Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constraints on plastic responses to climate variation in red deer

Influences of climate on life history traits in natural populations are well documented. However, the implications of between-individual variation in phenotypic plasticity underlying observed trait–environment relationships are rarely considered due to the large, long-term datasets required for such analysis. Studies typically present correlations of annual trait means with climate or assume that individual phenotypic responses are constant. Here, we examine this additional level of variation and show that, in a red deer population on the Isle of Rum, Scotland, changes in climate generate changes in phenotype only amongst individuals who have experienced favourable ecological conditions. Examination of relationships between offspring birth weight and spring temperature within the lifetimes of individual females revealed that the tendency to respond to climate declined as the population density experienced early in life increased. The presence of such systematic variation in individual plasticity is rarely documented in the wild, and has important implications for our understanding of the environmental dependencies of traits under varying ecological conditions.
Understanding the impact of assessment on students in problem‐based learning

This article explores assessment in the context of problem‐based learning (PBL) at three different levels. ­Firstly, it examines the position of assessment in the current system of higher education and, secondly, it ­examines students’ experiences of assessment in problem‐based programmes. The article draws on research into PBL that explored staff and students’ experiences in four different disciplines, and it is argued that many forms of assessment still largely undermine collaborative learning and team process in PBL. The final section argues that the way forward for the PBL community is to recognize disciplinary differences in PBL and adopt assessment approaches that fit both with PBL and the discipline into which it is placed.
Highly connected monochromatic subgraphs of multicolored graphs

We consider the following question of Bollobas: given an r-coloring of E(Kn), how large a k-connected subgraph can we find using at most s colors? We provide a partial solution to this problem when s=1 (and n is not too small), showing that when r=2 the answer is n-2k+2, when r=3 the answer is ⌊(n-k)-2⌋+1 or ⌈(n-k)-2⌉+1, and when r-1 is a prime power then the answer lies between n-(r-1)-11(k2-k)r and (n-k+1)-(r-1)+r. The case s≥2 is considered in a subsequent paper (Liu et al.[6]), where we also discuss some of the more glaring open problems relating to this question. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Graph Theory 61: 22-44, 2009 The work reported in this paper was done when the authors were at the University of Memphis.
United, yet divided: analysing the cohesion of Addiopizzo’s anti-racketeering campaign in Palermo

This article analyses the cohesion of Addiopizzo’s anti-racketeering campaign in Palermo, Sicily. By supporting entrepreneurs who refuse to pay for protection and by encouraging consumers to support these companies through their consumer power, Addiopizzo has mobilised about 900 companies and 11,000 citizens. Taking social capital theory as a point of departure, this article explores the values of trust and norms of reciprocity among entrepreneurs who joined Addiopizzo’s anti-racketeering campaign. In addition, it analyses their solidarity with colleagues who are victims of extortion. Shared values express a stronger commitment to a movement, reinforce internal solidarity, strengthen the collective identity and reduce the risk of free riders and dropouts. The article reveals not only similarities but also important differences between various groups of joiners. The analysis builds on a unique data-set consisting of questionnaires collected from 277 entrepreneurs who joined the campaign between 2005 and 2011.
Import of Soluble Proteins into Chloroplasts and Potential Regulatory Mechanisms

Chloroplasts originated from an endosymbiotic event in which a free-living cyanobacterium was engulfed by an ancestral eukaryotic host. During evolution the majority of the chloroplast genetic information was transferred to the host cell nucleus. As a consequence, proteins formerly encoded by the chloroplast genome are now translated in the cytosol and must be subsequently imported into the chloroplast. This process involves three steps: (i) cytosolic sorting procedures, (ii) binding to the designated receptor-equipped target organelle and (iii) the consecutive translocation process. During import, proteins have to overcome the two barriers of the chloroplast envelope, namely the outer envelope membrane (OEM) and the inner envelope membrane (IEM). In the majority of cases, this is facilitated by two distinct multiprotein complexes, located in the OEM and IEM, respectively, designated TOC and TIC. Plants are constantly exposed to fluctuating environmental conditions such as temperature and light and must therefore regulate protein composition within the chloroplast to ensure optimal functioning of elementary processes such as photosynthesis. In this review we will discuss the recent models of each individual import stage with regard to short-term strategies that plants might use to potentially acclimate to changes in their environmental conditions and preserve the chloroplast protein homeostasis.
Lysyl oxidase-like 1 gene polymorphisms in Japanese patients with primary open angle glaucoma and exfoliation syndrome

