Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hydrodynamic consequences of flexural stiffness and buoyancy for seaweeds: a study using physical models

SUMMARY An upright posture in the water column may expose benthic marine organisms to faster flow higher in the water column than near the substratum, potentially increasing rates of mass exchange while also exposing the organisms to higher hydrodynamic forces. Benthic organisms maintain upright postures in the water column by one of two mechanisms, stiffness or buoyancy. Turbinaria ornata is a tropical macroalga that uses either buoyancy or flexural stiffness (EI), depending on its flow habitat. This study used physical models of T. ornata to compare the effect of different magnitudes of these two mechanisms on relative water velocity and hydrodynamic forces in both unidirectional and wavy flow. Models of the alga were constructed to span and exceed natural levels of T. ornata's EI and buoyancy. Models with high EI and high buoyancy maintained upright postures in both unidirectional flow and waves, and experienced higher forces than models with low EI and moderate or low buoyancy that deflected in the direction of water motion. In waves, buoyant models that were deflected by high velocity rebounded back into upright positions when the flow slowed. Non-buoyant, flexible models were also pushed over by flow but lacked the ability to rebound upright, which led to decreased force in unidirectional flow, but high force in waves.
Spiritual care for people with intellectual and developmental disability: An exploratory study

ABSTRACT Background: A faith-based (pseudonym, Adam’s House – AH) and a non-faith-based care service (pseudonym, Greenleaves – GL) were explored to find out if and how spiritual support was provided for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Method: Six months were spent volunteering within each service and a mixed-methods approach was utilised including applied and ethnographic methods to explore and describe if and how spirituality was embedded within the two services. Results: Themes found included community of value; homely functional care; and barriers to spiritual care. GL staff tended to provide what we termed “religious spiritual care” while AH staff administered both “religious” and “non-religious” spiritual-based support. This difference may be related to the type of training found only at AH which included spiritual dimensions. Conclusion: Services could benefit from acknowledging the importance and significance of spiritual care training and education for effective and varied spiritual care for people with IDD who desire such support.
Insulin Treatment in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes Induces Upregulation of Regulatory T-Cell Markers in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Stimulated With Insulin In Vitro

Patients with type 1 diabetes are treated with daily injections of human insulin, an autoantigen expressed in thymus. Natural CD4+CD25high regulatory T-cells are derived from thymus, and accordingly human insulin–specific regulatory T-cells should exist. We had a chance to study peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from children with type 1 diabetes both before and after starting insulin treatment, and thus we could analyze the effects of insulin treatment on regulatory T-cells in children with type 1 diabetes. PBMCs were stimulated for 72 h with bovine/human insulin. The mRNA expression of regulatory T-cell markers (transforming growth factor-β, Foxp3, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 [CTLA-4], and inducible co-stimulator [ICOS]) or cytokines (γ-interferon [IFN-γ], interleukin [IL]-5, IL-4) was measured by quantitative RT-PCR. The secretion of IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-10 was also studied. The expression of Foxp3, CTLA-4, and ICOS mRNAs in PBMCs stimulated with bovine or human insulin was higher in patients on insulin treatment than in patients studied before starting insulin treatment. The insulin-induced Foxp3 protein expression in CD4+CD25high cells was detectable in flow cytometry. No differences were seen in cytokine activation between the patient groups. Insulin stimulation in vitro induced increased expression of regulatory T-cell markers, Foxp3, CTLA-4, and ICOS only in patients treated with insulin, suggesting that treatment with human insulin activates insulin-specific regulatory T-cells in children with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. This effect of the exogenous autoantigen could explain the difficulties to detect in vitro T-cell proliferation responses to insulin in newly diagnosed patients. Furthermore, autoantigen treatment–induced activation of regulatory T-cells may contribute to the clinical remission of the disease.
A Phenomenological Study of First-Career Millennial Novice Elementary School Teachers’ Use 0f Technology

3 Copyright Page.4 Dedication . 5 Acknowledgments.6 List of Tables . 13 List of Figures . 14 List of Abbreviations . 15 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 16 Overview . 16 Background . 16 Situation to Self.19 Problem Statement . 21 Purpose Statement . 22 Significance of the Study . 22 Research Questions . 24 Definitions.26 Summary . 28 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 29 Overview . 29 Theoretical Framework . 29 Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework (TPACK) . 29 Constructive-Developmental Theory . 34
Is Gender in the Eye of the Beholder? Identifying Cultural Attitudes with Art Auction Prices

