Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Versorgungsstudie zum Marburger Konzentrationstraining (MKT) bei Grundschulkindern mit Symptomen einer Aktivitäts- und Aufmerksamkeitsstörung

In der vorliegenden Versorgungsstudie wurden die Effekte des „Marburger Konzentrationstraining“ (MKT, Krowatschek, 2000) untersucht. 125 Grundschulkinder im Alter von 6 – 11 Jahren mit unterschiedlich stark ausgepragten Symptomen einer Aktivitats- und Aufmerksamkeitsstorung und ihre Eltern nahmen an dem in Kleingruppen durchgefuhrten kognitiv-behavioralen Training teil. Die ADHS-Symptome der Kinder wurden vor der Intervention, direkt danach und drei Monate nach Abschluss derselben erhoben. Im jeweiligen Vorher-Nachher-Vergleich ergab sich ein Ruckgang der Symptomatik im Elternurteil direkt nach dem Training. Bei der Follow-up-Befragung zeigte sich eine weitere signifikante Verringerung der Unaufmerksamkeitssymptome. Zusatzlich wurde erhohte Selbststandigkeit der Kinder in der Hausaufgabensituation sowohl wahrend des Trainings als auch in den drei Monaten danach berichtet. Es zeigt sich hier also ein positiver Effekt einer relativ niederschwelligen und kurzzeitigen Intervention.
NP Completeness of Kauffman's N-k Model, A Tuneable Rugged Fitness Landscape

The concept of a "fitness landscape," a picturesque term for a mapping of the vertices of a finite graph to the real numbers, has arisen in several fields, including evolutionary theory. The computational complexity of two, qualitatively similar versions of a particularly simple fitness landscape are shown to differ considerably. In one version, the question "Is the global optimum greater than a given value V? " is shown to be answerable in polynominal time by presenting an efficient algorithm that actually computes the optimum. The corresponding problem for the other version of the landscape is shown to be NP complete. The NP completeness of the latter problem leads to some speculations on why P not equal to NP. Key words. rugged fitness landscape, n-k model
The regulation of oxytocin receptor expression in human myometrial monolayer culture.

Clarification of the mechanism of oxytocin (OT)-induced contraction of the uterus seems to be essential for the elucidation of the mechanism of the initiation of labor. Although it has been suggested that estradiol (E) and progesterone (P) are involved in the expression of oxytocin receptors (OTRs), no consensus opinion has been formed on this topic. Thus we recently assessed the effects of E and P on OTR expression using cultures of human uterine cells and we examined the changes in the expressed OTRs following treatment of the cell with exogenous OT. The following results were obtained: 1. The total cellular concentration of OTRs as measured in the myometrial crude membrane fraction (total OTR concentration) showed an increase dependent on the E concentration and on the length of the incubation period in the presence of E. This increase following treatment with E (10(-7) M) was suppressed by simultaneous treatment with P in a concentration-dependent manner; being suppressed by 50% when the concentration of P was 2.7 x 10(-6) M (E/P ratio = 0.037). When 1 nM OT was added to the culture, the total OTR concentration did not change within the first 30 minutes of incubation, but decreased by about 70% twenty-four hours after addition of OT. 2. The concentration of OTRs at the cell surface (surface OTR concentration), as measured in myometrial cells that adhered to the culture plate, did not change with time when the cells were cultured at 4 degrees C in the presence of 1 nM OT. However, when cultured at 37 degrees C, the surface OTR concentration showed decreases dependent on the concentration of OT added and the time after the addition of OT. This change was observed within 60 minutes after the addition of OT to the culture. This decrease in surface OTR concentration was suppressed by concanavalin A (ConA), an inhibition of the internalization of cell surface receptors. These results indicate that in humans also, the expression of myometrial OTRs is regulated by change in the E/P ratio. The present study also revealed that OTRs, once expressed, soon disappear from the cell surface in the presence of exogenous OT (due to internalization of OTRs, i.e., dislocation of OTRs from the cell surface to the inside of the cells), and that prolonged exposure to OT even leads to the disappearance of intracellular OTRs. The present study thus suggests that the expression of human myometrial OTRs is regulated by E and P, and that an agonist-induced desensitization mechanism at the receptor level, similar to that reported for beta-adrenergic receptors, is also operating in this receptor.
Bin Packing with Multiple Colors

