Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological ownership in relation to workplace trust and turnover intent

The study investigated the relationship between workplace trust, psychological ownership and turnover intent within a South African professional services organisation. A cross-sectional quantitative survey design was used to collect data from a purposive sample (n = 302) of skilled, highly skilled and professional employees in a professional services industry. The participants completed the Psychological Ownership Questionnaire, Workplace Trust Survey, and Turnover Intentions Scale. The results from structural equation modelling (SEM) suggest psychological ownership to be significantly related to workplace trust (positively) and turnover intent (negatively). In addition, the findings indicate psychological ownership to fully mediate the relationship between workplace trust and turnover intent. By implication, work environments that fostered workplace trust would increase the level of psychological ownership that employees’ experienced, which, in turn, would reduce employees’ intent to leave their workplace.
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma ) as a molecular target for the soy phytoestrogen genistein.

The principal soy phytoestrogen genistein has an array of biological actions. It binds to estrogen receptor (ER) alpha and beta and has ER-mediated estrogenic effects. In addition, it has antiestrogenic effects as well as non-ER-mediated effects such as inhibition of tyrosine kinase. Because of its complex biological actions, the molecular mechanisms of action of genistein are poorly understood. Here we show that genistein dose-dependently increases estrogenic transcriptional activity in mesenchymal progenitor cells, but its biological effects on osteogenesis and adipogenesis are different. At low concentrations (< or =1 microm), genistein acts as estrogen, stimulating osteogenesis and inhibiting adipogenesis. At high concentrations (>1 microm), however, genistein acts as a ligand of PPARgamma, leading to up-regulation of adipogenesis and down-regulation of osteogenesis. Transfection experiments show that activation of PPARgamma by genistein at the micromolar concentrations down-regulates its estrogenic transcriptional activity, while activation of ERalpha or ERbeta by genistein down-regulates PPARgamma transcriptional activity. Genistein concurrently activates two different transcriptional factors, ERs and PPARgamma, which have opposite effects on osteogenesis or adipogenesis. As a result, the balance between activated ERs and PPARgamma determines the biological effects of genistein on osteogenesis and adipogenesis. Our findings may explain distinct effects of genistein in different tissues.
Teachers’ Practice and Language Learners’ Preferences for Form-focused Instruction: Does Matching Work?

classroom with their learners’ preferences for form-focused instruction (FFI) contributes to flourishing language learning. The practitioner placed 57adult EFL learners in three distinct groups (namely integrated FFI (n=19), isolated FFI (n=17), mixed FFI (n=21) through employing the Students’ Preferences Questionnaire. Teacher’s approach to FFI accommodated to learners’ preferences in each class, albeit the teacher selected no exclusive FFI approach for the mixed group. A priori and a posteriori grammar test were given to all participants. The effectiveness of this correspondence was measured by comparing the mean scores of grammar knowledge pretests and posttests across groups through using mixed between-within subjects ANOVA. The results revealed significant differences across groups for grammatical achievement [Wilks’Lambda=. 14, F (2, 54) =3.20, p=. 001]. The results mainly allowed a general correspondence to be established between what teachers practice and what learners perceive to be effective. The results are discussed in light of this general finding and suggestions for future research are provided.
Unsupervised Feature Learning Improves Prediction of Human Brain Activity in Response to Natural Images

Encoding and decoding in functional magnetic resonance imaging has recently emerged as an area of research to noninvasively characterize the relationship between stimulus features and human brain activity. To overcome the challenge of formalizing what stimulus features should modulate single voxel responses, we introduce a general approach for making directly testable predictions of single voxel responses to statistically adapted representations of ecologically valid stimuli. These representations are learned from unlabeled data without supervision. Our approach is validated using a parsimonious computational model of (i) how early visual cortical representations are adapted to statistical regularities in natural images and (ii) how populations of these representations are pooled by single voxels. This computational model is used to predict single voxel responses to natural images and identify natural images from stimulus-evoked multiple voxel responses. We show that statistically adapted low-level sparse and invariant representations of natural images better span the space of early visual cortical representations and can be more effectively exploited in stimulus identification than hand-designed Gabor wavelets. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach to better probe unknown cortical representations.
A Novel Null Homozygous Mutation Confirms CACNA2D2 as a Gene Mutated in Epileptic Encephalopathy

