Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mitochondrial dynamics and respiration within cells with increased open pore cytoskeletal meshes

ABSTRACT The cytoskeletal architecture directly affects the morphology, motility, and tensional homeostasis of the cell. In addition, the cytoskeleton is important for mitosis, intracellular traffic, organelle motility, and even cellular respiration. The organelle responsible for a majority of the energy conversion for the cell, the mitochondrion, has a dependence on the cytoskeleton for mobility and function. In previous studies, we established that cytoskeletal inhibitors altered the movement of the mitochondria, their morphology, and their respiration in human dermal fibroblasts. Here, we use this protocol to investigate applicability of power law diffusion to describe mitochondrial locomotion, assessment of rates of fission and fusion in healthy and diseased cells, and differences in mitochondria locomotion in more open networks either in response to cytoskeletal destabilizers or by cell line. We found that mitochondria within fibrosarcoma cells and within fibroblast cells treated with an actin-destabilizing toxin resulted in increased net travel, increased average velocity, and increased diffusion of mitochondria when compared to control fibroblasts. Although the mitochondria within the fibrosarcoma travel further than mitochondria within their healthy counterparts, fibroblasts, the dependence on mitochondria for respiration is much lower with higher rates ofhydrogen peroxide production and was confirmed using the OROBOROS O2K. We also found that rates of fission and fusion of the mitochondria equilibrate despite significant alteration of the cytoskeleton. Rates ranged from 15% to 25%, where the highest rates were observed within the fibrosarcoma cell line. This result is interesting because the fibrosarcoma cell line does not have increased respiration metrics including when compared to fibroblast. Mitochondria travel further, faster, and have an increase in percent mitochondria splitting or joining while not dependent on the mitochondria for a majority of its energy production. This study illustrates the complex interaction between mitochondrial movement and respiration through the disruption of the cytoskeleton. Summary: We assessed the effect of cytoskeletal inhibitors and the use of a calcium ionophore as an additional stressor on mitochondrial motility and bioenergetic function in fibroblasts and fibrosarcoma cells.
Decentralized Adaptive Control of Large-Scale Affine and Nonaffine Nonlinear Systems

This paper presents a decentralized adaptive control design for a class of large-scale nonlinear systems with unknown subsystems. When the subsystems are modeled by affine equations, a direct adaptive controller is devised based on the Lyapunov theory, so that the stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed by introducing a suitably driven adaptive rule. A neuro-based structure is proposed when the subsystems are nonaffine, and the stability analysis is also performed based on the Lyapunov theory. Moreover, the unknown interactions among the subsystems are considered as having a nonlinear function against the simple form considered for the affine case. The proposed controllers are employed in an inverted two-pendulum system, and their promising performances are illustrated.
On the Ideology of Nutritionism

This essay introduces and defines the ideology or paradigm of nutritionism, which is generally characterized by a reductive focus on the nutrient composition of food. More specifically, it is where the nutri-biochemical level of engagement with food and the body becomes the dominant way of understanding the relationship between food and bodily health, and at the expense of other levels and ways of understanding and engaging with food. Nutritionism is the dominant paradigm within nutrition science, informs much dietary advice, and has become a primary means for the engineering and marketing of food products. A number of characteristics of nutritionism are defined, including nutritional reductionism, biomarker reductionism, genetic nutritionism, the functional body, the myth of nutritional precision, the nutritional gaze, and nutritional tinkering, nutri-quantification, the erasure of qualitatative food distinctions, nutrient fetishism, the 9good and bad nutrient9 discourses, nutri-commodification, and the nutricentric person. A number of types of foods and types of food marketing are also introduced and defined, including nutritionally engineered foods, transnutric foods, nutritionally marketed foods and functionally marketed foods.
Conceptual/Integrative Complexity and Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment

This study examined two issues relevant to the complexity theory of information processing: (1) the relation between conceptual complexity and its theoretical offshoot, integrative complexity and (2) the relation between the structure (conceptual/integrative complexity) and the content (evaluation) of an attitude (namely, capital punishment). Participants were 36 male and 36female university students, from first-year to graduate studies, who completed several measures that assessed: (1) conceptual complexity (the Paragraph Completion Test), (2) integrative complexity (an essay on capital punishment), and (3) attitudes toward capital punishment (a Likert-type questionnaire). Results indicated that the two measures of complexity were comparable, though not equivalent, assessments of the cognitive structures in information processing. Although there was no relation between conceptual complexity and attitudes toward capital punishment, the predicted curvilinear relation was found between integrative complexity and attitudes-extreme attitudes (both pro and con) characterized cognitive simplicity and moderate attitudes characterized increasing complexity.
Biomass Allocation of Stoloniferous and Rhizomatous Plant in Response to Resource Availability: A Phylogenetic Meta-Analysis

