Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Brief Report on WAIS-R Normative Data Collection in Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies

ABSTRACT Historically, neuropsychological measures such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) have yielded unacceptably high rates of misdiagnosis of impairment among cognitively normal African Americans, primarily due to poor test specificity and inadequate representation of ethnic minorities in the normative sample. In this report, we briefly review these issues and describe efforts by investigators in Mayo's Older African Americans Normative Studies (MOAANS) to develop more appropriate norms for African American elders on the WAIS-R. During MOAANS data collection, the third edition of the WAIS (WAIS-III) was introduced with updated representation of ethnic minorities in the normative database. More recently, specific demographic corrections for African Americans have been derived for WAIS-III subtest scores and indices. As such, WAIS-R normative estimates are not presented here. Interested readers who wish to obtain a full set of MOAANS WAIS-R norms, however, are invited to contact the authors for these data.
Contemporary debates in the sociology of education. Edited by Rachel Brooks, Mark McCormack and Kalwant Bhopal. Pp 238. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013. £61.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-137-26987-4 (hbk)

teacher – for example, those who do not favour books and reading as a means of engaging in narratives, non-fiction and poetry? These are compelling questions which demand investigation and careful analysis. The authors advocate building a cultural community where personal interests in reading are shared between teachers and children. The results of phase two of the project that the book describes are remarkable. In phase two of the project, the authors describe how the teachers became both more knowledgeable of children’s literature and how books can be used in schools to emphasise the pleasures they can bring. At the same time, many of the teachers became reading role models and so, as the authors name them ‘reading teachers’. Cremin describes how ‘there were signs of boundaries beginning to be blurred between home and school practices’ (p. 148). Often, the authors report, reluctant child readers became more engaged in reading as they realised the attractions of being part of the community. There are some wonderful excerpts of dialogue between children discussing their teacher’s reading habits and tastes in books and comparing them with their own. In addition to having a strong theoretical ‘spine’ to this book, there are plenty of practical ideas for developing communities of readers which teachers, literacy leaders and head teachers will wish to consider as a way to engage their children in the pleasures of reading. This is book is essential reading for all those who have an interest in teaching reading in schools. It should be on all initial teacher education programme reading lists and should be at the centre of professional discussions on how to encourage reading for pleasure in schools. In addition to demonstrating how children can come to recognise the pleasures of reading, there are plenty of issues to debate and mull over. I cannot recommend it enough.
tert-Butyl 3-(8-bromo-4H,10H-1,2-oxazolo[4,3-c][1]benzoxepin-10-yl)-2-methyl-1H-indole-1-carboxylate

In the title compound, C25H23BrN2O4, the seven-membered ring adopts a twisted-boat conformation. The indole ring system is planar within 0.021 (2) Å and the ester group [–C(=O)—O—C–] is almost coplanar with it [dihedral angle = 3.0 (2)°]. The conformation of the ester group is influenced by intramolecular C—H⋯O interactions. In the crystal structure, molecules are linked into chains along the b axis by C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds.
Body Weight After Stroke: Lessons From the Obesity Paradox

Background and Purpose— Outcome after acute stroke is determined to a large extent by poststroke complications. Nutritional status and metabolic balance may substantially contribute to outcome after stroke. Key mechanisms of stroke pathophysiology can induce systemic catabolic imbalance with impaired metabolic efficiency and degradation of body tissues. Summary— Tissue wasting, sarcopenia, and cachexia may impair and delay poststroke rehabilitation and worsen the prognosis. Although current guidelines for secondary prevention after stroke recommend weight reduction, increasing evidence suggests that patients who are overweight and mildly obese may actually have a better outcome. An “obesity paradox” has been identified to describe the contrasting impact of being overweight in patients with chronic illness compared with healthy populations. We present an overview on the metabolic regulation in patients with stroke and evaluate current data on the impact of body weight and weight change after stroke. The emerging picture suggests that being overweight and obese may impact patients with stroke differently than it does healthy subjects. Conclusions— We propose that current knowledge on obesity and its management in primary prevention cannot be transferred to patients with established stroke. Systematic studies on changes in body composition after stroke and on treatment options are warranted to establish the pathophysiology and evidence-driven management of nutritional status in these patients.
Learning with smartphones : a hermeneutic phenomenological study of young people's everyday mobile practices