Contribution to epileptic encephalopathy (EE) of mutations in CACNA2D2, encoding α2δ-2 subunit of Voltage Dependent Calcium Channels, is unclear. To date only one CACNA2D2 mutation altering channel functionality has been identified in a single family. In the same family, a rare CELSR3 polymorphism also segregated with disease. Involvement of CACNA2D2 in EE is therefore not confirmed, while that of CELSR3 is questionable. In a patient with epilepsy, dyskinesia, cerebellar atrophy, psychomotor delay and dysmorphic features, offspring to consanguineous parents, we performed whole exome sequencing (WES) for homozygosity mapping and mutation detection. WES identified extended autozygosity on chromosome 3, containing two novel homozygous candidate mutations: c.1295delA (p.Asn432fs) in CACNA2D2 and c.G6407A (p.Gly2136Asp) in CELSR3. Gene prioritization pointed to CACNA2D2 as the most prominent candidate gene. The WES finding in CACNA2D2 resulted to be statistically significant (p = 0.032), unlike that in CELSR3. CACNA2D2 homozygous c.1295delA essentially abolished α2δ-2 expression. In summary, we identified a novel null CACNA2D2 mutation associated to a clinical phenotype strikingly similar to the Cacna2d2 null mouse model. Molecular and statistical analyses together argued in favor of a causal contribution of CACNA2D2 mutations to EE, while suggested that finding in CELSR3, although potentially damaging, is likely incidental.
Relatively Hyperbolic Groups with Rapid Decay Property

We prove that a nitely generated group G that is (strongly) relatively hyperbolic with respect to a collection of nitely generated subgroups fH1; : : : ; Hmg has the Rapid Decay property if and only if each Hi ; i = 1; 2; : : : ; m, has the Rapid Decay property.
Hearing assessment during deep brain stimulation of the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus and dentate cerebellar nucleus in rat

Background Recently it has been shown in animal studies that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of auditory structures was able to reduce tinnitus-like behavior. However, the question arises whether hearing might be impaired when interfering in auditory-related network loops with DBS. Methods The auditory brainstem response (ABR) was measured in rats during high frequency stimulation (HFS) and low frequency stimulation (LFS) in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (CIC, n = 5) or dentate cerebellar nucleus (DCBN, n = 5). Besides hearing thresholds using ABR, relative measures of latency and amplitude can be extracted from the ABR. In this study ABR thresholds, interpeak latencies (I–III, III–V, I–V) and V/I amplitude ratio were measured during off-stimulation state and during LFS and HFS. Results In both the CIC and the CNBN groups, no significant differences were observed for all outcome measures. Discussion DBS in both the CIC and the CNBN did not have adverse effects on hearing measurements. These findings suggest that DBS does not hamper physiological processing in the auditory circuitry.
Hegemonic preservation of heteronormativity: Experiences of gender in boyhood