In the secondary art market, artists play no active role. This allows us to isolate cultural influences on the demand for female artists' work from supply-side factors. Using 1.5 million auction transactions in 45 countries, we document a 47.6% gender discount in auction prices for paintings. The discount is higher in countries with greater gender inequality. In experiments, participants are unable to guess the gender of an artist simply by looking at a painting and they vary in their preferences for paintings associated with female artists. Women's art appears to sell for less because it is made by women.
Private Learning on Networks: Part II

This paper considers a distributed multi-agent optimization problem, with the global objective consisting of the sum of local objective functions of the agents. The agents solve the optimization problem using local computation and communication between adjacent agents in the network. We present two randomized iterative algorithms for distributed optimization. To improve privacy, our algorithms add "structured" randomization to the information exchanged between the agents. We prove deterministic correctness (in every execution) of the proposed algorithms despite the information being perturbed by noise with non-zero mean. We prove that a special case of a proposed algorithm (called function sharing) preserves privacy of individual polynomial objective functions under a suitable connectivity condition on the network topology.
An Efficient TVL1 Algorithm for Deblurring Multichannel Images Corrupted by Impulsive Noise

We extend the alternating minimization algorithm recently proposed in [Y. Wang, J. Yang, W. Yin, and Y. Zhang, SIAM J. Imag. Sci., 1 (2008), pp. 248-272]; [J. Yang, W. Yin, Y. Zhang, and Y. Wang, SIAM J. Imag. Sci., 2 (2009), pp. 569-592] to the case of recovering blurry multichannel (color) images corrupted by impulsive rather than Gaussian noise. The algorithm minimizes the sum of a multichannel extension of total variation and a data fidelity term measured in the $\ell_1$-norm, and is applicable to both salt-and-pepper and random-valued impulsive noise. We derive the algorithm by applying the well-known quadratic penalty function technique and prove attractive convergence properties, including finite convergence for some variables and $q$-linear convergence rate. Under periodic boundary conditions, the main computational requirements of the algorithm are fast Fourier transforms and a low-complexity Gaussian elimination procedure. Numerical results on images with different blurs and impulsive noise are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithm. In addition, it is numerically compared to the least absolute deviation method [H. Y. Fu, M. K. Ng, M. Nikolova, and J. L. Barlow, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. , 27 (2006), pp. 1881-1902] and the two-phase method [J. F. Cai, R. Chan, and M. Nikolova, AIMS J. Inverse Problems and Imaging, 2 (2008), pp. 187-204] for recovering grayscale images. We also present results of recovering multichannel images.
Effects of high-complexity and high-cognitive-level instructional tasks in biology lessons on students’ factual and conceptual knowledge

Abstract Background Education Standards highlight the importance of conceptual knowledge. Instructional tasks play a key role in biology instruction and offer learning opportunities for students. Tasks contain of a content and a demands part. Therefore, complexity and cognitive level are adequate variables to describe tasks and are assumed effective for students’ learning. Purpose This study aimed to analyse the use of high-complexity and high-cognitive-level tasks in biology instruction and effects on students’ factual and conceptual knowledge. Sample Twenty-eight German secondary school biology teachers were videotaped for three lessons in grade six on the topic botany. The student sample was 701. Design and methods Instructional tasks were identified and categorised according complexity and cognitive level. Students’ factual and conceptual knowledge was tested after the videotaped lessons. Multilevel analyses were used to estimate effects on students’ knowledge. Results Biology instruction is dominated by low-complexity and low-cognitive-level tasks. Multilevel analyses showed a positive significant effect of high-cognitive-level tasks on students’ conceptual knowledge. High-complexity tasks did not significantly effect students’ conceptual knowledge. Conclusions Establishing Education Standards did hardly change the type of tasks. The potential of high-cognitive-level tasks to foster students’ learning is highlighted. Introducing these results in pre-service and in-service teacher education seems necessary.
Enhancing teacher training skills by strengthening the teaching practice component

Purpose The ongoing theory vs practice debate reinforces the problems facing teacher training institutions which need to challenge traditional programmes and work towards a tighter coherence between coursework and practical experience. Working more closely with schools to restructure teaching practice is necessary in order to create better tuition experience for students. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This project is situated within an interpretivist paradigm and is qualitative in nature. A sample of four South African education faculties was included. Semi-structured and focus group interviews were used to collect data from fourth-year BEd students, lecturers and in-service practitioners. Findings The findings indicated that the participants believed that the lack of actual classroom experience, and ineffective organisation of teaching practice, resulted in students feeling ill-equipped. Suggestions are made to improve the organisation of teaching experience and mentorship programmes. Originality/value This is an original research paper and it has value for teacher education.
The Herpes Simplex Virus Protein pUL31 Escorts Nucleocapsids to Sites of Nuclear Egress, a Process Coordinated by Its N-Terminal Domain

