Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BORIS/CTCFL-mediated transcriptional regulation of the hTERT telomerase gene in testicular and ovarian tumor cells

Telomerase activity, not detectable in somatic cells but frequently activated during carcinogenesis, confers immortality to tumors. Mechanisms governing expression of the catalytic subunit hTERT, the limiting factor for telomerase activity, still remain unclear. We previously proposed a model in which the binding of the transcription factor CTCF to the two first exons of hTERT results in transcriptional inhibition in normal cells. This inhibition is abrogated, however, by methylation of CTCF binding sites in 85% of tumors. Here, we showed that hTERT was unmethylated in testicular and ovarian tumors and in derivative cell lines. We demonstrated that CTCF and its paralogue, BORIS/CTCFL, were both present in the nucleus of the same cancer cells and bound to the first exon of hTERT in vivo. Moreover, exogenous BORIS expression in normal BORIS-negative cells was sufficient to activate hTERT transcription with an increasing number of cell passages. Thus, expression of BORIS was sufficient to allow hTERT transcription in normal cells and to counteract the inhibitory effect of CTCF in testicular and ovarian tumor cells. These results define an important contribution of BORIS to immortalization during tumorigenesis.
In Vivo Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Study of the Healthy Chinese Adult Pons

This paper aims to detect the normal standard of metabolic ratios in the Pons of healthy adult Chinese subjects by using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1HMRS). Eighty healthy Chinese subjects were divided into four groups, containing of 20 subjects per decade, ranging 21 to 60 years. Spectra were obtained from at 1.5 T MR scanner by using a PRESS sequence with Repetition Time (TR)/ Echo Time (TE) of 1500/144 ms. Results: The total mean ratios of N-acetylasparate/ creatine- phosphocreatine(NAA/Cr), NAA/Cr+ choline- containing compound(Cho) and Cho/Cr in subjects ranging from 21 to 60 years were 2.127plusmn0. 071, 0.811plusmn0. 059 and 1.814plusmn0094, respectively. The metabolic ratios in men were higher than in women. However, there was no significant difference with respect to age or gender. The ratios of NAA/Cr, NAA/Cr+Cho, Cho/Cr in the Pons did not correlate with age or gender of healthy subjects.
Focus of Attention and Verbal Instructions: Strategies of Elite Track and Field Coaches and Athletes

Focus of Attention and Verbal Instructions: Strategies of Elite Track and Field Coaches and Athletes It is well documented that directing attention externally enhances motor skill learning and performance under controlled experimental conditions. What is not well understood is how verbal instructions (VI) and feedback provided by coaches in authentic environments influences athletes' focus of attention. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the type of VI and feedback provided by experienced coaches during practice, and how this information influenced elite athletes' focus of attention during competition. Participants were athletes competing at the USA Track and Field Outdoor National Championships. Participants completed a survey inquiring about the VI and feedback provided during practice and what they focused on while competing. The data revealed that 84.6% of the participants reported that coaches provided instructions during practice that promoted an internal focus of attention. Participants also reported they utilize internal focus cues 69% of the time during competition. These results suggest that this sample of coaches provided instructions that focused athletes' attention internally. This practice strategy is inconsistent with motor learning research, which shows learning and performance are enhanced when using an external focus of attention during motor skill execution. Recommendations are made to improve coaching education curriculums, bridging the gap between science and application.
ISA configurability of an FPGA test-processor used for board-level interconnection testing

This paper presents a study of FPGA test-processor configurability at the instruction set architecture (ISA) level used for board-level interconnection testing. The ISA configurability is used as adaptation mechanism to the test requirements, the FPGA properties, and the devices under test (DUTs). The aim is to show the advantages and limitations of processor configurability at this level, and demonstrate them in the FPGA based test system (FBTS) developed for board-level interconnection testing. The paper presents the test-processor's concept, adaptation aspects, and architecture, followed by experimental results performed with different processor configurations. Results show the advantages of having a configurable test-processor in terms of performance and FPGA resource utilization.
Young School Children's Recess Physical Activity: Movement Patterns and Preferences.

This study examined physical activity (PA) variables related to recess PA patterns of kindergarten, first and second grade children, and the social preferences and individuals influencing their PA. Data collected (N = 147) used the System of Observing Children’s Activity and Relationships during Play (SOCARP) instrument. Children were interviewed. Kindergarten boys spent a significantly higher percentage of time in MVPA (t = 3.137, d = .96, p < .008). Kindergarten girls spent significantly more time standing (t = 3.548, d = 1.07, p < .008). Second grade boys spent a significantly (t = 4.44, d = 1.98, p < .0125) more time in sport activities. Second grade girls spent significantly more time in sedentary (t = 4.399, d = 1.11, p < .0125) and locomotor (t = 3.533, d = .899, p < .0125) activities. Participants articulated the prominence of friends, engaging in games/activities, and playing on the playground equipment.
Methodological Options for an Integrated Perspective on Organization