Author(s): Rush, Steven L | Advisor(s): Kennedy, Christine | Abstract: Boyhood gender is a complex and often times misunderstood phenomenon. Difficult to measure and describe it is frequently, but incorrectly, equated with biological sex and thus portrayed as a dichotomous positioning of male or female. Few scientific inquiries have sought to understand the complex interplay of social, biological, emotional and developmental influences on gender behavior from discussions with boys themselves. The purpose of this interpretive study was to describe the meaning and experiences of gender in boys. First person, in depth individual interviews as well as field notes were the primary data sources. Eleven boys between the ages of eight and ten participated in this study. These boys understood gender by describing what boys do; primarily acts of physicality such as sports and games. Although they understood gender as a process influenced by others (parents and teachers) peers were the most salient. They presented themselves as active, agentic participants in how they come to learn about and subsequently embody gender. Rituals of gender behavior maintenance were identified in this study. Rituals of confirmation, punitive rituals, pollution rituals, and enforcement rituals all served as methods of promoting and enforcing boyhood gender. The results support boys who are typical in gender presentation experienced felt pressure to maintain conforming gender behavior and that boys who were atypical in gender presentation also experienced felt pressure to maintain conforming gender behavior. Both groups experienced felt pressure to avoid nonconforming behavior. Boys atypical in gender presentation experienced distress, both in maintaining conforming behavior and avoiding nonconforming behavior; whereas boys typical in gender presentation did not. Understanding the complex worlds of boys and gender is essential for providing holistic care, as well as creating safe and supportive healthcare environments.
Flexibility in change practices and job outcomes for nurses: exploring the role of subjective fit.

AIMS To integrate existing theoretical perspectives on change management, subjective fit and occupational stress to better understand the effects of change on employee adjustment. BACKGROUND Although subjective fit with organizational goals and objectives has been shown to have positive effects on employee adjustment, its role in the organizational change-occupational stress context is not understood. This represents a caveat in research when considering the notion that those who feel that they fit with the organization's goals may be better equipped to reconcile and deal with change. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey of nurses from public and non-profit sector hospitals was conducted. METHOD Data were collected from 252 public and non-profit sector nurses via online surveys. Data were collected from June-October in 2010. Structural equation modelling was used to test the direct and indirect effects among the focal variables. RESULTS The results showed that public and non-profit nurses experience flexibility-limiting and flexibility-promoting change initiatives and that these are differentially related to the perception of administrative stressors and adjustment with these relationships directly and indirectly influenced by perceptions of subjective fit. Flexibility-limiting change initiatives led to lower levels of subjective fit, higher levels of administrative stressors and less favourable adjustment. On the other hand, flexibility-promoting change practices led to higher levels of subjective fit, lower levels of administrative stressors and ultimately better adjustment. CONCLUSION The results further the theoretical understanding of the role of subjective fit in organizational change and occupational stress theories.
Constrained coding for binary channels with high intersymbol interference

Partial-response (PR) signaling is used to model communications channels with intersymbol interference (ISI) such as the magnetic recording channel and the copper-wire channel for digital subscriber lines. Coding for improving noise immunity in higher order partial-response channels, such as the "extended" class-4 channels denoted EPR4, E/sup 2/PR4, E/sup 3/PR4, has become an important subject as the linear densities in magnetic recording approach those at which these partial-response channels are the best models of real channels. In this paper, we consider partial-response channels for which ISI is so severe that the channels fail to achieve the matched-filter bound (MFB) for symbol error rate, assuming maximum-likelihood decoding. We show that their performance can be improved to the MFB by high-rate codes based on constrained systems, some of which may even simplify the Viterbi (1979) detectors relative to the uncoded channels. We present several examples of high-rate constrained codes for E/sup 2/PR4 and E/sup 3/PR4 channels and evaluate their performance by simulation.
Perturbations of Weyl sums

Write $f_k({\boldsymbol \alpha};X)=\sum_{x\le X}e(\alpha_1x+\ldots +\alpha_kx^k)$ $(k\ge 3)$. We show that there is a set ${\mathfrak B}\subseteq [0,1)^{k-2}$ of full measure with the property that whenever $(\alpha_2,\ldots ,\alpha_{k-1})\in {\mathfrak B}$ and $X$ is sufficiently large, then $$\sup_{(\alpha_1,\alpha_k)\in [0,1)^2}|f_k({\boldsymbol \alpha};X)|\le X^{1/2+4/(2k-1)}. $$ For $k\ge 5$, this improves on work of Flaminio and Forni, in which a Diophantine condition is imposed on $\alpha_k$, and the exponent of $X$ is $1-2/(3k(k-1))$.
State of Disparities in Cardiovascular Health in the United States

