Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Polynomial Regression to Investigate Biased Self-Perceptions and ADHD Symptoms in Young Adolescents

Objective: This study investigated biased self-perceptions of academic and social competence among young adolescents with a range of ADHD symptoms. The goal was to better understand how to measure agreement and disagreement between competence ratings from multiple informants. Method: The commonly used discrepancy methodology was used along with polynomial regression/response surface analyses to explore the relationship between biased self-perceptions and ADHD symptoms. Participants were 164 middle school students and their homeroom teachers. Students and teachers completed measures about academic and social competence, and teachers rated ADHD symptoms. Results: Discrepancy score and polynomial regression/response surface analyses both supported the relationship between student overestimation of competence and ADHD symptoms. Response surface analyses also suggest that some students with ADHD symptoms accurately perceive their impairments, particularly in the academic domain. Conclusion: Findings demonstrate the importance of using more advanced methods to understand the relationship between both accurate and discrepant perceptions of competence and ADHD symptoms.
MicroRNA as a Therapeutic Target in Cardiac Remodeling

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNA molecules that contain 18–25 nucleotides. The alterations in their expression level play crucial role in the development of many disorders including heart diseases. Myocardial remodeling is the final pathological consequence of a variety of myocardial diseases. miRNAs have central role in regulating pathogenesis of myocardial remodeling by modulating cardiac hypertrophy, cardiomyocytes injury, cardiac fibrosis, angiogenesis, and inflammatory response through multiple mechanisms. The balancing and tight regulation of different miRNAs is a key to drive the cellular events towards functional recovery and any fall in this leads to detrimental effect on cardiac function following various insults. In this review, we discuss the impact of alterations of miRNAs expression on cardiac hypertrophy, cardiomyocytes injury, cardiac fibrosis, angiogenesis, and inflammatory response. We have also described the targets (receptors, signaling molecules, transcription factors, etc.) of miRNAs on which they act to promote or attenuate cardiac remodeling processes in different type cells of cardiac tissues.
Motivations for Activity Participation as Predictors of Emerging Adults' Psychological Engagement in Leisure Activities

ABSTRACT Psychological engagement has been identified as a critical factor in the potential benefits of emerging adults. leisure activity participation. Emerging adults. motivations for participation might be particularly important in predicting psychological engagement. In the present work, we report findings from a study of motivations for leisure participation and its associations with psychological engagement. In a sample of 183 undergraduate university students, we found that three of the five hypothesized motivators positively and significantly predicted greater psychological engagement. Specifically, greater psychological engagement was related to leisure participation motivated by a desire to learn and exercise skills and abilities, protect the self (for example, to alleviate guilt by helping others), and because of opportunities presented by others. favorable attitudes towards involvement.
Ligação de entidades : uma nova abordagem para ligação de conceitos concretos com entidades Wiki utilizando modelos de espaço vetorial

Entity Linking (EL) is an important research topic with several web applications. Despite the growing interest the focus also has been on the identification of proper names, i.e, people, organizations, places, units of measure, and others. The main challenge here is to find concrete concepts (sentences without predefined entity class) on web texts by linking them to their respective pages of Wikipedia. This paper presents a new approach to connect concrete concepts taken from texts in English with Wiki entities, in this work represented by the Wikipedia pages, using classification part-of-speech to detect concrete concepts and Vector Space Models (VSM) to perform the disambiguation of entities selected from Wiki base. The solution, called UnBWiki VSM, was implemented in Java using the Eclipse IDE with MySQL database where the base of entities was stored. The proposed framework was adjusted to work with a Wikilinks database, references to Wikipedia pages drawn from different web pages, containing approximately 2.8 million entities and 18 million words, and obtained recall 34.2% higher than the existing methodology that used the same data/entities. As a case study, Royal Family History texts extracted from the web were analyzed manually, and the recall of 73.5% obtained by UnBWiki VSM tool was greater than that observed in comparison with the state of the art.
Immunomodulatory Effects of Anesthetics during Thoracic Surgery

