Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Career Patterns of African-American and Hispanic Social Work Doctorates and ABDs

This article reports on an exploratory study of the career paths of African Americans and Hispanics who had completed social work doctorates or had completed all requirements except the dissertation research (ABDs). Results from 118 respondents indicate that career selection and development among the majority of these individuals may not fit traditional career theory models. Three career patterns are identified and discussed—careerists, educational aspirants, and vertical drifters—and implications for action are outlined.
Customer retention in the eco-friendly hotel sector: examining the diverse processes of post-purchase decision-making

This study was designed to investigate eco-friendly hotel guests’ post-purchase decision-making process by applying the Theory of Repurchase Decision-making (TRD) and to deepen the TRD by considering the moderating role of ecological concern. Results of the measurement-model assessment revealed that all measures for study variables included adequate level of reliability and validity. The prediction power of the proposed conceptual framework comprising volitional, non-volitional, cognitive, emotional, evaluation, conative, motivational, and automatic processes was found to be superior to the alternative socio-psychological model. Findings from the structural analysis indicated that the proposed relationships among constructs within the TRD were generally supported; satisfaction and desire acted as significant mediators; and the role of desire in building revisit intention was salient. Additionally, ecological concern was found to have a significant moderating impact on intention formation. Overall, the TRD was successfully deepened in this study, providing a clear understanding of eco-friendly hotel customers’ decision-making process.
An exploration of the teacher-student writing conference and the potential influence of self-efficacy

The purpose of this research was to examine the nature of scheduled teacher-student writing conferences with confident and less confident students. The participants of the study were fifth-graders from a public elementary school in the Southeastern United States. The guiding assumptions of this study were 1) the nature of conferences can be investigated by focusing on the length, number and functions of questions asked, content of the discussion (ideas/mechanics), participants’ roles and praise statements; and 2) the nature of student participation during conferences varies based on their level of perceived self-efficacy. A qualitative study design involving multiple case studies was used. Data were collected in both classrooms using the pre-and post Writing Self-Efficacy Scale (Pajares, Miller, & Johnson, 1999) as adapted from Shell, Murphy, & Bruning (1989), as well as students’ written performance scores from students’ writing samples, audio and video-taped teacher-student writing conferences, audio-taped interviews with teachers and students, and field observations. Collected evidence was described and interpreted using qualitative methods. Qualitative data that came from the analyses of recorded writing conferences also presented that conferences of students with higher and lower levels of self-efficacy differed in terms of focus, ownership, conference agenda, turn taking, frequency of talk, numbers and functions of the questions asked, numbers of praise statements provided by the teacher, and amount of outside interruptions. This study has implications for practitioners and researchers.
Changes in Sensory Evoked Responses Coincide with Rapid Improvement in Speech Identification Performance

Perceptual learning is sometimes characterized by rapid improvements in performance within the first hour of training (fast perceptual learning), which may be accompanied by changes in sensory and/or response pathways. Here, we report rapid physiological changes in the human auditory system that coincide with learning during a 1-hour test session in which participants learned to identify two consonant vowel syllables that differed in voice onset time. Within each block of trials, listeners were also presented with a broadband noise control stimulus to determine whether changes in auditory evoked potentials were specific to the trained speech cue. The ability to identify the speech sounds improved from the first to the fourth block of trials and remained relatively constant thereafter. This behavioral improvement coincided with a decrease in N1 and P2 amplitude, and these learning-related changes differed from those observed for the noise stimulus. These training-induced changes in sensory evoked responses were followed by an increased negative peak (between 275 and 330 msec) over fronto-central sites and by an increase in sustained activity over the parietal regions. Although the former was also observed for the noise stimulus, the latter was specific to the speech sounds. The results are consistent with a top–down nonspecific attention effect on neural activity during learning as well as a more learning-specific modulation, which is coincident with behavioral improvements in speech identification.
Families of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth

Abstract Parents' and siblings' awareness of GLB youths' sexual orientation and their reactions were examined in a sample of 516 GLB youth. Youth expected unaware parents to have negative reactions. Less than one-quarter lived with siblings who did not know about their sexual orientation. Youth with only one sibling were more likely to be known by these siblings than youth with several siblings. Few adjustment indicators were associated with parental or sibling knowledge or reactions. Compared to youth not living with parents, those living with parents experienced significantly less verbal abuse from parents related to their sexual orientation but reported less family support. Youth whose parents and siblings knew about their sexual orientation and who reacted positively became aware of their same-sex attractions, identified as GLB, and first disclosed their sexual orientation at earlier ages. Although such youth reported more past verbal harassment based on their sexual orientation from their families, they worried less about rejection.
Side Effects of Chloroquine and Primaquine and Symptom Reduction in Malaria Endemic Area (Mâncio Lima, Acre, Brazil)

