Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morningness or Morning Affect? A Short Composite Scale of Morningness

The Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) is a widely used measure of behavioral temporal preference, and it is highly reliable across cultures. There are several competing models concerning its factor structure. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to replicate the two‐and three‐factor models, and, in addition, we examined the utility of the four‐item morning affect scale as a proxy for the full CSM. We tested these models in a large student sample (N=1396). The chi‐square result for the two‐ and three‐factor models indicated they did not adequately fit the data, and the modification indices suggested some items could be correlated. Allowing these items to correlate failed to produce a non‐significant chi‐square result, but some improvements to the incremental fit indices and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were found. In particular, the three‐factor model seemed satisfactory. CFA of the morning‐affect scale also failed to fit the data, but the incremental fit indices and RMSEA were strong. For each of these three models, there was no significant difference between the invariant (no sex difference) and variant (sex difference) models. However, in each model, a critical ratio difference was found on the standardized regression weights between males and females on item 12. The morning‐affect scale had high reliability (0.83) and demonstrated satisfactory construct validity against the preferences scale and time to sleep and wake. In addition, high and low morning‐affect groups reported significant sleepiness differences by time of day. These results suggest the morning‐affect scale may be a useful proxy for the full scale. Furthermore, the items make no reference to time‐of‐day and may better facilitate cross‐cultural research. Studies using population‐based samples are recommended to further test the efficacy of the morning‐affect scale.
Size assessment and growth control: how adult size is determined in insects

Size control depends on both the regulation of growth rate and the control over when to stop growing. Studies of Drosophila melanogaster have shown that insulin and Target of Rapamycin (TOR) pathways play principal roles in controlling nutrition‐dependent growth rates. A TOR‐mediated nutrient sensor in the fat body detects nutrient availability, and regulates insulin signaling in peripheral tissues, which in turn controls larval growth rates. After larvae initiate metamorphosis, growth stops. For growth to stop at the correct time, larvae need to surpass a critical weight. Recently, it was found that the insulin‐dependent growth of the prothoracic gland is involved in assessing when critical weight has been reached. Furthermore, mutations in DHR4, a repressor of ecdysone signaling, reduce critical weight and adult size. Thus, the mechanisms that control growth rates converge on those assessing size to ensure that the larvae attain the appropriate size at metamorphosis. BioEssays 29:344–355, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Edge of chaos in a parallel shear flow.

We study the transition between laminar and turbulent states in a Galerkin representation of a parallel shear flow, where a stable laminar flow and a transient turbulent flow state coexist. The regions of initial conditions where the lifetimes show strong fluctuations and a sensitive dependence on initial conditions are separated from the ones with a smooth variation of lifetimes by an object in phase space which we call the "edge of chaos. " We describe techniques to identify and follow the edge, and our results indicate that the edge is a surface. For low Reynolds numbers we find that the surface coincides with the stable manifold of a periodic orbit, whereas at higher Reynolds numbers it is the stable set of a higher-dimensional chaotic object.
Explaining the visual and masked-visual advantage in speech perception in noise: the role of visual phonetic cues

Visual enhancement of speech intelligibility, although clearly established, still resists a clear description. We attempt to con-tribute to solving that problem by proposing a simple account based on phonetically motivated visual cues. This work ex-tends a previous study quantifying the visual advantage in sentence intelligibility across three conditions with varying degrees of visual information available: auditory only, auditory visual orally masked and auditory-visual. We explore the role of lexical as well as visual factors, the latter derived from groupings in visemes. While lexical factors play an undiscrimina-tive role across modality conditions, some measure of viseme confusability seems to capture part of the performance results. A simple characterisation of the phonetic content of sentences in terms of visual information occurring exclusively inside the mask region was found to be the strongest predictor for the auditory-visual masked condition only, demonstrating a direct link between localised visual information and auditory-visual speech processing performance.
Regional function and perfusion at the lateral border of ischemic myocardium.