Background. One-lung ventilation (OLV) during thoracic surgery may induce alveolar cell damage and release of proinflammatory mediators. The current trial was planned to evaluate effect of propofol versus isoflurane anesthesia on alveolar and systemic immune modulation during thoracic surgery. Methods. Fifty adult patients undergoing open thoracic surgery were randomly assigned to receive propofol (n = 25) or isoflurane (n = 25) anesthesia. The primary outcome measures included alveolar and plasma concentrations of interleukin-8(IL-8) and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), whereas secondary outcome measures were alveolar and plasma concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and changes in alveolar albumin concentrations and cell numbers. Results. Alveolar and plasma concentrations of IL-8 and TNF-α were significantly lower in the isoflurane group, whereas alveolar and plasma concentrations of MDA were significantly lower in the propofol group. Alveolar and plasma SOD levels increased significantly in the propofol group whereas they showed no significant change in the isoflurane group. Furthermore, the isoflurane group patients developed significantly lower alveolar albumin concentrations and cell numbers. Conclusion. Isoflurane decreased the inflammatory response associated with OLV during thoracic surgery and may be preferable over propofol in patients with expected high levels of proinflammatory cytokines like cancer patients.
Results of a Nationwide Veterans Administration Cooperative Study Comparing the Efficacy and Toxicity of Carbamazepine, Phenobarbital, Phenytoin, and Primidone

Summary: : In 1985 a 5‐year multicenter Veterans Administration Cooperative Study was completed that compared the efficacy and toxicity of phenobarbital, carbamazepine, phenytoin, and primidone in a double‐blind prospective study design. A total of 622 patients, either previously untreated or undertreated, were entered into the study. Strict exclusion criteria limited confounding factors such as drug or alcohol abuse. Results showed that each of the four drugs used as monotherapy were similarly effective in the treatment of generalized tonic‐clonic seizures, but carbamazepine was significantly more effective in the treatment of complex partial seizures as measured by 100% control. When the results for all four drugs were combined, the data showed that approximately 80% of the patients were adequately managed on monotherapy. Differences in toxicity were the most significant factor that discriminated between these four drugs. Both carbamazepine and phenytoin were associated with significantly lower incidences of intolerable side effects than were primidone or phenobarbital. A behavioral toxicity battery was performed whenever possible prior to administration of any antiepileptic drug and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after initiation of monotherapy. Significant differences in performance on all subtests of the battery were found between patients with epilepsy and a control group matched by age, sex, and education. When the differential effects of all four drugs on behavioral toxicity were compared, few statistically significant differences emerged. However, carbamazepine consistently produced fewer adverse effects on tests of attention/concentration and motor performance than did the other three antiepileptic drugs.
Current Emotion Research in Music Psychology

Music is universal at least partly because it expresses emotion and regulates affect. Associations between music and emotion have been examined regularly by music psychologists. Here, we review recent findings in three areas: (a) the communication and perception of emotion in music, (b) the emotional consequences of music listening, and (c) predictors of music preferences.
Widespread impact of DNA replication on mutational mechanisms in cancer

DNA replication plays an important role in mutagenesis, yet little is known about how it interacts with other mutagenic processes. Here, we use somatic mutation signatures – each representing a mutagenic process – derived from 3056 patients spanning 19 cancer types to quantify the asymmetry of mutational signatures around replication origins and between early and late replicating regions. We observe that 22 out of 29 mutational signatures are significantly impacted by DNA replication. The distinct associations of different signatures with replication timing and direction around origins shed new light on several mutagenic processes, for example suggesting that oxidative damage to the nucleotide pool substantially contributes to the mutational landscape of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Together, our results indicate an involvement of DNA replication and associated damage repair in most mutagenic processes.
A multi-FPGA application-specific architecture for accelerating a floating point Fourier Integral Operator

Many complex systems require the use of floating point arithmetic that is exceedingly time consuming to perform on personal computers. However, floating point operators are also hardware resource intensive and require longer latencies than fixed point operators to complete. Due to the reduced logic density of FPGAs relative to ASICs, it is often only possible to accelerate a portion of a floating point application in hardware. This paper presents an application-specific architecture for the hardware acceleration of a complete Fourier Integral Operator (FIO) kernel used in seismic imaging on a multi-FPGA platform. The design utilizes several floating point computing elements (CEs) to calculate the FIO kernel in parallel stages on multiple FPGAs. A detailed study of floating point CEs, including a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) CE, and a complete FIO prototype implementation on the BEE2 platform is described. The prototype implementation has a 12.4x increase in throughput over an optimized software implementation, and a predicted 15.8x increase in throughput on the BEE3 platform.
Summary Workshop Report: Bioequivalence, Biopharmaceutics Classification System, and Beyond