Resource allocation to different functions is central in life-history theory. Plasticity of functional traits allows clonal plants to regulate their resource allocation to meet changing environments. In this study, biomass allocation traits of clonal plants were categorized into absolute biomass for vegetative growth vs. for reproduction, and their relative ratios based on a data set including 115 species and derived from 139 published literatures. We examined general pattern of biomass allocation of clonal plants in response to availabilities of resource (e.g., light, nutrients, and water) using phylogenetic meta-analysis. We also tested whether the pattern differed among clonal organ types (stolon vs. rhizome). Overall, we found that stoloniferous plants were more sensitive to light intensity than rhizomatous plants, preferentially allocating biomass to vegetative growth, aboveground part and clonal reproduction under shaded conditions. Under nutrient- and water-poor condition, rhizomatous plants were constrained more by ontogeny than by resource availability, preferentially allocating biomass to belowground part. Biomass allocation between belowground and aboveground part of clonal plants generally supported the optimal allocation theory. No general pattern of trade-off was found between growth and reproduction, and neither between sexual and clonal reproduction. Using phylogenetic meta-analysis can avoid possible confounding effects of phylogeny on the results. Our results shown the optimal allocation theory explained a general trend, which the clonal plants are able to plastically regulate their biomass allocation, to cope with changing resource availability, at least in stoloniferous and rhizomatous plants.
The Relationship between Gender, Comprehension, Processing Strategies, and Cognitive and Affective Response in Foreign Language Listening.

and written text is becoming increasingly popular in the foreign language (FL) curriculum. ' This shift reflects the acknowledgment that the ultimate goal of FL instruction is to enable learners to interact with native speakers of the target language. Two areas not fully understood involve first, how learners process different kinds of authentic input; and second, whether or not gender differences reported in previous second language (L2) research figure in the processing of, comprehension of, or affective response to authentic input. With authentic input, providing learners with appropriate advance organizers and comprehension strategies is probably insufficient. Rather, instruction must also reflect task differences and
Empatinin yeni bir modele dayanılarak ölçülmesi ve psikodrama ile geliştirilmesi

Empati ile ilgili literaturden soz ederken, konuya belli bir empati tanimi vererek girmenin hem zor, hem de bir olcude hatali olacagi, lca-kanismdayiz. Cunku, hem empati kelimesine verilen anmani zaman icinde sikca degismistir, hem de gunumuzde arastirmacdar “empati” denildiginde birbirinden farkli seyler anlamaktadirlar. Hickson (1985) literaturde empatinin yeterince iyi tanimlanmadigini, Iannotti (1975) ise farkli arastirmacilarin yaptiklari empati ile ilgili operasyonel tanimlar arasinda tutarlilik ■ bulunmaldigini belirtmektedir. Gercekten de bugun empatiyi, “empati karsisindakinin duygularini anlamaktir” diye tanimlayanlarin yani sira “karsisindakinin duygu ve dusuncelerini anlamaktir” diye tanimlayanlar da vardir, “empati karsisindakinin hissettiklerini hissetmektir” diyenler de bulunmaktadir. Bu tanimlar gorunurde birbirlerine benziyorlarsa da, aslinda aralarinda birtakim temel farkliliklar vardir. En azindan, “empati onun anlamaktir” dedigimizde, empatinin bilissel (cognitive) yonunu, “empati onun gibi hissetmektir” dedigimizde ise duygusal (affective) yonunu vurguluyoruz demektir. Bu sekilde empatinin bilissel ve duygusal yonlerini vurgulayan tanimlara literaturde sikca Taslanmaktadir (Shantz, 1975).
How Adult Attachment and Personality Traits are Related to Marital Quality: The Role of Relationship Attributions and Emotional Reactions

The purpose of this research was to explore the role of General Factor of Personality (GFP) and adult attachment dimensions in marital quality through relationship attributions and emotional reactions. The sample consisted of 261 couples who were married at least more than one year and had no major stressful events in their lives up to the time of the study. In this study, the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), the Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire-Revised (ECR-R), the Relationship Attribution Measure (RAM), the Geneva Emotion Wheel (GEW), and the Perceived Relationship Quality Components (PRQC) were used for collecting the data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results suggest that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance and GFP directly and indirectly, through relationship attributions and emotional reactions, were related to marital quality. In addition, relationship attributions are antecedent to emotional reactions. Based on the findings, an intrapersonal-situational model of marital quality is suggested.
The Effect of Cultural Adaptation on Perceived Trustworthiness