This study aims to understand how young people in Malaysia use their smartphones for learning and to uncover the meaning of these lived experiences. A review of the research literature reveals an apparent lack of theoretical and conceptual understanding of everyday mobile practices with regard to learning with smartphones. Applying the principles and practices of hermeneutic phenomenology, this study seeks to gain access to a phenomenon that is often subconscious and to interpret the participants’ learning experiences. Hermeneutic phenomenological research methods comprised the use of interviews, and a written reflective exercise. 12 youths ranging from 16-19 years old, participated in 3 rounds of semi-structured interviews over a period of 6 months. The findings reveal that participants’ learning is associated with self-identity and management of their images; dependent on their perception of its value and subject to influences from their peers, parents and the community at large. This study’s contribution lies in the discovery that for the participants, learning embedded in everyday mobile practices can be either serendipitous or purposive. Beyond the serendipitous and fragmentary learning of everyday mobile practices, there is evidence of deep, prolonged and purposive learning activities with the engagement lasting from 30 minutes to 4 hours per day. Both learning practices are characterized by personal agency, satisfaction and joy in the learning. The findings would suggest the importance of understanding more about the different types of learning occurring with the use of smartphones, the values attached by learners to this learning and the transferability of such skills and knowledge across spaces, time and dimensions. Further research including careful qualitative studies is suggested to better theorize the phenomenon. Policy makers and education authorities should support a research agenda developed and aimed at theorizing learning with smartphones and other smart devices using a range of quantitative and qualitative approaches. These studies should relate to one another by focusing on developing knowledge and understanding of learning with smartphones and would enable policy makers and practitioners to develop more well-informed polices and strategies to enhance learning, either in the classroom or outside it.
Structural and Functional Characterization of the Redβ Recombinase from Bacteriophage λ

The Red system of bacteriophage λ is responsible for the genetic rearrangements that contribute to its rapid evolution and has been successfully harnessed as a research tool for genome manipulation. The key recombination component is Redβ, a ring-shaped protein that facilitates annealing of complementary DNA strands. Redβ shares functional similarities with the human Rad52 single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) annealing protein although their evolutionary relatedness is not well established. Alignment of Rad52 and Redβ sequences shows an overall low level of homology, with 15% identity in the N-terminal core domains as well as important similarities with the Rad52 homolog Sak from phage ul36. Key conserved residues were chosen for mutagenesis and their impact on oligomer formation, ssDNA binding and annealing was probed. Two conserved regions were identified as sites important for binding ssDNA; a surface basic cluster and an intersubunit hydrophobic patch, consistent with findings for Rad52. Surprisingly, mutation of Redβ residues in the basic cluster that in Rad52 are involved in ssDNA binding disrupted both oligomer formation and ssDNA binding. Mutations in the equivalent of the intersubunit hydrophobic patch in Rad52 did not affect Redβ oligomerization but did impair DNA binding and annealing. We also identified a single amino acid substitution which had little effect on oligomerization and DNA binding but which inhibited DNA annealing, indicating that these two functions of Redβ can be separated. Taken together, the results provide fresh insights into the structural basis for Redβ function and the important role of quaternary structure.
Improving the usability of speech-based interfaces for blind users

Adaptations using speech synthesis provide a basic level of access to computer systems for blind users, but current systems pose a number of usability problems. A study was carried out in order to assess the impact of certain issues on the usability of a typical speech adaptation. The results suggest that much work needs to be done on the design of speech dialogues.
Managing Concern Interfaces

Programming languages provide various mechanisms to support information hiding. One problem with information hiding, however, is that providing a stable interface behind which to hide implementation details involves fixing in advance the services offered through the interface. We introduce a flexible approach to define and manage interfaces to achieve separation of concerns in evolving software. Our approach involves explicitly specifying interface and implementation classes for individual concerns, and automatically classifying implementation classes based on their relation to the interface. Our approach is supported by JMantlet, a tool that provides advanced interface management within an integrated development environment. We report on a case study of a large system that provides evidence that flexible interface management is desirable and adequately supported by our approach
Broad-Spectrum Detection of H5 Subtype Influenza A Viruses with a New Fluorescent Immunochromatography System

Immunochromatography (IC) is an antigen-detection assay that plays an important role in the rapid diagnosis of influenza virus because the protocol is short time and easy to use. Despite the usability of IC, the sensitivity is approximately 103 pfu per reaction. In addition, antigen-antibody interaction-based method cannot be used for the detection of influenza viruses with major antigenic change. In this study, we established the use of fluorescent immunochromatography (FLIC) to detect a broad spectrum of H5 subtype influenza A viruses. This method has improved sensitivity 10–100 fold higher than traditional IC because of the use of fluorescent conjugated beads. Our Type-E FLIC kit detected all of the H5 subtype influenza viruses that were examined, as well as recombinant hemagglutinin (HA) proteins (rHAs) belonging to the Eurasian H5 subtype viruses and the Type-N diagnosed North American H5 subtype influenza A viruses. Thus, this kit has the improved potential to detect H5 subtype influenza viruses of different clades with both Type-E and Type-N FLIC kits. Compared with PCR-based diagnosis, FLIC has a strong advantage in usability, because the sample preparation required for FLIC is only mix-and-drop without any additional steps such as RNA extraction. Our results can provide new strategies against the spread and transmission of HPAI H5N1 viruses in birds and mammals including humans.
Assessment of Effects of Visually-Induced Motion Sickness Using Physiological Index Obtained from Photoplethysmography