The workshop “Bioequivalence, Biopharmaceutics Classification System, and Beyond” was held May 21–23, 2007 in North Bethesda, MD, USA. This workshop provided an opportunity for pharmaceutical scientists to discuss the FDA guidance on the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS), bioequivalence of oral products, and related FDA initiatives such as the FDA Critical Path Initiative. The objective of this Summary Workshop Report is to document the main points from this workshop. Key highlights of the workshop were (a) the described granting of over a dozen BCS-based biowaivers by the FDA for Class I drugs whose formulations exhibit rapid dissolution, (b) continued scientific support for biowaivers for Class III compounds whose formulations exhibit very rapid dissolution, (c) scientific support for a number of permeability methodologies to assess BCS permeability class, (d) utilization of BCS in pharmaceutical research and development, and (e) scientific progress in in vitro dissolution methods to predict dosage form performance.
The hidden benefits of optical transparency

The optical fiber amplifier will bring about network transparency and reductions in manning levels, interface problems, software and operating costs, while improving reliability and performance. It is in the area of economics that optical transparency affords a unique opportunity. What is generally not recognized is that there is a raft of hidden benefits, specifically: major reductions in interface technology, network control, and management software; reliability improvements; and reductions in the number of switching sites and craft people. System and network operating costs that are a small (even trivial) fraction of that today look certain to be realized. <<ETX>>
Learning with Unlabeled Data for Text Categorization Using a Bootstrapping and a Feature Projection Technique

A wide range of supervised learning algorithms has been applied to Text Categorization. However, the supervised learning approaches have some problems. One of them is that they require a large, often prohibitive, number of labeled training documents for accurate learning. Generally, acquiring class labels for training data is costly, while gathering a large quantity of unlabeled data is cheap. We here propose a new automatic text categorization method for learning from only unlabeled data using a bootstrapping framework and a feature projection technique. From results of our experiments, our method showed reasonably comparable performance compared with a supervised method. If our method is used in a text categorization task, building text categorization systems will become significantly faster and less expensive.
Differential impact of the CD45 juxtamembrane wedge on central and peripheral T cell receptor responses

The cooperative activity of protein tyrosine kinases and phosphatases plays a central role in regulation of T cell receptor (TCR) signal strength. Perturbing this balance, and thus the threshold for TCR signals, has profound impacts on T cell development and function. We previously generated mice containing a point mutation in the juxtamembrane wedge of the receptor-like protein tyrosine phosphatase CD45. Demonstrating the critical negative regulatory function of the wedge, the CD45 E613R (WEDGE) mutation led to a lymphoproliferative disorder (LPD) and a lupus-like autoimmune syndrome. Using genetic, cellular, and biochemical approaches, we now demonstrate that the CD45 wedge influences T cell development and function. Consistent with increased TCR signal strength, WEDGE mice have augmented positive selection and enhanced sensitivity to the CD4-mediated disease experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE). These correspond with hyperresponsive calcium and pERK responses to TCR stimulation in thymocytes, but surprisingly, not in peripheral T cells, where these responses are actually depressed. Together, the data support a role for the CD45 wedge in regulation of T cell responses in vivo and suggest that its effects depend on cellular context.
Determining Significant Fold Differences in Gene Expression Analysis

A typical use for RNA expression microarrays is comparing the measurement of gene expression of two groups. There has not been a study reproducing an entire experiment and modeling the distribution of reproducibility of fold differences. Our goal was to create a model of significance for fold differences, then maximize the number of ESTs above that threshold. Multiple strategies were tested to filter out those ESTs contributing to noise, thus decreasing the requirements of what was needed for significance. We found that even though RNA expression levels appears consistent in duplicate measurements, when entire experiments are duplicated, the calculated fold differences are not as consistent. Thus, it is critically important to repeat as many data points as possible, to ensure that genes and ESTs labeled as significant are truly so. We were successfully able to use duplicated expression measurements to model the duplicated fold differences, and to calculate the levels of fold difference needed to reach significance. This approach can be applied to many other experiments to ascertain significance without a priori assumptions.
Lossy Data Compression of Vibrotactile Material-Like Textures

Tactile content will be delivered over the Internet in the near future. Vibrotactile material-like textures that resemble the surfaces of wood, leather, etc., are representative of such content. We performed lossy compression of texture data for reducing the data size. We confirmed the effectiveness of two compression strategies: quantization and truncation of data beneath a shifted perceptual threshold curve. In the quantization strategy, the amplitude spectra of vibrotactile textures could be quantized in 14 steps. This reduced the data size to approximately one quarter without any noticeable quality deterioration. The method for truncating frequency components with amplitudes smaller than a shifted perceptual threshold curve was also effective, and it was preferable to the automatic deletion of subthreshold amplitudes. We reduced the data size of vibrotactile material textures to 10-20 percent of their original size by combining the lossy data compression strategy with Huffman coding, which is a lossless data compression method. Lossy compression algorithms will enhance the online delivery of vibrotactile material-like textures by decreasing their data size without significant loss of quality.
Functional Consequences of Toll-like Receptor 4 Polymorphisms

Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is an important pathogen recognition receptor that recognizes mainly lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Gram-negative bacteria, but also structures from fungal and mycobacterial pathogens, as well as endogenous ligands. Two nonsynonymous polymorphisms of TLR4, Asp299Gly and Thr399lle, have been suggested to alter the function of the receptor. Some, but not all, studies have proposed that these polymorphisms lead to reduced cytokine response and increased susceptibility to Gram-negative infections. In this review, we compare studies that assessed the effect of the Asp299Gly and Thr399lle polymorphisms on susceptibility to Gram-negative infections and examine the phenotypic consequences of these polymorphisms. In addition, we review the geographical distribution of TLR4 polymorphisms and present a model for evolutionary pressures on the TLR4 genetic make-up.
Main stress in Italian nonce nouns

In Italian, main stress can be found on any of the last three syllables of a word. There is general consent that this is due to lexical stress. The analyses on default stress assignment diverge. Authors disagree on whether the language is quantitysensitive or not and on whether default stress falls on the second- or third-last syllable. In this paper, I present data from a nonce word test conducted with native speakers that show that speakers face the same dilemma as linguists do when analysing the system. They divide into three groups, speakers who consistently stress the third-last syllable, speakers who consistently stress the second-last syllable and those who show variation with an even split between the two options. All speakers consistently stress penultimate heavy syllables. Intra-speaker variation is analysed in the framework of Optimality Theory as ad hoc rankings of unranked constraints.
Comparison of the Lees-Haley Fake Bad Scale, Henry-Heilbronner Index, and Restructured Clinical Scale 1 in Identifying Noncredible Symptom Reporting

A known groups design investigated the comparative predictive validity of the 27-item MMPI-2 Restructured Scale 1 (RC1), the 43-item Lees-Haley Fake Bad Scale (FBS), and the 15-item Henry-Heilbronner Index (HHI) to identify noncredible symptom response sets in 63 personal injury litigants and disability claimants compared to 77 non-litigating head-injured controls. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the HHI and FBS were better predictors of group membership than the RC1. Results suggest that the FBS, HHI, and RC1 may be measuring different constructs. The HHI and FBS reflect an exaggeration of disability or illness-related behavior. Differences in scale construction are discussed. The RC1 may have greater relevance under external incentive conditions involving chronic pain patients, or clinical patients with no external incentive to exaggerate their symptom presentation.
Regulation and transport mechanisms of eukaryotic aquaporins

Aquaporins are found in all kingdoms of life where they are involved in water homeostasis. They are small transmembrane water conducting channels that belong to the ancient protein family Major Intrinsic Proteins (MIP). Early on in the evolution, a gene duplication event took place that divided the aquaporin family into two subgroups; orthodox aquaporins, which are strict water facilitators, and aquaglyceroporins that except for water also transport small uncharged solutes. The main questions that I have tried to address in this thesis are which regulatory mechanisms that are involved in aquaporin gating and to investigate transport differences in solute permeation. Specifically, we have investigated yeast and human aquaporins. To find answers to our questions, we have attempted to combine structural knowledge with functional analysis. A high resolution structure of P. pastoris orthodox Aqy1 to 1.15A generated new knowledge of regulatory mechanisms and functions of the long N-terminus that is common among fungi. We suggest that Aqy1 is gated by phosphorylation and by mechanosensation. An important functional role of Aqy1 in rapid freeze thaw cycles could be demonstrated. During this work, a single deletion strain was generated that now serves as the primary aquaporin expression platform in our laboratory. Fps1 is a regulated glycerol facilitator that is important for yeast osmo-regulation. The regulatory mechanism is still not known but here we show that a suppressor mutation within the transmembrane region restrict glycerol by its transmembrane core. Thereby, we suggest that post translational modifications in the regulatory domains of Nand Ctermini fine tunes glycerol flux through Fps1. The aquaglyceroporins are classified as having a dual transport function, namely being capable of facilitating the movement of both water and glycerol over the plasma membrane. In this study, we can clearly show that there are major differences in the substrate specificity and efficiency between the different aquaglyceroporins and that small changes affect the transport efficiency and specificity of the channels. ISBN: [978-91-628-8607-3]