Side effects of antimalarial drug can overlap with malaria symptoms. We evaluated 50 patients with vivax malaria in Mâncio Lima, Acre, treated with chloroquine and primaquine. Patients were evaluated for the presence of 21 symptoms before and after treatment and for reported side effects of these drugs after treatment was started. The most frequent symptoms before medication were headache, fever, chills, sweating, arthralgia, back pain, and weakness, which were present in between 40% and 76% of respondents. The treatment reduced the occurrence of these symptoms and reduced the lack of appetite, but gastrointestinal symptoms and choluria increased in frequency. There were no reports of pale stools before medication, but 12% reported the occurrence of this symptom after treatment started. Other symptoms such as blurred vision (54%), pruritus (22%), paresthesia (6%), insomnia (46%), and “stings” into the skin (22%) were reported after chloroquine was taken. The antimalarial drugs used to treat P. vivax malaria reduce much of the systemic and algic symptoms but cause mainly gastrointestinal side effects that may lead to lack of adherence to drug treatment. It is important to guide the patient for the appearance and the transience of such side effects in order to avoid abandoning treatment.
Toward a science of consciousness: The first Tucson discussions and debates

Part 1 Philosophy of mind: facing up to the problem of consciousness, David J. Chalmers consciousness and the introspective link principle, Giiven Guzeldere the place of qualia in the world of science, Leopold Stubenberg the binding problem and neurobiological oscillations, Valerie Gray Hardcastle deconstructing dreams - the spandrels of sleep, Owen Flanagan. Part 2 Cognitive science: unconscious processes in social interaction, John F. Kihlstrom efference and the extension of consciousness, Thaddeus M. Cowan Edelman's biological theory of consciousness, John J. Boitano the structure of subjective experience - sharpen the concepts and terminology, David Galin the varieties of conscious experience - biological roots and social usages, Karl H. Pribram. Part 3 Medicine: induction of consciousness in the ischemic brain, James E. Whinnery conflicting communicative behaviour in a split-brain patient - support for dual consciousness, Victor Mark left brain says yes, right brain says no - normative duality in the split brain, Marco Iacoboni, Jan Rayman, and Eran Zaidel inkblot testing of commissurotomy subjects - contrasting modes of organizing reality, Polly Henninger evidence for language comprehension in a severe "sensory aphasic", Britt Anderson and Thomas Head self-awareness of deficit in patients with Alzheimer's Disease, Alfred W. Kaszniak and Gina DiTraglia Christenson. Part 4 Experimental neuroscience: toward the neuronal substrate of visual consciousness, Christof Koch visual perception and phenomenal consciousness, Petra Stoerig and Alan Cowey levels of awareness and "awareness without awareness" - from data to theory, Gary E. Schwartz implicit memory during anesthesia, Randall C. Cork experimental evidence for a synchronization of sensory information to conscious experience, Mikael Bergenheim, Hakan Johansson, Brittmarie Granlund, and Jonas Pedersen positron emission tomography, emotion, and consciousness, Eric M. Reiman, Richard D. Lane, Geoffrey L. Ahern, Gary E. Schwartz, and Richard J. Davidson dimensional complexity of human EEG and level of consciousness, Richard C. Watt collapse of a quantum field may affect brain function, C.M. H. Nunn, C.J.S. Clarke, and B.H. Blott neural time factors in conscious and unconscious mental functions, Benjamin Libet. (Part contents).
Diverticular Disease in the Elderly

There are few diseases whose incidence varies as greatly worldwide as that of diverticulosis. Its prevalence is largely age-dependent: the disease is uncommon in those under the age of 40, the prevalence of which is estimated at approximately 5%; this increases to 65% in those ≧65 years of age. Of patients with diverticula, 80–85% remain asymptomatic, while, for unknown reasons, only three-fourths of the remaining 15–20% of patients develop symptomatic diverticular disease. Traditional concepts regarding the causes of colonic diverticula include alterations in colonic wall resistance, disordered colonic motility and dietary fiber deficiency. Currently, inflammation has been proposed to play a role in diverticular disease. Goals of therapy in diverticular disease should include improvement of symptoms and prevention of recurrent attacks in symptomatic, uncomplicated diverticular disease, and prevention of the complications of disease such as diverticulitis. Diverticulitis is the most usual clinical complication of diverticular disease, affecting 10–25% of patients with diverticula. Most patients admitted with acute diverticulitis respond to conservative treatment, but 15–30% require surgery. Predictive factors for severe diverticulitis are sex, obesity, immunodeficiency and old age. Surgery for acute complications of diverticular disease of the sigmoid colon carries significant rates of morbidity and mortality, the latter of which occurs predominantly in cases of severe comorbidity. Postoperative mortality and morbidity are to a large extent driven by patient-related factors.
English Longitudinal Study of Aging: can Internet/E-mail use reduce cognitive decline?