Abstract This study is an experimental investigation of the effect of cultural adaptation by American business people on their trustworthiness as perceived by Chinese business people in the People's Republic of China. The sample consists of 124 Chinese professionals, who read either one of the four stories that differ in degrees of Americans' cultural adaptation: none, moderate, high using English language, and high using the native language (i.e., Chinese language). The results show that the high adaptation using the native language condition results in higher disconfirmation of the adaptor's stereotypes than does the no adaptation condition, and the high adaptation using English condition leads to more disconfirmation than do the moderate adaptation and the no adaptation conditions. The high adaptation using the native language condition is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the high adaptation using English condition, which in turn is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the no adaptation condition. The moderate adaptation was not perceived to be more situationally caused than was the no adaptation. Although the no adaptation condition is attributed to relatively more dispositional (i.e., less situational) causes than are the two high adaptation conditions, it is rated lowerin perceived trustworthiness than is high adaptation using the native language, contradicting the findings of some earlier studies in the case of Japanese adapting to Americans but replicating the results of Pornpitakpan's (1998) study in the case of Americans adapting to Thais and Japanese.
The extent of teacher participation in decision-making in secondary schools in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, there have been some debates on democratisation and decentralisation, which led to the development of policies meant to increase teacher participation in decision-making in schools. However, despite these developments, teacher participation in decision-making in Zimbabwean schools is regarded as insignificant. Teachers work closely with students and have firsthand knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses – they are therefore the most valuable people to develop and implement policies. This study investigated the extent of teacher participation in decision-making in Zimbabwean schools. The study adopted a qualitative/interpretive research methodology and used the case study research design as the operational framework for data gathering. Data was collected through interviews, documentary analysis and observation of two staff meetings per school from five secondary schools in Gweru Education District in Zimbabwe. The population sample comprised five secondary school heads and 20 secondary school teachers. The study established that teachers were insignificantly involved in decision-making despite their eagerness to be involved. Some duties are given to senior teachers or committees even when teachers feel that they should be directly involved. There are times when school heads make unilateral decisions and impose them on teachers for implementation. The study recommends that heads of schools should give their teachers room to come up with ideas and look at all contributions objectively.
The Effect of Contributing Substantively on Perceptions of Participation

Participation often affects group processes and decision making. Members who are considered to be more useful participators often speak more frequently and are more influential than other participants. Consequently, it is important to identify the mechanisms that affect judgments of participation. This article examines how self- and other-judgments of participation are affected by contributions to discussion. As predicted, assessments of self’s and others’ participation were influenced by what was said and how often. Moreover, a participant’s satisfaction with discussion was positively associated with both self- and other-assessments of participation. Discussion focuses on the relation between characteristics of group interaction and the task and provides issues for future research.
A multiple local models approach to accuracy improvement in continuous glucose monitoring.

BACKGROUND Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices estimate plasma glucose (PG) from measurements in compartments alternative to blood. The accuracy of currently available CGM is yet unsatisfactory and may depend on the implemented calibration algorithms, which do not compensate adequately for the differences of glucose dynamics between the compartments. Here we propose and validate an innovative calibration algorithm for the improvement of CGM performance. METHODS CGM data from GlucoDay(®) (A. Menarini, Florence, Italy) and paired reference PG have been obtained from eight subjects without diabetes during eu-, hypo-, and hyperglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamps. A calibration algorithm based on a dynamic global model (GM) of the relationship between PG and CGM in the interstitial space has been obtained. The GM is composed by independent local models (LMs) weighted and added. LMs are defined by a combination of inputs from the CGM and by a validity function, so that each LM represents to a variable extent a different metabolic condition and/or sensor-subject interaction. The inputs best suited for glucose estimation were the sensor current I and glucose estimations Ĝ, at different time instants [I(k), I(k)(-1), Ĝ(k)(-1)] (IIG). In addition to IIG, other inputs have been used to obtain the GM, achieving different configurations of the calibration algorithm. RESULTS Even in its simplest configuration considering only IIG, the new calibration algorithm improved the accuracy of the estimations compared with the manufacturer's estimate: mean absolute relative difference (MARD)=10.8±1.5% versus 14.7±5.4%, respectively (P=0.012, by analysis of variance). When additional exogenous signals were considered, the MARD improved further (7.8±2.6%, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The LM technique allows for the identification of intercompartmental glucose dynamics. Inclusion of these dynamics into the calibration algorithm improves the accuracy of PG estimations.
Social—Behavioral Skills of Elementary Students with Physical Disabilities Included in General Education Classrooms

