Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Content and affect in persecutory delusions.

OBJECTIVES The study aimed to explore the content of persecutory delusions and its potential links with levels of affective disturbance. Detailed examinations of the phenomenology of delusional beliefs have been rare, but are important for furthering theoretical and clinical understanding. DESIGN A cross-sectional investigation of 70 individuals with current persecutory delusions was conducted. METHODS Taped semi-structured clinical interviews were transcribed for each participant. Using a coding frame devised for the current study, a detailed description of persecutory content was made. Scores on the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale and the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales were used as indicators of emotional distress. RESULTS Data were gathered on the identity and type of persecutor, pervasiveness of threat and the power of the persecutor. Reliability was good. Beliefs involving multiple persecutors, human in nature and identifiable to the individual were common. For the majority threat was severe, ongoing and enduring and coupled with frequent feelings of vulnerability. Specific aspects of delusional content were found to be associated with emotional distress. For example, if participants felt more power in the face of persecution this was coupled with lower depression and higher self-esteem. CONCLUSIONS Persecutory delusions are beliefs concerning severe threat, particularly of physical harm including death, which is personally significant, frequently involving multiple persecutors known to the individual. Depression is higher in those who felt less powerful than their persecutors. Associations, such as this, with emotional distress support a direct role for emotion in delusion formation and maintenance. It is consistent with cognitive models of delusions which emphasize the importance of considering emotional distress in the context of belief appraisal, although interpretation of the results is limited by the cross-sectional study design. Recognizing these links may in turn aid therapists in identifying aspects of beliefs that might be targeted to facilitate emotional change.
Lyme disease: a growing threat to urban populations.

Lyme disease or Lyme borreliosis, which is caused by three groups of the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted in North America, Europe, and Asia by ticks of the Ixodes ricinus complex. The primary areas around the world that are now affected by Lyme disease are near the terminal moraine of the glaciers 15,000 years ago. The emergence of Lyme disease in the United States in this century is thought to have occurred because of ecological conditions favorable for deer. From 1982 through 1991, 40,195 cases occurring in 47 states were reported to the Centers for Disease Control, but enzootic cycles of B. burgdorferi have been identified in only 19 states. During the last several decades, the disease has spread to new areas and has caused focal outbreaks, including locations near Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Lyme disease is like syphilis in its multisystem involvement, occurrence in stages, and mimicry of other diseases. Diagnosis of late neurologic abnormalities of the disorder has created the most difficulty. A recent phenomenon is that a number of poorly understood conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, are misdiagnosed as "chronic Lyme disease. " Part of the reason for misdiagnosis is due to problems associated with diagnostic tests. The various manifestations of Lyme disease can usually be treated successfully with oral doxycycline or amoxicillin, except for objective neurologic manifestations, which seem to require intravenous therapy. Vector control of thick-borne diseases has been difficult and, therefore, reduction of the risk of infection has been limited primarily to personal protection measures.
Business-IT Alignment and Organisation Agility Enabled by BPM and SOA Approaches Interplay

Business Process Management (BPM) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approaches receive considerable attention from scholars and industrial practitioners. Thanks to the three streams of the EMT model (Economy, Methodology, Technology) this paper shows that BPM and SOA approaches are two sides of the same coin, which are different but complementary. This combination enables organisations to improve their agility in the face of uncertainty, complexity and change.
Impedance and Damping Characteristics of Grid-Connected VSCs With Power Synchronization Control Strategy

