Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Scaffolding-Based Instruction Improve Writing Performance? The Case of Jordanian EFL Learners

The present study examines the potential effect of scaffolding instruction on Jordanian EFL tenth-grade students’ overall writ ing performance and their performance on the sub-skills of focus, development, organization, conventions and word cho ice. The study follows a quasi-experimental experimental/control g roup, pre-/post test design. In the experimental group, 20 female t enth-grade students from the North-Eastern Badia Directorate of Educatio n (Jordan) were taught to generate ideas, structure, draft, and edi t the r essays using agency scaffolding and the scaffolding principles o f contextual support, continuity, intersubjectivity, flow, conti gency and handover, within the Zone of Proximal Development. Another gr oup of 28 students was instructed conventionally per the guid elines outlined in the Teacher’s Book. After the treatment, descriptive statistics and ANCOVA were used to analyze the students’ scores on the pre-test and the post test. The results showed that the scaf folding instruction group outperformed the control group (at α≤ 0.05) in their overall writing performance and in their performance on all writing sub-skills except the sub-skill of development. Does Scaffolding-Based Instruction Improve Writing Performance? 107
A Biochemical and Cellular Approach to Explore the Antiproliferative and Prodifferentiative Activity of Aloe Arborescens Leaf Extract

Aloe arborescens Miller, belonging to the Aloe genus (Liliaceae family), is one of the main varieties of Aloe used worldwide. Although less characterized than the commonest Aloe vera, Aloe arborescens is known to be richer in beneficial phytotherapeutic, anticancer, and radio‐protective properties. It is commonly used as a pharmaceutical ingredient for its effect in burn treatment and ability to increase skin wound healing properties. However, very few studies have addressed the biological effects of Aloe at molecular level. The aim of the research is to provide evidences for the antiproliferative properties of Aloe arborescens crude leaf extract using an integrated proteomic and cellular biological approach. We analysed the composition of an Aloe arborescens leaf extract by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry analysis. We found it rich in Aloe‐emodin, a hydroxylanthraquinone with known antitumoral activity and in several compounds with anti‐oxidant properties. Accordingly, we show that the Aloe extract has antiproliferative effects on several human transformed cell lines and exhibits prodifferentiative effects on both primary and immortalized human keratinocyte. Proteomic analysis of whole cell extracts revealed the presence of proteins with a strong antiproliferative and antimicrobial activity specifically induced in human keratinocytes by Aloe treatment supporting its application as a therapeutical agent. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Clarification of the Phylogenetic Framework of the Tribe Baorini (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Hesperiinae) Inferred from Multiple Gene Sequences

Members of the skipper tribe Baorini generally resemble each other and are characterized by dark brown wings with hyaline white spots. These shared characteristics have caused difficulties with revealing the relationships among genera and species in the group, and some conflicting taxonomic views remain unresolved. The present study aims to infer a more comprehensive phylogeny of the tribe using molecular data, to test the monophyly of the tribe as well as the genera it includes in order to clarify their taxonomic status, and finally to revise the current classification of the group. In order to reconstruct a phylogenetic tree, the mitochondrial COI-COII and 16S genes as well as the nuclear EF-1α and 28S genes were analyzed using parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference. The analysis included 67 specimens of 41 species, and we confirmed the monophyly of Baorini, and revealed that 14 genera are well supported. The genus Borbo is separated into three clades: Borbo, Pseudoborbo, and Larsenia gen. nov. We confirmed that Polytremis is polyphyletic and separated into three genera: Polytremis, Zinaida, and Zenonoida gen. nov., and also confirmed that the genus Prusiana is a member of the tribe. Relationships among some genera were strongly supported. For example, Zenonia and Zenonoida were found to be sister taxa, closely related to Zinaida and Iton, while Pelopidas and Baoris were also found to cluster together.
High-resolution mapping of the origin of DNA replication in the hamster dihydrofolate reductase gene domain by competitive PCR

By the use of a highly sensitive mapping procedure allowing the identification of the start sites of DNA replication in single-copy genomic regions of untreated, exponentially growing cultured cells (M. Giacca, L. Zentilin, P. Norio, S. Diviacco, D. Dimitrova, G. Contreas, G. Biamonti, G. Perini, F. Weighardt, S. Riva, and A. Falaschi, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91:7119-7123, 1994), the pattern of DNA replication of the Chinese hamster dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene domain was investigated. The method entails the purification of short stretches of nascent DNA issuing from DNA replication origin regions and quantification, within this sample, of the abundance of different adjacent segments by competitive PCR. Distribution of marker abundance peaks around the site from which newly synthesized DNA had emanated. The results obtained by analysis of the genomic region downstream of the DHFR single-copy gene in asynchronous cultures of hamster CHO K1 cells are consistent with the presence of a single start site for DNA replication, located approximately 17 kb downstream of the gene. This site is coincident with the one detected by other studies using different techniques in CHO cell lines containing an amplified DHFR gene domain.
Uniqueness of A ∞ structures and Hochschild cohomology

Working over a commutative ground ring, we establish a Hochschild cohomology criterion for uniqueness of derived A ∞ algebra structures in the sense of Sagave. We deduce a Hochschild cohomology criterion for intrinsic formality of a differ ential graded algebra. This generalizes a classical result of Kadeishvili for the case of a graded algebra over a ﬁeld.
Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning.

