Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
β‐Catenin regulates membrane potential in muscle cells by regulating the α2 subunit of Na,K‐ATPase

Muscle β‐catenin has been shown to play a role in the formation of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Our previous studies showed that muscle‐specific conditional knockout of β‐catenin (HSA‐β‐cat−/−) results in early postnatal death in mice. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we investigated the electrophysiological properties of muscle cells from HSA‐β‐cat−/− and control mice, and found that, in the absence of muscle β‐catenin, the resting membrane potential (RMP) depolarised in muscle cells from the diaphragm, gastrocnemius and extensor digitorum longus muscles. Furthermore, in a primary line of mouse myoblasts (C2C12 cells) transfected with small‐interfering RNAs targeting β‐catenin, the RMP was depolarised as well. Finally, the expression levels of the α2 subunit of sodium/potassium adenosine triphosphatase were reduced by β‐catenin knockdown in vitro or deletion in vivo. These results suggest a possible mechanism underlying the depolarised RMP in the absence of muscle β‐catenin, and provide additional evidence supporting a role for β‐catenin in the development of NMJs.
Influences of Editors, Readers, and Personal Opinions on Reporters

Although White’s classical “gate keeper” study described a wire editor (Mr. Gates), he noted that reporters “form the first ‘gate’ in the process of cornmunication. ”l The tradition of studying wire editors has been maintained,2 but there also have been a few studies of the gatekeeping functions of reporters? Still, considering the numbers of reporters (vs. editors) at work, and the primary news selection role of reporters (who provide most of what
Individual differences in impulse buying tendency: feeling and no thinking

A 20‐item scale to measure general impulse buying tendency was developed and validated in two studies. The scale includes cognitive aspects (e.g. lack of planning and deliberation) and affective aspects (e.g. feelings of pleasure, excitement, compulsion, lack of control, regret). The scale correlated significantly with reported purchase frequencies of typical impulse products and number of recent impulse purchases. Impulse buying tendency was found to be related to personality‐based individual difference measures, including the Big Five. Cognitive and affective facets of impulse buying tendency were both related to extraversion. The cognitive facet was inversely related to conscientiousness, personal need for structure, and need to evaluate. The affective facet was related to lack of autonomy and action orientation. The results suggested that impulse buying tendency has a strong basis in personality. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Early prediction of scholar popularity

Prediction of scholar popularity has become an important research topic for a number of reasons. In this paper, we tackle the problem of predicting the popularity trend of scholars by concentrating on making predictions both as earlier and accurate as possible. In order to perform the prediction task, we first extract the popularity trends of scholars from a training set. To that end, we apply a time series clustering algorithm called K-Spectral Clustering (K-SC) to identify the popularity trends as cluster centroids. We then predict trends for scholars in a test set by solving a classification problem. Specifically, we first compute a set of measures for individual scholars based on the distance between earlier points in her particular popularity curve and the identified centroids. We then combine those distance measures with a set of academic features (e.g., number of publications, number of venues, etc) collected during the same monitoring period, and use them as input to a classification method. One aspect that distinguishes our method from other approaches is that the monitoring period, during which we gather information on each scholar popularity and academic features, is determined on a per scholar basis, as part of our approach. Using total citation count as measure of scientific popularity, we evaluate our solution on the popularity time series of more than 500,000 Computer Science scholars, gathered from Microsoft Azure Mar-ketplace1. The experimental results show that the our prediction method outperforms other alternative prediction methods. We also show how to apply our method jointly with regression models to improve the prediction of scholar popularity values (e.g., number of citations) at a given future time.
Engendering Migration Studies

This review highlights contributions made by scholars who have treated gender as a central organizing principle in migration and suggests some promising lines for future inquiry. Many significant topics emerge when gender is brought to the foreground, such as how and why women and men experience migration differently and how this contrast affects settlement, return, and transmigration. A gendered perspective demands a scholarly reengagement with those institutions and ideologies immigrants create and encounter in order to determine how patriarchy organizes family life, work, law, public policy, and so on. It encourages an examination of the ways that migration simultaneously reinforces and challenges patriarchy in its multiple forms. Several migration scholars have replaced early feminist frameworks in which gender hierarchy was privileged with more comprehensive and flexible models. These map the simultaneity of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and legal status on the lives of immigrant and native-born men and women.
Models of Disability, Work and Welfare in Australia

