Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of life and Alzheimer’s disease: Influence of participation in a rehabilitation center

Quality of life is seldom explored in evaluations of therapeutic interventions in Alzheimer’s disease. Objective To verify whether participation in a cognitive and functional rehabilitation program improves quality of life (QOL) among Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Methods 19 AD patients participated in this study, 12 of whom attended 24 multi-professional intervention sessions – the experimental group – whereas the remaining 7 comprised the control group. The following tools were used to assess changes: a) Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE); b) Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS); c) Quality of Life in AD evaluation scale (QOL-AD); d) Open question on QOL. Results Participation had no positive impact on quantitative clinical variables (MMSE, GDS, QOL-AD). The answers to the open question, examined using the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) method, suggested that QOL improved after the intervention. Conclusion Combining pharmacological treatment with psychosocial intervention may prove to be an effective strategy to enhance the QOL of AD patients.
Capacitor array structure and switch control for energy-efficient SAR analog-to-digital converters

This paper presents a new capacitor array structure and its switch control method for binary weighted SAR analog- to-digital converters, which can significantly lower the energy consumed in charge redistribution steps. The proposed method is analyzed theoretically and simulations are performed to verify the theoretical analysis. Simulation results show that the proposed capacitor array structure and switching method can reduce the average energy consumed in the capacitor array by 75% and 60% compared to the conventional method and the splitting capacitor method, respectively.
A Tale of Transmission: Aeromonas veronii Activity within Leech-Exuded Mucus

ABSTRACT Transmission, critical to the establishment and persistence of host-associated microbiotas, also exposes symbionts to new environmental conditions. With horizontal transmission, these different conditions represent major lifestyle shifts. Yet genome-wide analyses of how microbes adjust their transcriptomes toward these dramatic shifts remain understudied. Here, we provide a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the global transcriptional profiles of a symbiont as it shifts between lifestyles during transmission. The gammaproteobacterium Aeromonas veronii is transmitted from the gut of the medicinal leech to other hosts via host mucosal castings, yet A. veronii can also transition from mucosal habitancy to a free-living lifestyle. These three lifestyles are characterized by distinct physiological constraints and consequently lifestyle-specific changes in the expression of stress-response genes. Mucus-bound A. veronii had the greatest expression in terms of both the number of loci and levels of transcription of stress-response mechanisms. However, these bacteria are still capable of proliferating within the mucus, suggesting the availability of nutrients within this environment. We found that A. veronii alters transcription of loci in a synthetic pathway that obtains and incorporates N-acetylglucosamine (NAG; a major component of mucus) into the bacterial cell wall, enabling proliferation. Our results demonstrate that symbionts undergo dramatic local adaptation, demonstrated by widespread transcriptional changes, throughout the process of transmission that allows them to thrive while they encounter new environments which further shape their ecology and evolution.
Acquisition and retention effects of reduced relative frequency of knowledge of results

Abstract Three experiments examined the acquisition and retention of a motor skill by manipulating the amount and timing of information feedback or knowledge of results (KR). In the linear positioning task used here, KR is the distance moved on the just-completed response. In Experiment 1 the effect of consecutive KR trials was examined by presenting separate groups in acquisition with sequences of either two or three consecutive KRs in a reduced relative frequency protocol. There were no statistically reliable differences in error scores (absolute or variable) in either short-term retention (2 min, R1) or long-term retention (24 h, R2), between five groups (n = 13); 100% KR, 20 KRs at a fixed interval (every fifth trial), 2 consecutive KRs, 3 consecutive KRs, and no consecutive KRs (20 KRs presented quasi-randomly). Experiment 2 examined subject-controlled KR by employing a group given 20 KRs on request, a KR presentation-trial matched control, a 100% KR group, and a 20 KRs at fixed interval group. There.
Cognitive Psychology and Information Processing: An Introduction

This book makes a serious effort to cover almost every area of cognitive psychology. There are content chapters on: reaction time, attention, episodic memory, multistore models, semantic memory, psycholinguistics, comprehension, discourse processing, and (by James F. Juola) pattern reception. In addition, there are four chapters on metatheoretical matters and on the various fields that have contributed to information-processing psychology. There is a brief epilogue, terminal bibliography, author index, and subject index. Overall, the book is high level (perhaps a bit too much so) and excellent. It is clearly the best single-volume book I have seen that would serve as a graduate text. Undergraduates would find some of it heavy going. Every chapter is outlined and well organized. The writing is clear. Each chapter begins with a 2-3 page outlined abstract of the chapter. These abstracts are superb. They are so helpful that the reader may feel he can skip reading the chapter! I have one minor and one major criticism. The minor one is that the pattern recognition chapter seems out of place. The major one concerns the first four chapters (over 125 pages). In these chapters a great deal is said about philosophy of science, metatheoretical issues, and the importance of paradigms in science in general as well as in psychology in particular. Obeisance is made to Kuhn. This theme of the importance of paradigms, and especially of changes in paradigms, is carried to some extent throughout the content chapters. I totally disagree. I see no relevance at all of the Kuhnian approach to what psychology was, is now, or will become. This book could have been shortened by almost 100 pages (which would improve it) if the first four chapters were reduced to one, a brief one. Other than that, this is an excellent book.
Disruption of the FG nucleoporin NUP98 causes selective changes in nuclear pore complex stoichiometry and function