To determine whether function is depressed in areas of myocardium adjacent to an area of myocardial ischemia, 16 open-chest dogs were studied with both two-dimensional echocardiography and ultrasonic microcrystals. Regional myocardial blood flow was measured with radioactive microspheres during control periods and after coronary arterial ligation. Segments of myocardium adjacent to the area of ischemia were found to have no significant change in transmural blood flow (1.02 +/- 0.38 ml/g/min control vs 0.95 +/- 0.3 ml/g/min after ligation) or subendocardial flow (1.18 +/- 0.41 ml/g/min control vs. 1.19 +/- 0.37 ml/g/min after ligation). Regional function assessed echocardiographically as percent change in segment area was significantly depressed in these normally perfused adjacent areas (69.5 +/- 18.8% control vs 52.5 +/- 19.8% after ligation; p less than .01). There was a significant relationship between proximity to border of infarction and degree of adjacent dysfunction (r = .50, p less than .01 for echocardiography; r = .70, p less than .01 for ultrasonic microcrystals). It is concluded that systolic performance is depressed in nonischemic myocardium directly adjacent to the lateral border of an area of acute myocardial ischemia.
Examining associations between dietary patterns and metabolic CVD risk factors: a novel use of structural equation modelling

Abstract The association between dietary patterns and metabolic cardiovascular risk factors has long been addressed but there is a lack of evidence towards the effects of the overall diet on the complex net of biological inter-relationships between risk factors. This study aimed to derive dietary patterns and examine their associations with metabolic cardiovascular risk factors following a theoretic model for the relationship between them. Participants included 417 adults of both sexes, enrolled to the cross-sectional population-based study performed in Brazil. Body weight, waist circumference, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, blood pressure, total cholesterol:HDL-cholesterol ratio, TAG:HDL-cholesterol ratio, fasting plasma glucose and serum leptin were evaluated. Food consumption was assessed by two non-consecutive 24-h dietary recalls adjusted for the within-person variation of intake. A total of three dietary patterns were derived by exploratory structural equation modelling: ‘Traditional’, ‘Prudent’ and ‘Modern’. The ‘Traditional’ pattern had a negative and direct effect on obesity indicators (serum LEP, body weight and waist circumference) and negative indirect effects on total cholesterol:HDL-cholesterol ratio, TAG:HDL-cholesterol ratio and fasting plasma glucose. The ‘Prudent’ pattern had a negative and direct effect on systolic blood pressure. No association was observed for the ‘Modern’ pattern and metabolic risk factors. In conclusion, the ‘Traditional’ and ‘Prudent’ dietary patterns were negatively associated with metabolic cardiovascular risk factors among Brazilian adults. Their apparent protective effects against obesity and high blood pressure may be important non-pharmacological strategies for the prevention and control of obesity-related metabolic disorders and CVD.
Recurrence rate of pterygium following surgical excision with intraoperative versus postoperative mitomycin-C.

OBJECTIVE To compare the rate of recurrence and complications of pterygium following surgical excision by applying 0.02% mitomycin-C intraoperatively or using topical 0.02 % mitomycin-C drops postoperatively. STUDY DESIGN Randomized clinical trial. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Baqai Medical University Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology, from January 2001 to July 2005. METHODOLOGY Eighty-four eyes of 65 patients, aged between 20-70 years, with primary pterygium were randomly allocated into two groups using random tables. Patients with bilateral disease were treated with an interval of 10-14 days and randomized separately. In group-I, 0.02 % mitomycin-C was applied intraoperatively for 3 minutes after pterygium excision. Group-II received mitomycin-C 0.02 % eye drops twice a day for 2 weeks after pterygium excision. Patients were followed-up for pterygium recurrence for one year. Variables were compared for significance, using Pearson chi-square test. RESULTS In Group I, recurrence of pterygium was seen in 4 (10.0%) eyes and superficial punctate keratitis in 4 (9.5%) eyes, while 8 (19.0%) eyes developed avascularization of sclera at the pterygium excision site. In group II, 8 (20.51%) eyes had pterygium recurrence (p=0.38), 13 (31.0%) eyes had superficial punctate keratitis and tenon cyst was seen in one (2.4%) eye. One (2.4%) eye in each group developed scleral thinning. CONCLUSION There was no significant difference in pterygium recurrence rate intraoperatively or postoperative application of 0.02% mitomycin-C. Complications were comparatively less following application of intraoperative 0.02% mitomycin-C for 3 minutes.
Mild Experimental Brain Injury Differentially Alters the Expression of Neurotrophin and Neurotrophin Receptor mRNAs in the Hippocampus