Purpose To assess whether lysyl oxidase-like 1 (LOXL1) polymorphisms are associated with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and exfoliation syndrome (XFS). Methods Japanese patients with POAG (n=213) or XFS (n=89) and 191 control subjects were analyzed for LOXL1 polymorphisms (rs1048661: 758G/T, Arg141Leu and rs3825942: 794G/A, Gly153Asp). Demographic and clinical features of POAG patients and control subjects were compared in terms of the TT/GG compound genotype of rs1048661 and rs3825942. Results There was a significant difference in the genotype frequencies between XFS patients and control subjects (p<0.0001). Frequencies of the T allele of rs1048661 and the G allele of rs3825942 were significantly higher in XFS patients than in control subjects (rs1048661: 99.4% versus 55.0%; rs3825942: 99.4% versus 85.3%; p<0.0001). Except for one who had the TG/AG compound genotype, all XFS patients had the TT/GG compound genotype. An almost 250 fold increase in the risk of XFS (p<0.0001; odds ratio: 252.2; 95% confidence interval: 32.7 to more than 1000) was found in patients with the TT/GG compound genotype compared to those without the genotype. There were no significant differences in the genotype and allele frequencies between POAG patients and control subjects. Furthermore, no significant differences were noted in the demographic and clinical features of POAG patients as well as control subjects with and without the TT/GG high-risk compound genotype. Conclusions LOXL1 polymorphisms were associated with XFS. However, the frequencies of the polymorphisms differed between Japanese and Caucasian XFS patients. These polymorphisms had no influence on the phenotypic features of POAG patients.
Studies of Loss Aversion and Perceived Necessity

Abstract An explanation of the loss-aversion function of prospect theory that relates the theory to a distinction between positive-based and negative-based incentive value was investigated. We predicted that betting decisions would show loss aversion to the extent that they involved necessary goals—goals that were more likely to be negatively based (associated with a threat of negative alternatives). Therefore, conditions that increased perceived goal necessity should have increased the magnitude of the loss-aversion effect. The results from 194 subjects in two studies supported this prediction. Factors related to perceived goal necessity (e.g., telic dominance, imagined proportion of financial assets to be gambled, proportion of assets in a necessities account, actual proportion of income spent on necessities) were related to reluctance to take hypothetical bets. Relationships seemed to be contingent on bet characteristics (amount and win-loss ratio). A third study suggested that these results reflected .
No pills for heartache: The importance of social support for women who suffer pregnancy loss

Abstract This paper uses part of the data from a randomized controlled trial of social support in pregnancy in order to investigate whether the provision of social support in a subsequent pregnancy for women who have previously undergone pregnancy loss makes an appreciable difference to their physical and emotional health in that subsequent pregnancy. Significant differences in emotional well-being, at 6 weeks and 1 year after delivery, were found between the supported and unsupported groups. Physical health was not affected by the intervention. Qualitative data on the women's experiences of pregnancy loss highlight their need for the recognition of the dead baby as a person and thus for the legitimation of mourning. Isolation after pregnancy loss is exacerbated by negative social attitudes to death, the disappearance of traditional mourning rituals, low levels of intimacy, and gender differences in grieving. By providing non-directive social support, tailored to the individual's needs, the research midwi.
Proactive asthma care in childhood: general practice based randomised controlled trial

Abstract Objectives To assess the feasibility and effectiveness of a general practice based, proactive system of asthma care in children. Design Randomised controlled trial with cluster sampling by general practice. Setting General practices in the northern region of the Australian Capital Territory. Participants 174 children with moderate to severe asthma who attended 24 general practitioners. Intervention System of structured asthma care (the 3+ visit plan), with participating families reminded to attend the general practitioner. Main outcome measures Process measures: rates for asthma consultations with general practitioner, written asthma plans, completion of the 3+ visit plan; clinical measures: rates for emergency department visits for asthma, days absent from school, symptom-free days, symptoms over the past year, activity limitation over the past year, and asthma drug use over the past year; spirometric lung function measures before and after cold air challenge. Results Intervention group children had significantly more asthma related consultations (odds ratio for three or more asthma related consultations 3.8 (95% confidence interval 1.9 to 7.6; P = 0.0001), written asthma plans (2.2 (1.2 to 4.1); P = 0.01), and completed 3+ visit plans (24.2 (5.7 to 103.2); P = 0.0001) than control children and a mean reduction in measurements of forced expiratory volume in one second after cold air challenge of 2.6% (1.7 to 3.5); P = 0.0001) less than control children. The number needed to treat (benefit) for one additional written asthma action plan was 5 (3 to 41) children. Intervention group children had lower emergency department attendance rates for asthma (odds ratio 0.4 (0.2 to 1.04); P = 0.06) and less speech limiting wheeze (0.2 (0.1 to 0.4); P = 0.0001) than control children and were more likely to use a spacer (2.8 (1.6 to 4.7); P = 0.0001). No differences occurred in number of days absent from school or symptom-free day scores. Conclusions Proactive care with active recall for children with moderate to severe asthma is feasible in general practice and seems to be beneficial.
TRPC1, STIM1, and ORAI Influence Signal-Regulated Intracellular and Endoplasmic Reticulum Calcium Dynamics in Human Myometrial Cells1

