Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endothelial Functions Improve with Decrease in Asymmetric Dimethylarginine (ADMA) Levels after Renal Transplantation

Background. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with increased cardiovascular events. The relationships between the markers of inflammation and endothelial dysfunction were investigated both before and after living donor kidney transplantation. Methods. Twenty-seven renal transplant patients were studied. Eleven patients (six male, five female) were on cyclosporine A, whereas 16 patients (nine male, seven female) were treated with tacrolimus based regimes. Twenty-seven subjects (12 males, 15 females) were studied as controls. Plasma adiponectin, high sensitive C reactive protein (hsCRP), Asymetric dimethyl arginine (ADMA) levels were studied before transplantation and on days 1, 3, 7, 14, and 28. The brachial artery flow mediated dilatation (FMD) was studied before transplantation and on the 28th day. Results. Serum hsCRP and ADMA levels decreased significantly from the first posttransplantation day on each measurement (P<0.001 for all) while the decrement of plasma adiponectin started in the third day (P<0.001 for all). The FMD was lower in the patients than the control group (P<0.001) and improved significantly in the 28th day of transplantation (P<0.001). Conclusions. The results indicate that ADMA is associated with FMD in CKD both before and after kidney transplantation. Endothelial functions improve at the very beginning of the posttransplantation period with accompanying reduction in ADMA and hsCRP levels.
Developments in skin and soft tissue infection.

The issue covers developments in the management of skin and soft tissue infection. The new acronym for soft tissue infection, coined by those who regulate clinical trials in USA, is ABSSSI, that is, acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections. The skin and its underlying structures are the largest organ in the body and as this organ presents a protective barrier to the external environment, ABSSSI is very common and one of the main reasons for antibiotic use. The clinical spectrum of ABSSSI is very wide, ranging from mild self-limiting inflammation to life-threatening infection. The causes of infection in skin are very varied – viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths, and in addition there are many skin manifestations of systemic infection. Although beauty is only skin deep, skin changes reflect holistic health! Staphylococci remain predominant amongst bacterial causes of ABSSSI and their epidemiology is in regular upheaval. The global trend in staphylococcal epidemiology is towards increasing resistance and increasing pathogenicity. Methicillin resistance is no longer a healthcare-associated problem, and in many parts of the world multiple resistant staphylococci are the commonest cause of ABSSSI. In this issue, we hear about the challenges in assessing methicillin resistance and determining toxicity. A further review looks at the pathogenic mechanisms of group A streptococcal (GAS) infection, another major bacterial pathogen of soft tissue and one which causes a wide spectrum of clinical presentation. This helps understand how this organism causes disease and is relevant in the light of new guidelines (in the UK at least) for the management
Perceived Teacher and Parental Acceptance and Behavioral Control, School Conduct, and Psychological Adjustment Among School-Going Adolescents in India

This study explored the relationship between Indian adolescents’ perceptions of their teachers’ and parents’ (mothers’ and fathers’) acceptance and behavioral control, students’ conduct in school, and students’ psychological adjustment. A sample of 217 high school students in India was enrolled in the study. Results showed that the students perceived their teachers, mothers, and fathers to be warm and accepting, but boys experienced more teacher acceptance than girls. Boys also experienced more maternal acceptance than girls. Both boys and girls perceived teachers as well as parents to be firm in behavioral control. Teachers reported both genders to be well behaved, though girls tended to be somewhat better behaved than boys. Both boys and girls self-reported minor psychological adjustment problems, though the more caring students perceived both their teachers and parents to be, the better was their psychological adjustment. In addition, the less controlling girls (but not boys) perceived their teachers and parents to be, the better was their psychological adjustment. Regarding school conduct, only perceived paternal and maternal—but not teacher—acceptance were associated with boys’ behavior in school. For girls, however, both teachers’ and parents’ acceptance and behavioral control were significantly correlated with school conduct, though only perceived teacher acceptance made a unique contribution to their school behavior.
Leveraging single-user applications for multi-user collaboration: the coword approach

