Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DIFFERENCES IN PHOTOSYNTHESIS AND TERPENE CONTENT IN LEAVES AND ROOTS IN WILD-TYPE AND TRANSGENIC Arabidopsis PLANTS

--We investigated the hypotheses that two different varieties of Arabidopsis thaliana show differences in physiology and terpene production. The two varieties of A. thaliana used in this study were wild-type (WT) and transgenic line (CoxIV-FaNES I) genetically modified to emit nerolidol with linalool/nerolidol synthase (COX). Photosynthetic rate, electron transport rate, fluorescence, leaf volatile terpene contents and root volatile terpene contents were analyzed. For both types, we found co-eluting α-pinene+β-ocimene, limonene, and humulene in leaves; and in the roots we found co-eluting α-pinene+β-ocimene, sabinene+β-pinene, β-myrcene, limonene, and humulene. At the end of the growing cycle, COX plants tended to have lower pools of terpene compounds in their leaves, with 78.6% lower photosynthesis rates and 30.8% lower electron transport rates, compared with WT plants at that time. The maximal photochemical efficiency Fv/Fm was also significantly lower (25.5%) in COX plants, indicating that these varieties were more stressed than WT plants. However, COX plants had higher (239%) root terpene contents compared to WT plants. COX plants appear to favor root production of volatile terpenes rather than leaf production. Thus we conclude that there were significant differences between COX and WT plants in terms of terpenoid pools, stress status and physiology. ----------------------------------------------------------------Abbreviations: A---CO2 uptake; COX--transgenic line (CoxIV-FaNES I); ETR---electron transport rate; Fv/Fm---maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII; F/F’m---actual photochemical efficiency of PSII; gs---stomatal conductance; TPSs---terpene synthases; VOCs---volatile organic compounds; WT---wild-type.
The dynamics of bimanual coordination inattention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The present research examined how the inhibitory dysfunction observed in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affects bimanual coordination in three experiments with unmedicated boys (aged 8 to 15) with ADHD-C (with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)) and matched controls. Experiment 1 (N = 31, Mean age = 11 years : 9 months) explored the dynamics of bimanual circling using both free-hand movements using circle templates and constrained movements using cranks. Impairment in temporal stability was mostly attributable to difficulties in controlling the spatial component of the task, which was more pronounced in children with comorbid DCD. Experiment 2 (N = 32, Mean age = 12 years : 1 month) used a Stop-re-engagement paradigm (Change task) with a continuous (hand-circling) task to investigate whether inhibitory deficits at the central level of processing and/or allocation of effort in ADHD affect movement coordination. The ADHD and ADHD/DCD groups showed a lack of inhibitory control, as measured by Switch reaction time. However, these children also displayed slower and more variable speed of execution and the apparent inhibitory deficit was more associated with the reengagement component of the task. Experiment 3 (N = 32, Mean age = 12 years : 1 month) used the Change Task, as traditionally delivered by computer, to investigate the source of the poor response re-engagement. Results showed a slow mode of information processing in ADHD groups rather than a deficit in the processes necessary to inhibit a prepotent xii response. Processing speed was most impaired in children with ADHD/DCD, indicating that difficulties in cognitive flexibility and motor coordination were the main deficits. The overall results are a better fit for the hypothesis that ADHD involves a deficit in the regulation of energetic states. It was concluded that children with ADHD without DCD do not suffer from bimanual coordination impairment and that it is a necessity for future bimanual coordination studies to control for the presence of comorbid DCD in ADHD samples.
What factors of motivation predict achievement of college readiness? A study of self-determination and college readiness

This predictive, correlational study examines the association between the fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs (relatedness, competence, and autonomy) described by selfdetermination theory and the academic achievement of college readiness as measured by ACT scores. Self-determination theory posits that fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs is associated with greater academic achievement. Juniors from a public high school complete the Basic Psychological Needs Scale questionnaire and the results will be analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression to determine whether or not relatedness, competence, and/or autonomy may be predictors of college readiness achievement.
Characteristics and concordance of autism spectrum disorders among 277 twin pairs.