In discourse around disability there has been a shift away from a ‘medical model’, which perceives disability as an individual problem to be ‘cured’ or contained, towards a ‘social model’. The latter focuses on the relationship between people with disabilities and their social environment, locating the required interventions within the realm of social policy and institutional practice. Drawing upon a small qualitative study conducted in Melbourne, this article argues that recent plans by the Australian government to introduce mutual obligation requirements for recipients of the Disability Support Pension (DSP) sit in tension with this shift from the medical to the social models of disability. Mutual obligation is based on the assumption that income support recipients need to be taught how to be more ‘self-reliant’, to ‘participate’ in society more fully and to become ‘active’, rather than ‘passive’, citizens. This language appears to overlap with that used to articulate a social model, which places emphasis on participation in the community and attempts a shift away from reliance on the medical profession. However, examples from interviews conducted with current and former DSP recipients demonstrate that, in practice, mutual obligation is likely to reinforce a medical model of disability, frame DSP recipients as ‘conditional’ citizens and ignore the obligations of the state and society regarding access and inclusiveness for people with disabilities.
Testing Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium: An objective Bayesian analysis

We analyze the general (multiallelic) Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium problem from an objective Bayesian testing standpoint. We argue that for small or moderate sample sizes the answer is rather sensitive to the prior chosen, and this suggests to carry out a sensitivity analysis with respect to the prior. This goal is achieved through the identification of a class of priors specifically designed for this testing problem. In this paper, we consider the class of intrinsic priors under the full model, indexed by a tuning quantity, the training sample size. These priors are objective, satisfy Savage's continuity condition and have proved to behave extremely well for many statistical testing problems. We compute the posterior probability of the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium model for the class of intrinsic priors, assess robustness over the range of plausible answers, as well as stability of the decision in favor of either hypothesis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Interactive CBIR using RBF-based relevance feedback for WT/VQ coded images

Powerful interfaces provide great potential for retrieval systems to adapt to dynamic user needs and allow a more accurate modeling of image similarity from the users' point of view. We propose a novel method within the interactive framework. It allows the users to directly modify the system characteristics by specifying their desired image attributes in the form of training samples. More specifically, we have adopted a radial basis function (RBF) method for implementing an adaptive metric which progressively models the notion of image similarity through continual feedback from the users. The proposed approach has been integrated into an image retrieval system using images compressed by wavelet transform and vector quantization coders. Comparisons with some of the recent systems using the standard texture database indicate that the proposed method provides the more favorable retrieval result.
Application of Recycled Rubber from Scrap Tyres in the Adsorption of Toluene from Aqueous Solution

The adsorption of toluene from aqueous solution using waste tyre rubber granules (WTRG) was investigated in a batch system. The effect of various factors such as contact time, amount of adsorbent, size of adsorbent particles, and temperature of solution on the adsorption capacity of WTRG was determined. The equilibrium contact time was obtained to be 30 minutes indicating fast adsorption. The adsorption capacity of WTRG increased with decrease in particle size. Increasing the temperature of the aqueous solution resulted in a decrease in the adsorption capacity of WTRG while an increase in adsorbent dosage resulted in an increase in the adsorption capacity of WTRG. Kinetic and isotherm studies indicate that the adsorption of toluene was best described by the Lagergren pseudo-first order kinetic equation and Langmuir isotherm equation respectively. Results obtained indicate that recycled rubber from scrap tyres can be widely used as an adsorbent for the removal of toluene from aqueous solution.
Learning Effective Event Models to Recognize a Large Number of Human Actions

Human action recognition in videos is an important problem in computer vision, but it is very challenging, especially when recognizing a large number of human actions. First, it is difficult to capture the crucial motion patterns that discriminate among these actions. Second, the method should be scalable for large datasets because more training examples are often collected for more action classes. In this paper, we employ latent models to capture the crucial motion patterns, and we propose an effective learning algorithm that can efficiently address large datasets. To capture the crucial motion patterns, we define an “event” for each category, and we add a latent variable that indicates the start of the event. The event has a length of several frames that can differ across the categories. To train effective latent models for a large number of action classes, we employ a multi-class formulation with latent variables, and we address this problem by solving a dual quadratic programming (QP) problem with linear inequality constraints. To make the algorithm scalable for large datasets, we propose an improved QP solver that converges quickly for large QP problems that have a very large number of linear inequality constraints in real-world applications. We examine the proposed approach on the HMDB51 and UCF50 datasets. Comparison results have been reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Our approach outperforms state-of-the-art results for both datasets.
Postoperative pain management with intravenous patient‐controlled morphine: comparison of the effect of adding magnesium or ketamine