The molecular events responsible for impairments in cognition following mild traumatic brain injury are poorly understood. Neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), have been identified as having a role in learning and memory. We have previously demonstrated that following experimental brain trauma of moderate severity (2.0-2.1 atm), mRNA levels of BDNF and its high-affinity receptor, trkB, are increased bilaterally in the hippocampus for several hours, whereas NT-3 mRNA expression is decreased. In the present study, we used in situ hybridization to compare BDNF, trkB, NT-3, and trkC mRNA expression in rat hippocampus at 3 or 6 h after a lateral fluid percussion brain injury (FPI) of mild severity (1.0 atm) to sham-injured controls at equivalent time points. Mild FPI induced significant increases in hybridization levels for BDNF and trkB mRNAs, and a decrease in NT-3 mRNA in the hippocampus. However, in contrast to the bilateral effects of moderate experimental brain injury, the present changes with mild injury were restricted to the injured side. These findings demonstrate that even a mild traumatic brain injury differentially alters neurotrophin and neurotrophin receptor levels in the hippocampus. Such alterations may have important implications for neural plasticity and recovery of function in people who sustain a mild head injury.
Graph-based terrain relative navigation with optimal landmark database selection

Terrain relative navigation (TRN) offers a means to constrain absolute vehicle position and attitude without using a GPS receiver or star camera, such as for unmanned aerial vehicles or planetary landing spacecraft, using a pre-computed terrain database of distinctive landmarks in the operational environment. However, depending on the length of the planned trajectory, these terrain landmark databases may grow prohibitively large for the onboard data storage, processing, and communication capabilities of these types of vehicles. In this paper, we introduce a definition of landmark utility - which encapsulates the observation probability of a landmark and its spatial distribution relative to nearby landmarks in the database - as a measure of the value of potential line-of sight measurements to that landmark. We additionally present an efficient algorithm to sort all potential landmarks in an environment based on their relative utility without access to the actual sensor measurements or trajectory. This enables pre-determination of a limited-size terrain landmark database containing the N-best landmarks in the environment, which is applicable to any landmark-based TRN system. To evaluate our landmark selection algorithm, we additionally introduce an incremental smoothing-based approach to TRN using a Bayesian factor graph representation. This system is capable of overcoming several challenges associated with TRN systems, including relinearization of past measurements, simultaneously utilizing pre-mapped and opportunistic features in a common estimator, and efficient sensor fusion in a common, probabilistic framework. We provide results showing the benefits of our utility-based landmark selection compared to alternative selection approaches, using evaluation metrics independent of any particular TRN estimation framework and the navigation performance of our graph-based TRN system.
Carotid endarterectomy in Great Britain and Ireland

A survey of the practice of carotid surgery by 245 vascular and neurological surgeons in Great Britain and Ireland was conducted with a 96 per cent response. Ninety‐six surgeons (41 per cent) performed at least one carotid endarterectomy in 1984 and a total of 1374 such operations were carried out in that year. The indications for carotid endarterectomy in order of frequency were transient ischaemic attack, minor stroke and stroke. Operation was hardly ever undertaken for asymptomatic carotid bruit. Eighty‐six per cent of surgeons who performed carotid endarterectomy generally assessed patients in the first instance using techniques less invasive than conventional angiography, principally Doppler ultrasonography or digital subtraction angiography. Nevertheless, conventional angiograms were usually performed before surgery by 89 per cent of surgeons. Almost all surgeons operated only under general anaesthesia, while opinion on the use of an intraluminal shunt during carotid endarterectomy was divided. Despite an increase in the number of carotid endarterectomies in recent years, this operation is currently performed nineteen times less frequently in Great Britain and Ireland than in the USA. The reasons for this are explored and certain controversies surrounding carotid endarterectomy are discussed.
Segmentation of the Right Ventricle in MR images using dual active shape model in the Bookstein coordinates