OBJECTIVES To examine patterns of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) inheritance and other features in twin pairs by zygosity, sex, and specific ASD diagnosis. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Internet-based autism registry for US residents. PARTICIPANTS Survey results from 277 twin pairs (210 dizygotic [DZ] and 67 monozygotic [MZ]) aged 18 years or younger with at least 1 affected twin. MAIN EXPOSURES Zygosity and sex. OUTCOME MEASURES Concordance within twin pairs of diagnosis, natural history, and results from standardized autism screening. RESULTS Pairwise ASD concordance was 31% for DZ and 88% for MZ twins. Female and male MZ twins were 100% and 86% concordant, respectively, and DZ twin pairs with at least 1 female were less likely to be concordant (20%) than were male-male DZ twin pairs (40%). The hazard ratio for ASD diagnosis of the second twin after a first-twin diagnosis was 7.48 for MZ vs DZ twins (95% confidence interval, 3.8-14.7). Affected DZ individual twins had an earlier age at first parental concern and more frequent diagnoses of intellectual disability than did MZ twins; MZ twins had a higher prevalence of bipolar disorder and Asperger syndrome and higher concordance of the latter. Results of autism screening correlated with parent-reported ASD status in more than 90% of cases. CONCLUSIONS Our data support greater ASD concordance in MZ vs DZ twins. Overall higher functioning, psychiatric comorbidity, and Asperger syndrome concordance among affected MZ vs DZ twins may also suggest differential heritability for different ASDs. For families in which one MZ twin is diagnosed with ASD, the second twin is unlikely to receive an ASD diagnosis after 12 months. In addition, Internet parent report of ASD status is valid.
The influence of the physical state and habitual mastication on the glycaemic response and satiety

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Accuracy of patients' recall of pap and cholesterol screening.

Am J Public Health 2000 90:1431–5 A cross-sectional, door-to-door community survey was used to gather self-report data on Pap smear and cholesterol screening from 195 rural Australian individuals randomly selected from population statistics. Trained interviewers used a standard reporting form to collect information on screening results, knowledge of recommended screening frequency, and demographics. The two regional pathology laboratories were queried about consenting patients. Adequate screening was defined as any smear within 2 years. Of 146 women eligible for validation of Pap smears, the sensitivity of a self-report of inadequate screening was 45%, the specificity was 98%, the negative predictive value was 72%, and the positive predictive value was 93%. For example, 93% of women who said they had not had a Pap smear in at least 2 years in fact had not, while only 72% of those who claimed to have had a smear within 2 years actually had. Among 91 women reporting Pap results, more than half of those with abnormalities were missed by self-report. The accuracy of recall was not associated with knowledge or demographic factors. Comment: Although its use of a rural, Australian population limits the ability to generalize the conclusions of the report for the population in the United States, the results of this study are consistent with those of previous ones: women tend to overestimate the frequency of their Pap smears and to minimize their recall of abnormalities. Self-report should not be used in studies of the adequacy of Pap smear screening, and it should not be relied on to determine who is eligible for screening at 3-year intervals by virtue of three prior normal smears. (LSM)
Utility Assessment of Specificity in Upward Feedback Instruments for Leadership Development

Abstract : Recently, organizations have been modifying performance appraisal systems to collect data from multiple sources to guide the development of supervisors. Upward feedback programs focus on development rather than appraisal by supplementing traditional downward feedback with subordinate feedback. The utility of two upward feedback instruments was assessed in this study; one is a commercially available instrument, the Leadership Practices Inventory (Posner & Kouzes, 1988) and the other is the recently developed, non-proprietary Upward Feedback Instrument (2002). The Upward Feedback Instrument was designed to measure leadership behaviors at a more specific level. It was thought that greater feedback specificity world lead to greater intentions to change behavior and consequently, greater actual behavior change. This research developed and administered a utility assessment to supervisors and their subordinates in order to determine the performance of the respective instruments. Although the feedback specificity did not provide greater intentions to change, discretion, perceived organizational support, and perceptions of accuracy and usefulness were found to significantly affect intentions to change and actual behavior change.
Signature Analysis of Mechanical Watch by Reassigned Scalogram

This paper presents a new method for the signature analysis of mechanical watch movements. Contrary to the existing method, it analyzes the time-frequency features of mechanical watch movement through a combination of reassigned scalogram and Finite Element Analysis (FEA). By mapping the signal into a 2D domain of time and frequency, the reassigned scalogram reveals the frequency components of the shocks at different time. On the other hand, FEA gives the modal frequencies of the movements. By comparing the frequency components at different shocks to the modal frequencies of the movement, possible malfunctions of the movement can then be detected. A number of demonstration examples are included.
Estimation of Treatment Effects Without an Exclusion Restriction with an Application to the Analysis of the School Breakfast Program

