A Comparative Study

Background: The Narcissism Inventory (NI) is a frequently used German inventory for measuring narcissism in clinical settings; an additional short version (NI-90) also exists. Psychometric properties of the NI-90 scales were examined in clinical and non-clinical adolescent samples. Methods: Two adolescent samples were assessed with the NI-90: a non-clinical sample (n = 439, mean age ± SD = 15.05 ± 1.77 years) and a clinical sample (n = 235, 18.26 ± 0.77 years). Confirmatory factor analysis and principle component analysis were used to scrutinize the structure of the scales. Multiple regression analysis was used to predict the scores on two scales (helpless self; negative body self). Results: This study revealed heterogeneity in the NI-90 scales, which in turn explains the wide range seen in Cronbach’s α (from 0.53 to 0.93). The postulated 4-factor structure could not be replicated in both samples. Multiple regression analysis revealed that personality disorder did not significantly predict negative body self or helpless self scores, whereas eating, mood, as well as somatoform and conversion disorders did. One NI-90 scale (greedy for praise and reassurance) showed sufficient psychometric quality for the measurement of narcissism in both samples. Conclusion: Based on the results, the authors recommend revising the NI-90. Items that may be useful for measuring aspects related to affective and body image complaints are presented. The greedy for praise and reassurance scale may be valuable for measuring features of ‘overt’ narcissism

Conversion of the Mycotoxin Patulin to the Less Toxic Desoxypatulinic Acid by the Biocontrol Yeast Rhodosporidium kratochvilovae Strain LS11

Se describe en este artículo el descubrimiento de la degradación de la micotoxina patulina por una levaduraThe infection of stored apples by the fungus Penicillium expansum causes the contamination of fruits and fruit-derived products with the mycotoxin patulin, which is a major issue in food safety. Fungal attack can be prevented by beneficial microorganisms, so-called biocontrol agents. Previous time-course thin layer chromatography analyses showed that the aerobic incubation of patulin with the biocontrol yeast Rhodosporidium kratochvilovae strain LS11 leads to the disappearance of the mycotoxin spot and the parallel emergence of two new spots, one of which disappears over time. In this work, we analyzed the biodegradation of patulin effected by LS11 through HPLC. The more stable of the two compounds was purified and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance as desoxypatulinic acid, whose formation was also quantitated in patulin degradation experiments. After R. kratochvilovae LS11 had been incubated in the presence of 13C-labeled patulin, label was traced to desoxypatulinic acid, thus proving that this compound derives from the metabolization of patulin by the yeast. Desoxypatulinic acid was much less toxic than patulin to human lymphocytes and, in contrast to patulin, did not react in vitro with the thiol-bearing tripeptide glutathione. The lower toxicity of desoxypatulinic acid is proposed to be a consequence of the hydrolysis of the lactone ring and the loss of functional groups that react with thiol groups. The formation of desoxypatulinic acid from patulin represents a novel biodegradation pathway that is also a detoxification process

Two rapid assays for screening of patulin biodegradation

Artículo sobre distintos ensayos para comprobar la biodegradación de la patulinaThe mycotoxin patulin is produced by the blue mould pathogen Penicillium expansum in rotting apples during postharvest storage. Patulin is toxic to a wide range of organisms, including humans, animals, fungi and bacteria. Wash water from apple packing and processing houses often harbours patulin and fungal spores, which can contaminate the environment. Ubiquitous epiphytic yeasts, such as Rhodosporidium kratochvilovae strain LS11 which is a biocontrol agent of P. expansum in apples, have the capacity to resist the toxicity of patulin and to biodegrade it. Two non-toxic products are formed. One is desoxypatulinic acid. The aim of the work was to develop rapid, high-throughput bioassays for monitoring patulin degradation in multiple samples. Escherichia coli was highly sensitive to patulin, but insensitive to desoxypatulinic acid. This was utilized to develop a detection test for patulin, replacing time-consuming thin layer chromatography or high-performance liquid chromatography. Two assays for patulin degradation were developed, one in liquid medium and the other in semi-solid medium. Both assays allow the contemporary screening of a large number of samples. The liquid medium assay utilizes 96-well microtiter plates and was optimized for using a minimum of patulin. The semisolid medium assay has the added advantage of slowing down the biodegradation, which allows the study and isolation of transient degradation products. The two assays are complementary and have several areas of utilization, from screening a bank of microorganisms for biodegradation ability to the study of biodegradation pathways