A human watching a swaying image displayed on a wide-field display or screen sometimes suffers from visually-induced motion sickness (VIMS) that causes symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system such as nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. The previous study indicated that the maximum cross-correlation coefficient (ρmax) between blood pressure and heart rate whose frequency components are limited to the neighborhood of 0.1Hz is a useful index to evaluate the effects of VIMS on humans. The present study has proposed a new method for obtaining ρmax with measurement of neither continuous blood pressure nor ECG but using only finger photoplethysmography (PPG). In this study, heart rate was obtained from the foot-to-foot-interval of the PPG signal, and blood pressure-related information was obtained from the parameter extracted from using the independent component analysis. The adequacy of the proposed method was evaluated by two experiments with the Valsalva maneuver and a swaying video image. The experimental results have shown that the proposed method could extract the independent component related to blood pressure. In addition, the effects of visually-induced motion sickness could be estimated with the independent component.
Expressing Constitutively Active Rheb in Adult Dorsal Root Ganglion Neurons Enhances the Integration of Sensory Axons that Regenerate Across a Chondroitinase-Treated Dorsal Root Entry Zone Following Dorsal Root Crush

While the peripheral branch of dorsal root ganglion neurons (DRG) can successfully regenerate after injury, lesioned central branch axons fail to regrow across the dorsal root entry zone (DREZ), the interface between the dorsal root and the spinal cord. This lack of regeneration is due to the limited regenerative capacity of adult sensory axons and the growth-inhibitory environment at the DREZ, which is similar to that found in the glial scar after a central nervous system (CNS) injury. We hypothesized that transduction of adult DRG neurons using adeno-associated virus (AAV) to express a constitutively-active form of the GTPase Rheb (caRheb) will increase their intrinsic growth potential after a dorsal root crush. Additionally, we posited that if we combined that approach with digestion of upregulated chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPG) at the DREZ with chondroitinase ABC (ChABC), we would promote regeneration of sensory axons across the DREZ into the spinal cord. We first assessed if this strategy promotes neuritic growth in an in vitro model of the glial scar containing CSPG. ChABC allowed for some regeneration across the once potently inhibitory substrate. Combining ChABC treatment with expression of caRheb in DRG significantly improved this growth. We then determined if this combination strategy also enhanced regeneration through the DREZ after dorsal root crush in adult rats in vivo. After unilaterally crushing C4-T1 dorsal roots, we injected AAV5-caRheb or AAV5-GFP into the ipsilateral C5-C8 DRGs. ChABC or PBS was injected into the ipsilateral dorsal horn at C5-C8 to digest CSPG, for a total of four animal groups (caRheb + ChABC, caRheb + PBS, GFP + ChABC, GFP + PBS). Regeneration was rarely observed in PBS-treated animals, whereas short-distance regrowth across the DREZ was observed in ChABC-treated animals. No difference in axon number or length between the ChABC groups was observed, which may be related to intraganglionic inflammation induced by the injection. ChABC-mediated regeneration is functional, as stimulation of ipsilateral median and ulnar nerves induced neuronal c-Fos expression in deafferented dorsal horn in both ChABC groups. Interestingly, caRheb + ChABC animals had significantly more c-Fos+ nuclei indicating that caRheb expression in DRGs promoted functional synaptogenesis of their axons that regenerated beyond a ChABC-treated DREZ.
Changes in corticospinal excitability induced by neuromuscular electrical stimulation

This thesis describes experiments designed to investigate the effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on corticospinal (CS) excitability in humans. NMES delivered at 100 Hz was more effective for increasing CS excitability than 10-, 50-, or 200-Hz NMES. CS excitability increases occurred after 24 min of 100-Hz NMES, were strongest in the stimulated muscle, and were mediated primarily at a supraspinal level. NMES of the common peroneal nerve of the leg increased CS excitability in multiple leg muscles, whereas NMES of the median nerve of the hand increased CS excitability in only the muscle innervated by that nerve. Additionally, CS excitability for the hand increased after 40 min of relatively high intensity and frequency NMES but not after 2 h of lower intensity and frequency NMES. These results have implications for identifying optimal NMES parameters to augment CS excitability for rehabilitation after central nervous system injury.
Scalable and precise dynamic datarace detection for structured parallelism