While the rise in childhood obesity is clear, the policy ramifications are not. School nutrition programs such as the School Breakfast Program (SBP) have come under much scrutiny. However, the lack of experimental evidence, combined with non-random selection into these programs, makes identification of the causal effects of such programs difficult. In the case of the SBP, this difficulty is exacerbated by the apparent lack of exclusion restrictions. Here, we compare via Monte Carlo study several existing estimators that do not rely on exclusion restrictions for identification. In addition, we propose two new estimation strategies. Simulations illustrate the usefulness of our new estimators, as well as provide applied researchers several practical guidelines when analyzing the causal effects of binary treatments. More importantly, we find consistent evidence of a beneficial causal effect of SBP participation on childhood obesity when applying estimators designed to circumvent selection on unobservables.
Attitudinal Effects on Numerical Anchoring: A Mere Exposure Approach

Recent research suggests that an attitude change perspective on anchoring offers important supplementation to existing theories of anchoring. Past data has shown that people are more influenced by anchors when they are directionally consistent with their attitudes. This could be a result of individuals seeking information that is consistent with their attitude. This effect could also arise from differences in knowledge about the anchor. The present research aims to distinguish between these two possibilities by manipulating attitude without changing knowledge about the anchoring target. Experiment 1 established subliminal mere exposure of fictional brand names as a successful means of manipulating participants’ attitudes toward generic objects. Experiment 2 revealed that participants assigned higher price evaluations to objects with previously exposed brand names. Experiments 3a and 3b aimed to investigate the relationship between anchoring patterns and anchor-attitude consistency. Data analysis for Experiments 3a and 3b only showed a main effect for anchoring. Thus, a paradigm adjustment may be needed to document simultaneous effects of both mere exposure and numeric anchors in the future.
Rural and Community Development in Nigeria: An Assessment

The paper examines rural or community development in Nigeria with emphasis on the institutions, agencies, policies and strategies employed to bring about the much needed rural development in the country. It goes further to assess the impacts of the various efforts made by both the domestic and foreign governments and international organizations, institutions, agencies and non-governmental organizations to bring about real development at the grassroots level. In the attempt to do this, clarification of concepts like development, rural areas, and rural development was carried out, which formed the theoretical basis of the analysis. It was found out that efforts made by the Nigerian government though several strategies like the nation’s development plans from colonial era to date which were ex-rayed did not bring about meaningful development. Similarly international organizations and regional strategies have not lead to any significant improvement in the living conditions of the rural dwellers and rural development in general. It was also found out that a number of issues such as corruption and mismanagement, faulty planning from above rather than bottom-up approach; pursuance of the colonial and neo-colonial economic and social policies which were anti people among other factors led to failure of the rural development efforts. The paper therefore concludes among other things that for rapid and sustained rural development to take place, the lopsided and urban based development process must be reversed to rural-based and bottom-up approach, government to continue to create conducive environment for rural development to thrive, change of attitudes and orientation by all and sundry, particularly the leadership class in Nigeria in order to minimize corruption and mismanagement of resources. Therefore, for rural development to be realistic and enduring, these measures should be given priority attention, especially at the implementation stages.
The Role of Probiotics and Prebiotics in Inducing Gut Immunity

The gut immune system is influenced by many factors, including dietary components and commensal bacteria. Nutrients that affect gut immunity and strategies that restore a healthy gut microbial community by affecting the microbial composition are being developed as new therapeutic approaches to treat several inflammatory diseases. Although probiotics (live microorganisms) and prebiotics (food components) have shown promise as treatments for several diseases in both clinical and animal studies, an understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind the direct and indirect effects on the gut immune response will facilitate better and possibly more efficient therapy for diseases. In this review, we will first describe the concept of prebiotics, probiotics, and symbiotics and cover the most recently well-established scientific findings regarding the direct and indirect mechanisms by which these dietary approaches can influence gut immunity. Emphasis will be placed on the relationship of diet, the microbiota, and the gut immune system. Second, we will highlight recent results from our group, which suggest a new dietary manipulation that includes the use of nutrient products (organic selenium and Lithothamnium muelleri) and probiotics (Saccharomyces boulardii UFMG 905 and Bifidobacterium sp.) that can stimulate and manipulate the gut immune response, inducing intestinal homeostasis. Furthermore, the purpose of this review is to discuss and translate all of this knowledge into therapeutic strategies and into treatment for extra-intestinal compartment pathologies. We will conclude by discussing perspectives and molecular advances regarding the use of prebiotics or probiotics as new therapeutic strategies that manipulate the microbial composition and the gut immune responses of the host.
Extracorporeal Life Support in Multisystem Smooth Muscle Dysfunction Syndrome

