Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Executive Functions in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Testing Predictions from Two Models

The role of executive functions in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) varies considerably depending on the models of ADHD. We examined the interrelationship of two major executive functions (i.e., inhibition and working memory) with behavioral, emotional, and school problems in a group of children who had a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. Our sample included both children with one of ADHD subtypes and a non-clinical control group. Multiple measures of executive functions were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, resulting in three interdependent but distinguishable underlying factors: executive concept formation, working memory, and cognitive perseveration (disinhibition). A series of predictions from two recent models of ADHD (Barkley, 1997a, 1997b; Rapport, Chung, Shore, & Isaccs, 2001) were tested through hierarchical regressions. Results indicated that, although working memory and disinhibition were significantly related to teacher-reported attention problems, working memory was a mediator, but not a moderator, of the effect of disinhibition on attention problems. Working memory was related to a variety of behavioral, emotional, and school problems that are common to children with ADHD. These results were interpreted as affirming a series of predictions from the working memory model of ADHD (Rapport et al., 2001).
Numerical Magnitude Representations and Individual Differences in Children's Arithmetic Strategy Use

Against the background of neuroimaging stud- ies on how the brain processes numbers, there is now converging evidence that numerical magnitude representa- tions are crucial for successful mathematics achievement. One major drawback of this research is that it mainly investigated mathematics performance as measured through general stan- dardized achievement tests. We extended this research by investigating the association between numerical magnitude representations and children's strategy use during single-digit arithmetic. Our findings reveal that children's symbolic but not nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills are associated with individual differences in arithmetic. Children with better access to magnitude representations from symbolic digits retrieve more facts from their memory and are faster in executing fact retrieval as well as procedural strategies. These associations remain even when intellectual ability, digit nam- ing, and general mathematics achievement are additionally controlled for. All this indicates that particularly the access to numerical meaning from Arabic symbols is key for children's arithmetic strategy development, which suggests that educa- tors and remedial teachers should focus on connecting Arabic symbols to the quantities they represent.
Cresterea securitatii sistemelor informatice si de comunicatii prin criptografia cuantica

Catch 22 of cryptography - "Before two parties can communicate in secret, they must first communicate in secret". The weakness of classical cryptographic communication systems is that secret communication can only take place after a key is communicated in secret over a totally secure communication channel. Here comes quantum key distribution which takes advantage of certain phenomena that occur at the subatomic level, so that any attempt by an enemy to obtain the bits in a key not only fails, but gets detected as well.
La tendance à regretter du consommateur: Validation d'une échelle de mesure

Cet article présente le développement et la validation d'une échelle de mesure en six items de la Tendance à Regretter du Consommateur (TRC). La TRC, définie comme la propension de certains individus à regretter leurs décisions d'acheter ou de ne pas acheter un produit ou un service, est conceptualisée comme un trait de personnalité situationnel dans un modèle hiérarchique de la personnalité (modèle 3M). Au terme d'une étude qualitative (n = 35) s'appuyant sur la méthode des incidents critiques et de huit collectes de données (n = 3257), nous en proposons une mesure fiable et valide en deux dimensions, utile pour les praticiens du marketing direct ou les publicitaires.
Hypnotizability as an adaptive trait

This paper reviews our studies on the hypnotizability/hypnosis-related modulation of the mind-body connection during relaxation and mental stress, considered as the extremes of the wakefulness cognitive-autonomic arousal. The concept of relaxation is discussed according to the observation that similar self-reports of relaxation and autonomic states may correspond to different EEG patterns in low (Lows) and highly hypnotizable subjects (Highs). Results obtained during mental stress are discussed in the light of a possible adaptive role of hypnotic susceptibility as a natural protection against cardiovascular hazard; in fact, only Highs can actively suppress the cardiovascular responses evoked by a moderate mental stress. All together, findings show that the body can differentially act to similarly experienced relaxation and mental stress and suggest for hypnotizable individuals an evolutionary advantage. Copyright © 2004 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis
Private Tragedy in Social Context? Reflections on Disability, Illness and Suffering

This article reviews aspects of the debate about the contested divide between disability and illness. It considers this divide in the context of three main themes: political efficacy; contradictions between the project of accommodation and that of cure; and Western cultural concerns with bodily control. It suggests that attempts to specify a distinction between disability and illness simply shift the boundaries of social and conceptual exclusion. Chronically sick people remain stigmatised, with their strengths unrecognised and measures to improve their lives unformulated. While acknowledging the serious difficulties involved, the article argues for a more inclusive and diverse movement, which can encompass those whose suffering is resistant to social accommodation.
THE INTERPRETATION OF INTRUSIONS IN PSYCHOSIS: AN INTEGRATIVE COGNITIVE APPROACH TO HALLUCINATIONS AND DELUSIONS

