Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personality Traits and Exposure to Stressful Life Events Among Smokers and Nonsmokers

Early studies supposed that personality traits and studentsâ life, which include brings many social and academic changes, may be relevant factors in initiation and maintenance of smoking. The aims of this study were to investigate differences in personality dimensions, as well as exposure to stressful life events among studentsâ smokers and nonsmokers and finally to examine the predictive contribution of these variables to smoking status. The study was conducted on the sample of 200 students from the University of Mostar, with a median age of 21 (interquartile range, 3) who completed Goldbergâs Personality Questionnaire and Scale of stressful life events. The group of students who never smoke (N = 101) and the group of smokers (N = 99) took part in the study. The results have shown that personality dimension of neuroticism and stressful life events related to social alienation, academic failure and everyday social conflict differed the smokers and non-smokers group. The smokers had higher scores in comparison to non-smokers group of students. Neuroticism and stressful life events academic failure and academic maladjustment were also significant predictors to smoking status.
Stabilization of the dystroglycan complex in Cajal bands of myelinating Schwann cells through plectin‐mediated anchorage to vimentin filaments

Previous studies have unmasked plectin, a uniquely versatile intermediate filament‐associated cytolinker protein, to be essential for skin and skeletal muscle integrity. Different sets of isoforms of the protein were found to stabilize cells mechanically, regulate cytoskeletal dynamics, and serve as a scaffolding platform for signaling molecules. Here, we investigated whether a similar scenario prevails in myelinating Schwann cells. Using isoform‐specific antibodies, the two plectin variants predominantly expressed in the cytoplasmic compartment (Cajal bands) of Schwann cells were identified as plectin (P)1 and P1c. Coimmunoprecipitation and immunolocalization experiments revealed complex formation of Cajal band plectin with β‐dystroglycan, the core component of the dystrophin glycoprotein complex that in Schwann cells is crucial for the compartmentalization and stabilization of the myelin sheath. To study the functional implications of Schwann cell‐specific plectin‐β‐dystroglycan interaction, we generated conditional (Schwann cell‐restricted) plectin knockout mice. Ablation of plectin in myelinating Schwann cells (SCs) was found not to affect myelin sheath formation but to abrogate the tight association of the dystroglycan complex with the intermediate filament cytoskeleton. We show that the disruption of this association leads to the destabilization of the dystroglycan complex combined with increased myelin sheath deformations observed in the peripheral nerve during ageing of the animal. GLIA 2013;61:1274–1287
Brain serotonin transporter binding potential measured with carbon 11-labeled DASB positron emission tomography: effects of major depressive episodes and severity of dysfunctional attitudes.

BACKGROUND Although brain serotonin transporter (5-HTT) density has been investigated in subjects with a history of major depressive episodes (MDE), there has never been an investigation of brain 5-HTT during a current MDE. Brain 5-HTT binding potential (BP) may have an important role during MDE due to major depressive disorder, because the 5-HTT regulates extracellular 5-HT. The BP is an index of receptor density. Carbon 11-labeled 3-amino-4-(2-dimethylaminomethyl-phenylsulfanyl)-benzonitrile (DASB) positron emission tomography (PET) is the first brain imaging technique that can measure the 5-HTT BP in cortical and subcortical brain regions in vivo. The purposes of this study were to investigate 5-HTT BP during MDE and to determine the relationship between 5-HTT BP and negativistic dysfunctional attitudes during MDE. Dysfunctional attitudes are negatively biased assumptions and beliefs regarding oneself, the world, and the future. Our recent publication of increased serotonin2 BP in MDE with severely negativistic dysfunctional attitudes suggests that this subgroup of MDE subjects has very low levels of extracellular serotonin. METHODS Regional 5-HTT BP was measured in 20 nonsmoking medication-free (> or =3 months) depressed subjects and 20 age-matched nonsmoking, medication-free, healthy subjects using [11C]DASB PET. Dysfunctional attitudes were measured using the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale. RESULTS No difference in regional 5-HTT BP was found between MDE and healthy subjects; however, the subgroup of MDE subjects with highly negativistic dysfunctional attitudes had significantly higher 5-HTT BP compared with healthy subjects in brain regions mainly sampling serotonergic nerve terminals (prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, thalamus, bilateral caudate, and bilateral putamen; average, 21% greater; F(1,26), 5.6-12.2 [P values, . 03-. 002]). In the MDE subjects, increased 5-HTT BP was strongly associated with more negativistic dysfunctional attitudes in brain regions primarily sampling serotonergic nerve terminals (prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, thalamus, caudate, and putamen; r = 0.64-0.74 [P values, .003 to <.001]). CONCLUSIONS Serotonin transporters play an important role during depression. The magnitude of regional 5-HTT BP can provide a vulnerability to low levels of extracellular serotonin and symptoms of extremely negativistic dysfunctional attitudes.
Force measurements of the alpha5beta1 integrin-fibronectin interaction.

