Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Regulation of Filamentous Growth in Yeast

Filamentous growth is a nutrient-regulated growth response that occurs in many fungal species. In pathogens, filamentous growth is critical for host–cell attachment, invasion into tissues, and virulence. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae undergoes filamentous growth, which provides a genetically tractable system to study the molecular basis of the response. Filamentous growth is regulated by evolutionarily conserved signaling pathways. One of these pathways is a mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. A remarkable feature of the filamentous growth MAPK pathway is that it is composed of factors that also function in other pathways. An intriguing challenge therefore has been to understand how pathways that share components establish and maintain their identity. Other canonical signaling pathways—rat sarcoma/protein kinase A (RAS/PKA), sucrose nonfermentable (SNF), and target of rapamycin (TOR)—also regulate filamentous growth, which raises the question of how signals from multiple pathways become integrated into a coordinated response. Together, these pathways regulate cell differentiation to the filamentous type, which is characterized by changes in cell adhesion, cell polarity, and cell shape. How these changes are accomplished is also discussed. High-throughput genomics approaches have recently uncovered new connections to filamentous growth regulation. These connections suggest that filamentous growth is a more complex and globally regulated behavior than is currently appreciated, which may help to pave the way for future investigations into this eukaryotic cell differentiation behavior.
Video Game Strategies as Predictors of Academic Achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between strategies students use to overcome challenges in both video games and homework assignments, and whether or not these are predictors of academic performance in school. Data were collected through an online survey of students, primarily in middle and high school, assessing both video game play strategies and homework strategies. Two separate multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine relationships between video game play strategies and school GPA, and between homework strategies and school GPA. The first regression analysis investigating video game strategies and GPA was significant, F(11, 71) = 2.666, p = . 006, with five individual strategies being significantly related to GPA. The second analysis investigating homework strategies and GPA was not significant, F(7, 75) = 1.332, p = . 247, with no individual strategies being significantly related to GPA. Findings suggest that future research should explore whether use of just-in-time help-seeking strategies in video games may be a stronger predictor of academic achievement than students' homework strategies.
Unexpected properties of sRNA promoters allow feedback control via regulation of a two-component system

Two-component systems (TCS) and small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) are both widespread regulators of gene expression in bacteria. TCS are in most cases transcriptional regulators. A large class of sRNAs act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that modulate the translation and/or stability of target-mRNAs. Many connections have been recently unraveled between these two types of regulators, resulting in mixed regulatory circuits with poorly characterized properties. This study focuses on the negative feedback circuit that exists between the EnvZ-OmpR TCS and the OmrA/B sRNAs. We have shown that OmpR directly activates transcription from the omrA and omrB promoters, allowing production of OmrA/B sRNAs that target multiple mRNAs, including the ompR-envZ mRNA. This control of ompR-envZ by the Omr sRNAs does not affect the amount of phosphorylated OmpR, i.e. the presumably active form of the regulator. Accordingly, expression of robust OmpR targets, such as the ompC or ompF porin genes, is not affected by OmrA/B. However, we find that several OmpR targets, including OmrA/B themselves, are sensitive to changing total OmpR levels. As a result, OmrA/B limit their own synthesis. These findings unravel an additional layer of control in the expression of some OmpR targets and suggest the existence of differential regulation within the OmpR regulon.
Short-term effects of nonsurgical periodontal treatment with and without use of diode laser (980 nm) on serum levels of reactive oxygen metabolites and clinical periodontal parameters in patients with chronic periodontitis: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare the clinical efficiency of a diode laser as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP) in the treatment of chronic periodontitis patients, and also to evaluate the changes in the clinical parameters such as clinical attachment level in teeth with periodontal pockets and blood reactive oxygen metabolites. METHOD AND MATERIALS A total of thirty patients (mean age 38.2 years) with chronic periodontitis were selected for this study. The patients were randomly assigned into two groups of 15 patients each, as the control group and test group. The control group received only conventional SRP and the test group received conventional SRP and diode laser (GaAlAs)-assisted pocket debridement. The clinical parameters (Plaque Index, bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level) were recorded at baseline and day 60, and the serum levels of reactive oxygen metabolites were estimated at baseline, day 30, and day 60 for both the groups. RESULTS When the groups were compared, there was statistically significant improvement in Plaque Index score, decrease in bleeding on probing and probing pocket depth, and gain in clinical attachment level (P < .001) in both the groups from baseline to day 60. There was significant reduction in reactive oxygen metabolites in both the groups from baseline to day 30 and day 60 (P < .001). However no statistically significant changes were present between the treatment groups from baseline to day 60 in terms of clinical parameters and blood reactive oxygen metabolites. CONCLUSION From the results observed in this study it can be concluded that use of diode laser as an adjunct to SRP did not provide any significant difference compared to use of SRP alone in terms of clinical parameters and reactive oxygen metabolites.
Efficient face coding in video sequences combining adaptive principal component analysis and a hybrid codec approach