BACKGROUND Cognitive decline is a major risk factor for disability, dementia, and death. The use of Internet/E-mail, also known as digital literacy, might decrease dementia incidence among the older population. The aim was to investigate whether digital literacy might be associated with decreased cognitive decline in older adulthood. METHODS Data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging cohort with 6,442 participants aged 50-89 years, followed for 8 years, with baseline cognitive testing and four additional time points. The main outcome variable was the relative percentage change in delayed recall from a 10-word-list learning task across five separate measurement points. In addition to digital literacy, socioeconomic variables, including wealth and education, comorbidities, and baseline cognitive function were included in predictive models. The analysis used Generalized Estimating Equations. RESULTS Higher education, no functional impairment, fewer depressive symptoms, no diabetes, and Internet/E-mail use predicted better performance in delayed recall. CONCLUSIONS Digital literacy may help reduce cognitive decline among persons aged between 50 and 89 years.
Social Work and Criminal Justice

SUMMARY We shall begin with the principal, and complicated, conclusion: Regrettably, the social work profession has largely abandoned the criminal justice field. That is not to say that social workers are not employed in criminal justice settings. Certainly they are. Significant numbers of social workers earn their living as probation and parole officers, caseworkers in public defender offices, counselors in correctional institutions and halfway houses, and so on. As a profession, however, social work no longer has a major presence in the criminal justice field (Gibelman and Schervish, 1993). Relatively few social workers embark on their professional education with the aim of employment in the criminal justice field. Virtually no courses in social work education programs focus explicitly or comprehensively on criminal justice (Knox and Roberts, 2002; McNeece and Roberts, 1997). Workshops offered at professional conferences or continuing education seminars rarely focus on criminal justice issues per se. And, relatively little serious scholarship on criminal justice issues is authored by social workers. Interestingly, this has not always been the state of affairs. Earlier in the profession's history, social workers were much more visible and vocal participants in dialogue, debate, research, and practice related to criminal justice. Ideally-in light of social work's unique perspectives on practice and social problems, and the profession's noble value base-the profession will reclaim its preoccupation with criminal justice. As Sarri (2001) concludes with respect to social workers' involvement in the juvenile justice system in particular: Thirty years ago, social workers were in leadership positions in juvenile justice in the majority of states. In the 1980s, a gradual decline began in agencies and in social work education for practice in juvenile justice. Some have suggested that the decline was at least partially due to professional resistance to working in coercive settings with involuntary clients. However, given the millions of people now caught up in the criminal justice system who are not receiving the social services they desperately need, it is a priority that social work return to a more central role in criminal justice. (p. 453)
Elevated insulin signaling disrupts the growth and differentiation pattern of the mouse lens

Purpose Insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) are putative regulators of cell proliferation and differentiation during lens development. Transgenic mice that overexpress IGF-1 in the lens have been previously described. To further understand the ocular functions of this growth factor family, the in vivo effects of insulin expression on lens development were investigated using transgenic mice. Methods Expression of insulin receptor (IR) and IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) in mouse lens was examined by reverse-transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and in situ hybridization. Transgenic mice that overexpress insulin in the lens were generated using two different promoters: a fiber-cell specific αA-crystallin (αA) promoter and a modified αA-promoter linked to the chicken δ1-crystallin enhancer (called the δenαA promoter). The δenαA promoter is active in both lens epithelial and fiber cells. The lens phenotypes were analyzed by histology and immunohistochemistry. Protein expression was examined by western blotting. Results Normal mouse lenses express both the insulin receptor (IR) and the IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R), and their expression is highest at the lens periphery where the germinative and transitional zones are located. In transgenic mice, insulin expression in the lens induced cataract formation. The severity of the cataracts reflected the level of transgene expression, independent of the type of promoter used. In severely affected families, the spherical shape of the lens was altered and the lenses were smaller than normal. Histological analysis showed no evidence of premature differentiation of the anterior epithelial cells. In contrast to the IGF-1 mice, insulin transgenic mice exhibited an anterior shift in the location of the germinative and transitional zones, leading to a reduction of the lens epithelial compartment. Additional alterations included expansion of the lens transitional zone, variable nuclear positioning in the lens bow region, and inhibition of fiber cell denucleation and terminal differentiation. Conclusions Elevated intraocular insulin does not enhance proliferation nor induce differentiation of mouse lens epithelial cells. Since an increase in IGF-1 causes a posterior shift of the lens geminative and transitional zones, while an increase in insulin causes an anterior shift of these zones, our results suggest that these two growth factors may work together to control the location of this structural domain during normal lens development. Our data also suggest that increased insulin-signaling activity in the lens can antagonize the endogenous signals that are responsible for fiber cell maturation and terminal differentiation.
Escherichia coli DnaA interacts with HU in initiation at the E. coli replication origin