The interaction of the alpha(5)beta(1) integrin and its ligand, fibronectin (FN), plays a crucial role in the adhesion of cells to the extracellular matrix. An important intrinsic property of the alpha(5)beta(1)/FN interaction is the dynamic response of the complex to a pulling force. We have carried out atomic force microscopy measurements of the interaction between alpha(5)beta(1) and a fibronectin fragment derived from the seventh through tenth type III repeats of FN (i.e., FN7-10) containing both the arg-gly-asp (RGD) sequence and the synergy site. Direct force measurements obtained from an experimental system consisting of an alpha(5)beta(1) expressing K562 cell attached to the atomic force microscopy cantilever and FN7-10 adsorbed on a substrate were used to determine the dynamic response of the alpha(5)beta(1)/FN7-10 complex to a pulling force. The experiments were carried out over a three-orders-of-magnitude change in loading rate and under conditions that allowed for detection of individual alpha(5)beta(1)/FN7-10 interactions. The dynamic rupture force of the alpha(5)beta(1)/FN7-10 complex revealed two regimes of loading: a fast loading regime (>10,000 pN/s) and a slow loading regime (<10,000 pN/s) that characterize the inner and outer activation barriers of the complex, respectively. Activation by TS2/16 antibody increased both the frequency of adhesion and elevated the rupture force of the alpha(5)beta(1)/wild type FN7-10 complex to higher values in the slow loading regime. In experiments carried out with a FN7-10 RGD deleted mutant, the force measurements revealed that both inner and outer activation barriers were suppressed by the mutation. Mutations to the synergy site of FN, however, suppressed only the outer barrier activation of the complex. For both the RGD and synergy deletions, the frequency of adhesion was less than that of the wild type FN7-10, but was increased by integrin activation. The rupture force of these mutants was only slightly less than that of the wild type, and was not increased by activation. These results suggest that integrin activation involved a cooperative interaction with both the RGD and synergy sites.
Teaching teachers and students about the nature of science

This article advocates the teaching about the nature of science to both pupils in schools and teachers in teacher education institutions in Pakistan. Not knowing about science; teachers tend to continue to teach science as fixed knowledge and not as inquiry and this cycle continues. This cycle needs to be broken. This article first discusses the salient features about the concept of the nature of science and then illustrates these ideas with the help of a simple but a powerful activity which could be used both with teacher educators and pupils in secondary and lower secondary classrooms.
Sex or sensibility? : the making of chaste women and promiscuous men in a Sri Lankan university setting

It is often claimed that education confers a range of benefits to individuals. From realising their thinking capacities to overcoming class boundaries, the outcomes of education are considered especially beneficial for women. Feminist theorists make a direct and strong link between education and female autonomy. Those who critique this line of thinking point to the numerous societal and structural factors which come into play in preventing education from delivering its promises of a world with greater productivity, equality and freedom. However even these critics concur that higher education does help to overcome the many structural inequalities which affect the everyday lives of women and also men from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This thesis explores the ways in which the sexuality of students, at a Sri Lankan university, is constructed. It looks at the extent to which social factors – be it through personal interactions, established norms or explicit rules – exert control over and determine how individuals can express their sexuality in a setting which is ostensibly liberating and progressive. Based on 15 months of fieldwork at the University of Kelaniya, the findings are used to argue that when it comes to constructing their sexuality students continue to be constrained by a reiteration of social and cultural expectations which are at play in larger society. The onus on women to uphold these expectations is reinforced by other women and the men play a key role in ensuring their maintenance. Hailing predominantly from working-class backgrounds, these young women expect university education to provide them with the ticket out of their workingclass background to better opportunities. Thus they endeavour to maintain, produce and reproduce social norms which will mark them as respectable and chaste women. The potentiality of a better life offered by university education becomes the very thing that constrains women students from using their autonomy to express their independence and sexuality. Based on these findings, it is then argued that since higher education itself is shaped and constrained by factors of nationalism, class and gender, the numerous benefits it offers to women do not always provide them with the autonomy that is needed to overcome the double standards that apply to how sexuality is constructed in most societies. The intersections between gender, class and nationalism dominated the milieu in which this Sri Lankan university is placed and thus it is these factors, rather than education, which determined the ways in which women could construct their sexuality. The aspirations brought on through their university education of a better life, rather than liberating them, further constrained their behaviours. As such these women engaged in a system of surveillance – both of self and the other – which maintained and reproduced notions of respectability and sexual sobriety in their everyday behaviours.
In Vitro Activities of Membrane-Active Peptides Alone and in Combination with Clinically Used Antimicrobial Agents against Stenotrophomonas maltophilia