In the Colored Bin Packing problem a set of items with varying weights and colors must be packed into bins of uniform weight limit such that no two items of the same color may be packed adjacently within a bin. We solve this problem for the case where there are two or more colors when the items have zero weight and when the items have unit weight. Our algorithms are optimal and run in linear time. Since our algorithms apply for two or more colors, they demonstrate that the problem does not get harder as the number of colors increases. We also provide closed-form expressions for the optimal number of bins.
Family Members’ Retrospective Stories of the Treatment Stage of an Adolescent or Young Adult Who Subsequently Died of Cancer

Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer have been recognized as being disadvantaged within the present healthcare system. This article is part of a major study that was motivated by the principal researcher’s own experience of her 17-year-old son dying of cancer and from current literature that highlights the lack of support and understanding of AYAs and their families. Objective: This article aimed to uncover from the stories of family members the experience after the treatment of an adolescent or young adult family member (aged 13–23 years) who subsequently died. Methods: Narrative inquiry was determined to be the appropriate methodology for this study. The participants were a self-selected purposeful sample of 26 family members whose narratives spoke of experience of having an AYA family member live with and die of cancer. Results: The meta-narrative of the families’ stories in the treatment stage resulted in 6 themes. This article provides the insights of experience of the family members within the treatment stage. The family members speak of a health system unable to respond to the AYA and family member’s needs and the suffering sacrifice and courage of the AYAs and the family members. Conclusion: There is evidence that AYAs and family members are lost in the system, with minimum understanding or support for this unique group of people. Implications for Practice: Further research is required to assist the development of evidence-based best practice models of care for AYAs and their families.
Targeted Expression of Suicide Gene by Tissue-Specific Promoter and MicroRNA Regulation for Cancer Gene Therapy

In order to realise the full potential of cancer suicide gene therapy that allows the precise expression of suicide gene in cancer cells, we used a tissue specific Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) promoter (EGP-2) that directs transgene Herpes simplex virus–thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) expression preferentially in EpCAM over expressing cancer cells. EpCAM levels are considerably higher in retinoblastoma (RB), a childhood eye cancer with limited expression in normal cells. Use of miRNA regulation, adjacent to the use of the tissue-specific promoter, would provide the second layer of control to the transgene expression only in the tumor cells while sparing the normal cells. To test this hypothesis we cloned let-7b miRNA targets in the 3’UTR region of HSV-TK suicide gene driven by EpCAM promoter because let-7 family miRNAs, including let-7b, were found to be down regulated in the RB tumors and cell lines. We used EpCAM over expressing and let-7 down regulated RB cell lines Y79, WERI-Rb1 (EpCAM +ve/let-7bdown-regulated), EpCAM down regulated, let-7 over expressing normal retinal Müller glial cell line MIO-M1(EpCAM −ve/let-7bup-regulated), and EpCAM up regulated, let-7b up-regulated normal thyroid cell line N-Thy-Ori-3.1(EpCAM +ve/let-7bup-regulated) in the study. The cell proliferation was measured by MTT assay, apoptosis was measured by probing cleaved Caspase3, EpCAM and TK expression were quantified by Western blot. Our results showed that the EGP2-promoter HSV-TK (EGP2-TK) construct with 2 or 4 copies of let-7b miRNA targets expressed TK gene only in Y79, WERI-Rb-1, while the TK gene did not express in MIO-M1. In summary, we have developed a tissue-specific, miRNA-regulated dual control vector, which selectively expresses the suicide gene in EpCAM over expressing cells.
Extending standards with formal methods: Open Document Architecture