This paper presents a new proposal for a video coding scheme intended for human faces in video sequences using an eigenspace approach. The scheme greatly improves previous results by proposing a new adaptive eigenspace technique in combination with the new upcoming standard AVC. The description of the face is also included in the bit stream using the MPEG-7 descriptors thus providing search and browsing functionalities along with coding efficiency. The total bit stream presents the better or same coding efficiency than AVC/H.264 and offers a very competitive alternative to B-predictive frames. Results are provided in the paper for bit-rates around 2.5 Kbit/s.
Mothers’ and Fathers’ Behavior, Adolescents’ Self-Representations, and Adolescents’ Adjustment:

The goals in this study were to examine the differential association of mothers’ and of fathers’warm/supportive and hostile behavior with adolescents’school functioning and problem behavior and to consider both the direct and indirect processes whereby parents’behavior is related to those domains of adolescents’adjustment. Specifically, one aim was to examine the degree to which adolescents’ self-representations of adaptive sociability and behavioral reactivity mediate the relations of parents’warm/supportive and hostile behavior with adolescents’school functioning and problem behavior. Participants were 76 two-parent families with a seventh-grade adolescent. Adolescents’reports and parents’reports of the study variables were used in the statistical analyses. Models predicting problem behavior explained more variance than did those predicting school functioning. The results indicated that adolescents’ self-representations, in part, mediated the associations between parents’ behavior and adolescents’ adjustment. Results attest to the importance of external and internal regulators of young adolescents’ behavior.
Effect of Constructivist - Based Instructional Model on Students’ Conceptual Change and Retention on Some Difficult Concepts in Chemistry

A quasi-experimental, non-equivalent group control design involving two intact classes were used to determine the effect of constructivist-based instructional model-Generative Learning Model (GLM) on students’ conceptual change and knowledge retention in chemistry. Effect of GLM on gender is also monitored. Performance of students taught with the above instructional model was compared with those taught with Expository Method (EPM). The sample for the study consisted of 170 SSII Chemistry students from four secondary schools purposeful selected from all the secondary schools in Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State. Students from two schools – (one male and the other female) were randomly assigned to experimental group while the other two schools one male and the other female was assigned as control group. A Teacher Made Achievement Test in Chemistry Tests (TMATC) were used. Three sets of these tests were developed 1, II and III. Pre-test was administrated to both groups to determine their entry level. At the end of the treatment Post-test was administered to both groups to determine their achievement after treatment. The third test was administered after an interval of four weeks to measure students’ knowledge retention. ANCOVA statistical tool was used to analyze the data collected using pre-test as a co-variant. From the findings, it was very clear that experimental group performed better than the control group. This is an indication that the constructivist based method (GLM) is very effective in enhancing meaningful learning among students. Recommendations were made based on the findings. Keywords – Constructivist – based instructional models, conceptual change, retention, Generative Learning Model.
Children's learning of tennis skills is facilitated by external focus instructions

The present study examined the effects of instructions promoting external versus internal foci of attention on the learning of a tennis forehand stroke in 11-year old children. Three groups of participants practiced hitting tennis balls at a target. External focus group participants were instructed to direct their attention to the movement of the racquet, while participants in the internal focus group were asked to direct their attention to the movements of their arm. Participants in a control group did not receive attentional focus instructions. Two days after the practice phase (60 trials), learning was assessed in retention and transfer tests. The results showed that the external focus group demonstrated greater accuracy in hitting a target relative to the two other groups in retention, and relative to the internal focus group in transfer. We conclude that instructions inducing an external focus of attention can enhance children's sport skill learning.
Institutionalising Technologies: Masculinities, Femininities, and the Heterosexual Economy of the IT Classroom