Background—Reducing health disparities remains a major public health challenge in the United States. Having timely access to current data on disparities is important for policy and program development. Accordingly, we assessed the current magnitude of disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors in the United States. Methods and Results—Using national surveys, we determined CVD and risk factor prevalence and indexes of morbidity, mortality, and overall quality of life in adults ≥18 years of age by race/ethnicity, sex, education level, socioeconomic status, and geographic location. Disparities were common in all risk factors examined. In men, the highest prevalence of obesity (29.2%) was found in Mexican Americans who had completed a high school education. Black women with or without a high school education had a high prevalence of obesity (47.3%). Hypertension prevalence was high among blacks (39.8%) regardless of sex or educational status. Hypercholesterolemia was high among white and Mexican American men and white women in both groups of educational status. Ischemic heart disease and stroke were inversely related to education, income, and poverty status. Hospitalization was greater in men for total heart disease and acute myocardial infarction but greater in women for congestive heart failure and stroke. Among Medicare enrollees, congestive heart failure hospitalization was higher in blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians/Alaska Natives than among whites, and stroke hospitalization was highest in blacks. Hospitalizations for congestive heart failure and stroke were highest in the southeastern United States. Life expectancy remains higher in women than men and higher in whites than blacks by ≈5 years. CVD mortality at all ages tended to be highest in blacks. Conclusions—Disparities in CVD and related risk factors remain pervasive. The data presented here can be invaluable for policy development and in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of interventions designed to eliminate health disparities.
Predicting Users' Perceived Trust in Embodied Conversational Agents Using Vocal Dynamics

One of the major challenges facing neurophysiological HCI design is to determine the systems and sensors that accurately and noninvasively measure human cognitive processes. Specifically, it is a significant undertaking to integrate sensors and measurements into an information system and accurately measure and interpret the human state. Using an experimental design this study explores the use of unobtrusive sensors based on behavioral and neurophysiological responses to predict human trust using the voice. Participants (N=88) completed a face-to-face interview with an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) and reported their perceptions of the ECA. They reported three dimensions consistent with the Mayer model of perceived trustworthiness. During the interaction, the demeanor and gender of the avatar was manipulated and these manipulations affected the reported measures of trustworthiness. Using growth modeling and multilevel analysis of covariance methods, a model was developed that could predict human trust during the interaction using the voice, time, and demographics.
Short-term, high-dose glucocorticoid treatment does not contribute to reduced bone mineral density in patients with multiple sclerosis

Background: Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are at increased risk of reduced bone mineral density (BMD). A contributing factor might be treatment with high-dose glucocorticoids (GCs). Objectives: The objective of this paper is to assess bone mass in patients with MS and evaluate the importance of short-term, high-dose GC treatment and other risk factors that affect BMD in patients with MS. Methods: A total of 260 patients with MS received short-term high-dose GC treatment and had their BMD measured by dual x-ray absorptiometry. BMD was compared to a healthy age-matched reference population (Z-scores). Data regarding GCs, age, body mass index (BMI), serum 25(OH)D, disease duration and severity were collected retrospectively and analysed in a multiple linear regression analysis to evaluate the association between each risk factor and BMD. Results: Osteopenia was present in 38% and osteoporosis in 7% of the study population. Mean Z-score was significantly below zero, indicating a decreased BMD in our MS patients. Multiple linear regression analysis showed no significant association between GCs and BMD. In contrast, age, BMI and disease severity were independently associated with both lumbar and femoral BMD. Conclusion: Reduced BMD was prevalent in patients with MS. GC treatment appears not to be the primary underlying cause of secondary osteoporosis in MS patients.
DNA Repair Gene Expression Levels as Indicators of Breast Cancer in the Breast Cancer Family Registry.