Solving ill-posed bilevel programs

This paper deals with ill-posed bilevel programs, i.e., problems admitting multiple lower-level solutions for some upper-level parameters. Many publications have been devoted to the standard optimistic case of this problem, where the difficulty is essentially moved from the objective function to the feasible set. This new problem is simpler but there is no guaranty to obtain local optimal solutions for the original optimistic problem by this process. Considering the intrinsic non-convexity of bilevel programs, computing local optimal solutions is the best one can hope to get in most cases. To achieve this goal, we start by establishing an equivalence between the original optimistic problem an a certain set-valued optimization problem. Next, we develop optimality conditions for the latter problem and show that they generalize all the results currently known in the literature on optimistic bilevel optimization. Our approach is then extended to multiobjective bilevel optimization, and completely new results are derived for problems with vector-valued upper- and lower-level objective functions. Numerical implementations of the results of this paper are provided on some examples, in order to demonstrate how the original optimistic problem can be solved in practice, by means of a special set-valued optimization problem

Modelling the optimal phosphate fertiliser and soil management strategy for crops

Aims The readily available global rock phosphate (P) reserves may be depleted within the next 50–130 years warranting careful use of this finite resource. We develop a model that allows us to assess a range of P fertiliser and soil management strategies for Barley in order to find which one maximises plant P uptake under certain climate conditions. Methods Our model describes the development of the P and water profiles within the soil. Current cultivation techniques such as ploughing and reduced till gradient are simulated along with fertiliser options to feed the top soil or the soil right below the seed. Results Our model was able to fit data from two barley field trials, achieving a good fit at early growth stages but a poor fit at late growth stages, where the model underestimated plant P uptake. A well-mixed soil (inverted and 25 cm ploughing) is important for optimal plant P uptake and provides the best environment for the root system. Conclusions The model is sensitive to the initial state of P and its distribution within the soil profile; experimental parameters which are sparsely measured. The combination of modelling and experimental data provides useful agricultural predictions for site specific locations

Pembauran Budaya di Desa Rantau Sakti Kecamatan Tambusai Utara Kabupaten Rokan Hulu

This study is to research how the intercourse of culture that existed in the Rantau Sakti village Tambusai Utara District and Rokan Hulu Regent intertribal nasions of Java, Medan Java, Batak, Minang, and Melayu. Theres a launching factors and hindrance factors too in culture intercourse. The data tekhnic collection with the koesioner, interview, and documentation. And the analisys of data is descriptive where the data presented in the form of a diagrams, percentages, pictures, and explanations. The research results show that The lives of the multicultural that could lead to the occurrence of intercourse of culture through assimilation, acculturation, and amalgamation. The intercourse of culture through three aspects of it can run well theres happened in Rantau Sakti village on seven principles like language, system of knowledge , a social organization , celebration life and technologi, means of subsistence, religion, and art . There is also intercourse of culture with amalgamation culture that leads to assimilation and acculturation. Its launching factor are the attitude of tolerance and open, in common religion, and the same occasion in the economic field. While the hindrance factor are differences of religion and stereotype (ethnic prejudice). Those two factors each happened to the process of changing culture with assimilation, acculturation, and amalgamation That leads to a positive thing.Keyword: The Culture Intercourse, Inter-ethnic

Selection of Wavelet Subbands Using Genetic Algorithm for Face Recognition

Abstract. In this paper, a novel representation called the subband face is proposed for face recognition. The subband face is generated from selected subbands obtained using wavelet decomposition of the original face image. It is surmised that certain subbands contain information that is more significant for discriminating faces than other subbands. The problem of subband selection is cast as a combinatorial optimization problem and genetic algorithm (GA) is used to find the optimum subband combination by maximizing Fisher ratio of the training features. The performance of the GA selected subband face is evaluated using three face databases and compared with other wavelet-based representations.