Background and objective: This double‐blind randomized study tested whether the addition of magnesium or ketamine to morphine for intravenous patient‐controlled analgesia resulted in improved analgesic efficacy and lower pain scores compared with morphine patient‐controlled analgesia alone after major abdominal surgery. Methods: Ninety patients (3 × 30) were randomly allocated to receive either morphine 0.4 mg mL−1 (Group M) by patient‐controlled analgesia, morphine 0.4 mg mL−1 + MgSO4 30 mg mL−1 (Group MM) or morphine 0.4 mg mL−1 + ketamine 1 mg mL−1 (Group MK). Postoperative analgesia was started when the verbal rating scale was ≥2. Patients were first given a standardized loading dose (0.05 mg kg−1) of the study solution. They were then allowed to use bolus doses of this solution (0.0125 mg kg−1 every 20 min without time limit). Discomfort, sedation, pain scores, cumulative morphine consumption and adverse effects were recorded up to 24 h after the start of the patient‐controlled analgesia. Results: The level of discomfort, level of sedation and verbal rating scores decreased significantly with time in all groups (P < 0.05). Both verbal rating and discomfort scores were significantly lower in Groups MM and MK at 15, 30 and 60 min compared with Group M (P < 0.001). Cumulative morphine consumption after 12 and 24 h was significantly higher in Group M alone (median 26 and 49 mg, respectively) compared with Group MM (24.2 and 45.7 mg) and Group MK (24.4 and 46.5 mg). Conclusions: In the immediate postoperative period, the addition of magnesium or ketamine to morphine for intravenous patient‐controlled analgesia led to a significantly lower consumption of morphine. However, these differences are unlikely to be of any clinical relevance.
The effect of surface treatment and bonding procedures on the bond strength of silorane composite repairs

Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of surface treatments and adhesive protocols on the microtensile bond strength of a low-shrinkage composite repair. Materials and methods. Ninety-six blocks of composite resin Filtek LS were prepared using a half-hourglass-shaped silicone matrix. The specimens were storage for 24 h in distilled water and were randomly divided into the experimental (6) and negative control (2) groups (n = 12) according to the surface treatment (diamond bur and aluminum oxide sandblasting) and adhesive protocol (none; Filtek LS adhesive; phosphoric acid + Filtek LS adhesive; and phosphoric acid + silane + Filtek LS adhesive). After the adhesive procedure, the specimens were fixed in an hourglass-shaped silicone matrix and the other half of the specimen was restored. Hourglass shaped specimens (n = 12) were used as positive control (cohesive strength of the resin). The microtensile bonding test was performed at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min. The data were analyzed using ANOVA, Tukey's and Dunnett's tests (α = 0.05). Results. The bond strength values were similar for all experimental groups, except the groups without adhesive application. None of the experimental groups presented results similar to the positive control group. Conclusions. The repair of silorane restorations is viable; nevertheless, the different bonding procedures tested were incapable to produce bond strengths similar to the cohesive strength of the material.
Rethinking the Development of “Nonbasic” Emotions: A Critical Review of Existing Theories☆

According to most theorists, “nonbasic” emotions such as shame, guilt, pride, and jealousy do not emerge until the 2nd year of life, despite limited evidence for this proposition. Critical examination of the major theories of emotional development reveals that this belief stems from the assumption that young infants are incapable of interpersonal awareness and that this incapacity is invariably explained in terms of lack of representational skills. Only those theorists who credit infants with interpersonal awareness accept that infants might display “nonbasic” emotions, yet nearly all of these theorists also assume that such awareness is indirect and inevitably representation-mediated. Building upon the few exceptions, a relational alternative is also outlined which can account for the possibility of early “nonbasic” emotions while avoiding the logical problems of representationalist explanations.
Expressive art for the social and community integration of adolescents with acquired brain injuries: a systematic review

Adolescents with acquired brain injuries suffer from social and community withdrawal that result in isolation from their peer groups. The review highlights the evidence of effectiveness of expressive art interventions in the form of theatre for populations with difficulties in physical, emotional, cognitive, or social functioning. A systematic search from 1995 to May 2007 was carried out and 10 studies were retrieved that focused on drama-based treatments and programmes used to improve aspects of social or community integration for a broad range of populations. The studies were published in English in Canada, the USA, and the UK. Current evidence supports the effectiveness of drama therapy in terms of improvements in psychological health, emotional intelligence, cognitive function, social integration, but not necessarily community integration. The findings indicate that theatre skills training might facilitate community integration in addition to social integration in adolescents with acquired brain injuries if it is formally measured as such.
Leukotriene B4 and 8-isoprostane in exhaled breath condensate of children with episodic and persistent asthma.