Formal methods, while very promising, are being adopted by software/protocol engineers very slowly, as the industry has little motivation to move into this new, unknown territory. At the same time, new industrial standards are being released quite frequently, as standardization seems to be very popular among developers. In this paper we present the idea of blending formal methods with industry standards. We claim that this results in more concrete system design and extended property verification tools. The enhancement of industry standards with formal methodologies leads to better understanding of the designed environment, eliminates ambiguity and forces a certain level of precision into the specification. An extra benefit is that we can use one of the many algebraic specification languages in order to assist with property checking/verification.
Anatomy of a chaotic attractor: Subtle model-predicted patterns revealed in population data

Mathematically, chaotic dynamics are not devoid of order but display episodes of near-cyclic temporal patterns. This is illustrated, in interesting ways, in the case of chaotic biological populations. Despite the individual nature of organisms and the noisy nature of biological time series, subtle temporal patterns have been detected. By using data drawn from chaotic insect populations, we show quantitatively that chaos manifests itself as a tapestry of identifiable and predictable patterns woven together by stochasticity. We show too that the mixture of patterns an experimentalist can expect to see depends on the scale of the system under study.
On the Relation of Slow Feature Analysis and Laplacian Eigenmaps

The past decade has seen a rise of interest in Laplacian eigenmaps (LEMs) for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. LEMs have been used in spectral clustering, in semisupervised learning, and for providing efficient state representations for reinforcement learning. Here, we show that LEMs are closely related to slow feature analysis (SFA), a biologically inspired, unsupervised learning algorithm originally designed for learning invariant visual representations. We show that SFA can be interpreted as a function approximation of LEMs, where the topological neighborhoods required for LEMs are implicitly defined by the temporal structure of the data. Based on this relation, we propose a generalization of SFA to arbitrary neighborhood relations and demonstrate its applicability for spectral clustering. Finally, we review previous work with the goal of providing a unifying view on SFA and LEMs.
NOT-KNOWING IS MOST INTIMATE

One of the most common mistakes people make about religion is to be misled by statements like ‘I believe in X’ or ‘I am a Zen practitioner’ or ‘I am a Sikh. ’ Misled by grammar, we think that the ‘I’ who believes is somehow separate from the thing or person in which that ‘I’ believes: as if I am over here and what I believe in, identify with, give my heart to, is somehow over there, if not discrete and separate then at least separable. We get misled into thinking that the collective name with which we identify – Jew, Zen practitioner, and Sikh – could be sheared off from some individual ‘I’ and the circumstances in which that ‘I’ finds itself. I believe in ___. I am a ___. I ___. Different? Yes. Divisible into parts that are neat and discrete? No. Human connections are messier than that! While we mostly prefer to forget our mess, we are re-minded of its simple truth in situations of loss, personal and collective, like the killings at Oak Creek. ‘I’ lose someone (or something) . and discover myself undone at a depth that can feel inexplicable, unable to find myself again: for who am I when that someone or something to which I have given my heart is gone? Call this attachment and identification. Call it intentionality (the way we live always beyond ourselves within a world not of our own making). Call it becoming (the way we are empty of separate self but emerge in relation). Call it whatever you like: it seems to me both utterly mundane (we do it daily without even noticing) and quite strange, not least because we also have the capacity to refuse to do this (and to enact this refusal also, and equally, without noticing). To think about the killings at Oak Creek, and the mainstream response (or more precisely, non-response) to these deaths is to face what we do and do not do without noticing: through our words, but equally and no less powerfully, through our silences.
A 3 kHz flicker noise corner, odd-phase active mixer for direct conversion receivers

