Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent Progress on Cellulose-Based Electro-Active Paper, Its Hybrid Nanocomposites and Applications

We report on the recent progress and development of research into cellulose-based electro-active paper for bending actuators, bioelectronics devices, and electromechanical transducers. The cellulose electro-active paper is characterized in terms of its biodegradability, chirality, ample chemically modifying capacity, light weight, actuation capability, and ability to form hybrid nanocomposites. The mechanical, electrical, and chemical characterizations of the cellulose-based electro-active paper and its hybrid composites such as blends or coatings with synthetic polymers, biopolymers, carbon nanotubes, chitosan, and metal oxides, are explained. In addition, the integration of cellulose electro-active paper is highlighted to form various functional devices including but not limited to bending actuators, flexible speaker, strain sensors, energy harvesting transducers, biosensors, chemical sensors and transistors for electronic applications. The frontiers in cellulose paper devices are reviewed together with the strategies and perspectives of cellulose electro-active paper and cellulose nanocomposite research and applications.
Factors Affecting the Selection of Optimal Suppliers in Procurement Management

This is a desk top study on factors affecting the selection of optimal suppliers. The main objective was to identify the factors affecting supplier selection; the supplier selection process has also been identified. Factors affecting selection of suppliers were identified as; cost, technical capability, quality assessment, organizational profile, service levels, supplier profile and risk factors, in that relative order. This paper concludes that a cost criterion is a key factor affecting supplier selection for it dictates among many elements, the profit margins. Technical capability, quality of materials and the profile of the supplier are also closely considered. From the findings, we recommend that supplier selection should be an open and transparent process, carried out by experts from all key departments and should be done in time to avoid stock outs.
New models and algorithms for programmable networks

In today's IP networks most of the network control and management tasks are performed at the end points. As a result, many important network functions cannot be optimized due to lack of sufficient support from the network. The growing need for quality guaranteed services brought on suggestions to add more computational power to the network elements. This paper studies the algorithmic power of networks whose routers are capable of performing complex tasks. It presents a new model that captures the hop-by-hop datagram forwarding mechanism deployed in today's IP networks, as well as the ability to perform complex computations in network elements as proposed in the active networks paradigm. Using our framework, we present and analyze distributed algorithms for basic problems that arise in the control and management of IP networks. These problems include: route discovery, message dissemination, topology discovery, and bottleneck detection. Our results prove that, although adding computation power to the routers increases the message delay, it shortens the completion time for many tasks. The suggested model can be used to evaluate the contribution of added features to a router, and allows the formal comparison of different proposed architectures.
Opposite Ends of the Same Stick? Multi-Method Test of the Dimensionality of Individualism and Collectivism

The construct of individualism–collectivism (IND-COL) has become the definitive standard in cross-cultural psychology, management, and related fields. It is also among the most controversial, in particular, with regard to the ambiguity of its dimensionality: Some view IND and COL as the opposites of a single continuum, whereas others argue that the two are independent constructs. We explored the issue through seven different tests using original individual-level data from 50 studies and meta-analytic data from 149 empirical publications yielding a total of 295 sample-level observations that were collected using six established instruments for assessing IND and COL as separate constructs. Results indicated that the dimensionality of IND-COL may depend on (a) the specific instrument used to collect the data, (b) the sample characteristics and the cultural region from which the data were collected, and (c) the level of analysis. We also review inconsistencies, deficiencies, and challenges of conceptualizing IND-COL and provide guidelines for developing and selecting instruments for measuring the construct, and for reporting and meta-analyzing results from this line of research.
Categories of knowledge? unfamiliar aspects of living and nonliving things

Abstract This paper reports an investigation into an apparent category-specific disorder in a young woman whose semantic memory was impaired following a road accident. In Experiment 1, an impairment for processing specific items in tasks of naming pictures and defining words was related to a selective impairment for living things and also to the familiarity level of the items. In Experiment 2, a difference in semantic category (living or nonliving) was pitted against a difference in familiarity (high or low) in a picture-naming task. A significant effect of familiarity was found, but no effect of semantic category. It was shown that, in a widely used set of published pictures, living things were generally of lower familiarity than nonliving things. Moreover, measures of familiarity were shown to be confounded with some reported evidence in support of a selective impairment to living things. It was concluded that, at present, there is no convincing evidence to support the theory that semantic memory is org.
Potentiator ivacaftor abrogates pharmacological correction of ΔF508 CFTR in cystic fibrosis