A cognitive approach to the understanding of psychotic symptoms that focuses on the interpretation of intrusions into awareness is outlined. It is argued that many positive psychotic symptoms (such as hallucinations and delusions) can be conceptualized as intrusions into awareness or culturally unacceptable interpretations of such intrusions, and that it is the interpretation of these intrusions that causes the associated distress and disability. It is also argued that the nature of these interpretations is affected by faulty self and social knowledge and that both the intrusions and their interpretations are maintained by mood, physiology, and cognitive and behavioural responses (including selective attention, safety behaviours and counterproductive control strategies). The literature is reviewed and found to be compatible with such a model and the clinical implications are discussed.
ChlVPP/ABVVP, a first line ‘hybrid’ combination chemotherapy for advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma: a retrospective analysis

We retrospectively analysed toxicities and clinical results of 61 Hodgkin's lymphoma patients treated with chlorambucil, vinblastine, procarbazine, doxorubicin, bleomycin, vincristine and etoposide (ChlVPP/ABVVP), delivered in a weekly alternate schedule. Of 61 patients, 33 were in stages III–IV, 21 in stage IIB and seven in stage IIA with bulky disease or extranodal presentation. ChlVPP/ABVVP was administered for 6–8 cycles. Involved field radiotherapy (IFRT) (30–35 Gy) was delivered to 31 patients with residual disease after chemotherapy or bulky disease at diagnosis. Of 61 patients, 58 (95%) achieved complete clinical or radiological remission after chemotherapy and IFRT. With a median follow‐up of 60 months, 5‐year overall survival, relapse‐ and event‐free survival were 78·8% (95% CI 68·2–91·1%), 81% (95% CI 70·6–92·2%) and 71·9% (95% CI 68·2–82·2%) respectively. Grades 3–4 neutropenia was the most relevant haematological toxicity and occurred in 82% of patients. Non‐haematological toxicities were mild and reversible. No toxic deaths were recorded. One patient developed secondary acute myeloid leukaemia 1 year after ChlVPP/ABVVP. Due to the retrospective nature of this study, no definitive conclusions could be drawn about the clinical activity of ChlVPP/ABVVP. Nonetheless, clinical results seem better than those reported with standard regimens [ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vincristine, dacarbazine), MOPP (methotrexate, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone), MOPP/ABVD] and as good as those reported using standard or escalated BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine and prednisone), with a lower degree of haematological and non‐haematological toxicity. Long‐term results of the ongoing randomized trial, comparing ABVD versus high‐dose intensity weekly regimens will be useful to confirm our results.
Limited Impact of 2 g/day Omega-3 Fatty Acid Ethyl Esters (Omacor®) on Plasma Lipids and Inflammatory Markers in Patients Awaiting Carotid Endarterectomy

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of prescription omega-3 (n-3) fatty acid ethyl esters (Omacor®) on blood pressure, plasma lipids, and inflammatory marker concentrations in patients awaiting carotid endarterectomy. Patients awaiting carotid endarterectomy (n = 121) were randomised to Omacor® or olive oil as placebo (2 g/day) until surgery (median 21 days). Blood pressure, plasma lipids, and plasma inflammatory markers were determined. There were significant decreases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure and in plasma triglyceride, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein-cholesterol, soluble vascular cellular adhesion molecule 1, and matrix metalloproteinase 2 concentrations, in both groups. The extent of triglyceride lowering was greater with Omacor® (25%) compared with placebo (9%). Soluble E-selectin concentration was significantly decreased in the Omacor® group but increased in the placebo group. At the end of the supplementation period there were no differences in blood pressure or in plasma lipid and inflammatory marker concentrations between the two groups. It is concluded that Omacor® given at 2 g/day for an average of 21 days to patients with advanced carotid atherosclerosis lowers triglycerides and soluble E-selectin concentrations, but has limited broad impact on the plasma lipid profile or on inflammatory markers. This may be because the duration of intervention was too short or the dose of n-3 fatty acids was too low.
Determining the alternatives for scalar implicature

Successful communication regularly requires listeners to make pragmatic inferences — enrichments beyond the literal meaning of a speaker’s utterance. For example, when interpreting a sentence such as “Alice ate some of the cookies,” listeners routinely infer that Alice did not eat all of them. A Gricean account of this phenomena assumes the presence of alternatives (like “all of the cookies”) with varying degrees of informativity, but it remains an open question precisely what these alternatives are. To address this question, we collect empirical measurements of speaker and listener judgments about varying sets of alternatives across a range of scales and use these as inputs to a computational model of pragmatic inference. This approach allows us to test hypotheses about how well different sets of alternatives predict pragmatic judgments by people. Our findings suggest that comprehenders likely consider a broader set of alternatives beyond those logically entailed by the initial message.
Hardware based testing of communication based control for DC microgrid

This paper further describes our work presented in Industry Application Society 2016 Conference, with more details related to the control and operation of the microgrid. The DC microgrid facility was custom designed and implemented at CCNY with minimal off-the-shelf components to enable flexibility and reconfiguration capability. The design steps, requirements, and experimental results of the developed testbed were discussed. As a case study, a central controller for energy management algorithm was developed and tested under several operational scenarios. The experimental results verify the applicability of the developed testbed for validating DC microgrid controllers.
Phytophthora infestans enters the genomics era.