To explore the relationship between signal-stimulated increases in intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) and depletion and refilling of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca2+ stores ([Ca2+]L) in human myometrial cells, we measured simultaneous changes in [Ca2+]i and [Ca2+]L using Fura-2 and Mag-fluo-4, respectively, in PHM1-41 immortalized and primary cells derived from pregnant myometrium and in primary cells derived from nonpregnant tissue. Signal- and extracellular Ca2+-dependent increases in [Ca2+]i (SRCE) and ER refilling stimulated by oxytocin and cyclopiazonic acid were not inhibited by voltage-operated channel blocker nifedipine or mibefradil, inhibition of Na+/Ca2+ exchange with KB-R7943, or zero extracellular Na+ in PHM1-41 cells. Gadolinium-inhibited oxytocin- and cyclopiazonic acid-induced SRCE and slowed ER store refilling. TRPC1 mRNA knockdown specifically inhibited oxytocin-stimulated SRCE but had no statistically significant effect on ER store refilling and no effect on either parameter following cyclopiazonic acid treatment. Dominant negative STIMΔERM expression attenuated oxytocin- and thapsigargin-stimulated SRCE. Both STIM1 and ORAI1–ORAI3 mRNA knockdowns significantly attenuated oxytocin- and cyclopiazonic acid-stimulated SRCE. The data also suggest that reduction in STIM1 or ORAI1–ORAI3 mRNA can impede the rate of ER store refilling following removal of SERCA inhibition. These data provide evidence for both distinct and overlapping influences of TRPC1, STIM1, and ORAI1–ORAI3 on SRCE and ER store refilling in human myometrial cells that may contribute to the regulation of myometrial Ca2+ dynamics. These findings have important implications for understanding the control of myometrial Ca2+ dynamics in relation to myometrial contractile function.
Automatic high-speed video glottis segmentation using salient regions and 3D geodesic active contours

Verbal communication plays an important role in our economy. Laryngeal high-speed videos have emerged as a state of the art method to investigate vocal fold vibrations in the context of voice disorders affecting verbal communication. Segmentation of the glottis from these videos is required to analyze vocal fold vibrations. The vast amount of data produced makes manual segmentation impossible in every day clinical applications. Therefore, computer-aided, automatic segmentation is essential for the use of high-speed videos. In this work a novel, fully automatic glottis segmentation method involving motion compensation, salient region detection and 3D Geodesic Active Contour segmentation is presented. By using color information and establishing spatio-temporal volumes, the method overcomes reported problems in related work regarding low contrast and multiple glottal areas. Efficient computation is achieved by parallelized implementation using graphics adapters and NVidia CUDA. A comparison to the seeded region growing based clinical standard shows the benefits of the proposed method in terms of higher segmentation accuracy on manually annotated evaluation data.
Artists portray human faces with the Fourier statistics of complex natural scenes

When artists portray human faces, they generally endow their portraits with properties that render the faces esthetically more pleasing. To obtain insight into the changes introduced by artists, we compared Fourier power spectra in photographs of faces and in portraits by artists. Our analysis was restricted to a large set of monochrome or lightly colored portraits from various Western cultures and revealed a paradoxical result. Although face photographs are not scale-invariant, artists draw human faces with statistical properties that deviate from the face photographs and approximate the scale-invariant, fractal-like properties of complex natural scenes. This result cannot be explained by systematic differences in the complexity of patterns surrounding the faces or by reproduction artifacts. In particular, a moderate change in gamma gradation has little influence on the results. Moreover, the scale-invariant rendering of faces in artists’ portraits was found to be independent of cultural variables, such as century of origin or artistic techniques. We suggest that artists have implicit knowledge of image statistics and prefer natural scene statistics (or some other rules associated with them) in their creations. Fractal-like statistics have been demonstrated previously in other forms of visual art and may be a general attribute of esthetic visual stimuli.
Does Answering Questions Really Promote Associative Learning