ABSTRACT The in vitro activities of buforin II, cecropin P1, and magainin II, alone and in combination with six clinically used antimicrobial agents, against 12 clinical isolates of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia were investigated. Antimicrobial activities were measured by MIC and time-kill studies. The isolates were susceptible to the peptides at concentrations in the range of 0.50 to 16 μg/ml. Synergy was observed when the peptides were combined with polymyxin E, meropenem, ceftazidime, piperacillin, and clarithromycin.
The Effect of Microphone Placement on Interaural Level Differences and Sound Localization Across the Horizontal Plane in Bilateral Cochlear Implant Users

Objective: This study examined the effect of microphone placement on the interaural level differences (ILDs) available to bilateral cochlear implant (BiCI) users, and the subsequent effects on horizontal-plane sound localization. Design: Virtual acoustic stimuli for sound localization testing were created individually for eight BiCI users by making acoustic transfer function measurements for microphones placed in the ear (ITE), behind the ear (BTE), and on the shoulders (SHD). The ILDs across source locations were calculated for each placement to analyze their effect on sound localization performance. Sound localization was tested using a repeated-measures, within-participant design for the three microphone placements. Results: The ITE microphone placement provided significantly larger ILDs compared to BTE and SHD placements, which correlated with overall localization errors. However, differences in localization errors across the microphone conditions were small. Conclusions: The BTE microphones worn by many BiCI users in everyday life do not capture the full range of acoustic ILDs available, and also reduce the change in cue magnitudes for sound sources across the horizontal plane. Acute testing with an ITE placement reduced sound localization errors along the horizontal plane compared to the other placements in some patients. Larger improvements may be observed if patients had more experience with the new ILD cues provided by an ITE placement.
Spectral and mixing properties of actions of amenable groups

We generalize two theorems about K-automorphisms from Z to all amenable groups with good entropy theory (this class includes all unimodular amenable groups which are not an increasing union of compact subgroups). The first theorem is that such actions are uniformly mixing; the second is that their spectrum is Lebesgue with countable multiplicity. For the proof we will develop an entropy theory for discrete amenable equivalence relations.
Popular Weight Reduction Diets

The percentage of people who are overweight and obese has increased tremendously over the last 30 years. It has become a worldwide epidemic. This is evident by the number of children are being diagnosed with a body mass index >85th percentile, and the number of children begin diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus, a disease previously reserved for adults. The weight loss industry has also gained from this epidemic; it is a billion dollar industry. People pay large sums of money on diet pills, remedies, and books, with the hope of losing weight permanently. Despite these efforts, the number of individuals who are overweight or obese continues to increase. Obesity is a complex, multifactorial disorder. It would be impossible to address all aspects of diet, exercise, and weight loss in this review. Therefore, this article will review popular weight loss diets, with particular attention given to comparing low fat diets with low carbohydrate diets. In addition, the role that the environment plays on both diet and exercise and how they impact obesity will be addressed. Finally, the National Weight Control Registry will be discussed.
Petrocephalus boboto and Petrocephalus arnegardi, two new species of African electric fish (Osteoglossomorpha, Mormyridae) from the Congo River basin

Abstract A specimen of the African weakly electric fish genus Petrocephalus (Osteoglossomorpha, Mormyridae) collected in the Congo River at Yangambi, Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, is described as a new species. Petrocephalus boboto sp. n. can be distinguished from other Central African species of Petrocephalus by a combination of the following characteristics: three distinct black spots on the body, one at the origin of the pectoral fin, one at the origin of the caudal fin and one below the anterior base of the dorsal fin; Nakenrosette and Khelrosette electroreceptor clusters distinct on head but Augenrosette cluster reduced in size; 23 branched dorsal rays, 34 branched anal rays, and electric organ discharge waveform triphasic. Petrocephalus boboto sp. n. most closely resembles the holotype of Petrocephalus binotatus but is easily distinguished from it by its smaller mouth. A comparative molecular analysis including 21 other Petrocephalus species shows Petrocephalus boboto sp. n. to be genetically distinctive and to represent a deep lineage in the genus. Two specimens of Petrocephalus collected at Yangambi are morphologically similar and genetically closely related to specimens previously assigned to Petrocephalus binotatus, collected in the northwestern Congo River basin within Odzala-Kokua National Park, Republic of the Congo. This prompts us to formally describe a new species from these collections, Petrocephalus arnegardi sp. n. , that, although similar to the holotype of Petrocephalus binotatus, can be distinguished from it by its smaller mouth and shorter interorbital width.
Schools of Hope: Developing Mind and Character in Today's Youth. The Jossey-Bass Education Series.