We present a new type of flicker noise, mismatch up-converting active mixer with an odd number of cascode switching pairs that relax the local oscillator (LO) switching speed, which reduces the flicker noise from indirect mechanisms. The high-crossing master LO drivers improve the IIP3 at a 1.2 V supply voltage, and a frequency-reconfigurable LO generator is also presented for multiband operations. The measured flicker noise corner is <; 4 kHz with 13 dBm IIP3 and > 60 dBm IIP2 at the 1.8 GHz effective LO frequency.
What are effective components of in‐service teacher training? A study examining teacher trainers’ perceptions of the components of a training programme in mathematics education in Cambodia

This paper describes and analyses an in‐service education project, financed by the Belgium Technical Cooperation, to improve the quality of mathematics teaching in 138 primary and lower secondary schools in Cambodia. The project design drew on recent research in developing countries and prior experience of training programmes in Cambodia. The research focused on the components of the in‐service programme, which included direct instruction, classroom observation, training practice and self‐evaluation. Data were collected from observations of the teacher trainers’ participation in the project over a nine‐month period. Additionally a sample of trainers kept diaries of their learning and were interviewed at regular intervals. The data collected were used to analyse which components the trainers perceived to make the greatest contribution to their learning.
Effects of rolipram, a selective inhibitor of type 4 phosphodiesterase, on lipopolysaccharide-induced uveitis in rats.

PURPOSE To investigate effects of rolipram, an inhibitor of type 4 phosphodiesterase, on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced uveitis in Wistar rats. METHODS A total of 100 microg LPS was injected into the rat footpad. Rolipram (Wako Pure Chemical, Osaka, Japan) was injected intraperitoneally 30 minutes before administration of LPS. Levels of intracameral protein, cells, E-selectin, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interleukin (IL)-6, and nitrite were determined. E-selectin, TNF-alpha, IL-6, and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mRNAs and immunohistochemical reactivity of nuclear factor (NF)-kappa B and TNF-alpha were also examined in the iris-ciliary body. RESULTS After LPS injection, intracameral protein and cells increased from 18 to 30 hours later. Rolipram, however, inhibited elevation of protein and cells. After LPS injection, mRNA levels of E-selectin, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 in the iris-ciliary body increased 3 hours later, and iNOS mRNA increased 6 hours later. Elevation of mRNA levels for E-selectin, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 was inhibited by rolipram. After LPS injection, intracameral TNF-alpha and IL-6 levels increased 4 to 6 hours later, and nitrite levels increased 14 to 20 hours later. Elevation of TNF-alpha and IL-6 levels was decreased by rolipram. Rolipram did not affect iNOS mRNA and nitrite levels. Immunoreactivity of NF-kappa B was strong 1 hour after LPS injection, and was decreased by rolipram. Immunoreactivity of TNF-alpha was strong 4 hours after LPS injection and was decreased by rolipram. CONCLUSIONS NF-kappa B translocation and expression of E-selectin, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 are involved in the pathogenesis of LPS-induced uveitis and are inhibited by rolipram. The inhibitory effect of rolipram in uveitis may be independent of iNOS synthesis.
The Discovery of Common-Sense Psychology

This special issue of Social Psychology commemorates the 50th anniversary of Fritz Heider’s 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The contributions to the special issue address the history and current state of attribution research, or illustrate contemporary research in the field. The historical articles document that Heider’s analysis of causal attribution and of common-sense psychology was significantly influenced by his academic teachers Alexius Meinong and Ernst Cassirer. We distinguish between the mainstream reception of Heider’s book, which has given rise to an extensive empirical research program, and a minority reception by authors who emphasized aspects of Heider’s thinking not well represented in mainstream psychology. Currently, there are indications of a “back to Heider” movement in social psychology. This new phase of attribution research is inspired by a fresh reading of Heider’s book, and is marked by an interdisciplinary orientation. The articles illustrating current attribu.
A study on buffer distribution for RRAM-based FPGA routing structures