Escherichia coli HU protein is a dimer encoded by two closely related genes whose expression is growth phase‐dependent. As a major component of the bacterial nucleoid, HU binds to DNA non‐specifically, but acts at the chromosomal origin (oriC) during initiation by stimulating strand opening in vitro. We show that the α dimer of HU is more active than other forms of HU in initiation of an oriC‐containing plasmid because it more effectively promotes strand opening of oriC. Other results demonstrate that HU stabilizes the DnaA oligomer bound to oriC, and that the α subunit of HU interacts with the N‐terminal region of DnaA. These observations support a model whereby DnaA interacts with the α dimer or the αβ heterodimer, depending on their cellular abundance, to recruit the respective form of HU to oriC. The greater activity of the α dimer of HU at oriC may stimulate initiation during early log phase compared with the lesser activity of the αβ heterodimer or the β dimer.
Deregulation of the Arginine Deiminase (arc) Operon in Penicillin-Tolerant Mutants ofStreptococcus gordonii

ABSTRACT Penicillin tolerance is an incompletely understood phenomenon that allows bacteria to resist drug-induced killing. Tolerance was studied with independent Streptococcus gordonii mutants generated by cyclic exposure to 500 times the MIC of penicillin. Parent cultures lost 4 to 5 log10 CFU/ml of viable counts/24 h. In contrast, each of four independent mutant cultures lost ≤2 log10 CFU/ml/24 h. The mutants had unchanged penicillin-binding proteins but contained increased amounts of two proteins with respective masses of ca. 50 and 45 kDa. One mutant (Tol1) was further characterized. The two proteins showing increased levels were homologous to the arginine deiminase and ornithine carbamoyl transferase of other gram-positive bacteria and were encoded by an operon that was >80% similar to the arginine-deiminase (arc) operon of these organisms. Partial nucleotide sequencing and insertion inactivation of the S. gordonii arc locus indicated that tolerance was not a direct consequence of arc alteration. On the other hand, genetic transformation of tolerance by Tol1 DNA always conferredarc deregulation. In nontolerant recipients,arc was repressed during exponential growth and up-regulated during postexponential growth. In tolerant transformants,arc was constitutively expressed. Tol1 DNA transformed tolerance at the same rate as transformation of a point mutation (10−2 to 10−3). The tolerance mutation mapped on a specific chromosomal fragment but was physically distant fromarc. Importantly, arc deregulation was observed in most (6 of 10) of additional independent penicillin-tolerant mutants. Thus, although not exclusive, the association betweenarc deregulation and tolerance was not fortuitous. Since penicillin selection mimicked the antibiotic pressure operating in the clinical environment, arc deregulation might be an important correlate of naturally occurring tolerance and help in understanding the mechanism(s) underlying this clinically problematic phenotype.
Estimation of Genetic Associations between Production and Meat Quality Traits in Duroc Pigs

Data collected from 690 purebred Duroc pigs from 2009 to 2012 were used to estimate the heritability, and genetic and phenotypic correlations between production and meat quality traits. Variance components were obtained through the restricted maximum likelihood procedure using Wombat and SAS version 9.0. Animals were raised under the same management in five different breeding farms. The average daily gain, loin muscle area (LMA), backfat thickness (BF), and lean percent (LP) were measured as production traits. Meat quality traits included pH, cooking loss, lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*), marbling score (MS), moisture content (MC), water holding capacity (WHC), and shear force. The results showed that the heritability estimates for meat quality traits varied largely from 0.19 to 0.79. Production traits were moderate to highly heritable from 0.41 to 0.73. Genotypically, the BF was positively correlated (p<0.05) with MC (0.786), WHC (0.904), and pH (0.328) but negatively correlated with shear force (−0.533). The results of genetic correlations indicated that selection for less BF could decrease pH, moisture content, and WHC and increase the shear force of meat. Additionally, a significant positive correlation was recorded between average daily gain and WHC, which indicates pork from faster-growing animals has higher WHC. Furthermore, selection for larger LMA and LP could increase MS and lightness color of meat. The meat quality and production traits could be improved simultaneously if desired. Hence, to avoid further deterioration of pork characteristics, appropriate selection of traits should be considered.