Taking tests enhances learning. But what happens when one cannot answer a test question-does an unsuccessful retrieval attempt impede future learning or enhance it? The authors examined this question using materials that ensured that retrieval attempts would be unsuccessful. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked fictional general-knowledge questions (e.g., "What peace treaty ended the Calumet War? "). In Experiments 3-6, participants were shown a cue word (e.g., whale) and were asked to guess a weak associate (e.g., mammal); the rare trials on which participants guessed the correct response were excluded from the analyses. In the test condition, participants attempted to answer the question before being shown the answer; in the read-only condition, the question and answer were presented together. Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhanced learning with both types of materials. These results demonstrate that retrieval attempts enhance future learning; they also suggest that taking challenging tests-instead of avoiding errors-may be one key to effective learning.
Prioritizing surgical waiting lists.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This paper deals with the problem of surgical waiting lists and is aimed, in particular, at comparing two different prioritization approaches: (1) the clinical assessment of treatment urgency aimed at categorizing patients into urgency-related groups (URGs) with a given recommended maximum waiting time for treatment; and (2) the implementation of an original prioritization scoring algorithm aimed at determining the relative priority of each patient in the waiting list and the corresponding order of admission. METHODS A modelling exercise based on a cohort of 236 patients enrolled on the waiting list of a surgical department in an Italian public university hospital, from 1 January to 30 June 2004, is presented. The comparison is based on a measure called need-adjusted-waiting-days, which allows to take into proper account both urgency and priority. RESULTS The results show that both methods should be implemented simultaneously for increasing the department's performance in terms of both efficiency--outcome gained from a given amount of resources--and equity--how patients are admitted according to their need. CONCLUSIONS Waiting list prioritization should not be limited to classifying patients into URGs, but to using a scoring system as well, in order to schedule patient admissions in an explicit and transparent way.
Successfully completing case study research: combining rigour, relevance and pragmatism

The organizational and social issues associated with the development, implementation and use of computer‐based information systems have increasingly attracted the attention of information systems researchers. Interest in qualitative research methods such as action research, case study research and ethnography, which focus on understanding social phenomena in their natural setting, has consequently grown. Case study research is the most widely used qualitative research method in information systems research, and is well suited to understanding the interactions between information technology‐related innovations and organizational contexts. Although case study research is useful as a means of studying information systems development and use in the field, there can be practical difficulties associated with attempting to undertake case studies as a rigorous and effective method of research. This paper addresses a number of these difficulties and offers some practical guidelines for successfully completing case study research. The paper focuses on the pragmatics of conducting case study research, and draws from the discussion at a panel session conducted by the authors at the 8th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, September 1997 (ACIS 97), from the authors' practical experiences, and from the case study research literature.
Effects of age and practice in sequence learning: A graded account of ageing, learning, and control

The influence of age and practice level was investigated in sequence learning by testing young, middle-aged, and older participants, who first performed a serial reaction time (SRT) task, either after a short or a long training phase (15 vs. 30 training blocks). Unknown to them, successive stimuli followed a repeating pattern. After training, participants performed a sequence generation task under inclusion and exclusion instructions, and a recognition task. SRT and generation data indicate (1) preserved learning and generation abilities in ageing and (2) beneficial effects of extended practice. By contrast, recognition data suggest that ageing tends to impair discrimination performance. Implications of these findings for understanding the effects of age and practice on the ability to control sequential knowledge are discussed in terms of the involvement of gradual representations of sequence structure.
Prehension movements in Parkinson's disease

Prehension movements to wooden dowels have been studied in healthy elderly adults and Parkinson's disease patients, using a three camera WATSMART system. Patients were slower overall and showed an additional impairment in the decelaration period when they instructed to move fast or to grasp without vision of the target. Proportion of time to peak velocity was smaller, but coordination between transport and manipulation components of the movement was not differentially impaired. While PD patients could vary tangential velocity of the wrist within subnormal limits, they were unable to pick up the objects very fast when they were instructed to do so. They use a reduced safety margin of grip aperture for movements in spatial accuracy have to be taken into account and need significantly more time to establish a firm grip when they have no vision of the objects and must rely on somatosensory information for grip control
Measuring service quality in higher education: Development of a hierarchical model (HESQUAL)