Modeling and analysis of the output impedance of a grid-connected voltage-sourced converter (VSC)-based system under the recently-developed power synchronization control topology is presented in this paper. The impact of impedance passivity on subsynchronous damping profile of an electrically-nearby synchronous generator is then characterized. The impacts of key factors such as control modes and control parameter are addressed. A comparison with the standard vector control strategy is also presented. The results reveal that under this type of control, a VSC does not have negative impact on sub-synchronous dynamics; on the contrary, it has a positive impact, compared with commonly used vector current control where the latter has a potential to degrade the system damping. Time-domain simulation results are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.
Book review: Matthias Ebenau, Ian Bruff and Christian May (eds), New Directions in Comparative Capitalisms Research: Critical and Global Perspectives

secure such improvements. The claim that GVCs neglect labour is only occasionally contested, as for example in Andrew Cumbers’ chapter, which reviews the many and varied approaches to labour from within economic geography. In addition to a concern with agency, the collection has a broad understanding of labour at the point of production or service delivery (p. 14), moving beyond a more conventional labour process concern with the employment relationship to consider freelance production and self-employment (Chapters 6 and 13), as well as family based agricultural production (Chapter 12). What is absent from these accounts, however, is a concern with practices of value production that are not immediately economic. For example, there is nothing to locate labour within wider circuits of social-reproduction, as might be suggested by Glucksmann’s ‘total social organization of labour’ perspective, or in studies of unpaid ‘work’ that contribute to the value of brands and social media. In this regard, a comparison with Fuchs’ (2014) recent attempt to combine a GVC perspective with studies of digital labour is instructive. While Fuchs’ analysis of social media lacks the empirical rigour and depth of the papers gathered together by Newsome and colleagues, and falls short in its theoretical exposition of the functioning of GVCs, it has the advantage of following a commodity from mineral extraction, through production and circulation, into the sphere of consumption, where new forms of unpaid labour, such as creating media content for Facebook and Google, blur the boundaries of work and life as conventionally understood in labour process analysis. Despite overstating the neglect of labour, and in turn overlooking those forms of work that fall into labour process theory’s own blind-spots, this is a focused and effective collection of essays, making an important attempt to bring together GVCs and labour process analysis, serving to keep labour at the heart of economic geography and studies of international business, while also locating labour process studies within a well theorized global political economic context. The individual chapters also provide us with many well written case studies, so the book will be valuable to teachers, as well as researchers, concerned with locating labour in a global political economic context.
Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide based directional couplers operating at telecom wavelengths

The study and analysis of two types of 2D plasmonic directional couplers based on the Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) waveguide operating at 1.55 μm are presented in this paper. We make use of transmission-line theory for the design and optimization of a branch-line coupler and a rat-race coupler.
Caregiver Assessment of Support Need, Reaction to Care, and Assessment of Depression

The aims of this study were to: (a) identify New Zealand informal carers' support needs; (b) assess caregivers' depression; and (c) assess positive and negative aspects of caregiving. A sample of 287 carers from throughout New Zealand was recruited by advertisements in carer support organizations literature, in 2008. Data were collected using Centre for Epidemiologic Short Depression scale (CES-D10), Caregivers Reaction Assessment scale (CRA), and open-ended questions. Carer burden was significant (p ≤ .01) in the 60 to 69 age group. The relationship between CRA and CES-D10 in carers in the 50 to 59, 60 to 69 carer age groups; and 0 to 29, 60 to 69, 70 to 79, and 80 plus care recipient age groups were also significant. Mean burden was highest in the 50 to 59 age group (77/120) with depression mean highest in the 30 to 39 age group (14/30). Carers commonly discussed the adverse effects of caregiving on identity, lifestyle, health, and financial situation. Lack of information, poor respite care, and combining work with care were major frustrations. If the government wishes to successfully pursue initiatives allowing people to remain at home, more resources are needed to adequately support carers.
Public Policy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Taking a Life-Course Perspective

L’état de santé et les conditions sociales des Premières nations, des Inuits et des Métis au Canada reste une question de politiques sociales préoccupante. Certains chercheurs ont proposé l’approche des parcours de vie comme cadre d’analyse pour la conception de politiques qui favoriseraient l’inclusion sociale des peuples autochtones. Dans cet article, tout en expliquant que nous sommes d’accord avec cette démarche, nous soutenons que le cadre d’analyse doit aussi prendre en compte la situation particulière des peuples autochtones en matière de politiques sociales. Nous illustrons notre propos en donnant quelques exemples que nous avons élaborés à partir des données de l’Enquête auprès des peuples autochtones de 2001.
Postmortem Analysis of Decayed Online Social Communities: Cascade Pattern Analysis and Prediction

