results suggest that SB202190 and SB203580 bind to the CCK1 receptor and, as such, these compounds should be used with caution in models that express this receptor. We also found that L364,718 and L365,260, two CCK receptor antagonists, directly interacted with p38 MAP kinase and inhibited its activity. These findings suggest that the CCK1 receptor shares structural analogies with the p38 MAP kinase ATP binding site. They open the way to potential design of either a new family of MAP kinase inhibitors from CCK1 receptor ligand structures or new CCK1 receptor ligands based on p38 MAP kinase inhibitor structures.
Looking for epilepsy genes

The complexity of the human genome creates special problems in understanding the genetic component of disease processes. An estimated 50,000 genes exist in the human genome and it is reasonable to assume that mutation in any one of these genes may result in an inherited disorder. Because of the complex pattern of gene expression controlling the development and organization of the central nervous system, insights into the genetic component, if any, of diseases such as epilepsy are most accessible to analysis by genetic linkage studies.
The Role of the HEI Tutor in Initial Teacher Education School-based Placements

One area of great change and continuing development in the UK is the mentoring role of the Higher Education Institution (HEI) tutor during trainees' school-based professional placements. It might be suggested that with schools assuming ever greater responsibilities for trainees the role of the HEI tutor in school is diminishing and may even become extinct. This paper suggests that whilst tutors' roles are clearly changing, tutors have a crucial role to play in minimising the limitations and maximising the undoubted benefits of professional placements. A wide range of issues relating to trainees' placement schools, HEIs, the development of school-based mentors and trainee teachers, and the role of the HEI tutor are evaluated with suggestions for improving future practice.
The United Way System at the Crossroads: Community Planning and Allocation

United Way (UW) organizations have long portrayed themselves as performing three core functions for local communities: fund-raising, community planning, and fund-allocation. Contradictory forces increasingly threaten the ability of UW organizations to perform all of these core functions. Some remain hidden and unacknowledged for some period of time. Many UW systems face the same challenges: how to raise funds, address needs, and respond to diverse constituencies; how to manage conflicts with adjacent United Ways; and how to create and maintain internal consensus to address these challenges effectively. These are important questions for understanding how organizations relate to their environment and for understanding U.S. society. The scope of United Way systems is impressive and plays a key role both in shaping community perceptions of problems and as a major avenue through which the corporate sector takes an active role in local communities.
Effect of Zinc upon Growth and Incidence of Perosis in Turkey Poults.∗

Summary Turkey poults fed a purified ration containing an isolated soybean protein (Drackett C-1) developed perosis. Addition of zinc to the ration improved growth and markedly reduced the incidence and severity of the perotic condition. Approximately 40 ppm of zinc, in addition to the 26 ppm contained in the basal ration, were required for optimum growth.
Improving Outcomes from Breast Cancer in a Low-Income Country: Lessons from Bangladesh

Women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have yet to benefit from recent advances in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment now experienced in high-income countries. Their unique sociocultural and health system circumstances warrant a different approach to breast cancer management than that applied to women in high-income countries. Here, we present experience from the last five years working in rural Bangladesh. Case and consecutive series data, focus group and individual interviews, and clinical care experience provide the basis for this paper. These data illustrate a complex web of sociocultural, economic, and health system conditions which affect womens' choices to seek and accept care and successful treatment. We conclude that health system, human rights, and governance issues underlie high mortality from this relatively rare disease in Bangladesh.
Securing the Internet of Things with Responsive Artificial Immune Systems

The Internet of Things is a network of `smart' objects, transforming everyday objects into entities which can measure, sense and understand their environment. The devices are uniquely identifiable, rely on near field connectivity, often in embedded devices. The Internet of Things is designed to be deployed without human intervention or interaction. One application is the `smart house', with components including household appliances, networked with the user able to control devices remotely. However, the security inherent in these systems is added as somewhat of an afterthought. One hypothetical scenario is where a malicious party could exploit this technology with potentially disastrous consequences, turning on a cooker remotely leading to digital arson. Reliance on standard methods is insufficient to provide the user with adequate levels of security, an area where AIS may be extremely useful. There are currently limitations with AIS applied in security, focussing on detection without providing automatic responses. This problem provides an opportunity to advance AIS in providing both an ideal scenario for testing their real-world application and to develop novel responsive AIS. A responsive version of the deterministic Dendritic Cell Algorithm will be proposed to demonstrate how responsive AIS will need to be developed to meet these future challenges through proposing the incorporation of a model of T-cell responses.
Assessing Multidimensional Physical Activity Motivation: A Construct Validity Study of High School Students

This study presents a new, multidimensional approach to physical activity motivation that is operationalized through four primary factors: adaptive cognitive dimensions, adaptive behavioral dimensions, impeding cognitive dimensions, and maladaptive behavioral dimensions. Among 171 Australian high school students, the study assessed the structure of this four-factor framework (a within-network construct validity approach) and also examined the relationships between motivation and three key correlates: flow in physical activity, physical self-concept, and physical activity level (a between-network construct validity approach). The four-factor framework demonstrated within-network validity in the form of reliable subscales and a sound factor structure. In terms of between-network validity, relationships between the adaptive behavioral and cognitive aspects of motivation and physical self-concept, flow, and activity levels were found to be positive and significant, whereas significant inverse relationships were found between impeding and maladaptive motivation dimensions and flow and physical self-concept. Additional analysis utilizing multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) modeling showed that during earlier adolescence girls are more motivated than boys to engage in physical activity, but by later adolescence boys are more motivated to do so. Results are interpreted in terms of future directions for possible physical activity interventions aimed at increasing both the uptake and continuation of activity.