Devant la grande diversite des theories organisationnelles, la recherche doit parvenir a un minimum d'integration a meme de permettre une accumulation des savoirs. Cette demarche se heurte a de nombreux obstacles methodologiques et cet article tente d'en surmonter quelques uns dans la perspective d'un dialogue interdisciplinaire. Il s'agit d'homogeneiser les hypotheses ; de demeler les concepts complexes ; de renouveler les projets organisationnels
Identification of QTL for Fiber Quality and Yield Traits Using Two Immortalized Backcross Populations in Upland Cotton

Two immortalized backcross populations (DHBCF1s and JMBCF1s) were developed using a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population crossed with the two parents DH962 and Jimian5 (as the males), respectively. The fiber quality and yield component traits of the two backcross populations were phenotyped at four environments (two locations, two years). One hundred seventy-eight quantitative trait loci (QTL) were detected including 76 for fiber qualities and 102 for yield components, explaining 4.08–17.79% of the phenotypic variation (PV). Among the 178 QTL, 22 stable QTL were detected in more than one environment or population. A stable QTL, qFL-c10-1, was detected in the previous F2 population, a RIL population in 3 environments and the current two BCF1 populations in this study, explaining 5.79–37.09% of the PV. Additionally, 117 and 110 main-effect QTL (M-QTL) and 47 and 191 digenic epistatic QTL (E-QTL) were detected in the DHBCF1s and JMBCF1s populations, respectively. The effect of digenic epistasis played a more important role on lint percentage, fiber length and fiber strength. These results obtained in the present study provided more resources to obtain stable QTL, confirming the authenticity and reliability of the QTL for molecular marker-assisted selection breeding and QTL cloning.
Increased Cytochrome P4502E1 Expression and Altered Hydroxyeicosatetraenoic Acid Formation Mediate Diabetic Vascular Dysfunction

OBJECTIVE We investigated the mechanisms underlying vascular endothelial and contractile dysfunction in diabetes as well as the effect of HMR1766, a novel nitric oxide (NO)-independent activator of soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Two weeks after induction of diabetes by streptozotocin, Wistar rats received either placebo or HMR1766 (10 mg/kg twice daily) for another 2 weeks; thereafter, vascular function was assessed. RESULTS Endothelial function and contractile responses were significantly impaired, while vascular superoxide formation was increased in the aortae from diabetic versus healthy control rats. Using RNA microarrays, cytochrome P4502E1 (CYP2E1) was identified as the highest upregulated gene in diabetic aorta. CYP2E1 protein was significantly increased (16-fold) by diabetes, leading to a reduction in levels of the potent vasoconstrictor 20-hydroxy-eicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE). Induction of CYP2E1 expression in healthy rats using isoniazide mimicked the diabetic noncontractile vascular response while preincubation of aortae from STZ-diabetic rats in vitro with 20-HETE rescued contractile function. Chronic treatment with the sGC activator HMR1766 improved NO sensitivity and endothelial function, reduced CYP2E1 expression and superoxide formation, enhanced 20-HETE levels, and reversed the contractile deficit observed in the diabetic rats that received placebo. CONCLUSIONS Upregulation of CYP2E1 is essentially involved in diabetic vascular dysfunction. Chronic treatment with the sGC activator HMR1766 reduced oxidative stress, decreased CYP2E1 levels, and normalized vasomotor function in diabetic rats.
The Stapel Case: An Object Lesson in Research Integrity and Its Lapses

In 2011 the works of Diederik Stapel came under suspicion. It was thought that he was fabricating and/or falsifying data and publishing the false results. The investigation was far-reaching and involved the three Dutch universities at which he worked. All of his published articles were examined carefully; to date (September 13, 2013), fifty-four of the articles have been retracted. The present study investigates the scope of citations to the articles he published from 1998 through 2006. These years mark the middle stage of his research and publication record, and they provide ample time for the examination of citations to his articles. The numbers and nature of the citations (positive or acknowledging problems) are reported, and the implications of the acceptance of his work are explored.
Ocular Dominance Columns: Enigmas and Challenges

In some mammalian species, geniculocortical afferents serving each eye are segregated in layer 4C of striate cortex into stripes called ocular dominance columns. Having described the complete pattern of ocular dominance columns in the human brain, the authors enumerate here the principal enigmas that confront future investigators. Probably the overarching challenge is to explain the function, if any, of ocular dominance columns and why they are present in some species and not others. A satisfactory solution must account for the enormous natural variation, even within the same species, among individuals in column expression, pattern, periodicity, and alignment with other components of the functional architecture. Another major priority is to explain the development of ocular dominance columns. It has been established clearly that they form without visual experience, but the innate signals that guide their segregation and maturation are unknown. Experiments addressing the role of spontaneous retinal activity have yielded contradictory data. These studies must be reconciled, to pave the way for new insights into how columnar structure is generated in the cerebral cortex.
Collinearity: a review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance

Collinearity refers to the non independence of predictor variables, usually in a regression-type analysis. It is a common feature of any descriptive ecological data set and can be a problem for parameter estimation because it inflates the variance of regression parameters and hence potentially leads to the wrong identification of relevant predictors in a statistical model. Collinearity is a severe problem when a model is trained on data from one region or time, and predicted to another with a different or unknown structure of collinearity. To demonstrate the reach of the problem of collinearity in ecology, we show how relationships among predictors differ between biomes, change over spatial scales and through time. Across disciplines, different approaches to addressing collinearity problems have been developed, ranging from clustering of predictors, threshold-based pre-selection, through latent variable methods, to shrinkage and regularisation. Using simulated data with five predictor-response relationships of increasing complexity and eight levels of collinearity we compared ways to address collinearity with standard multiple regression and machine-learning approaches. We assessed the performance of each approach by testing its impact on prediction to new data. In the extreme, we tested whether the methods were able to identify the true underlying relationship in a training dataset with strong collinearity by evaluating its performance on a test dataset without any collinearity. We found that methods specifically designed for collinearity, such as latent variable methods and tree based models, did not outperform the traditional GLM and threshold-based pre-selection. Our results highlight the value of GLM in combination with penalised methods (particularly ridge) and threshold-based pre-selection when omitted variables are considered in the final interpretation. However, all approaches tested yielded degraded predictions under change in collinearity structure and the ‘folk lore’-thresholds of correlation coefficients between predictor variables of |r| >0.7 was an appropriate indicator for when collinearity begins to severely distort model estimation and subsequent prediction. The use of ecological understanding of the system in pre-analysis variable selection and the choice of the least sensitive statistical approaches reduce the problems of collinearity, but cannot ultimately solve them.
Is there an age deficit in the selection of mental sets?

Efficient selection of actions is dependent on higher-level constraints (mental sets) on lower-level selection. This paper explores the hypothesis that ageing leads to specific impairments associated with higher-level selection between mental sets. Indirect evidence for such a deficit comes from occasional findings of age differences in situations with high executive-control demands (e.g., Mayr & Kliegl, 1993) that are not easily explained in terms of other factors, such as general slowing or working memory parameters. More direct evidence comes from recent results with the so-called task-switching paradigm. Specifically, age-sensitive set-selection processes are indicated by age differences in “global selection costs” (i.e., the response-time difference between task-switching blocks and single-task blocks) which seem to be particularly large when demands in terms of “keeping competing mental sets apart” are high. Finally, data from a new variant of the task-switching paradigm (the “fade-out paradigm”) are reported which show that age differences in global costs persist substantially beyond a phase in which set-selection is actually necessary. Generally, evidence is consistent with the view that in older age, a costly set-selection mode of processing dominates over the more efficient within-set-selection mode of processing, possibly because of a problem with maintaining distinct representations of what ought to be done in the face of competing representations of what could be done in principle.
Mental representations of the syllable internal structure are influenced by orthography

Seven experiments run in Portuguese examined the role of orthography in blending phonologically defined CVC syllables written either with a final mute "e" (orthographic disyllables) or with a final consonant (orthographic monosyllables). Participants clearly relied on the spelling of the words (Experiment 1): the preferred blend was C/VC for words spelled with a final consonant but CV/C for words spelled with a final mute "e". The CV/C preference for mute-e-words was observed even when instructions emphasised the importance of their "sounds" (Experiment 5) and even when the two materials shared exactly the same rimes (Experiment 6). The blending pattern for pseudo-words shows that participants relied on the spelling of pseudo-words' neighbours (Experiment 2). Furthermore, the influence of orthography was observed for pseudo-words and homophonic words, depending on the spelling of contextual words (Experiments 3 and 4): the C/VC segmentation of pseudo-words and homophones was much more frequent in a context of words spelled CVC than in a context of mute-e-words. Finally, there was no substantial reduction of the spelling effect when crossing the acoustic portion of the rime between stimuli (Experiment 7) allowed control of possible acoustic-phonetic effects. The whole pattern of results shows that our phonological judgements about the structure of the syllable are shaped by the links between phonology and orthography.
Double Disadvantage or Signs of Resilience? The Elementary School Contexts of Children From Mexican Immigrant Families

Children from Mexican immigrant families represent one of the fastest-growing populations in the American educational system, but their ability to use this system to improve their long-term prospects may be hampered by problems associated with their schools. The present study explored this issue in a national sample of American kindergarteners. First, propensity score matching techniques revealed that children from Mexican immigrant families were overrepresented in schools with a wide variety of problematic characteristics, even when family background differences were taken into account. Second, multilevel models revealed that the mathematics achievement, mental health, and interpersonal functioning of these children were often at lower levels in such schools. Studies such as the present investigation demonstrate the value of developmental models of inequality and can inform policy by identifying points of intervention.
The Psychological Challenges of Replacing Conventional Karyotyping with Genomic SNP Array Analysis in Prenatal Testing