Recently, many online social networks, such as MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster, have faced inactivity decay of their members, which contributed to the collapse of these networks. The reasons, mechanics, and prevention mechanisms of such inactivity decay are not fully understood. In this work, we analyze decayed and alive subwebsites from the Stack Exchange platform. The analysis mainly focuses on the inactivity cascades that occur among the members of these communities. We provide measures to understand the decay process and statistical analysis to extract the patterns that accompany the inactivity decay. Additionally, we predict cascade size and cascade virality using machine learning. The results of this work include a statistically significant difference of the decay patterns between the decayed and the alive subwebsites. These patterns are mainly cascade size, cascade virality, cascade duration, and cascade similarity. Additionally, the contributed prediction framework showed satisfactorily prediction results compared to a baseline predictor. Supported by empirical evidence, the main findings of this work are (1) there are significantly different decay patterns in the alive and the decayed subwebsites of the Stack Exchange; (2) the cascade’s node degrees contribute more to the decay process than the cascade’s virality, which indicates that the expert members of the Stack Exchange subwebsites were mainly responsible for the activity or inactivity of the Stack Exchange subwebsites; (3) the Statistics subwebsite is going through decay dynamics that may lead to it becoming fully-decayed; (4) the decay process is not governed by only one network measure, it is better described using multiple measures; (5) decayed subwebsites were originally less resilient to inactivity decay, unlike the alive subwebsites; and (6) network’s structure in the early stages of its evolution dictates the activity/inactivity characteristics of the network.
Effect of cortisol on energy expenditure and amino acid metabolism in humans.

Hydrocortisone was infused overnight into nine normal healthy adults on three occasions at 0, 80, and 200 micrograms.kg-1.h-1, producing plasma cortisol concentrations of 10.6 +/- 1.2, 34.0 +/- 2.0, and 64.9 +/- 4.3 micrograms/dl, respectively. L-[1-13C]leucine, L-[phenyl-2H5]phenylalanine, and L-[2-15N]glutamine were infused during the last 7 h of hypercortisolemia to measure amino acid kinetics. During the last 3.5 h, somatostatin, glucagon, and insulin were infused to reduce the cortisol-induced elevation in plasma insulin to basal. Hypercortisolemia increased plasma glucose, free fatty acid (FFA), and insulin concentrations. Institution of the somatostatin clamp returned insulin to basal but increased glucose and FFA. Acute hypercortisolemia increased protein breakdown 5-20%, as measured by increases in leucine and phenylalanine appearance rates. Normalizing insulin during hypercortisolemia did not alter phenylalanine flux but enhanced leucine appearance rate, the latter result indicating that insulin was affecting leucine metabolism during hypercortisolemia. The fraction of the leucine flux that was oxidized was not significantly increased with hypercortisolemia, but disposal by the nonoxidative route of leucine uptake for protein synthesis was increased. Hypercortisolemia increased cycling of amino acids by increasing protein breakdown and synthesis, but the increase in this process could have increased resting energy expenditure (REE) only 1-2%. Hypercortisolemia increased glutamine flux in a dose-dependent fashion through an increase in de novo synthesis, which presumably reflects increased release from skeletal muscle. Hypercortisolemia increased REE 9-15% at the 80 and 200 micrograms.kg-1.h-1 infusion rates. Respiratory quotient did not rise with cortisol infusion but tended to decrease, suggesting that the increase in REE was fueled by increased oxidation of fat. These data demonstrate that hypercortisolemia increases metabolic rate and may be in part responsible for the hypermetabolic state in injury.
Treatment discontinuation in patients with very early rheumatoid arthritis in sustained simplified disease activity index remission after synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug administration