The NUP98 gene encodes precursor proteins that generate two nucleoplasmically oriented nucleoporins, NUP98 and NUP96. By using gene targeting, we have selectively disrupted the murine NUP98 protein, leaving intact the expression and localization of NUP96. We show that NUP98 is essential for mouse gastrulation, a developmental stage that is associated with rapid cell proliferation, but dispensable for basal cell growth. NUP98−/− cells had an intact nuclear envelope with a normal number of embedded nuclear pore complexes. Typically, NUP98-deficient cells contained on average approximately 5-fold more cytoplasmic annulate lamellae than control cells. We found that a set of cytoplasmically oriented nucleoporins, including NUP358, NUP214, NUP88, and p62, assembled inefficiently into nuclear pores of NUP98−/− cells. Instead, these nucleoporins were prominently associated with the annulate lamellae. By contrast, a group of nucleoplasmically oriented nucleoporins, including NUP153, NUP50, NUP96, and NUP93, had no affinity for annulate lamellae and assembled normally into nuclear pores. Mutant pores were significantly impaired in transport receptor-mediated docking of proteins with a nuclear localization signal or M9 import signal and showed weak nuclear import of such substrates. In contrast, the ability of mutant pores to import ribosomal protein L23a and spliceosome protein U1A appeared intact. These observations show that NUP98 disruption selectively impairs discrete protein import pathways and support the idea that transport of distinct import complexes through the nuclear pore complex is mediated by specific subsets of nucleoporins.
Dual Challenge: Diagnosis and Treatment of Colorectal Cancer in Pregnancy

Two weeks prior to this time, she had had one episode of tarry stool. There had been a 5 kg weight loss during the first trimester. There was no history of smoking or of alcohol use and no history of abdominal surgery. Family history of uterine cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, but no gastrointestinal cancer was noted. Physical examination revealed diffuse abdominal tenderness, more localized to the LLQ. Laboratory results showed a WBC of 12.3X109/L with 89% neutrophils. The hemoglobin was 10.0 with an MCV of 78.1 and RDW of 16.9. Comprehensive metabolic profile was normal. Fetal growth ultrasound revealed normal fetus without distress. The patient was discharged to home on the same day, following IV hydration and pain control, with oral ampicillin prescribed for a diagnosis of urinary tract infection. She returned on the subsequent day with persistent LLQ pain. MRI without gadolinium revealed prominent wall thickening in the sigmoid colon. After receiving metronidazole for a presumptive diagnosis of diverticulitis, the symptoms improved and she was discharged to home with a scheduled outpatient sigmoidoscopy. The patient presented for sigmoidoscopy at 28 weeks of gestation. A large tumor was found in the sigmoid colon and biopsy demonstrated a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma. Serum CEA level was 72.9 ng/ml. Right upper quadrant ultrasound revealed no evidence of liver metastases. A consensus of the obstetric, surgical and oncological teams was reached: the patient received steroids to expedite fetal lung maturation and underwent a scheduled induction of vaginal delivery at 32 weeks of gestation. A healthy baby boy was delivered. Dual Challenge: Diagnosis and Treatment of Colorectal Cancer in Pregnancy
Regulation of a New Cell Wall Hydrolase Gene,cwlF, Which Affects Cell Separation in Bacillus subtilis

ABSTRACT Bacillus subtilis produces a 35-kDa cell wall hydrolase, CwlF, during vegetative growth. The CwlF protein was extracted from B. subtilis cwlB sigD mutant cells and separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. N-terminal amino acid sequencing revealed that its sequence is completely identical to that of the internal region of thepapQ gene product. Disruption of the papQ gene in the B. subtilis chromosome led to the complete loss of CwlF, indicating that papQ is identical tocwlF. CwlF exhibits high sequence similarity to the p60 proteins of Listeria species, NlpC proteins ofEscherichia coli and Haemophilus influenzae, and Enp2 protein of Bacillus sphaericus. The β-galactosidase activity of the cwlF-lacZ transcriptional fusion and Northern blot analysis of the cwlF gene indicated that the gene is expressed as a monocistronic operon during the exponential growth phase, and primer extension analysis suggested that the cwlF gene is transcribed mainly by EςA RNA polymerase and weakly by EςH RNA polymerase. While the cells of the cwlF-deficient mutant were about twice as long as those of the wild-type strain, the cwlF sigD double mutant cells exhibited extraordinary microfiber formation, in contrast to the filamentation of the sigD mutant. The CwlF production was not affected by the pleiotropic mutationsflaD1 and degU32(Hy), which endow cells with the ability of extensive filamentation.
The influence of gender roles on evolved partner preferences