UNLABELLED summary Phytophthora infestans, cause of late-blight, is the most devastating disease of potato world-wide. Recent years have seen a dramatic intensification in molecular biological studies of P. infestans, including the development of novel tools for transformation and gene silencing and the resources for genetical, transcriptional and physical mapping of the genome. This review will focus on the increasing efforts to use these resources to discover the genetic bases of pathogenicity, avirulence and host-specificity. TAXONOMY Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary-Kingdom Chromista, Phylum Oomycota, Order Peronosporales, Family Peronosporaceae, Genus Phytophthora, of which it is the type species. HOST RANGE Infects a wide range of solanaceous species. Economically important hosts are potato, tomato, eggplant and some other South American hosts (tree tomato and pear melon) on which it causes late blight. Disease symptoms: Infected foliage is initially yellow, becomes water soaked and eventually blackens. Leaf symptoms comprise purple-black or brown-black lesions at the leaf tip, later spreading across the leaf to the stem. Whitish masses of sporangia develop on the underside of the leaf. Tubers become infected later in the season and, in the early stages, consist of slightly brown or purple blotches on the skin. In damp soils the tuber decays rapidly before harvest. Tuber infection is quickly followed by secondary fungal or bacterial infection known as 'wet rot'. Useful web sites:http://www.ncgr. org/pgc/; http://www.oardc. ohio-state.edu/phytophthora/.
Entre la competencia y la cooperación: la construcción de redes entre las Organizaciones No Gubernamentales de Desarrollo en Andalucía

NGOD are situated in a social space whose «gambling rules» impose the paradox of having to compete for resources at stake and cooperate to influence on outsiders. The “Coordinadora Andaluza of NGOD” (CAONGD) is, therefore, a privileged stage to watch those dynamics. By means of a social networks analysis of the relationships behind the more active NGOD of such coordinating committee, we describe the strategies of those organizations and the construction and circulation of meanings through their networks.
Circumnuclear regions in barred spiral galaxies — II. Relations to host galaxies

We present optical broad- and narrow-band imaging of a sample of a dozen barred galaxies. These images are analyzed in conjunction with our previously published near-infrared imaging of their central regions and with literature values for, e.g., bar strengths and the total star formation activity of the galaxies. We present B, I and Himages, and radial profiles derived from these, to infer geometric and dynamical parameters of the structural components of the galaxies, such as bar lengths, bar el- lipticities, and location of star formation and dust. We find that the more centrally concentrated the Hemission in a galaxy is, i.e., the higher the fraction of star forma- tion originating in the circumnuclear region, the higher the overall star formation rate, as measured from far-infrared flux ratios. Stronger bars host smaller nuclear rings, but the strength of the bar does not correlate with either the intrinsic ellipticity of the ring or the offset between the position angles of the bar and the ring. We interpret these results in comparison with modelling of gas inflow in the circumnuclear region, and show that they were theoretically expected. We confirm observationally, and for the first time, the anti-correlation predicted from theory and modelling between the degree of curvature of the bar dust lanes and the strength of the bar, where stronger bars have straighter dust lanes.
Efficient Geometric, Photometric, and Temporal Calibration of an Array of Unsynchronized Video Cameras

Camera-arrays have become popular in many computer vision and computer graphics applications. Among all preprocessing steps, an efficient method to calibrate a large number of cameras is very much desired. The required calibration includes both the geometric and photometric calibration, which are the most common and also well studied for single camera. However, few existing efforts are devoted to camera arrays or to integrate both methods in a fully automatic way. Additionally, most existing camera array systems require or assume implicitly that all the cameras in the array are hardware-synchronized to simplify subsequent application-specific processing such as the calibration of all the cameras. While this constraint is useful, it greatly restricts the use of heterogeneous types of cameras and the configuration of cameras that could be used. In this paper, we propose a novel integrated and fully automatic solution for performing geometric, photometric and temporal calibration (synchronization) of an array of unsynchronized video cameras. In particular, our new method is based on the classic plane based calibration approach. By using a redesigned calibration pattern, the geometric, photometric and temporal calibrations are done in an integrated and extensible framework automatically. Extensive experimental results show that the new method is very easy to use and can achieve high accuracy in the calibrated parameters.
Replacing dairy fat with rapeseed (canola) oil improves hyperlipidaemia – editorial