Single-user interactive computer applications are pervasive in our daily lives and work. Leveraging single-user applications for multi-user collaboration has the potential to significantly increase the availability and improve the usability of collaborative applications. In this paper, we report an innovative transparent adaptation approach for this purpose. The basic idea is to adapt the single-user application programming interface to the data and operational models of the underlying collaboration supporting technique, namely Operational Transformation. Distinctive features of this approach include: (1) Application transparency: it does not require access to the source code of the single-user application; (2) Unconstrained collaboration: it supports concurrent and free interaction and collaboration among multiple users; and (3) Reusable collaborative software components: collaborative software components developed with this approach can be reused in adapting a wide range of single-user applications. This approach has been applied to transparently convert MS Word into a real-time collaborative word processor, called CoWord, which supports multiple users to view and edit any objects in the same Word document at the same time over the Internet. The generality of this approach has been tested by re-applying it to convert MS PowerPoint into CoPowerPoint.
Western management training in Eastern Europe: trends and developments over a decade

This paper tracks changes in design and implementation of Western management training interventions in Eastern Europe (EE) over a period of more than a decade. The study is based empirically on three management development programmes conducted by Westerners in the transitional environments of Bulgaria and Russia from 1992 to 2003. Departing from existing literature on knowledge transfer from Western to EE, activity theory is used to identify a process of reconfiguring the zone of proximal development of East European (also abbreviated EE in the article) participants and conclude that there is a growing desire and assertiveness on the part of local participants to formulate their own strategic and managerial repertoires. At the same time, it is also observed that as a product of Western ideology of the transitional process, there has been empowerment of socio-demographic groupings who demonstrate consonant ideological inclinations towards Western managerial discourse, most notably young, educated and English proficient individuals.
Neurophenomenology and Contemplative Experience

Introduction Scientific investigation of the mind, known since the nineteen-seventies as 'cognitive science', is an interdisciplinary field of research comprising psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind. The presence of philosophy in this list is telling. Cognitive science, although institutionally well established, is not a theoretically settled field, unlike molecular biology or high-energy physics. Rather, it includes a variety of competing research programmes-the computational theory of mind (also known as classical cognitive science), connectionism, and dynamical and embodied approaches-whose underlying conceptions of mentality and its relation to biology, on the one hand, and to culture, on the other, are often strikingly different (see Clark, 2001, for a useful overview). It is important to keep this situation in mind in any discussion of the relation between cognitive science and religion, for different theoretical perspectives in cognitive science can combine with different scientific approaches to religion. Rather than review these possibilities here, however, I shall describe one recent approach, known as neurophenomenology (Lutz and Thompson, 2003; Varela, 1996). Although neurophenomenology is not directly concerned with the cognitive science of religion, it is highly relevant to this field, especially the psychology and biology of religious experience. Neurophenomenology is an offshoot of the embodied approach in cognitive science (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, 1991). The central idea of the embodied approach is that cognition is the exercise of skillful know-how in situated action. The most important feature of this approach is that experience is not seen as an epiphenomenon, but is considered central to any adequate understanding of the mind, and accordingly needs to be investigated in a careful phenomenological manner. Phenomenology and experimental cognitive science are thus seen as complementary and mutually informing modes of investigation. Neurophenomenology builds on this view with the specific aim of understanding the nature of consciousness and subjectivity, and their relation to the brain and body. The working hypothesis of neurophenomenology is that phenomenological accounts of the structure of human experience and scientific accounts of cognitive processes can be mutually The term 'phenomenology' in this context refers to disciplined, first-person ways of investigating and analyzing experience, as exemplified by the Western philosophical tradition of Phenomenology (Moran, 2000) and Asian contemplative philosophies, especially (though not exclusively) Buddhism. The reason the Buddhist tradition is particularly relevant in this context is that its cornerstone is contemplative mental training and critical phenomenological and philosophical analysis of the mind based …
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

Gary Marcus provides an engaging argument for the two-part view that the mind is a kluge, and that it’s therefore not created by an intelligent designer, a.k. a. , God. This argument, while philosophical, is based on empirical evidence culled from psychology. We distill Marcus’s argument, and briefly explain why it’s derailed by at least two objections. In the course of our presentation we summarize the book. What’s a kluge? Two definitions, derived directly from Marcus’s introductory chapter, constitute an answer. The first:
Effects of a novel herbal formulation JSK on acute spinal cord injury in rats.