Purpose – This paper aims to develop and empirically test a hierarchical model for measuring service quality in higher education. Design/methodology/approach – The first phase of the study consisted of qualitative research methods and a comprehensive literature review, which allowed the development of a conceptual model comprising 53 service quality attributes. Quantitative methods were used for the second phase so as to test the dimensionality of the measurement instrument and assess its validity and reliability. A sample of 207 students was surveyed, and data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha test. Findings – The results of the factor analysis revealed the presence of sub-dimensions. A hierarchical model was therefore considered most appropriate. The final model consisted of five primary dimensions, which are administrative quality, physical environment quality, core educational quality, support facilities quality and transformative quality. The instrument contained a .
Common Pediatric Elbow Fractures

Fractures of the elbow are a very common injury in children. The most common mechanism of injury is a fall on an outstretched upper extremity during play. Ranging in complexity from low-energy nondisplaced occult fractures to high-energy fractures with associated severe soft-tissue and neurovascular injuries, elbow fractures are a challenging problem for all pediatric healthcare providers. Because of the wide spectrum of fracture severity and associated bony and ligamentous injury, a very diverse spectrum of treatment modalities is necessary for optimal results. Management is based on fracture pattern, patient age and bone quality, extent of soft tissue damage, functional needs of the patient, and the presence of associated injuries. This article will give a brief overview of 4 common pediatric fractures, current treatment algorithms, and frequent complications associated with these injuries.
Autophagy potentially protects against 2,3,7,8‐tetrachlorodibenzo‐p‐Dioxin induced apoptosis in SH‐SY5Y cells

The environmental toxicant TCDD may elicit cytotoxic effects by inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Autophagy is one of the first lines of defense against oxidative stress damage. Herein, we investigated whether autophagy played a regulatory role in TCDD‐induced neurotoxicity. Here, we showed that TCDD exposure caused marked autophagy in SH‐SY5Y cells, whose dose range was close to that inducing apoptosis. Electron microscopic and Western blot analyses revealed that TCDD induced autophagy at a starting dose of approximate 100 nM. Interestingly, 100–200 nM TCDD exposure resulted in obviously decreased cell viability and evident apoptotic phenotype. Furthermore, the levels of pro‐apoptotic molecules, Bax and cleaved‐PARP, increased significantly, whereas Bcl2 declined after exposed to 100 nM TCDD. In addition, the apoptosis was verified using flow cytometrical analysis. These data strongly suggested that TCDD induced both autophagy and apoptosis at a similar dose range in SH‐SY5Y cells. Interestingly, pretreatment with ROS scavenger, N‐acetyl‐cysteine (NAC), could effectively block both TCDD‐induced apoptosis and autophagy. More surprisingly, inhibition of autophagy with 3‐methyladenine (3MA), remarkably augmented TCDD‐induced apoptosis. The findings implicated that the onset of autophagy might serve as a protective mechanism to ameliorate ROS‐triggered cytotoxic effects in human SH‐SY5Y neuronal cells under TCDD exposure. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 31: 1068–1079, 2016.
Cascaded doubly-selective channel estimation in multi-relay AF OFDM transmissions

This paper studies the problem of channel estimation in amplify-and-forward (AF) multi-relay transmissions over time- and frequency-selective (doubly selective) channels. To avoid two separate channel estimation processes of source-to-relay and relay-to-destination links, a cascaded doubly selective channel model is formulated to characterize the source-to-relay-to-destination (SRD) channel. Time-varying SRD channel gains are projected onto different basis expansion functions to attain dimension reduction in the formulated channel model. In estimating the cascaded SRD channel responses at the destination, the presence of multiple relays gives rise to the ambiguity problem due to the use of a single pilot signal transmitted from the source. To circumvent this problem, time-variant amplifying factors at relays are introduced to be used in maximum-likelihood-based cascaded multi-relay channel estimation. Simulation results show that basis expansion models (BEMs) and time-variant amplifying factors can efficiently facilitate a single estimation process of different cascaded doubly selective SRD channels in a multi-relay system. Furthermore, for a fixed pilot overhead, a relationship between space diversity gains (with multiple relays) and channel estimation accuracy is also numerically illustrated.
Histaminergic signaling in the central nervous system of Daphnia and a role for it in the control of phototactic behavior