Geographers' renewed interest in institutions reflects traditional concerns with the way institutions can shape geographies and a more recent interest in the ways geographies are important in shaping institutions. In this paper the authors build on this second strand of work and are specifically concerned with children's use of new information and communications technologies in schools. The authors suggest that multilayered institutional cultures, which are shaped by official school policy, teacher practice, and pupil culture, are exceedingly important in shaping distinct cultures of computing in (and within) the case-study schools. The highly gendered character of these institutional cultures is reflected in the very different attitudes of male and female pupils to computers and in the patterns of use which generally favour boys rather than girls. These are negotiated through competing masculinities and femininities in the classroom context, gender identities which are played out through normative understandings of heterosexuality. The authors conclude that we may indeed characterise institutions as ‘precarious geographical achievements’, as suggested by Parr and Philo. Schools are embedded within wider places, are important sites for the negotiation of gender and sexual identities, and, as spaces, are in part shaped through our notions of gender and sexuality. This achievement is only precarious as institutions are not forever solidified in their current form but are open to change, both inadvertently and through the concerted actions of individuals.
The Sacralization of the Individual: Human Rights and the Abolition of the Death Penalty1

In the latter half of the 20th century, countries abolished the death penalty en masse. What factors help to explain this global trend? Conventional analyses explain abolition by focusing primarily on state level political processes. This article contributes to these studies by analyzing world cultural factors that lend to the abolition trend. The main finding in three separate models on full, ordinary, and de facto cumulative measures of abolition show that the global sacralization of the individual, measured as the institutionalization of the human rights regime, represents a significant driver of states’ abolition. Countries’ predominant religion is also found to significantly affect the probability of abolition: predominantly Catholic nation-states are most likely to abolish the death penalty, and predominantly Muslim nation-states are least likely to abolish. These findings provide evidence for world cultural factors that structure the abolition trend globally.
How children tell a lie from a joke: The role of second‐order mental state attributions

The relationship between the ability to attribute second-order mental states and the ability to tell a joke from a lie was examined. Forty-eight children (mean age 6.8) were tested for their ability to make both second-order ignorance and belief attributions, and to discriminate lies from jokes. Children typically were able to distinguish a lie from a joke only after they could attribute second-order ignorance (Person 1 does not know what Person 2 knows). In contrast, children could distinguish a lie from a joke before they could attribute second-order false belief (Person 1 wrongly thinks that Person 2 thinks x). The presence of intonation distinguishing the joke from the lie had no effect on children's ability to determine that the joke was not intended as a lie. These results provide evidence for a relation between a selective aspect of the child's theory of mind (the ability to conceptualize second-order ignorance) and the child's ability to interpret and distinguish two kinds of intentionally false utterances.
Complexity theoretic limitations on learning halfspaces

We study the problem of agnostically learning halfspaces which is defined by a fixed but unknown distribution D on Q^n X {-1,1}. We define Err_H(D) as the least error of a halfspace classifier for D. A learner who can access D has to return a hypothesis whose error is small compared to Err_H(D). Using the recently developed method of Daniely, Linial and Shalev-Shwartz we prove hardness of learning results assuming that random K-XOR formulas are hard to (strongly) refute. We show that no efficient learning algorithm has non-trivial worst-case performance even under the guarantees that Err_H(D) <= eta for arbitrarily small constant eta>0, and that D is supported in the Boolean cube. Namely, even under these favorable conditions, and for every c>0, it is hard to return a hypothesis with error <= 1/2-n^{-c}. In particular, no efficient algorithm can achieve a constant approximation ratio. Under a stronger version of the assumption (where K can be poly-logarithmic in n), we can take eta = 2^{-log^{1-nu}(n)} for arbitrarily small nu>0. These results substantially improve on previously known results, that only show hardness of exact learning.
Measuring and Understanding Diversity Is Not So Simple: How Characteristics of Personal Identity Can Improve Museum Audience Studies

ABSTRACT For decades, museums have been seeking diversity in their audiences, for reasons including equity, vitality, community relations, and audience development. The initial emphasis on diversity was about race, and although museum initiatives and programming forged ahead with evolving definitions of diversity, the visitor studies field has a mixed record of participating in that evolution. The usefulness of visitor demographics in representing diversity has been debated and, although the field has exploded simple conceptions such as “the typical visitor,” visitor research professionals have not thoroughly applied our skills to help museums understand how to define, encourage, and monitor diversity, or to document its benefits. This article suggests that more thoughtful measures of audience diversity can be created by expanding demographics with characteristics of personal identity. Pragmatic examples of such measures in visitor research are presented.
Linking academic emotions and student engagement: mature-aged distance students’ transition to university