PURPOSE Acute spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers multiple cellular and molecular pathways; therapy aimed at only one pathway is unlikely to succeed. Anecdotal reports indicate that a novel herbal formulation (JSK-Ji-Sui-Kang) may enhance recovery in humans with SCI. We investigated whether JSK's therapeutic effects could be verified in a well-established SCI model in rats. METHODS Therapeutic effects of JSK were tested using a standard behavioral assessment, histological, immunochemical and microarray analysis. Phytochemical fingerprinting of JSK was performed using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry. JSK or vehicle was gavaged to rats 24 hours after SCI and daily thereafter for 3 weeks. RESULTS Locomotor function significantly improved (n = 12; p < 0.05), tissue damage was reduced (p < 0.01; n = 6) and more axons and myelin were observed in JSK-treated compared with vehicle control animals. JSK significantly enhanced expression of neuroglobin, vascular endothelial growth factor and growth-associated protein 43, and reduced the expression of caspase 3, cyclooxygenase-2, RhoA (p < 0.05; n = 6) and fibrinogen (p < 0.01; n = 6). RNA microarray indicated that JSK altered transcription of genes involved in ischemic and inflammatory/immune responses and apoptosis (p < 0.05; n = 3). CONCLUSIONS JSK appears to target multiple biochemical and cellular pathways to enhance functional recovery and improve outcomes of SCI. The results provide a basis for further investigation of JSK's effects following SCI.
Economic Recession and Mental Health: Some Conceptual Issues

The greatest burden of economic recession falls on the unemployed. Research in this area has resulted in a general consensus that the large majority of the unemployed are psychologically impaired. From the voluminous relevant literature, three conceptual issues are singled out for discussion: the research style—that is, the dominant questions investigated and the corresponding research procedures; explanations for the mental state of the unemployed and the role of theory; and the concept of mental health as involving more than the absence of mental illness.
Forward masking for increased robustness in automatic speech recognition

In automatic speech recognition MFCC or LPCC are features commonly used today. However, their calculation considers only a few features of the auditory system. On the assumption that the human representation of speech is an optimal representation, considering more features of the auditory system might lead to a better performance of automatic speech recognition systems. In this paper a model proposed by Strope and Alwan (see references), which relies on the human acoustic perception and allows to consider the effect of forward masking, is incorporated after some modifications into an automatic speech recognition system with a MFCC-based front-end. The extended system is evaluated on recognition tasks, that are closer to real recognition than (connected) digit recognition commonly used in the literature. The evaluations show an increased robustness of the speech recognition system with forward masking on all recognition tasks, but especially on data recorded in noisy environments.
The Self-Sufficiency Trap: A Critical Examination of Welfare-to-Work

This article examines the notion of self-sufficiency as the central goal of recent policy efforts in Canada to move social assistance recipients into the labor market. The authors base their examination on a longitudinal, institutional-ethnographic study of 17 welfare-to-work participants attempting to make the transition from social assistance to employment in the province of Alberta, Canada. Findings from a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with participants about their day-to-day experiences show that there is a considerable gap between “the promise” and “the reality” of welfare-to-work programs. This gap reveals the difficulties of relying on the goal of self-sufficiency for all citizens, demonstrating how, as an abstract ideological notion, self-sufficiency has shaped concrete policy orientations that affect marginalized citizens by overpromising and underdelivering sustainable employment.
An Examination of the Productivity and Perceived Effectiveness of Drug Task Forces

Multijurisdictional drug task forces formalize cooperative ventures and dedi cate attention to drug crime with the assumption that such will lead to more effective drug law enforcement. This improvement in drug enforcement is hypothesized to benefit the task forces not only in the number of drug arrests achieved, but also in enhanced communication and cooperation among in dividual members. Using data collected from a survey of task force leaders, grant applications and quarterly arrest reports, this study compares effective ness across task forces and organizational contexts. Findings indicate that differences in task force organizational structure, context and managerial fac tors may not affect the number of drug-related arrests, though they may influence the level of perceived effectiveness.
Ultra Wideband Communication System as Sensor Technology for 3D Mapping

This paper describes the application of an ultra wideband (UWB) communication and positioning system for constructing a 3D map of the environment. Basis for the mapping functionality are the device's ability to measure the impulse response and the system's ability to determine the position of the device. A systematic analysis of the problem structure is provided and key issues are identified. The proposed solution is partly implemented, and as far as possible verified in a simple experimental setup. Experiments show on the one hand the feasibility of such a system, i.e. that walls and various objects can be detected. On the other hand, the experiments also clarify which issues have to be examined in more detail
A WordNet-based natural language interface to relational databases