SUMMARY Daphnia magna and Daphnia pulex are well-established model organisms in the fields of ecotoxicology and toxicogenomics. Among the many assays used for determining the effects of environmental and anthropogenic stressors on these animals is monitoring for changes in their phototactic behavior. In most arthropods, histamine has been shown to play a key role in the visual system. Currently, nothing is known about histaminergic signaling in either D. magna or D. pulex. Here, a combination of immunohistochemistry and genome mining was used to identify and characterize the histaminergic systems in these daphnids. In addition, a behavioral assay was used to assess the role of histamine in their phototactic response to ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. An extensive network of histaminergic somata, axons and neuropil was identified via immunohistochemistry within the central nervous system of both daphnids, including labeling of putative photoreceptors in the compound eye and projections from these cells to the brain. Mining of the D. pulex genome using known Drosophila melanogaster proteins identified a putative ortholog of histidine decarboxylase (the rate-limiting biosynthetic enzyme for histamine), as well as two putative histamine-gated chloride channels (hclA and hclB orthologs). Exposure of D. magna to cimetidine, an H2 receptor antagonist known to block both hclA and hclB in D. melanogaster, inhibited their negative phototactic response to UV exposure in a reversible, time-dependent manner. Taken collectively, our results show that an extensive histaminergic system is present in Daphnia species, including the visual system, and that this amine is involved in the control of phototaxis in these animals.
Tongan Ways of Talking

Some excellent work has been published on Tongan speech levels from a sociolinguistic perspective (e.g., Philips 1991). The purpose of this article is to contribute to the literature by describing some important, not previously well-described features of ways of talking (WOT) in Tongan. I will use as my theoretical framework George Grace's theory of language; he argued that a language is 'a generalized way of talking about things' (Grace 1987: 99), a device for saying things, and it is, in turn, made up of 'conventionalized ways of talking about consecrated subject-matters' (p. 103). In this article I will distinguish the following 'ways of talking' (WOT).
Early Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity Predicts the Severity of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Acutely Traumatized Subjects

The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between resting-state functional connectivity and the severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in 15 people who developed PTSD following recent trauma. Fifteen participants who experienced acute traumatic events underwent a 7.3-min resting functional magnetic resonance imaging scan within 2 days post-event. All the patients were diagnosed with PTSD within 1 to 6 months after trauma. Brain areas in which activity was correlated with that of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were assessed. To assess the relationship between the severity of PTSD symptoms and PCC connectivity, contrast images representing areas positively correlated with the PCC were correlated with the subject’s Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale scores (CAPS) when they were diagnosed. Furthermore, the PCC, medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral amygdala were selected to assess the correlation of the strength of functional connectivity with the CAPS. Resting state connectivity with the PCC was negatively correlated with CAPS scores in the left superior temporal gyrus and right hippocampus/amygdala. Furthermore, the strength of connectivity between the PCC and bilateral amygdala, and even between the bilateral amygdala could predict the severity of PTSD symptoms later. These results suggest that early altered resting-state functional connectivity of the PCC with the left superior temporal gyrus, right hippocampus and amygdala could predict the severity of the disease and may be a major risk factor that predisposes patients to develop PTSD.
Calcium channel blockers in kidney transplantation.

PURPOSE To review the question as to whether treatment with a calcium channel blocker (CCB) influences the course and outcome of cadaveric renal transplantation in recipients treated with cyclosporin A. METHODS Computer-assisted search (Medline) and manual search of the literature. Odds ratio, Mantel-Haenszel test, Fischer's test and Chi 2 test. RESULTS Two Randomised, placebo-controlled studies, 12 randomised, open studies, 3 retrospective studies, 1 study using a historic control group and 3 studies only reported in abstract form were identified. In the randomised, open studies treatment with CCB reduced the rate of delayed graft function but had no effect on the rate of rejection and graft survival. The effect on graft function was equivocal. In the blind, placebo-controlled studies no beneficial effects of treatment with CCB were found. Treatment with CCB reduced the dose of CyA needed to reach target whole blood level of CyA in nearly all studies. CONCLUSION Results are conflicting. Further studies are needed.
Clinical outcome indicators, disease prevalence and test request variability in primary care

Aim To describe differences in biochemistry test request rates (adjusted for practice size) between general practices and to investigate whether differences in HbA1c and thyroid function test request rates are related either to the practice prevalence of hypothyroidism and diabetes or to Quality and Outcome Framework (QOF) scores. Methods Information on test request rates, prevalence of diabetes and hypothyroidism, and QOF data over a one-year period were obtained from 58 practices covering a population of 284,609 patients. Spearman's rank correlation tests were used to investigate relationships between adjusted test request rates. Results There was wide variability in adjusted test request rates (lowest for HbA1c and highest for immunoglobulins). The ranking of practices for different tests was highly correlated. There was no relationship between adjusted test request rates for HbA1c and thyroid function and the reported prevalence of diabetes and hypothyroidism, respectively, nor was there any relationship with QOF scores in diabetes and hypothyroidism. Conclusions There is wide variability in test request rates in general practice that do not appear to be related to disease prevalence or crude clinical outcome measures.