Evolutionary psychologists argue that there are reliable sex differences between men and women's partner preferences, such that men attach greater importance than women to physical attractiveness, whereas women are more concerned than men with commitment and status. The present study proposed that gender roles may moderate these sex differences. A total of 143 participants completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and rated the importance of several partner characteristics. Categorical and regression analyses showed that both sex and sex-typing had a significant impact on partner preferences. These findings are discussed in terms of a trade-off threshold model of partner preferences, such that masculine women may engage in some trade-off of commitment characteristics for physical attractiveness and feminine men may trade-off attractiveness for signs of willingness to commit.
Spatially Dependent Polya Tree Modeling for Survival Data

Summary With the proliferation of spatially oriented time‐to‐event data, spatial modeling in the survival context has received increased recent attention. A traditional way to capture a spatial pattern is to introduce frailty terms in the linear predictor of a semiparametric model, such as proportional hazards or accelerated failure time. We propose a new methodology to capture the spatial pattern by assuming a prior based on a mixture of spatially dependent Polya trees for the baseline survival in the proportional hazards model. Thanks to modern Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, this approach remains computationally feasible in a fully hierarchical Bayesian framework. We compare the spatially dependent mixture of Polya trees (MPT) approach to the traditional spatial frailty approach, and illustrate the usefulness of this method with an analysis of Iowan breast cancer survival data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program of the National Cancer Institute. Our method provides better goodness of fit over the traditional alternatives as measured by log pseudo marginal likelihood (LPML), the deviance information criterion (DIC), and full sample score (FSS) statistics.
DISCRETE RICCATI EQUATION, HYPERGEOMETRIC FUNCTIONS AND CIRCLE PATTERNS OF SCHRAMM TYPE

Square grid circle patterns with prescribed intersection angles, mimicking holomorphic maps $z^{\gamma }$ and ${\rm log}(z)$ are studied. It is shown that the corresponding circle patterns are embedded and described by special separatrix solutions of discrete Painlevé and Riccati equations. The general solution of this Riccati equation is expressed in terms of the hypergeometric function. Global properties of these solutions, as well as of the discrete $z^{\gamma }$ and ${\rm log}(z)$, are established.
Do You Know What I Feel? A First Step Towards a Physiological Measure of the Subjective Well‐Being of Persons With Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities

Background Because of limited communicative skills, it is not self-evident to measure subjective well-being in people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. As a first step towards a non-interprative measure of subjective well-being, we explored how the respiratory, cardiovascular and electro dermal response systems were associated with the valence dimension of emotion. Material and Methods Three participants were presented with staff selected negative and positive stimuli. During the presentation we measured the participants’ respiration, skin conductance, heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). We used behavioural codings as an extra measure of emotional valence. Results Participants showed a shallow, fast breathing pattern, used less thoracic breathing, had a higher skin conductance and had less RSA when experiencing positive emotions then when experiencing negative emotions. Conclusion There are physiological differences between positive and negative emotions. The results also indicate that people with PIMD direct their attention away from negative stimuli.
Cognition and Emotion in TV Message Processing: How Valence, Arousing Content, Structural Complexity, and Information Density Affect the Availability of Cognitive Resources

This paper examines whether emotional message content alters the effects of structural complexity and information density on available resources, measured by secondary task reaction times (STRTs), and message encoding, measured by audio recognition. In addition, hypotheses relating motivational activation and resource availability based on the motivational activation concepts of positivity offset (greater appetitive activation in a neutral environment) and negativity bias (faster aversive activation) influence are tested. Results replicate previous research supporting the contention that STRTs measure available resources. In addition, they show that the basic pattern of STRTs and recognition as a function of allocated and required resources is relatively consistent regardless of emotional content of the message. Emotion appears to function as a constant, increasing both resource allocation and resources required. Finally, these data provide some initial support for predicted relationships between motivational activation and resource allocation based on the constructs of positivity offset and negativity bias.
The Study on Online Shopping Perceived Risk Under the China's E-business Circumstance