Research into both student engagement and student emotions is increasing, with widespread agreement that both are critical determinants of student success in higher education. Less researched are the complex, reciprocal relationships between these important influences. Two theoretical frameworks inform this paper: Pekrun’s taxonomy of academic emotions and Kahu’s conceptual framework of student engagement. The prospective qualitative design aims to allow a rich understanding of the fluctuating and diverse emotions that students experience during the transition to university and to explore the relationships between academic emotions and student engagement. The study follows 19 mature-aged (aged 24 and over) distance students throughout their first semester at university, using video diaries to collect data on their emotional experiences and their engagement with their study. Pre and post-semester interviews were also conducted. Findings highlight that different emotions have different links to engagement: as important elements in emotional engagement, as inhibitors of engagement and as outcomes that reciprocally influence engagement. There are two key conclusions. First, student emotions are the point of intersection between the university factors such as course design and student variables such as motivation and background. Second, the flow of influence between emotions, engagement, and learning is reciprocal and complex and can spiral upwards towards ideal engagement or downwards towards disengagement and withdrawal.
No Escape? The Coordination Problem in Heritage Preservation

Conservation Areas (CAs) are among the most restrictive English planning policies. Designation implies a significant limitation of owners' control over the shape and appearance of their properties. The policy, however, can also be argued to solve a sort of ‘prisoner's dilemma’, in which it might be collectively rational to preserve the character of an area, but an individual homeowner may be tempted to inappropriately alter their property, thus free-riding on nearby properties' character. The net benefit of the policy depends largely on the existence of positive ‘heritage effects’ and acknowledgement from homeowners that policy contributes to neighbourhood stability and the preservation of these positive effects. Our results of a mixed-method analysis of close to 1 million property transactions near to about 8000 CAs and 111 interviews with residents in nine representative CAs in Greater London suggest that positive heritage externalities exist and that residents in CAs tend to value their local environments, acknowledge the need for planning control, and execute their right to object to neighbour's planning request.
The Link between Inequality of Opportunity for Income Acquisition and Income Inequality : the French Example 1977-1993

We analyze equality of opportunity for earnings acquisition in France between 1973 and 1993 conditional on the father earnings in the earnings distribution using two waves of the French data set FQP. First, using stochastic dominance tools, we nd that inequality of opportunity has remained stable when conditioning on the earnings level of the father, while it has diminished when conditioning on his rank in the earnings distribution. The former result is explained by the stable intergenerational earnings elasticity. The latter by the decreasing wage inequality in the previous generation. Then, we decompose the evolution of inequality of opportunity using the mean logarithmic deviation and the results of regressions of descendants'earnings on their parents earnings. It is shown that the main reason beneath the reduction of inequality of opportunity lies in the decrease of earnings inequality taking place in the eighties. JEL Codes: D1, D3, J3
Comparison between self-concept and self-efficacy in academic motivation research

This exploratory review compares academic self-concept and self-efficacy research. From the conceptual perspective, self-concept emerges as a more complex construct incorporating both cognitive and affective responses toward the self and is heavily influenced by social comparison. Self-efficacy, in contrast, concerns primarily cognitive judgments of one's capabilities based on mastery criteria. Despite these differences, the 2 constructs demonstrate similar internal structures that are multifaceted and hierarchical. From the methodological perspective, self-efficacy research demonstrates more consistent operational definitions, more context-specific assessment of both the construct and outcomes, and more frequent implementation of experimental, as opposed to correlational, designs. In the past, self-concept research has used more general indexes of both self-concept and achievement and depends mostly on correlational rather than on experimental data. These differences, although not necessarily inherent in.
Can quantum decision theory explain the Ellsberg paradox

We report the results of an experiment we performed to test the matching probabilities for the Ellsberg paradox predicted by the quantum decision model of al-Nowaihi and Dhami (2016). We find that the theoretical predictions of that model are in conformity with our experimental results. This supports the thesis that violations of classical (Kolmogorov) probability theory may not be due to irrational behaviour but, rather, due to inadequacy of classical probability theory for the description of human behaviour.
Functionally Activated Brain Imaging (O‐15 PET and fMRI) in the Study of Learning and Memory after Traumatic Brain Injury

Advances in functional imaging technology and cognitive neuropsychology have resulted in paradigms in which participants can perform cognitive tasks during functional image acquisition. We will discuss the application of two approaches (oxygen-15 positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging) that have recently been used to examine components of learning and memory following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Activated functional brain imaging findings that we will discuss may suggest possible functional reallocation and reorganization of brain substrates involved in verbal learning and memory following brain injury. The findings also are clearly in line with other research that indicates a prominent role for the frontal lobes in learning and memory functioning, and support the concept of distributed neural networks for memory-related functions, cognitive load, and the potential for examining brain re-organization after injury.