Segmentation of the Right Ventricle (RV) from cardiac MRI images is necessary for evaluating a number of cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular disorders. Active Shape Models (ASM) have been proposed to capture the variability among the different RV shapes and used to segment the RV. Nevertheless, the method is challenged by the complexity and the large variability among the RV shapes. In this work, we propose two modifications of the basic ASM method that improve the performance significantly. First, the RV contour is divided into two simpler parts: free-wall and septal, each is modeled using a separate ASM model. Secondly, the ASM is evolved within the Bookstein coordinate space which fixes the RV insertion points as landmarks to nonlinearly align the different contours. Results on real MRI images show that the proposed Dual-Bookstein ASM framework outperforms standard ASM algorithm.
Current issues in managing men with lower urinary tract symptoms in primary care

Computer-tailored health interventions delivered over the web: review and analysis of key components. Patient Educ Couns 2009; 74: 156. 10 Michie S, Miles J, Weinman J. Patient-centredness in chronic illness: what is it and does it matter? Pat Educ Counsel 2003; 51: 197–206. 11 Schubart J, Stuckey H, Ganeshamoorthy A, Sciamanna C. Chronic health conditions and internet behavioral interventions: a review of factors to enhance user engagement. Comput Inform Nurs 2011; 29: 81–92.
No Pig Atoll: Island Biogeography and the Extirpation of a Polynesian Domesticate

The significance of the domestic pig, Sus scrofa, to prehistoric Polynesians is hinted at by its inclusion among the species that they transported with them as they colonized Oceania. However, archaeological data reveal a pattern of pig distribution far more extensive in prehistory than at historic contact. Domestic mammal extirpation is a phenomenon apparently unique to prehistoric Polynesia. Although well recognized, the local extinction of domestic pigs in Polynesia prior to European contact has yet to be satisfactorily explained. Earlier accounts attributed the patchy distribution of pigs across the Island South Pacific to intentional extermination by their Polynesian keepers. More recent approaches seek to understand the disappearance of these animals within a biogeographic and ecological framework. Here, I test the hypothesis that the success of pig husbandry is correlated with ecological variables and demonstrate that the likelihood of pig extinction increases with decreasing island size.
Discriminative optimization of language adapted HMMs for a language identification system based on parallel phoneme recognizers

Recently an unsupervised learning scheme for Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) used in acoustical Language Identiﬁcation (LID) based on Parallel Phoneme Recognizers (PPR) was proposed. This avoids the high costs for orthographically transcribed speech data and phonetic lexica but was found to introduce a considerable increase of classiﬁcation errors. Also very recently discriminative Minimum Language Identiﬁcation Error (MLIDE) optimization of HMMs for PPR based LID was introduced that again only requires language tagged speech data and an initial HMM. The described work shows how to combine both approaches to an unsupervised and discriminative learning scheme. Experimental results on large telephone speech databases show that using MLIDE the relative increase in error rate introduced by unsupervised learning can be reduced from 61% to 26%. The absolute difference in LID error rate due to the supervised learning step is reduced from 4.1% to 0.8%.
Assessment of the high-dose concept and level of control provided by MON 87701 × MON 89788 soybean against Anticarsia gemmatalis and Pseudoplusia includens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Brazil.