We describe an infant with congenital mydriasis, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), pulmonary hypertension, and cystic lung disease. She had all the major components of multisystemic smooth muscle dysfunction syndrome. Due to progressive respiratory deterioration, she required surgical PDA interruption, extracorporeal life support, and subsequent prolonged respiratory support. Genetic testing revealed ACTA2 R179H mutation and cystic lung disease on biopsy.
Neural Mechanisms of Visual Working Memory in Prefrontal Cortex of the Macaque

Prefrontal (PF) cells were studied in monkeys performing a delayed matching to sample task, which requires working memory. The stimuli were complex visual patterns and to solve the task, the monkeys had to discriminate among the stimuli, maintain a memory of the sample stimulus during the delay periods, and evaluate whether a test stimulus matched the sample presented earlier in the trial. PF cells have properties consistent with a role in all three of these operations. Approximately 25% of the cells responded selectively to different visual stimuli. Half of the cells showed heightened activity during the delay after the sample and, for many of these cells, the magnitude of delay activity was selective for different samples. Finally, more than half of the cells responded differently to the test stimuli depending on whether they matched the sample. Because inferior temporal (IT) cortex also is important for working memory, we compared PF cells with IT cells studied in the same task. Compared with IT cortex, PF responses were less often stimulus-selective but conveyed more information about whether a given test stimulus was a match to the sample. Furthermore, sample-selective delay activity in PF cortex was maintained throughout the trial even when other test stimuli intervened during the delay, whereas delay activity in IT cortex was disrupted by intervening stimuli. The results suggest that PF cortex plays a primary role in working memory tasks and may be a source of feedback inputs to IT cortex, biasing activity in favor of behaviorally relevant stimuli.
A High-Dose Shiitake Mushroom Increases Hepatic Accumulation of Triacylglycerol in Rats Fed a High-Fat Diet: Underlying Mechanism

Shiitake mushroom have been shown to have health benefits including lowering plasma lipids and preventing body weight gain. However, their underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. The study aim was to assess the potential underlying mechanism of Shiitake mushrooms in lowering plasma triacylglycerol (TAG) in rats fed a high fat diet (HFD). Forty Wistar rats were divided into control group were given HFD and treatment group were fed HFD, enriched with Shiitake mushroom powder at a low dose (LD-M): 0.7%, medium dose (MD-M): 2%, or high dose (HD-M): 6% (wt:wt) for six weeks. Diets were isocaloric containing ~50% energy from fat. After six weeks’ dietary intervention, the rats were sacrificed, and blood and tissue samples were collected. The HD-M group showed a significantly higher ratio of liver weight to 100 g body weight (p < 0.05), a more severe hepatic steatosis marker, such as hepatocyte ballooning (p < 0.0001), and more liver triacylglycerol content than LD-M and MD-M (p < 0.05). HD-M also showed a significantly decreased ratio of phosphatidylcholine (PC) to phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) compared to HFD (p < 0.05), however, there were no differences compared to HD-M and MD-M. Our results also showed a positive association between the dosage, liver TAG, and liver ballooning histology. A negative association was found between the mushroom dosage and the ratio of liver PC to PE. This study showed the mechanism of how high-dose Shiitake mushroom (HD-M) prevents obesity by increasing TAG accumulation in the liver, rather than adipose tissue.
A new approach to estimating hazard posed by debris flows in the Westfjords of Iceland

10 The aim of this study is to improve the assessment of hazard posed by debris flows to 11 the people and settlements of northwest Iceland by studying very recent examples from above 12 the town of Ísafjörður and other nearby localities. Debris flows are a recognised hazard in the 13 region: above Ísafjörður, they occur with particula rly high frequency and have appreciable 14 volumes (up to 14 000 m ). We have used airborne laser altimeter (LiDAR) an d differential 15 Global Positioning System (GPS) data to produce iso pach maps of flows that occurred in 16 1999, 2007, and 2008. Our data show that these flow s begin depositing at higher slope 17 gradients and are also more mobile than hillslope d ebris flows reported by other authors. 18 Above a 19° slope, erosion is initiated independent of the distance along the flowpath. Using 19 the isopach maps and associated field observations, we have found a relationship between 20 ground slope and patterns in deposition volume. We have used this finding as a basis for an 21 empirical model that enables an estimate of the tot al ravel distance and final thickness of 22 future debris flows to be calculated. This has enab led us to identify areas of the town which 23 are at risk; some of these are not obvious without this analysis. This model is notable for its 24 simplicity, which allows future debris flow charact eristics to be predicted without the need to 25 AC C EP TE D M AN U SC R IP T ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT determine the precise fluid dynamic parameters of t he flow such as viscosity and velocity, 26 which are required to implement more complex models . 27 28