■ Abstract Background: Leukotrienes and isoprostanes are biomarkers of airway infl ammation and oxidative stress that can be detected in exhaled breath condensate (EBC). The aim of this study was to evaluate leukotriene B 4 (LTB 4 ) and 8-isoprostane levels in EBC of healthy and asthmatic children with episodic and moderate persistent asthma. Methods: EBC was collected from 62 children aged 6 to 14 years: 22 healthy children, 30 patients with episodic asthma, and 10 patients with moderate persistent asthma, without preventive treatment at the time of enrolment. Results: LTB 4 concentrations were higher in children with asthma than in healthy controls (50.7 pg/mL vs 13.68 pg/mL, P<.011). The same was true for children with moderate persistent asthma compared to children with episodic asthma (146.9 pg/mL vs 18.85 pg/mL, P<.0001), children with moderate persistent asthma compared to healthy controls (146.9 pg/mL vs 13.68 pg/mL, P<.0001), and children with episodic asthma compared to healthy controls (P, nonsignifi cant). EBC concentrations of 8-isoprostane were higher in asthmatic than in healthy children (18.3 pg/mL vs 6.59 pg/mL, P<.026). They were also increased in children with moderate persistent asthma compared to those with episodic asthma (36.25 pg/mL and 12.28 pg/mL, P<.012), and in children with moderate persistent asthma and episodic asthma compared to healthy controls (36.25 pg/mL vs 6.59 pg/mL [P<.0001] and 12.28 pg/mL versus 6.59 pg/mL [P<.0001], respectively). Conclusion: LTB 4 and 8-isoprostane concentrations were increased in asthmatic children compared to healthy individuals, with differences detected for 2 degrees of asthma severity. Our fi ndings suggest that EBC is a noninvasive method for airway infl ammation and oxidative stress assessment.
Noninferiority and equivalence trials: deciphering ‘similarity’ of medical interventions

In the past when diseases had few effective therapies, investigators demonstrated the effectiveness of new interventions by showing their superiority to no therapy or placebo. With the introduction of effective interventions for various diseases, it is natural for investigators to wish to compare the effectiveness of new interventions to standard interventions rather than to placebo alone. It is only over the last 25 years, however, that researchers have begun to address the issues in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials whose purpose is to provide evidence of the similarity, rather than the superiority of medical interventions [1, 2]. Trials whose goal is to demonstrate the similarity of medical interventions are either ‘equivalence’ (EQ) or ‘noninferiority’ (NI) trials. In this issue, Fleming provides a valuable analysis of some of the issues with NI trials [3]. Fleming’s review is timely, since misunderstandings about these issues have resulted in some posing that the appropriate design, conduct and analysis of NI trials are matters of mere ‘statistical purism’ and have little clinical relevance. In addition, some hold that addressing these issues in an appropriate fashion will have a ‘chilling effect’ on drug development due to a need for increased sample sizes of trials. However, as Fleming points out, inappropriate NI trials have great clinical relevance since they may lead to approval by regulatory agencies of medical interventions whose benefits compared with placebo are unclear, and can start investigators down a slippery slope of comparing one potentially ineffective intervention to another in perpetuity. In addition, Fleming points out
Formative Feedback: Involving Students as Partners in Assessment to Enhance Learning

Planning time for giving students effective feedback is an important and challenging aspect of the teaching and learning process. In our article we describe and analyze how we engage students as partners in providing formative feedback in time for students to modify their own thinking or behavior to improve learning. We have found ways to provide formative feedback more frequently and to involve students in providing effective formative feedback to each other. The four techniques we describe are the following: a) three-color group quiz with feedback on product, process, and progress; b) midterm student conferencing; c) shared revision of student generated questions and statements; and d) timely feedback using collaborative assignment blogs. These techniques give feedback in time for revisions to occur, provide scaffolding for learners, inform instruction, and most importantly, involve students as partners in assessment. These pedagogical strategies show that the resulting benefits of improved instruction, enhanced student learning, and better student products are worth the time and effort and contribute to a productive classroom climate where the focus is on learning more than on grading. Formative feedback involving students as partners is a key strategy to enhance the teaching and learning process.
Facial Lichen Striatus in Children: Retracing the Lines of Blaschko

Abstract: We report seven patients with facial lichen striatus along the lines of Blaschko who presented to our pediatric dermatology unit between 2003 and 2009. The mean age of diagnosis was 4.6 years (range 2.5–9 years). Three of the cases were associated with atopic dermatitis, and one case presented with vitiligo. In the six patients for whom we have follow‐up, all lesions resolved without pigmentary changes in an average of 11 months. This case series describes the distribution, presentation, and natural history of lichen striatus along facial lines of Blaschko. From our experience, clinical diagnosis and monitoring without biopsy is a reasonable approach to the management of uncomplicated lichen striatus, particularly when the face is involved.