This paper has shown a study of online shopping perceived risk under the China’s e-business circumstance by the combining ways of factor analysis and empirical study, with the expectation of making some suggestions for removing the restriction element that confines the further development of online consumption. Through the literature review and factors analysis, it has established a three-level dynamic model of perceived risk and online shopping behavior under the China’s e-business circumstance, thus to reveal the dynamic relationships among perceived risk’s influence factors, dimensions, acceptable risk levels and risk behaviors reduction, as well as to propose a decision-making idea of perceived risk. The result shows that the online shopping perceived risk under the China’s e-business circumstance is affected by a combined effect of several factors like social cultures, consumers, products differences, online retailers, online transaction intermediaries and etc, the consumers’ acceptable risk is adjusting the relationships between the consumers’ overall perceived risk and risk behaviors reduction.
Different modes of endothelial–smooth muscle cell interaction elicit differential β-catenin phosphorylations and endothelial functions

Significance β-Catenin is an important versatile protein in most types of cells and its activity is regulated by differential phosphorylations and, hence, affects cellular functions. In this study, we defined a unique mechanism by which different modes of heterocellular interaction between vascular endothelial cells (ECs) and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) play differential roles in regulating EC β-catenin phosphorylations and functions. Direct physical interaction of SMCs to ECs causes their β-catenin Tyr142-phosphorylation via connexin 43/Fer to induce EC inflammation. In contrast, paracrine interaction of SMCs to ECs induces Ser45/Thr41-phosphorylation of VE-cadherin–associated β-catenin in ECs to cause their barrier dysfunction, with increased permeability. Our findings suggest that different phosphorylated forms of β-catenin play important roles in modulating vascular pathophysiology through different heterocellular interactions. β-Catenin phosphorylation plays important roles in modulating its functions, but the effects of different phosphorylated forms of β-catenin in response to heterocellular interaction are unclear. Here we investigated whether distinct modes of phosphorylation on β-catenin could be triggered through heterocellular interactions between endothelial cells (ECs) and smooth muscle cells (SMCs), and the consequent modulation of EC functions. ECs were cocultured with SMCs to initiate direct contact and paracrine interaction. EC–SMC coculture induced EC β-catenin phosphorylations simultaneously at tyrosine 142 (Tyr142) and serine 45/threonine 41 (Ser45/Thr41) at the cytoplasm/nuclei and the membrane, respectively. Treating ECs with SMC-conditional medium induced β-catenin phosphorylation only at Ser45/Thr41. These findings indicate that different phosphorylation effects of EC–SMC coculture were induced through heterocellular direct contact and paracrine effects, respectively. Using specific blocking peptides, antagonists, and siRNAs, we found that the β-catenin Tyr142-phosphorylation was mediated by connexin 43/Fer and that the β-catenin Ser45/Thr41-phosphorylation was mediated by SMC-released bone morphogenetic proteins through VE-cadherin and bone morphogenetic protein receptor-II/Smad5. Transfecting ECs with β-catenin-Tyr142 or -Ser45 mutants showed that these two phosphorylated forms of β-catenin modulate differential EC function: The Tyr142-phosphorylated β-catenin stimulates vascular cell-adhesion molecule-1 expression to increase EC-monocytic adhesion, but the Ser45/Thr41-phosphorylated β-catenin attenuates VE-cadherin–dependent junction structures to increase EC permeability. Our findings provide new insights into the understanding of regulatory complexities of distinct modes of β-catenin phosphorylations under EC–SMC interactions and suggest that different phosphorylated forms of β-catenin play important roles in modulating vascular pathophysiology through different heterocellular interactions.
Effect of laser therapy on immune cells infiltrate after excisional wounds in diabetic rats

Diabetes alters innate and specific immunity, causing an imbalanced tissue repair process. Very active neutrophils and macrophages are found for a long time in chronic wounds in those individuals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the response of the main effector cells of immunity (neutrophils, macrophages, and T lymphocytes) and to compare the effects of two laser therapy regimens in the postoperative treatment of excision wounds.
Professional Models in Journalism: The Gatekeeper and the Advocate

Practitioners in any particular profession hold differing conceptions of their tasks and priorities. The difference between the “public health” doctor and the clinician is a long-standing distinction that has had a strong impact on the practice of medicine. In the military, it has been observed that officers can be classified as “pragmatists” or as “absolutists” according to their differing notions of the relative importance and role of force in international relations. This article seeks to present two alternative models which are operative among contemporary working journalists-the “gatekeeper” and the “advocate. ” It also seeks to analyze the professional issues associated with these models and their implications for the practice of journalism. Since World War I, journalists have come more and more to consider themselves as professionals and to search for an appropriate professional model. The initial efforts were to fashion journalism into a field, similar to medicine, where the journalist would develop his technical expertise and also a sense of professional responsibility. This model and its aspirations can best be called the ”gatekeeper” model. In particular, this image of the journalist sought to apply the canons of the scientific method to increase his objectivity and enhance his