In this issue of the Journal, Risérus and colleagues report on their clinical trial, investigating the effect of replacing dairy fat with rapeseed (canola) oil on blood lipids, glucosemetabolismandcoagulation factors in hyperlipidaemic subjects [1]. In this randomized crossover study, the 3week intervention with rapeseed oil produced rapid and clinically significant reductions in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol ()17%), triglycerides ()20%) and the LDL : HDL cholesterol ratio ()21%), whilst the dairy fat diet did not significantly alter serum lipids. No significant differences in coagulation factors or insulin sensitivity were found between groups. However, the relative short-term intervention of 3 weeks may not have been long enough to observe a difference in glucose metabolism. While the subject numbers were relatively small (n = 20), the study design was very strong, and the intervention diets and compliance tightly controlled. All foods were provided to study participantduring the intervention, and the rapeseed oil and dairy fat diets were balanced for macronutrients andenergy, dietaryfibreandcholesterol anddiffered only in their fatty acid composition. Subjects were asked to weigh and record all food and drink consumed for seven consecutive days prior to starting the clinical phase of the study to assess habitual diet. To further assess compliance, fatty acid composition of plasmacholesterol esters andphospholipids was measured. Additionally, the fatty acid composition of the test diets was analysed by nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. Such tight controls are essential for establishing the efficacy of dietary approaches forhealth.
Yves Delage: Neuronal Assemblies, Synchronous Oscillations, and Hebbian Learning in 1919

Yves Delage (1854-1920) is known mostly as a French zoologist who made key dis coveries on the physiology and embryology of marine animals and who was director of the Roscoff Biological Station. Upon becoming blind in his late 50s, Delage dedicated himself to introspective analysis of consciousness and published shortly before his death a volume in which he espoused his associational theory of dreams, which attacked di rectly Freud's ideas. At the heart of Delage's theory is the hypothesis of "parachroni zation of neuronal vibratory modes. " He envisioned each neuron having a characteristic vibratory mode, which can be impinged on neighboring neurons according to the strength of their interaction, causing an ensemble of neurons to vibrate in synchrony. He also envisioned strengthening of interactions among simultaneously active neurons, antici pating Hebb's principle. As a result, the properties represented by the synchronized neu rons coalesce, and are perceived together "as a single idea. " Their own engagement in synchronization leaves on the physical connections among them a trace, a "relic," that facilitates their future parachronization. He thus explained perception, association of ideas in trains of thought and in dreams, learning, and memory, decades before the necessary tools became available for neuroscientists to tackle these questions experi mentally. Delage's contribution to neuroscience, through his cunning vision on these issues, anticipated by 70 years the discovery that neuronal synchronous oscillations are associated with perception, dreaming, and memory. NEUROSCIENTIST 5:341-345, 1999
What Contributes Most to High Health Care Costs? Health Care Spending in High Resource Patients

BACKGROUND: U.S. health care spending nearly doubled in the decade from 2000-2010. Although the pace of increase has moderated recently, the rate of growth of health care costs is expected to be higher than the growth in the economy for the near future. Previous studies have estimated that 5% of patients account for half of all health care costs, while the top 1% of spenders account for over 27% of costs. The distribution of health care expenditures by type of service and the prevalence of particular health conditions for these patients is not clear, and is likely to differ from the overall population. OBJECTIVE: To examine health care spending patterns and what contributes to costs for the top 5% of managed health care users based on total expenditures. METHODS: This retrospective observational study employed a large administrative claims database analysis of health care claims of managed care enrollees across the full age and care spectrum. Direct health care expenditures were compared during calendar year 2011 by place of service (outpatient, inpatient, and pharmacy), payer type (commercially insured, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid managed care), and therapy area between the full population and high resource patients (HRP). RESULTS: The mean total expenditure per HRP during calendar year 2011 was $43,104 versus $3,955 per patient for the full population. Treatment of back disorders and osteoarthritis contributed the largest share of expenditures in both HRP and the full study population, while chronic renal failure, heart disease, and some oncology treatments accounted for disproportionately higher expenditures in HRP. The share of overall expenditures attributed to inpatient services was significantly higher for HRP (40.0%) compared with the full population (24.6%), while the share of expenditures attributed to pharmacy (HRP = 18.1%, full = 21.4%) and outpatient services (HRP = 41.9%, full = 54.1%) was reduced. This pattern was observed across payer type. While the use of physician-administered pharmaceuticals was slightly higher in HRP, their use did not alter this spending pattern. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, expenditures in the HRP population are more than 10-fold higher compared with the full population. Managed care pharmacy can benefit from understanding what contributes to these higher costs, and managed care directors should consider an appropriately balanced assessment of the share of total spend by service and therapeutic category in HRP when devising drug usage and related cost-management strategies.