Compared to Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide reconfigurablity at the cost of lower performance and higher power consumption. Exploiting a large number of programmable switches, routing structures are mainly responsible for the performance limitation. Hence, employing more efficient switches can drastically improve the performance and reduce the power consumption of the FPGA. Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM)-based switches are one of the most promising candidates to improve the FPGA routing architecture thanks to their low on-resistance and non-volatility. The lower RC delay of RRAM-based routing multiplexers, as compared to CMOS-based routing structures encourages us to reconsider the buffer distribution in FPGAs. This paper proposes an approach to reduce the number of buffers in the routing path of RRAM-based FPGAs. Our architectural simulations show that the use of RRAM switches improves the critical path delay by 56% as compared to CMOS switches in standard FPGA circuits at 45-nm technology node while, at the same time, the area and power are reduced, respectively, by 17% and 9%. By adapting the buffering scheme, an extra bonus of 9% for delay reduction, 5% for power reduction and 16% for area reduction can be obtained, as compared to the conventional buffering approach for RRAM-based FPGAs.
Efficacy of bupropion and predictors of successful outcome in a sample of French smokers: a randomized placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Previous published studies assessed the efficacy of bupropion in smoking cessation only in North American populations of smokers. Results of therapeutic drug trials are not always directly applicable in other populations. AIMS To confirm the efficacy of bupropion in smoking cessation in European smokers. DESIGN A multi-centre, randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. SETTING Seventy-four smoking cessation out-patient clinics in France. PARTICIPANTS The study included 509 smokers motivated to quit smoking. Intervention Subjects were randomized to either slow-release bupropion 150 mg b.i. d. (B) or to placebo (Pl) in a 2 : 1 ratio, treated for 7 weeks, and followed-up for 26 weeks. MEASUREMENTS MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE 6 months' point prevalence abstinence, determined by self-report and expired air carbon monoxide measurement. SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES weeks 4-7 and weeks 4-26 continuous abstinence rates, craving, withdrawal symptoms, weight and cigarette consumption in smokers unable to quit. Adverse events were recorded systematically. FINDINGS Six months' point prevalence abstinence rates were 31% and 16%[odds ratio = 2.3, confidence interval (CI) 95%: 1.4-3.7] in the B and Pl groups, respectively. Continuous abstinence rates were 41% (B) and 21% (P) with OR = 2.5 (CI 95%: 1.6-3.9) for weeks 4-7, and 25% (B) and 13% (P) with OR = 2.2 (CI 95%: 1.3-3.6) for weeks 4-26, respectively. Craving decreased significantly more with B than with Pl during treatment period, but there was no difference for total withdrawal symptoms score. Abstinent subjects gained significantly less weight at week 7 with B than with Pl. Low level of nicotine dependence, high motivation, absence of smoking-related disease, long duration of previous quit attempts, male gender, low level of current alcohol problems and living as a couple were predictive of successful cessation. With the exception of marital status, no interaction was observed between any of these predictive factors and the efficacy of bupropion. More of those who continued smoking in the B group than the P group reduced their consumption by at least 50%. CONCLUSIONS Sustained-release bupropion is efficacious as an aid to smoking cessation in European smokers. No outcome predictors were identified that might indicate that certain subgroups of smokers would benefit more than others from treatment with bupropion.
A New Approach to Ontology-Based Semantic Modelling for Opinion Mining

With the fast growth of World Wide Web 2.0, a great number of opinions about a variety of products have been published in blogs, forums, and social networks. Opinion mining tools are needed to enable users to efficiently process a large number of reviews found online, in order to determine the underlying opinions. This paper presents a new methodology for semantic modelling of the domain knowledge for opinion mining. In particular, the new methodology focuses on modelling the domain knowledge in such a way that it can be translated to a formal ontology, which can then be automatically enriched with ground facts obtained from public Linked Open Data resources. The methodology also considers procedures to link between the formal ontology and Natural Language Processing. Our approach successfully enriches the ontology with the relevant ground facts. This ontology can then be used to perform a variety of data mining tasks including sentiment analysis and information retrieval.