We aimed to identify whether drug-free remission could be achieved in patients with very early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with poor prognosis factors by treatment with synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Thirteen patients with very early RA, whose disease was considered to have highly erosive potential, were included. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-proven bone edema and autoantibodies were determined in these patients. A treat-to-target strategy initiated with synthetic DMARDs was employed for 12 months. If the patients achieved simplified disease activity index (SDAI) remission along with a reduction of the RA MRI scoring bone edema score to <33% as compared with baseline at 12 months, DMARD treatment was stopped and the clinical status was further observed for the following 12 months. Synthetic DMARDs were stopped at 12 months in 5 patients. One of the 5 was lost to follow-up because of sustaining an injury that required orthopedic surgery. Three of the remaining 4 patients showed continued SDAI remission that was DMARD-free without any evidence of radiographic progression for the following 12 months. Although this was a small clinical trial, we have shown–for the first time–that true remission of very early RA with poor prognosis factors can be achieved by treatment with synthetic DMARDs.
Capnography Accurately Detects Apnea During Monitored Anesthesia Care

Apnea and airway obstruction are common during monitored anesthesia care (MAC). Because their early detection is essential, we sought to measure the efficacy of capnography as an indicator of apnea during MAC at a variety of oxygen flow rates compared with thoracic impedance. Anesthesia care providers using standard American Society of Anesthesiologists monitors were blinded to capnography and thoracic impedance monitoring. Ten (26%) of the 39 patients studied developed 20 s of apnea; none was detected by the anesthesia provider, but all were detected by capnography and impedance monitoring. There was no difference in detection rates between the two methods. Higher oxygen flow rates decreased the amplitude of the capnograph but did not interfere with apnea detection. This pilot study revealed that apnea of at least 20 s in duration may occur in every fourth patient undergoing MAC. Although these episodes were undetected by the anesthesia provider, they were reliably detected by both capnography and respiratory plethysmography. Monitoring of nasal end-tidal CO2 is an important way to improve safety in patients undergoing MAC.
A Semi-Markov Decision Model-based brokering mechanism for mobile cloud market

As the multitude and complexity of the cloud market increases, the evaluation and selection of cloud services becomes a burdensome task for the users. With the extraordinary rise of available services from various Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), the role of cloud brokers has become more and more important. This paper proposes an optimal cloud broker model to address the challenge of optimally allocating multiple cloud system resources to multiple mobile user's requests with different requirements. The cloud brokering mechanism is formulated as a Semi-Markov Decision Process (SMDP) model under the average system cost criteria. The overall system cost takes into consideration the cost of occupying computing resources, the communication costs, the request traffic, as well as various security risk degrees and resource requirements from the various mobile users. Through minimizing the overall system cost, the optimal resource allocation policy is calculated by means of the Value Iteration Algorithm. Some analysis are conducted and numerical results are presented, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed cloud broker design.
Changes in cytokine profiles following treatment with food allergen‐specific sublingual immunotherapy in dogs with adverse food reactions

BACKGROUND Food allergen-specific sublingual immunotherapy (FA-SLIT) is considered to be a novel, safe and effective approach in dogs with adverse food reactions (AFR). HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES To investigate changes in key cytokines associated with FA-SLIT. ANIMALS Eleven dogs with confirmed AFR. METHODS Participants received either dose escalation of FA-SLIT or placebo over a six month period. Oral food challenge was performed at the beginning and end of the study, along with clinical examinations and collection of skin surface bacterial cytology and blood. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were stimulated with the culprit food antigen. ELISA methods were used to quantify Interleukin (IL)-10, IFN-γ, IL-4 and IL-17A in the supernatant of stimulated cells. RESULTS IL-10 and IFN-γ levels were significantly increased at the end of the study in the treatment group (T), compared with the placebo group (P), whereas no changes were found in IL-4 levels. IL-17A levels were decreased in both groups (but more profoundly in T). Bacterial scores on the skin were positively correlated with IL-17A and inversely correlated with IL-10 concentrations. Interleukins were not correlated with clinical scores. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE FA-SLIT may modulate the allergic response toward Th1 and Treg cell phenotypes, and induction of tolerance in dogs with AFR. Therefore, FA-SLIT may be a tool to desensitize dogs with AFR. However, more data on a larger number of cases and a broader panel of cytokines are needed to corroborate these findings, and to elucidate the mechanism of action for responses to FA-SLIT by dogs with AFR.
The spinal GABA system modulates burst frequency and intersegmental coordination in the lamprey: differential effects of GABAA and GABAB receptors.