In this study, the authors examined strengths and limitations in the social—behavioral skills of elementary students with physical disabilities included in general education classrooms. The sample consisted of 62 special education students with physical impairments (25 girls & 37 boys) attending kindergarten through Grade 6 in public schools. Students with cognitive or sensory impairments were excluded. Teachers and related services personnel rated these students' skills using Part III, Activity Performance, of the School Function Assessment. On 6 of the 7 scales, more than 40% of the students performed below the grade-expected level. Findings were similar for the exploratory composite scales examining initiative and social problem-solving. Low total scores reflected more frequent ratings of inconsistent performance on skill items rather than an inability to perform. Although these difficulties are subtle, they may limit effective school participation.
Risk factors in gastric cancer.

STATE OF THE ART Gastric cancer (GC) is still a major health problem worldwide due to its frequency, poor prognosis and limited treatment options. At present prevention is likely to be the most effective means of reducing the incidence and mortality from this disease. The most important etiological factors implicated in gastric carcinogenesis are diet and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. High intake of salted, pickled or smoked foods, as well as dried fish and meat and refined carbohydrates significantly increased the risk of developing GC while fibers, fresh vegetables and fruit were found to be inversely associated with GC risk. Epidemiological investigations (retrospective, case-control and prospective) and several meta-analyses have demonstrated that concurrent or previous H. pylori infection is associated with an increased risk of GC in respect to uninfected people. H. pylori colonizes gastric mucosa where it induces a complex inflammatory and immune reaction that on time leads to a severe mucosal damage i.e., atrophy, intestinal metaplasia (IM) and dysplasia. The risk of GC is closely related to the grade and extension of gastric atrophy, IM and dysplasia. PERSPECTIVES AND CONCLUSIONS Today a plausible program for GC prevention means: (1) a correct dietary habit since childhood increasing vegetables and fruit intake, (2) a decrease of H. pylori spread improving family and community sanitation and hygiene, (3) a search and treat H. pylori strategy in offspring of GC, (4) a search and treat H. pylori strategy in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia (IM), (5) a careful endoscopic and histologic follow-up if precancerous lesions persist irrespective of H. pylori eradication.
Language, communication, and literacy skills of adolescents with behavioral difficulties in mainstream education

Abstract Research has increasingly reported the presence of speech, language, and communication difficulties in young people who have a propensity to offend. Young offenders comprise a population with severe behavioral difficulties; however, less attention has been paid to students at risk of school exclusion and possible subsequent offending in the school to prison pipeline progression. This study focuses on individuals with relatively mild behavioral difficulties in a preventative step to identify potential communication challenges earlier in the offending trajectory. A between-group design was employed to ascertain the language, literacy, and communication abilities of 26 high school students aged between 13; 6 (years; months) and 14; 7. Students identified with challenging classroom behavior (n = 11) were compared to students with no history of behavioral difficulties (n = 15). Assessment of non-verbal intelligence, receptive language, literacy, and metalinguistic ability was undertaken. Students with challenging classroom behavior performed more poorly on measures of receptive language and non-verbal intelligence. Significant associations between the severity of an individual's behavior and two measures of receptive language, metalinguistic abilities, and non-verbal intelligence were also detected. The results provide further information regarding the relationship between behavior, and language, literacy, and communication difficulties. The findings suggest that raising the language profiles of those who may be at risk of future offending may contribute to enhanced academic, social, and vocational opportunities for this group.
The comprehensibility of non-native speech

This study presents data collected from both natural settings and controlled experiments in order to describe native speaker responses to non-natives and to discuss what variables of a non-native's speech might elicit these responses. We present the results of three experiments. The first investigates native speaker reactions to requests for information by both native and non-native speakers in a natural setting. Experiment two is a controlled study focussing on two variables of non-native speech—pronunciation and grammar—and the response of native speakers to these variables. Experiment three examines the relationship between these variables and native speaker comprehension. Experiment four focuses on the effect of ordering on comprehensibility. We then discuss the role all of these factors play in the comprehensibility of non-native speech. We suggest that comprehensibility is achieved through a complex interaction of many factors and that it is comprehensibility which largely contributes to the use of foreigner talk by native speakers.