Pregnant couples tend to prefer a maximum of information about the health of their fetus. Therefore, we implemented whole genome microarray instead of conventional karyotyping (CK) for all indications for prenatal diagnosis (PND). The array detects more clinically relevant anomalies, including early onset disorders, not related to the indication and more genetic anomalies of yet unquantifiable risk, so-called susceptibility loci (SL) for mainly neurodevelopmental disorders. This manuscript highlights the psychological challenges in prenatal genetic counselling when using the array and provides counselling suggestions. First, we suggest that pre-test decision counselling should emphasize deliberation about what pregnant couples wish to learn about the future health of their fetus more than information about possible outcomes. Second, pregnant couples need support in dealing with SL. Therefore, in order to consider the SL in a proportionate perspective, the presence of phenotypes associated with SL in the family, the incidence of a particular SL in control populations and in postnatally ascertained patients needs highlighting during post-test genetic counselling. Finally, the decision that couples need to make about the course of their pregnancy is more complicated when the expected phenotype is variable and not quantifiable. Therefore, during post-test psychological counseling, couples should concretize the options of continuing and ending their pregnancy; all underlying feelings and thoughts should be made explicit, as well as the couple’s resources, in order to attain adequate decision-making. As such, pre- and post-test counselling aids pregnant couples in handling the uncertainties that may accompany offering a broader scope of genetic PND using the array.
A Psychometric Investigation of the Georgian Version of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire

The current study presents the results of the adaptation of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; Petrides, 2009) to the Georgian population. Nine hundred twenty two individuals participated in the standardization of the instrument (267 male and 655 female participants, from 17 to 70 years). Results from exploratory factor analyses indicate that the factor structure of the British TEIQue is broadly replicated in the Georgian translation. The Georgian Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire comprises 15 primary facets and four higher-order factors: Emotionality, Sociability, Self-Control, and Well-Being. The Cronbach α reliabilities of the TEIQue factors ranged from . 69 to . 82, and from . 62 to . 81 for the 15 facets. TEIQue global scores were normally distributed. There were no gender differences in global TEI scores, though such differences did emerge in some TEI factors and facets.
THE EFFECT OF STATIC,BALLISTIC, AND PROPRIOCEPTIVE NEUROMUSCULAR FACILITATION STRETCHING ON VERTICAL JUMP PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study was to compare the acute effects of different modes of stretching on vertical jump performance. Eighteen male university students (age, 24.3 ± 3.2 years; height, 181.5 ± 11.4 cm; body mass, 78.1 ± 6.4 kg; mean ± SD) completed 4 different conditions in a randomized order, on different days, interspersed by a minimum of 72 hours of rest. Each session consisted of a standard 5-minute cycle warm-up, accompanied by one of the subsequent conditions: (a) control, (b) 10-minute static stretching, (c) 10-minute ballistic stretching, or (d) 10-minute proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching. The subjects performed 3 trials of static and countermovement jumps prior to stretching and poststretching at 5, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. Vertical jump height decreased after static and PNF stretching (4.0% and 5.1%, p < 0.05) and there was a smaller decrease after ballistic stretching (2.7%, p > 0.05). However, jumping performance had fully recovered 15 minutes after all stretching conditions. In conclusion, vertical jump performance is diminished for 15 minutes if performed after static or PNF stretching, whereas ballistic stretching has little effect on jumping performance. Consequently, PNF or static stretching should not be performed immediately prior to an explosive athletic movement.
Denoised Bottleneck Features From Deep Autoencoders for Telephone Conversation Analysis

Automatic transcription of spoken documents is affected by automatic transcription errors that are especially frequent when speech is acquired in severe noisy conditions. Automatic speech recognition errors induce errors in the linguistic features used for a variety of natural language processing tasks. Recently, denoisng autoencoders (DAE) and stacked autoencoders (SAE) have been proposed with interesting results for acoustic feature denoising tasks. This paper deals with the recovery of corrupted linguistic features in spoken documents. Solutions based on DAEs and SAEs are considered and evaluated in a spoken conversation analysis task. In order to improve conversation theme classification accuracy, the possibility of combining abstractions obtained from manual and automatic transcription features is considered. As a result, two original representations of highly imperfect spoken documents are introduced. They are based on bottleneck features of a supervised autoencoder that takes advantage of both noisy and clean transcriptions to improve the robustness of error prone representations. Experimental results on a spoken conversation theme identification task show substantial accuracy improvements obtained with the proposed recovery of corrupted features.