Existing dynamic race detectors suffer from at least one of the following three limitations: (i)space overhead per memory location grows linearly with the number of parallel threads [13], severely limiting the parallelism that the algorithm can handle; (ii)sequentialization: the parallel program must be processed in a sequential order, usually depth-first [12, 24]. This prevents the analysis from scaling with available hardware parallelism, inherently limiting its performance; (iii) inefficiency: even though race detectors with good theoretical complexity exist, they do not admit efficient implem entations and are unsuitable for practical use [4, 18]. We present a new precise dynamic race detector that leverages structured parallelism in order to address these limitations. Our algorithm requires constant space per memory location, works in parallel, and is efficient in practice. We implemented and evaluated our algorithm on a set of 15 benchmarks. Our experimental results indicate an average (geometric mean) slowdown of 2.78x on a 16-core SMP system.
Chronic social stress during adolescence in mice alters fat distribution in late life: Prevention by antidepressant treatment

Obesity and visceral fat accumulation are key features of the metabolic syndrome that represents one of the main health problems in western societies due to its neurovascular and cardiovascular complications. Epidemiological studies have identified chronic stress exposure as an important risk factor for the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome, but also psychiatric diseases, especially affective disorders. However, it is still unclear if chronic stress has merely transient or potentially lasting effects on body composition. Here, we investigated the effects of chronic social stress during the adolescent period on body fat composition in mice one year after the cessation of the stressor. We found that stress exposure during the adolescent period decreases subcutaneous fat content, without change in visceral fat, and consequently increases the visceral fat/subcutaneous fat ratio in adulthood. Further, we demonstrated that treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (paroxetine) during stress exposure prevented later effects on body fat distribution. These results from a recently validated chronic stress paradigm in mice provide evidence that stressful experiences during adolescence can alter body fat distribution in adulthood, thereby possibly contributing to an increased risk for metabolic diseases. Antidepressant treatment disrupted this effect underlining the link between the stress hormone system, metabolic homeostasis and affective disorders.
Handling irreducible loops: optimized node splitting versus DJ-graphs

This paper addresses the question of how to handle irreducible regions during optimization, which has become even more relevant for contemporary processors since recent VLIW-like architectures highly rely on instruction scheduling. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, a method of optimized node splitting to transform irreducible regions of control flow into reducible regions is formally defined and its correctness is shown. This method is superior to approaches previously published since it reduces the number of replicated nodes by comparison. Second, three methods that handle regions of irreducible control flow are evaluated with respect to their impact on compiler optimizations. First, traditional node splitting is evaluated. Second, optimized node splitting is implemented. Third, DJ-Graphs are utilized to recognize nesting of irreducible (and reducible) loops and apply common loop optimizations extended for irreducible loops. Experiments compare the performance of these approaches with unrecognized irreducible loops that cannot be subject to loop optimizations, which is typical for contemporary compilers. Measurements show improvements of 1 to 40% for these methods of handling irreducible loops over the unoptimized case. Optimized node splitting may be chosen to retrofit existing compilers since it has the advantage that it only requires few changes to an optimizing compiler while limiting the code growth of compiled programs compared to traditional node splitting. Recognizing loops via DJ-Graphs should be chosen for new compiler developments since it requires more changes to the optimizer but does not significantly change the code size of compiled programs while yielding comparable improvements. Handling irreducible loops should even yield more benefits for exploiting instruction-level parallelism of modern architectures in the context of global instruction scheduling and optimization techniques that may introduce irreducible loops, such as enhanced modulo scheduling.
Modeling local nonlinear correlations using subspace principal curves

While analyzing some of the complex real‐world datasets, it is vital to identify local correlations in the subspaces. Some of the critical limitations of the subspace clustering techniques in identifying order revealing subspace correlation patterns motivate the need for more advanced subspace techniques. We formalize the problem of identifying local nonlinear correlations in high‐dimensional data and build subspace models to capture such correlations. In this paper, we propose a new method for computing subspace principal curve models which can effectively capture these local patterns in the data. We demonstrate the results of the proposed method using several real‐world datasets and highlight the advantages of our model compared to the other state‐of‐the‐art techniques proposed in the literature. We also show the improved performance of the proposed algorithm in related problems such as missing data imputation and regression analysis compared to some of the state‐of‐the‐art methods. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining 3: 332‐349, 2010