Progeny capsids of herpesviruses leave the nucleus by budding through the nuclear envelope. Two viral proteins, the membrane protein pUL34 and the nucleo-phosphoprotein pUL31 form the nuclear egress complex that is required for capsid egress out of the nucleus. All pUL31 orthologs are composed of a diverse N-terminal domain with 1 to 3 basic patches and a conserved C-terminal domain. To decipher the functions of the N-terminal domain, we have generated several Herpes simplex virus mutants and show here that the N-terminal domain of pUL31 is essential with basic patches being critical for viral propagation. pUL31 and pUL34 entered the nucleus independently of each other via separate routes and the N-terminal domain of pUL31 was required to prevent their premature interaction in the cytoplasm. Unexpectedly, a classical bipartite nuclear localization signal embedded in this domain was not required for nuclear import of pUL31. In the nucleus, pUL31 associated with the nuclear envelope and newly formed capsids. Viral mutants lacking the N-terminal domain or with its basic patches neutralized still associated with nucleocapsids but were unable to translocate them to the nuclear envelope. Replacing the authentic basic patches with a novel artificial one resulted in HSV1(17+)Lox-UL31-hbpmp1mp2, that was viable but delayed in nuclear egress and compromised in viral production. Thus, while the C-terminal domain of pUL31 is sufficient for the interaction with nucleocapsids, the N-terminal domain was essential for capsid translocation to sites of nuclear egress and a coordinated interaction with pUL34. Our data indicate an orchestrated sequence of events with pUL31 binding to nucleocapsids and escorting them to the inner nuclear envelope. We propose a common mechanism for herpesviral nuclear egress: pUL31 is required for intranuclear translocation of nucleocapsids and subsequent interaction with pUL34 thereby coupling capsid maturation with primary envelopment.
Actions of monoidally equivalent compact quantum groups and applications to probabilistic boundaries

La notion de l'equivalence monoidale pour les groupes quantiques compacts a ete introduite recemment par Bichon, De Rijdt et Vaes. Dans cet article, nous montrons: etant donne deux groupes quantiques compacts a equivalence monoidale, alors il existe une correspondance bijective entre leurs actions. Cette correspondance s'avere etre tres utile pour obtenir la relation entre les frontieres de Poisson et Martin des deux groupes quantiques compacts a equivalence monoidale. Finalement, nous appliquons ces resultats au calcul des frontieres de Poisson des duals associes aux groupes quantiques d'automorphismes.
Triatominae as a Model of Morphological Plasticity under Ecological Pressure

The use of biochemical and genetic characters to explore species or population relationships has been applied to taxonomic questions since the 60s. In responding to the central question of the evolutionary history of Triatominae, i.e. their monophyletic or polyphyletic oiigin, two important qùestions arise (i) to what extent is the morphologically-based classification valid for assessing phylogenetic relationsliips? and (i9 what are the main mechanisms underlying speciation in Triatominae? Phenetic and genetic studies so far developed suggest that speciation in Triatominae may be a rapid process mainly driven by ecological factors. L
Pain Catastrophizing Scale

Everyone experiences painful situations at some point in their lives. Such experiences may include headaches, tooth pain, joint or muscle pain. People are often exposed to situations that may cause pain such as illness, injury, dental procedures or surgery. Instructions: We are interested in the types of thoughts and feelings that you have when you are in pain. Listed below are thirteen statements describing different thoughts and feelings that may be associated with pain. Using the following scale, please indicate the degree to which you have these thoughts and feelings when you are experiencing pain.
Private Placements and Managerial Entrenchment

We re-examine old evidence and provide new evidence on private placements of large-percentage blocks of stock. Our goal is to judge whether the prevailing hypotheses of monitoring and certification explain most private placements. Examining new evidence on events following the private placements and using a much larger sample than previous studies, our findings suggests that private placements are often made to passive investors, thereby helping management solidify their control of the firm. Although monitoring and certification may motivate some private placements, the evidence with respect to placement discounts, stock-price reactions, the post-placement activities of the purchasers, and a comparison with arm's-length trades of large blocks of stock favors managerial entrenchment as the explanation for many private placements.
Computation offloading for mobile cloud computing based on wide cross-layer optimization