This paper proposes an approach to creating an WordNet-based natural language interface to relational databases which allows end-users to access and query information in database with a natural language. In order to strengthen the reliability and the user-friendliness of the system, our approach integrates WordNet as the base lexicon and ontology as the knowledge base of the semantic interpreter. The user inputs will be first translated into syntax tree by syntax analysis, then it will be translated into an intermediate representation language DRS by the ontology-based semantic interpreter. The SQL generator transfers DRS expressions into SQL sentences by a template technique. The RDMS executes SQL sentences and returns the final result. This paper presents the framework based on ontology techniques to implement a portable NLIDBs that makes it easier to migrate from one domain to another. The prototype system and our experiments show that our approach has generated good results with excellent performance on common queries.
The genome and transcriptome of Phalaenopsis yield insights into floral organ development and flowering regulation

The Phalaenopsis orchid is an important potted flower of high economic value around the world. We report the 3.1 Gb draft genome assembly of an important winter flowering Phalaenopsis ‘KHM190’ cultivar. We generated 89.5 Gb RNA-seq and 113 million sRNA-seq reads to use these data to identify 41,153 protein-coding genes and 188 miRNA families. We also generated a draft genome for Phalaenopsis pulcherrima ‘B8802,’ a summer flowering species, via resequencing. Comparison of genome data between the two Phalaenopsis cultivars allowed the identification of 691,532 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. In this study, we reveal that the key role of PhAGL6b in the regulation of labellum organ development involves alternative splicing in the big lip mutant. Petal or sepal overexpressing PhAGL6b leads to the conversion into a lip-like structure. We also discovered that the gibberellin pathway that regulates the expression of flowering time genes during the reproductive phase change is induced by cool temperature. Our work thus depicted a valuable resource for the flowering control, flower architecture development, and breeding of the Phalaenopsis orchids.
Time‐Discrete Geodesics in the Space of Shells

Building on concepts from continuum mechanics, we offer a computational model for geodesics in the space of thin shells, with a metric that reflects viscous dissipation required to physically deform a thin shell. Different from previous work, we incorporate bending contributions into our deformation energy on top of membrane distortion terms in order to obtain a physically sound notion of distance between shells, which does not require additional smoothing. Our bending energy formulation depends on the so‐called relative Weingarten map, for which we provide a discrete analogue based on principles of discrete differential geometry. Our computational results emphasize the strong impact of physical parameters on the evolution of a shell shape along a geodesic path.
Student leadership development in Australian and New Zealand secondary girls’ schools: a staff perspective

This paper reports on a qualitative study regarding the phenomenon of student leadership development as reported by staff members in girls’ schools located in Australia and New Zealand. Electronic survey was used as the method of data collection, facilitating both closed and open-ended responses. Using staff responses, the understanding and type of leadership practised in schools was assessed. The situations where girls were described as successful and unsuccessful leaders and the perceived barriers in relation to girls’ leadership development are also reported. Participants have made recommendations for improvement to this area. The results of this study found that leadership development was being actively pursued with positive results. However, factors such as gender and peer relations were named as possible negative influences on the leadership development of girls. This research marks the beginning of study into this area and would benefit from a comparison to the perspectives of female students for further understanding.
Dissemination of address bindings in multi-substrate overlay networks

Self-organizing overlay networks have emerged as a new paradigm for providing network services. While most overlay networks are built over a single substrate network (mostly, the Internet), recently the construction of overlay networks over multiple heterogeneous substrate networks has received increased attention. Such networks seek to interconnect mobile or fixed devices using a diverse set of networking modalities. Here, a key challenge arises from the more complex address bindings, where a single logical identifier is bound to multiple substrate addresses. In this paper, we evaluate the design and inherent trade-offs of mechanisms for exchanging information on address bindings in a multi-substrate overlay network. The evaluation is done using measurement experiments of an overlay network software system. The measurement data provides insights into the scalability of dissemination methods. An important finding is that gossip-based address dissemination is less effective than an on-demand dissemination of address bindings.
Building MultiView Analyst Profile From Multidimensional Query Logs: From Consensual to Conflicting Preferences

In order to provide suitable results to the analyst needs, user preferences summarization is widely used in several domains. In this paper, we introduce a new approach for user profile construction from OLAP query logs. The key idea is to learn the user’s preferences by drawing the evidence from OLAP logs. In fact, the analyst preferences are clustered into three main pools : (i) consensual or non conflicting preferences referring to same preferences for all analysts; (ii) semi-conflicting preferences corresponding to similar preferences for some analysts; (iii) conflicting preferences related to disjoint preferences for all analysts. To build generic and global model accurately describing the analyst, we enrich the obtained characteristics through including several views, namely the personal view, the professional view and the behavioral view. After that, the multiview profile extracted from multidimensional database can be annotated.