Better assessment of physical function: item improvement is neglected but essential

INTRODUCTION: Physical function is a key component of patient-reported outcome (PRO) assessment in rheumatology. Modern psychometric methods, such as Item Response Theory (IRT) and Computerized Adaptive Testing, can materially improve measurement precision at the item level. We present the qualitative and quantitative item-evaluation process for developing the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function item bank. METHODS: The process was stepwise: we searched extensively to identify extant Physical Function items and then classified and selectively reduced the item pool. We evaluated retained items for content, clarity, relevance and comprehension, reading level, and translation ease by experts and patient surveys, focus groups, and cognitive interviews. We then assessed items by using classic test theory and IRT, used confirmatory factor analyses to estimate item parameters, and graded response modeling for parameter estimation. We retained the 20 Legacy (original) Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) and the 10 SF-36\u27s PF-10 items for comparison. Subjects were from rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and healthy aging cohorts (n = 1,100) and a national Internet sample of 21,133 subjects. RESULTS: We identified 1,860 items. After qualitative and quantitative evaluation, 124 newly developed PROMIS items composed the PROMIS item bank, which included revised Legacy items with good fit that met IRT model assumptions. Results showed that the clearest and best-understood items were simple, in the present tense, and straightforward. Basic tasks (like dressing) were more relevant and important versus complex ones (like dancing). Revised HAQ-DI and PF-10 items with five response options had higher item-information content than did comparable original Legacy items with fewer response options. IRT analyses showed that the Physical Function domain satisfied general criteria for unidimensionality with one-, two-, three-, and four-factor models having comparable model fits. Correlations between factors in the test data sets were \u3e 0.90. CONCLUSIONS: Item improvement must underlie attempts to improve outcome assessment. The clear, personally important and relevant, ability-framed items in the PROMIS Physical Function item bank perform well in PRO assessment. They will benefit from further study and application in a wider variety of rheumatic diseases in diverse clinical groups, including those at the extremes of physical functioning, and in different administration modes

Design considerations for workflow management systems use in production genomics research and the clinic

Abstract The changing landscape of genomics research and clinical practice has created a need for computational pipelines capable of efficiently orchestrating complex analysis stages while handling large volumes of data across heterogeneous computational environments. Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are the software components employed to fill this gap. This work provides an approach and systematic evaluation of key features of popular bioinformatics WfMSs in use today: Nextflow, CWL, and WDL and some of their executors, along with Swift/T, a workflow manager commonly used in high-scale physics applications. We employed two use cases: a variant-calling genomic pipeline and a scalability-testing framework, where both were run locally, on an HPC cluster, and in the cloud. This allowed for evaluation of those four WfMSs in terms of language expressiveness, modularity, scalability, robustness, reproducibility, interoperability, ease of development, along with adoption and usage in research labs and healthcare settings. This article is trying to answer, which WfMS should be chosen for a given bioinformatics application regardless of analysis type?. The choice of a given WfMS is a function of both its intrinsic language and engine features. Within bioinformatics, where analysts are a mix of dry and wet lab scientists, the choice is also governed by collaborations and adoption within large consortia and technical support provided by the WfMS team/community. As the community and its needs continue to evolve along with computational infrastructure, WfMSs will also evolve, especially those with permissive licenses that allow commercial use. In much the same way as the dataflow paradigm and containerization are now well understood to be very useful in bioinformatics applications, we will continue to see innovations of tools and utilities for other purposes, like big data technologies, interoperability, and provenance

An accurate and efficient identification of children with psychosocial problems by means of computerized adaptive testing

Background: Questionnaires used by health services to identify children with psychosocial problems are often rather short. The psychometric properties of such short questionnaires are mostly less than needed for an accurate distinction between children with and without problems. We aimed to assess whether a short Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT) can overcome the weaknesses of short written questionnaires when identifying children with psychosocial problems. Method: We used a Dutch national data set obtained from parents of children invited for a routine health examination by Preventive Child Healthcare with 205 items on behavioral and emotional problems (n = 2,041, response 84%). In a random subsample we determined which items met the requirements of an Item Response Theory (IRT) model to a sufficient degree. Using those items, item parameters necessary for a CAT were calculated and a cut-off point was defined. In the remaining subsample we determined the validity and efficiency of a Computerized Adaptive Test using simulation techniques, with current treatment status and a clinical score on the Total Problem Scale (TPS) of the Child Behavior Checklist as criteria. Results: Out of 205 items available 190 sufficiently met the criteria of the underlying IRT model. For 90% of the children a score above or below cut-off point could be determined with 95% accuracy. The mean number of items needed to achieve this was 12. Sensitivity and specificity with the TPS as a criterion were 0.89 and 0.91, respectively. Conclusion: An IRT-based CAT is a very promising option for the identification of psychosocial problems in children, as it can lead to an efficient, yet high-quality identification. The results of our simulation study need to be replicated in a real-life administration of this CAT