1. The effect of spinal GABAergic neurons on the segmental neuronal network generating locomotion has been analyzed in the lamprey spinal cord in vitro. It is shown that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)A- and GABAB-mediated effects influence the burst frequency and the intersegmental coordination and that the GABA system is active during normal locomotor activity. 2. Fictive locomotor activity was induced by superfusing the spinal cord with a Ringer solution containing N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA, 150 microM). The efferent locomotor activity was recorded by suction electrodes from the ventral roots or intracellularly from interneurons or motoneurons. If a GABA uptake blocker was added to the perfusate, the burst rate decreased. This effect was counteracted by GABAB receptor blockade by phaclofen or 2-(OH)-saclofen. If instead a GABAB receptor agonist (baclofen) was added during fictive locomotion, a depression of the burst rate occurred. It was concluded that a GABAB receptor activation due to an endogenous release of GABA caused a depression of the burst activity with a maintained well-coordinated locomotor activity. 3. If a GABAA receptor antagonist (bicuculline) is applied during fictive locomotion elicited by NMDA, a certain increase of the burst rate occurred. Conversely, if a selective GABAA agonist (muscimol) was administered, the burst rate decreased. Similarly, if the GABAA receptor activity was potentiated by activation of a benzodiazepine site by diazepam, the burst rate was reduced. If, however the GABAergic effect was first enhanced by an uptake blocker (nipecotic acid), an administration of a GABAA antagonist (bicuculline) increased the burst rate, but in addition, the burst pattern became less regular with recurrent shorter periods without clear reciprocal burst activity. The GABAA receptor activity appears important for the rate control and for permitting a regular burst pattern. 4. The intersegmental coordination in the lamprey is characterized by a rostrocaudal constant phase lag of approximately 1% of the cycle duration between the activation of consecutive segments during forward swimming. This rostrocaudal phase lag can be reversed during backward swimming, which can be induced also experimentally in the isolated spinal cord by providing a higher excitability to the caudal segments. In a split-bath configuration, a GABA uptake blocker or a GABAB agonist was administered to the rostral part of the spinal cord, which caused a reversal of the phase lag as during backward swimming. If GABAA receptors were blocked under similar conditions, the intersegmental coordination became irregular. It is concluded that an increased GABA activity in a spinal cord region can modify the intersegmental coordination. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
On the Measurement of TL - Fuzzy Rough Sets

In fuzzy rough sets a fuzzy T-similarity relation is employed to describe the degree of similarity between two objects and to construct lower and upper approximations for arbitrary fuzzy sets. Different triangular norm T identifies different point of view of similarity. Thus reasonable selection of triangular norm is clearly meaningful to practical applications of fuzzy rough sets. In this paper we first discuss the selection of triangular norm and emphasize the well-known Lukasiewicz's triangular norm TL as a reasonable selection. We then propose a function for each approximation operator in TL -fuzzy rough sets to measure its approximating ability. The measurement functions of lower and upper approximation operators are natural generalizations of belief and plausibility functions in the evidence theory respectively. By using these two functions, accuracy measure, roughness degree, entropy and conditional entropy are defined for TL-fuzzy rough sets