Ivacaftor, a CFTR potentiator drug used for cystic fibrosis, destabilizes rescued ΔF508 CFTR and interferes with the action of drugs that correct CFTR function. Potentiating Trouble Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease caused by mutations of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) ion channel, resulting in pulmonary and other complications. Ivacaftor is the only targeted drug approved for CF, but it is not effective enough to treat the severest and most common form of this disease. Ivacaftor is a “potentiator,” which means that it improves the activity of mutant CFTR but cannot work if there is no CFTR on the cell surface. Other drugs, called “correctors,” help bring mutant CFTR to the cell surface, but two manuscripts by Cholon and Veit and coauthors now show that combining the two types of drugs does not work effectively, because potentiators make CFTR less stable, accelerating the removal of this channel from the cell membrane. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). Newly developed “correctors” such as lumacaftor (VX-809) that improve CFTR maturation and trafficking and “potentiators” such as ivacaftor (VX-770) that enhance channel activity may provide important advances in CF therapy. Although VX-770 has demonstrated substantial clinical efficacy in the small subset of patients with a mutation (G551D) that affects only channel activity, a single compound is not sufficient to treat patients with the more common CFTR mutation, ΔF508. Thus, patients with ΔF508 will likely require treatment with both correctors and potentiators to achieve clinical benefit. However, whereas the effectiveness of acute treatment with this drug combination has been demonstrated in vitro, the impact of chronic therapy has not been established. In studies of human primary airway epithelial cells, we found that both acute and chronic treatment with VX-770 improved CFTR function in cells with the G551D mutation, consistent with clinical studies. In contrast, chronic VX-770 administration caused a dose-dependent reversal of VX-809–mediated CFTR correction in ΔF508 homozygous cultures. This result reflected the destabilization of corrected ΔF508 CFTR by VX-770, markedly increasing its turnover rate. Chronic VX-770 treatment also reduced mature wild-type CFTR levels and function. These findings demonstrate that chronic treatment with CFTR potentiators and correctors may have unexpected effects that cannot be predicted from short-term studies. Combining these drugs to maximize rescue of ΔF508 CFTR may require changes in dosing and/or development of new potentiator compounds that do not interfere with CFTR stability.
Why do people disagree with a statement they do not understand? Relations between comprehension and evaluation of a simple assertion

This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental study that examined the relation between the metacomprehension (i.e., understand/do not understand) and evaluative (i.e., agree/disagree) response to a simple one-sentence statement to compare the relative timing in which these two responses are generated in the course of sentence processing. In the study, participants were asked to provide metacomprehension and evaluative judgements to simple one-sentence assertions, and their response times were measured. Two of the main findings are: first, the response time for the evaluative judgement is faster than the response time for the metacomprehension judgement and, second, the faster response time of the evaluative judgement relative to the metacomprehension judgement is more pronounced either when they are not sure about whether they understand a statement or when they feel they do not understand a statement. The findings are analysed in relation to a multiple constraint satisfaction model of sentence comprehension to generate a possible processing model of a simple one-sentence assertion underlying the generation of metacomprehension and evaluative responses.
Modulating the strength of cadherin adhesion: evidence for a novel adhesion complex

Adherens junctions and desmosomes are critical for embryogenesis and the integrity of adult tissues. To form these junctions, classical cadherins interact via α- and β-catenin with the actin cytoskeleton, whereas desmosomal cadherins interact with the intermediate filament system. Here, we used a hormone-activated mutant N-cadherin expressed in fibroblasts to show the existence of a novel classical cadherin adhesion system. N-cadherin was fused at its C-terminus to a modified estrogen receptor ligand-binding domain (NcadER) that binds 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4OHT) and expressed in L cells, which lack an endogenous cadherin. Cells with the mutant cadherin (LNER cells) aggregated in the absence of 4OHT, but only in its presence formed tightly compacted aggregates like those formed by L cells expressing wild-type N-cadherin (LN cells). Compaction of LNER cells treated with 4OHT was accompanied by elevated levels of p120ctn in NcadER immunoprecipitates, compared to immunoprecipitates of non-treated cells, but without changes in α- and β-catenin, or actin. Compaction induced by 4OHT was also accompanied by increased interaction of the NcadER with the cytoskeleton and increased vimentin organization. Vimentin co-immunoprecipitated with the NcadER/catenin complex, suggesting an interaction between cadherin and vimentin. The mechanism by which vimentin interacts with the cadherin appears to involve p120ctn as it co-immunoprecipitates and colocalizes with vimentin in the parent L cells, which lack a cadherin and α- and β-catenins. Disrupting the actin cytoskeleton with cytochalasin B inhibited aggregation, whereas knocking down vimentin with specific siRNAs inhibited compaction. Based on our results we propose that a vimentin-based classical cadherin complex functions together with the actin-based complex to promote strong cell-cell adhesion in fibroblasts.
Domain Organization of Long Autotransporter Signal Sequences