AIM The expression level of DNA repair-related genes and their association with breast cancer status among participants of the New York site of the Breast Cancer Family Registry was investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS RNA from mononuclear cells in 194 sister sets (n=475 women) were assayed for ATM, BRCA1, MSH2, MUTYH and XPC gene expression levels and analyzed using generalized estimating equations (GEE). RESULTS Individuals with decreased ATM and MSH2 expression had significantly higher odds for breast cancer compared to individuals with higher levels of expression (odds ratio (OR)=1.1, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.02, 1.18) and (OR=1.90, 95% CI=1.21, 2.97), respectively. Upon stratifying the GEE model, reductions in ATM and MSH2 expression levels was heightened among women with an extended family history (FH) of breast cancer. CONCLUSION Reduced expression of ATM and MSH2 compromises DNA repair capacity and, thereby, increases breast cancer prevalence.
A variant of extensor medii proprius: A case report

A variant of the extensor medii proprius (EMP) was identified during routine dissection of the left hand of a 67-year-old female cadaver. The flat, fleshy muscle originated from the lunate bone, narrowed into a flat tendon near the 3rd metacarpophalangeal joint, and continued distally to insert on the extensor expansion of the 3rd digit. A branch from the posterior interosseous nerve was traced to the EMP. We propose that this previously unreported variation be termed extensor medii proprius brevis (EMPB).
A temporal fourth-order scheme for the first-order acoustic wave equations

SUMMARY Inthispaper,weproposeatemporalfourth-orderschemeforsolvingthe2-Dfirst-orderacoustic wave equations with perfectly matched layers in time domain. For the temporal discretization, we approximate the velocity at mid-points and the pressure at grid points, then expand the velocity and pressure by Taylor series and replace the high-order temporal derivatives by spatial derivatives. For the spatial discretization, we apply the Fourier pseudospectral method based on conventional and staggered-grid schemes. The dispersion and stability of the new scheme are analysed, and numerical simulations are presented to confirm the robustness and efficiency of the scheme. The new scheme is eventually applied for the wavefield modelling and reverse time migration in bilayered and heterogeneous media to further verify its accuracy and efficiency.
Risk Attitudes, Investment Behavior, and Linguistic Variation

ABSTRACT This study explores the relationship between linguistic variation and individual attitudes toward risk and uncertainty. We propose an innovative marker that classifies languages according to the number of nonindicative moods in the grammatical contexts involving uncertainty. We find that speakers of languages that use these moods more intensively are on average more risk averse. Our marker is then used to instrument risk aversion in the model for financial asset accumulation. In addition, by using the Chen (2013) future time reference linguistic marker as a proxy for the subjective discount rate, we disentangle the effects of risk aversion and time preferences on asset accumulation.
Subverting Host Cell P21-Activated Kinase: A Case of Convergent Evolution across Pathogens

Intracellular pathogens have evolved a wide range of strategies to not only escape from the immune systems of their hosts, but also to directly exploit a variety of host factors to facilitate the infection process. One such strategy is to subvert host cell signalling pathways to the advantage of the pathogen. Recent research has highlighted that the human serine/threonine kinase PAK, or p21-activated kinase, is a central component of host-pathogen interactions in many infection systems involving viruses, bacteria, and eukaryotic pathogens. PAK paralogues are found in most mammalian tissues, where they play vital roles in a wide range of functions. The role of PAKs in cell proliferation and survival, and their involvement in a number of cancers, is of great interest in the context of drug discovery. In this review we discuss the latest insights into the surprisingly central role human PAK1 plays for the infection by such different infectious disease agents as viruses, bacteria, and parasitic protists. It is our intention to open serious discussion on the applicability of PAK inhibitors for the treatment, not only of neoplastic diseases, which is currently the primary objective of drug discovery research targeting these enzymes, but also of a wide range of infectious diseases.