The aim of this paper is to propose a computation offloading strategy to be used in mobile cloud computing in order to minimize the energy expenditure at the mobile handset necessary to run an application under a delay constraint. The main novelty of the proposed strategy is a wide cross-layer optimization that encompasses the application, MAC and physical layers within a joint framework. We consider a wireless channel affected by fading, with statistics depending on the number of antennas, and we incorporate packet retransmission strategies. The result of the optimization is the joint dynamic allocation of radio resources and offload scheduling that guarantee the stability of the queue of instructions to be executed, in order to minimize the energy consumption at the mobile handset, under a constraint on the average delay. We provide theoretical results proving the existence of an optimal solution of the problem and then we corroborate the theoretical findings with simulation results. The results show for which classes of application and under what kind of channel conditions, computation offloading can provide a significant performance gain.
De-embedding setup-related effects to characterize an EM clamp for conducted immunity testing

This paper describes an experimental procedure for the identification of a frequency-domain behavioral model of the electromagnetic (EM) clamp used for conducted-immunity (CI) testing according to Standard IEC 61000-4-6. The model does not require knowledge about the internal characteristics of the EM clamp since it is extracted from scattering parameters measured at the external ports of a calibration setup designed ad hoc. In particular, a post-processing method is used to de-embed the additional contribution of such a calibration structure from measurements. It is shown that the identified model can be used to predict voltages/currents injected by the EM clamp in a CI test setup, for different operating conditions such as different impedance of the auxiliary equipment, and different positions of the EM clamp on the wiring harness.
Solution structure of a DNA quadruplex containing ALS and FTD related GGGGCC repeat stabilized by 8-bromodeoxyguanosine substitution

A prolonged expansion of GGGGCC repeat within non-coding region of C9orf72 gene has been identified as the most common cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which are devastating neurodegenerative disorders. Formation of unusual secondary structures within expanded GGGGCC repeat, including DNA and RNA G-quadruplexes and R-loops was proposed to drive ALS and FTD pathogenesis. Initial NMR investigation on DNA oligonucleotides with four repeat units as the shortest model with the ability to form an unimolecular G-quadruplex indicated their folding into multiple G-quadruplex structures in the presence of K+ ions. Single dG to 8Br-dG substitution at position 21 in oligonucleotide d[(G4C2)3G4] and careful optimization of folding conditions enabled formation of mostly a single G-quadruplex species, which enabled determination of a high-resolution structure with NMR. G-quadruplex structure adopted by d[(G4C2)3GGBrGG] is composed of four G-quartets, which are connected by three edgewise C-C loops. All four strands adopt antiparallel orientation to one another and have alternating syn-anti progression of glycosidic conformation of guanine residues. One of the cytosines in every loop is stacked upon the G-quartet contributing to a very compact and stable structure.
The galaxy luminosity function of the Abell 496 cluster and its spatial variations

Context. The faint end slopes of galaxy luminosity functions (LFs) in clusters of galaxies have been observed in some cases to vary with clustercentric distance and should be influenced by the physical processes (mergers, tides) affecting cluster galaxies. However, there is a wide disagreement on the values of the faint end LF slopes, ranging from -1 to -2.3 in the magnitude range $-18 Aims. We investigate the LF in the very relaxed cluster Abell 496. Methods. Our analysis is based on deep images obtained at CFHT with MegaPrime/MegaCam in four bands ( u * g' r' i' ) covering a $1\times 1$ deg 2 region, which is centred on the cluster Abell 496 and extends to near its virial radius. The LFs are estimated by statistically subtracting a reference field taken as the mean of the 4 Deep fields of the CFHTLS survey. Background contamination is minimised by cutting out galaxies redder than the observed Red Sequence in the $g'-i'$ versus i' colour-magnitude diagram. Results. In Abell 496, the global LFs show a faint end slope of $-1.55\pm0.06$ and vary little with observing band. Without colour cuts, the LFs are much noisier but not significantly steeper. The faint end slopes show a statistically significant steepening from $\alpha=-1.4\pm0.1$ in the central region (extending to half a virial radius) to $-1.8\pm0.1$ in the Southern envelope of the cluster. Cosmic variance and uncertain star-galaxy separation are our main limiting factors in measuring the faint end of the LFs. The large-scale environment of Abell 496, probed with the fairly complete 6dFGS catalogue, shows a statistically significant 36 Mpc long filament at $\rm PA=137^\circ$. Conclusions. Our LFs do not display the large number of dwarf galaxies ($\alpha \approx -2$) inferred by several authors, whose analyses may suffer from field contamination caused by non-existent or inadequate colour cuts. Alternatively, different clusters may have different faint end slopes, but this is hard to reconcile with the wide range of slopes found for given clusters and for wide sets of clusters.