Bacterial autotransporters represent a diverse family of proteins that autonomously translocate across the inner membrane of Gram-negative bacteria via the Sec complex and across the outer bacterial membrane. They often possess exceptionally long N-terminal signal sequences. We analyzed 90 long signal sequences of bacterial autotransporters and members of the two-partner secretion pathway in silico and describe common domain organization found in 79 of these sequences. The domains are in agreement with previously published experimental data. Our algorithmic approach allows for the systematic identification of functionally different domains in long signal sequences.
Participants' Early Impressions of a Supervised Exercise Program as a Determinant of Their Subsequent Adherence

A prospective study was conducted with participants of a supervised exercise program to verify if early impressions developed while participating in the program contributed to predict subsequent adherence. After voluntarily completing five weeks of an 11-wk. supervised exercise program, 126 young adults (52 men, 74 women) indicated their thoughts concerning (i) the professional interest directed towards them by the fitness leader, (ii) satisfaction with the ongoing fitness programme, (iii) the perceived tiredness, (iv) difficulty in accommodating the time request by the fitness program with daily timetable, and (v) perceived support from family and friends. Multiple regression analysis indicated that 38% of the total variability in the adherence level (the subsequent 6 wk.) was explained by the perceived difficulty in accommodating the fitness program with daily timetable.
Psychology and the Good Marriage

The traditional social science separation of the objective and subjective, of fact and value, is increasingly untenable. Social scientists have concerned themselves with crucial matters that cannot be neatly partitioned into neutral facts and personal investments. The deep concerns among scientists, therapists, and the public about the fragility of marriage is one prominent example. There is a remarkable consensus among professionals and the public that the key to marital stability is maintaining marital satisfaction, which is dependent on good communication. Therefore, researchers study communication and therapists teach couples communication skills as a means to enhance marriage. Although these interventions are presented as simple behavioral skills to be learned and practiced, the author argues that these skills cannot be successfully carried out in the absence of crucial character virtues such as self-restraint, courage, and friendship. Unmasking the reduction of the good in marriage to technical considerations shows that virtue is an unacknowledged but central presupposition of these professionals' efforts. The author concludes by suggesting some promising directions for a richer account of marriage that will allow researchers to address the incoherent and self-defeating understandings and practices that constitute contemporary marriage.
An Evaluation of Operant Training and Speech Therapy in the Language Rehabilitation of Moderate Aphasics

Twenty-four moderately asphasic stroke patients attending a rehabilitation centre were treated for 4 weeks with speech therapy and for 4 weeks with either an operant training procedure, based on that devised by Goodkin (1966), or an attention placebo non-specific treatment. Speech therapy was given first to half the patients, while a quarter received operant training first and a quarter non-specific treatment. Results indicated no significant differences between the treatments. These treated patients were also compared in improvements in language abilities with nine moderately aphasic patients from hospitals with very limited speech therapy services. No significant differences between “treated” and “untreated” groups were found over a 4-week period. All groups of patients, however, showed some significant improvements in language abilities.
Knowledge Sharing among University Students Facilitated with a Creative Commons Licensing Mechanism: A Case Study in a Programming Course

Creative Commons (CC) mechanism has been suggested as a potential means to foster a reliable environment for online knowledge sharing activity. This study investigates the role of the CC mechanism in supporting knowledge sharing among a group of university students studying programming from the perspectives of social cognitive and social capital theories. By gathering 40 university students’ feedbacks and their behaviors, this study found that, in terms of trust, sharing self-efficacy and outcome expectations, the students had a more positive perception of the CC-integrated platform than that of conventional online sharing. In addition, the students were more likely to favor the CC-integrated sharing platform in which they believed that individual identification and profit were more effectively sustained and protected in the process of knowledge sharing. The students’ activities on these platforms and their perception of knowledge sharing also revealed relationships that differed from those found in their performance of programming tasks on other online sharing platforms. This study suggests that the employment of the CC mechanism could be helpful in promoting a more positive perception of and willingness to engage in knowledge sharing, thus ensuring the effectiveness of peer communication and collaboration in stimulating programming performance within the Internet-based collaborative context.
Causal Attributions of Crime and the Public's Sentencing Goals