BACKGROUND Genetically modified MON 87701 × MON 89788 soybean (Glycine max), which expresses the Cry1Ac and EPSP-synthase proteins, has been registered for commercial use in Brazil. To develop an Insect Resistance Management (IRM) program for this event, laboratory and field studies were conducted to assess the high-dose concept and level of control it provides against Anticarsia gemmatalis and Pseudoplusia includens. RESULTS The purified Cry1Ac protein was more active against A. gemmatalis [LC(50) (FL 95%) = 0.23 (0.15-0.34) µg Cry1Ac mL(-1) diet] than P. includens [LC(50) (FL 95%) = 3.72 (2.65-4.86) µg Cry1Ac mL(-1) diet]. In bioassays with freeze-dried MON 87701 × MON 89788 soybean tissue diluted 25 times in an artificial diet, there was 100% mortality of A. gemmatalis and up to 95.79% mortality for P. includens. In leaf-disc bioassays and under conditions of high artificial infestation in the greenhouse and natural infestation in the field, MON 87701 × MON 89788 soybean showed a high level of efficacy against both target pests. CONCLUSIONS The MON 87701 × MON 89788 soybean provides a high level of control against A. gemmatalis and P. includes, but a high-dose event only to A. gemmatalis.
Diálogos entre personas mayores y ciencia

Las personas mayores demandan espacios de participacion social quecontemplen, no unicamente el ocio y el entretenimiento, sino tambien elintelecto y el conocimiento. Nano y mayores: encuentros entre laspersonas mayores y la investigacion cientifica. Nuevas estrategias parala participacion social es una investigacion financiada por el PlanNacional I+D+I espanol entre 2006-2008, que pretendia identificar estrategias que contribuyesen a promover la participacion de las personas mayores en espacios de dialogo sobre ciencia, y concretamente sobre nanociencia y nanotecnologia. Se analizaron que conocimientos tienen las personas mayores sobre ambas disciplinas, asi como iniciativas que fomentasen espacios de participacion social de las personas mayores en el campo cientifico. Este articulo presenta algunosde los resultados de la investigacion acerca de las barreras que se encuentran las personas mayores para participar en estos espacios de debate y dialogo cientifico, asi como estrategias que permiten superarlas.
Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater during Periods of Slack ? Evidence from Twentieth-Century Historical Data

A key question that has arisen during recent debates is whether government spending multipliers are larger during periods of slack. Some researchers and policymakers have argued that while government spending multipliers are estimated to be modest on average, they might become greater during times when resources are underutilized. Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012, forthcoming)—henceforth, AG—test this hypothesis and find larger multipliers during recessions in both quarterly post-World War II US data and in annual cross-country panel data since 1985. Their findings suggest multipliers near zero during expansions but between 1.5 and 2 during recessions. Fazzari, Morley, and Panovska (2012) confirm these findings using different methods and measures of slack in US data since 1967. Gordon and Krenn (2010) find that multipliers are larger before mid-1941 than after in their analysis of US data from 1919 to 1953. In addition, numerous cross-state analyses estimate bigger multipliers during periods of slack. On the other hand, Crafts and Mills (2012) analyze government spending multipliers in UK data from Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater during Periods of Slack? Evidence from Twentieth-Century Historical Data
Rhamnolipids mediate detachment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from biofilms

The process of detachment, through which bacteria use active mechanisms to leave biofilms and return to the planktonic (free‐living) state, is perhaps the least understood aspect of the biofilm life cycle. Like other stages of biofilm development, detachment is a dynamic, regulated process, controlled by specific genes, and induced by particular environmental cues. In previous work we discovered Pseudomonas aeruginosa variants that exhibit accelerated biofilm detachment. These hyper‐detaching variants arise spontaneously from biofilms at a high frequency, and they exhibit robust detachment under different biofilm growth conditions. Here we show that these variants detach by a mechanism requiring the biosurfactant rhamnolipid and that this detachment mechanism rapidly restores antibiotic sensitivity to separating bacteria. We also show that rhamnolipids can bring about detachment in wild‐type P. aeruginosa biofilms. These findings raise the possibility that this detachment mechanism may be useful as a treatment to disrupt established biofilms. Interestingly, the rhamnolipid‐mediated detachment mechanism involves the formation of cavities within the centre of biofilm structures. Our data suggest a model to explain detachment that occurs via this pattern.