PRESSLEY, MICHAEL, and BRYANT, SUSAN L. Does Answering Questions Really Promote Associative Learning? CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 1258-1267. In 3 experiments 5-6-year-olds and grade 6 children were presented picture-paired associates, with memory of the paired associates tested. Labeling-control subjects repeated the names of the paired pictures during study. Sentence-repetition subjects repeated a verbal elaboration containing the 2 pair members (e.g., "The boy held the monkey"). Interrogative subjects answered "why" questions based on elaborations (e.g., "Why did the boy hold onto the monkey? "). When associative learning was incidental, younger interrogative subjects learned more associations than younger sentencerepetition subjects (Experiment 1), unless the younger sentence-repetition subjects were forced to hold the elaborations in memory before repeating them. In that case there was no difference between interrogative and sentence-repetition subjects (Experiment 2). Also, there was no difference in learning between interrogative and sentence-repetition conditions under incidental instructions at the grade 6 level (Experiment 1), nor were there significant interrogative/sentence-repetition memory differences under intentional learning instructions at either age (Experiment 3). Memory in the interrogative and sentence-repetition conditions was always better than in the labeling-control conditions. Thus, previously reported incidental learning advantages associated with the interrogative procedure do not generalize beyond the 5-6-year-old age range or to intentional learning. The results are relevant to elaboration conceptions of memory as well as to general problems of memory strategy instruction.
Elevated Glutathione Is Not Sufficient to Protect against Doxorubicin-Induced Nuclear Damage in Heart in Multidrug Resistance–Associated Protein 1 (Mrp1/Abcc1) Null Mice

Cardiotoxicity is a major dose-limiting adverse effect of doxorubicin (DOX), mediated in part by overproduction of reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. Abcc1 (Mrp1) mediates the efflux of reduced and oxidized glutathione (GSH, GSSG) and is also a major transporter that effluxes the GSH conjugate of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE; GS-HNE), a toxic product of lipid peroxidation formed during oxidative stress. To assess the role of Mrp1 in protecting the heart from DOX-induced cardiac injury, wild-type (WT) and Mrp1 null (Mrp1−/−) C57BL/6 littermate mice were administered DOX (15 mg/kg) or saline (7.5 ml/kg) i.v. , and heart ventricles were examined at 72 hours. Morphometric analysis by electron microscopy revealed extensive injuries in cytosol, mitochondria, and nuclei of DOX-treated mice in both genotypes. Significantly more severely injured nuclei were observed in Mrp1−/− versus WT mice (P = 0.031). GSH and the GSH/GSSG ratio were significantly increased in treatment-naïve Mrp1−/− versus WT mice; GSH remained significantly higher in Mrp1−/− versus WT mice after saline and DOX treatment, with no changes in GSSG or GSH/GSSG. GS-HNE, measured by mass spectrometry, was lower in the hearts of treatment-naïve Mrp1−/− versus WT mice (P < 0.05). DOX treatment decreased GS-HNE in WT but not Mrp1−/− mice, so that GS-HNE was modestly but significantly higher in Mrp1−/− versus WT hearts after DOX. Expression of enzymes mediating GSH synthesis and antioxidant proteins did not differ between genotypes. Thus, despite elevated GSH levels in Mrp1−/− hearts, DOX induced significantly more injury in the nuclei of Mrp1−/− versus WT hearts.
Location and Agglomeration

This article analyzes location patterns of retail and food establishments, whose presence constitutes an important aspect of livable and walkable neighborhoods. Using approximately fourteen thousand buildings on the street network of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, as units of analysis, this article tests five hypotheses about retail locations found in previous literature and estimates the impacts of different location characteristics for all retail and food-service establishment as a group and for different store categories individually. The results describe how specific location attributes impact the probabilities of finding retailers, which can inform the planning of commercial activity clusters.
One-year longitudinal investigation of eyeblink classical conditioning and cognitive and behavioral tests in adults with down's syndrome

Abstract Thirty-three adults with Down's syndrome (DS) originally tested by Woodruff-Pak, Papka, and Simon (1994) were retested approximately one year after initial testing as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Subjects were tested in eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC) and other neuropsychological tests. Adults with DS improved in EBCC over a 13-month period, but showed stability on other cognitive and behavioral tests. Age differences were found in EBCC but not other measures. Adults with DS aged 19-30 years performed significantly better in EBCC than adults with DS aged 46-65 years. Adults with DS aged 31-45 years did not show significantly different EBCC performance than subjects in older and younger age groups. the impaired EBCC performance of older adults with DS may be due to the presumed disruption of the hippocampal cholinergic system, which is an aspect of the Alzheimer-like neuropathology developing in adults with DS after the age of 35. the results further support the sensitivity of EBC.
Insider or outsider? how employee perceptions of insider status affect their work behavior

Many researchers have used the insider–outsider distinction when discussing employment relationships (e.g., Graen & Scandura, 1987; Pfeffer & Baron, 1988). However, there is no known empirical research directly assessing employees' perceptions of their status as organizational insiders. This article is intended as an initial step to theoretically and empirically explore the concept of perceived insider status (PIS). First, we build theoretical arguments describing how organizations may differentiate between insider and outsider employees, leading to differences in perceptions of insider status. We then hypothesize and show empirical evidence that contrasts, but relates, actual inclusion and perceived organizational support to PIS. We subsequently examine two types of discretionary employee behavior, altruism and production deviance, as potential consequences of PIS. Our results suggest that both actual inclusion, as well as perceived insider status, have implications for organizational functioning via discretionary employee behaviors. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.