Le présent article évalue les liens entre les attributions internes et externes de la criminalité et le but visé par le public en ce qui a trait à la détermination de la peine (dissuasion, neutralisation, rétribution et réhabilitation). Les réponses de 1 006 Canadiens ont été obtenues à partir d'entrevues téléphoniques. Comme on s'y attendait, les répondants qui ont proposé des attributions internes ont indiqué que la dissuasion était plus importante et la réhabilitation, moins importante, tandis que les répondants qui avaient proposé des attributions externes ont avancé le contraire. De même, comme nous en avions émis l'hypothèse, nous n'avons constaté aucune association entre la rétribution et les attributions externes, ainsi qu'entre la neutralisation et les attributions externes. Toutefois, à l'encontre des attentes, les répondants qui avaient proposé les attributions internes ont aussi noté la neutralisation et la rétribution comme étant les éléments les plus importants.
Editorial: health, the body, and identity work in health and physical education

The title of this special edition reflects some of the thematic concerns that need interrogation as we build and develop a critical understanding of the complex relationships between society, schooling and the self. For researchers and others interested in this work, it is hoped the series of papers help articulate and shed light on the social processes by which selves are constructed, negotiated, challenged and changed. In doing so, the idea of a healthy self is problematized, together with the ways we conceptualize the construction and negotiation of healthy selves in health and physical education (HPE). Central to this special edition are studies in the sociology of HPE, particularly Body Knowledge and Control (Evans et al., 2004), which is concerned with the ways in which young people’s bodies are a medium for the constitution of society. As Shilling (2004) pointed out is his foreword to that volume, the concern is with how societies imprint themselves on the bodies of students, but this is not to ignore the potential of appreciating how corporeal creativity and change is possible. Such concerns are taken up by the authors assembled here. There is agreement that the HPE arena, like other education sites, is crucial for the active engagement of identity or biographical and body work among teachers and students. Identities and bodies— deemed healthy or otherwise—are constructed in part through school processes, learning encounters and curricular engagement (see Coffey, 1998). Through these papers, the authors consider and challenge different conceptualizations and representations of the ways this happens. They take up the critical sentiments of Body Knowledge and Control, and attend to the different ways of how knowledge of the body is implicated in the construction of identity and health and the achievement of social hierarchies, order and control in society and schools (Evans & Davies, 2004). In the same vein, they draw on a range of authors and theorists to interrogate health, the body and identity work as a field of research and as a field of HPE practice, which spans a number of western countries including Australia and New Zealand, England and Scotland, and the United States of America. In the first paper, Lisa Hunter capitalizes on the work of Bourdieu and uses the conceptual tools of field, habitus, practice, capital, illusio, doxa and symbolic violence to describe a social space identified in a physical education class in Queensland, Australia, considered crucial for constituting the embodied subjectivities of those within. She highlights the body as an increasing focus of contemporary HPE research, and simultaneously constructs a theoretical framework that accommodates the need for dynamic
Adult stem cell plasticity: will engineered tissues be rejected?

The dogma that adult tissue‐specific stem cells remain committed to supporting only their own tissue has been challenged; a new hypothesis, that adult stem cells demonstrate plasticity in their repertoires, is being tested. This is important because it seems possible that haematopoietic stem cells, for example, could be exploited to generate and perhaps deliver cell‐based therapies deep within existing nonhaematopoietic organs.
Treating Listening Ethically

From my own reading of these essays, there are three underlying assumptions across each. First, each essay proposes that individuals can set aside prejudices and be “other-wise. ” Although some qualify this assumption by asserting that “we can never fully escape our prejudices” (Arneson), the assumption that we can set aside our prejudices to some degree remains. Second, each essay suggests that setting aside prejudices is a necessary (and perhaps sufficient) condition for ethical listening. That is, when one desires “to learn about others and ‘actively [seeks] self-revision’” (Huglen), she has engaged in ethical listening. Finally, each essay implies that laying aside differences is always good, that it is always ethical to be otherwise. As to the first claim, this essay contends that, contrary to popular belief (see, e.g., DeVito, 2001, p. 75; Orbe & Bruess, 2005, p. 183; Trenholm & Jensen, 2008, p. 173), we cannot actually “listen with an open mind. ” Indeed, several lines of scholarship within social and cognitive psychology as well as communication studies have documented the role cognitive constructs (e.g., schema, stereotypes, scripts) play when new information is processed (e.g., Delia & Crockett, 1973; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Markus, 1977; for review see Proctor & Vu, 2006). With implicit recognition of this fact, Arneson states that “While we can never fully escape our prejudices, this does not mean that we cannot encounter them critically. ” Quoting Gadamer, she continues, “The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias. ” The idea that we can critically encounter our prejudices is surprising in light of research showing that, when told to set aside prejudice, people overcompensate for that prejudice (e.g., Wegener & Petty, 1995). While overcompensation is not always bad (for instance, in some cases we ought to engage in self-sacrificial behavior), it is problematic to assert that we can and should always critically encounter our prejudices. For instance, overcompensation of some person, event,