"A significant contribution to educational reform literature. It offers an insightful, research-based analysis of the problems in education and a compelling vision for change. Schools of Hope will stand with the best works of Ernest Boyer, Ted Sizer, and John Goodlad. "? Gary M. Doyle, deputy superintAndent, Bloomfield Hills SchoolsSchools of Hope proposes specific principles for creating classrooms that educate both the minds and hearts of today's students, teaching them to be reflective and self-educating.
Analyzing the underlying symptom-dimensions of Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome.

: Aim : Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) is a complex and heterogeneous disorder which might best be viewed as part of a spectrum of tics and comorbidities. There has been little research on GTS and its co-morbid disorders on a symptom dimension level. The hypothesis is that the model of symptom dimensions across tic symptoms and symptoms of OCD and ADHD will provide a good fit, will better represent the heterogeneity of the disorder and comorbid symptoms between disorders will partly correlate. Method : The total study sample included 225 patients and 371 family members, summing up to a total of 596 participants. Using Mplus 5.21, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted on a total of 10 symptom dimensions, covering GTS and comorbid OCD and ADHD. Results : The symptom dimension model fit the data best (Δχ2 >0.948, p <0.001) and presented the lowest AIC (ΔAIC = -224). The OC dimensions Taboo (0.773) and Rituals (0.657) correlate highest with the tic symptom dimensions (p = < 0.05). Of the GTS dimensions the body tics dimension correlates lowest with OC symptom dimensions (0.731, p < 0.05). Surprisingly, the ADHD dimensions showed no correlations with the other symptom dimensions. Conclusion: In line with previous research (Mathews et al. 2009, Cath et al. 2004) the data suggest that overall 10 symptom dimension model (Katerberg, 2010; de Haan, 2010; (American Psychiatric Association [ DSM-IV-TR ], 2000) is superior to the 1 factor model. The OC symptom dimension Taboo showed the highest correlation with GTS. The symptom dimension body tics showed the lowest correlation with OCD. The ﬁndings complement earlier ﬁndings that the symptom dimensions of GTS and comorbid OCD can best be viewed as belonging to a spectrum of disorders, probably with shared underlying etiology. In contrast with the literature, ADHD seems to be independent from tic and OCD symptom dimensions.
Statins, plasma proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 concentrations, and LDL lowering.

The discovery in 2003 that variants in the PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9) gene cause autosomal dominant hypercholesterolemia revealed a new aspect of LDL cholesterol (LDL-C)2 metabolism (1). PCSK9, a protein of 692 amino acid residues produced at high concentrations in the liver, kidney, and intestine, has profound effects on LDL-C concentrations (2). Both gain-of-function and loss-of-function PCSK9 variants that cause higher and lower LDL-C concentrations, respectively, have been described, and variants in PCSK9 contribute to population variation in LDL-C values (3). The mechanism by which PCSK9 affects LDL-C concentrations involves direct binding of the protein to epidermal growth factor–like repeat A in the extracellular domain of the LDL receptor (LDLR), thereby accelerating degradation of the receptor (4). PCSK9 is a secreted protein that circulates in the blood. Several ELISA assays have been developed to measure PCSK9 concentrations (5, 6) and relate them to various biological correlates and differences in response to therapy, which may have implications for the therapeutic targeting of this protein. The interactions of statins with PCSK9 are of great interest, not only because statins are the predominant therapeutic agents used to decrease LDL-C but also because both the LDLR and PCSK9 share a common transcriptional regulator, sterol regulator element–binding protein 2 (SREBP-2) (7). Statin exposure produces an increase in the concentrations of both LDLR and PCSK9 mRNAs. The upregulation of PCSK9, which promotes the degradation of the LDLR, serves as a counterregulatory molecular brake on LDL-C lowering. The study described by Awan et al. (8) in …
Digital Game-Based Learning Supports Student Motivation, Cognitive Success, and Performance Outcomes

Traditional multimedia learning is primarily based on the cognitive load concept of information processing theory. Recent digital game-based learning (DGBL) studies have focused on exploring content support for learning motivation and related game characteristics. Motivation, volition, and performance (MVP) theory indicates that cognitive load and learning motivation simultaneously influence performance. To provide efficient management of learning effectiveness by understanding the latent relationship among cognitive load, motivation, and performance, this study investigated 63 university students using an online game entitled “Operating a Small Factory in Computer-Aided Manufacturing” for 8 weeks. We collected data based using an instructional materials motivation survey, a cognitive load scale, and performance (skill and cognitive) scales. The data analysis results showed that motivation and cognitive load exhibited a significant canonical correlation with performance. This preliminary finding suggests that when designing DGBL, designers should increase motivation and germane cognitive load to enhance learning effectiveness. In addition, the attention component must be compromised. However, relevance, satisfaction, and confidence do not conflict. This study proposes an application of game characteristics to the attention, relevance, satisfaction, and confidence model, and integrated multimedia effects in using DGBL design methods.