Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protecting the Ingroup: Motivated Allocation of Cognitive Resources in the Presence of Threatening Ingroup Members

Research on the Black Sheep effect (Marques, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1988) suggests that motivational factors such as the level of identification with the ingroup influences the way people react against negative ingroup members. The present study tested the idea that people may invest a sizable amount of cognitive resources to protect their view of the ingroup when it is challenged by a negative target. We measured the identification of our participants, all students in psychology, with the larger group of psychologists and presented them with descriptions of four ingroup members, three positive and one negative. As expected, high identifiers gave a harsher judgment of the negative target than did low identifiers. In addition, participants’ performance on a secondary task confirmed that high identifiers devoted more resources than low identifiers to process the information about the negative member as compared to a positive ingroup member. These results stress the relationship between motivation and cognitive resources in general, and the Black Sheep effect and stereotyping in particular.
A Dictyostelium mutant deficient in severin, an F-actin fragmenting protein, shows normal motility and chemotaxis

A severin deficient mutant of Dictyostelium discoideum has been isolated by the use of colony immunoblotting after chemical mutagenesis. In homogenates of wild-type cells, severin is easily detected as a very active F-actin fragmenting protein. Tests for severin in the mutant, HG1132, included viscometry for the assay of F- actin fragmentation in fractions from DEAE-cellulose columns, labeling of blots with monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, and immunofluorescent-labeling of cryosections. Severin could not be detected in the mutant using these methods. The mutation in HG1132 is recessive and has been mapped to linkage group VII. The mutant failed to produce the normal severin mRNA, but small amounts of a transcript that was approximately 100 bases larger than the wild-type mRNA were detected in the mutant throughout all stages of development. On the DNA level a new Mbo II restriction site was found in the mutant within the coding region of the severin gene. The severin deficient mutant cells grew at an approximately normal rate, aggregated and formed fruiting bodies with viable spores. By the use of an image processing system, speed of cell movement, turning rates, and precision of chemotactic orientation in a stable gradient of cyclic AMP were quantitated, and no significant differences between wild-type and mutant cells were found. Thus, under the culture conditions used, severin proved to be neither essential for growth of D. discoideum nor for any cell function that is important for aggregation or later development.
Relative leg length as a biological marker to trace the developmental history of individuals and populations: Growth delay and increased body fat

The purpose of this study was to determine whether differences in leg length index are related to differences in body fat. The study included a cross‐sectional sample of 21,021 subjects ranging in age from 2 to 90 years who had anthropometric information and poverty income ratio that participated in the third National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES III) of the United Stated conducted during 1988–1994. Of the total 21,021 participants, 7,810 were non‐Hispanic white (3,900 men and 3,910, women), 8,134 were African‐American black (3,127 men and 2,889 women) and 6,237 were Mexican‐American (3,221 and 3,016 women). In both males and females and in all three ethnic groups and across socio‐economic status (measured by the poverty income ratio) a low leg length index is associated with increased body fat (measured by skinfold thickness) when compared with those with high leg length index. It is postulated that a low leg length index reflects the consequence of negative environmental conditions leading to growth delay. Previous studies indicate that individuals exposed both during development and adulthood to under‐nutrition respond through inter‐related physiological mechanisms oriented at improving energetic efficiency and low oxidation of fat. These interrelated compensatory physiological adjustments work together to promote fat storage among growth delayed individuals or populations. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Expert opinion on the cough hypersensitivity syndrome in respiratory medicine

In 2011, a European Respiratory Society Task Force embarked on a process to determine the position and clinical relevance of the cough hypersensitivity syndrome, a disorder characterised by troublesome coughing often triggered by low levels of thermal, mechanical or chemical exposure, in the management of patients with chronic cough. A 21-component questionnaire was developed by an iterative process supported by a literature review. 44 key opinion leaders in respiratory medicine were selected and interviewed as to their opinions. There was a high degree of unanimity in the responses obtained, with all opinion leaders supporting the concept of cough hypersensitivity as a clinically useful paradigm. The classic stratification of cough into asthmatic, rhinitic and reflux-related phenotypes was supported. Significant disparity of opinion was seen in the response to two questions concerning the therapy of chronic cough. First, the role of acid suppression in reflux cough was questioned. Secondly, the opinion leaders were split as to whether a trial of oral steroids was indicated to establish a diagnosis of eosinophilic cough. The cough hypersensitivity syndrome was clearly endorsed by the opinion leaders as a valid and useful concept. They considered that support of patients with chronic cough was inadequate and the Task Force recommends that further work is urgently required in this neglected area. Cough hypersensitivity syndrome was clearly endorsed by opinion leaders as a valid and useful concept http://ow.ly/zxk83
Metabolic Syndrome May Not Associate With Carotid Plaque in Subjects With Optimal, Normal, or High-Normal Blood Pressure

Much evidence indicates that metabolic syndrome is a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease, but whether metabolic syndrome is an independent risk factor for early atherosclerosis in the individuals with only minor hemodynamic abnormalities, if any, is not well investigated. Here we have investigated the association between metabolic syndrome and carotid atherosclerosis in individuals with blood pressure of <140/90 mm Hg. Between 1994 and 2003, 8143 subjects underwent general health screening including carotid ultrasonography. Of 8143 individuals, 5661 individuals without antihypertensive medications who had blood pressure of <140/90 mm Hg were considered to have optimal, normal, or high-normal blood pressure. After adjustment for age, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, total and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, and smoking status, metabolic syndrome was not found to be an independent risk factor for carotid plaque (odds ratio: 1.65; 95% CI; 0.72 to 3.76 in women and odds ratio: 0.95; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.28 in men) or for carotid intima-media thickening (odds ratio: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.18 to 1.72 in women and odds ratio: 0.93 95% CI: 0.62 to 1.38 in men) in these subjects. Thus, presence of metabolic syndrome may not increase the prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis independent of other cardiovascular risk factors in Japanese individuals with optimal, normal, or high-normal blood pressure.
On Globalisation, Trade and Wages

Low skilled workers have been facing declining real wages during the 80s in the US, while high skilled workers gained in the same period.This decrease in the relative wage of the low skilled provoked a lively debate on the causes of the observed decline.A lot of academic authors have opposed to the popular view that trade with low wage countries caused the relative deterioration of low skilled workers.This paper addresses the central question, whether we can ignore the role for trade on the basis of existing literature.To answer this question, we first set forth basic trade theory.Next the theoretical basis for empirical validation is established, whereafter the empirical contributions of several authors are reviewed.Finally alternative explanations are assessed.On the basis of this survey we argue that the denial of a role for trade by a number of contributors to the debate is not convincing.
SOCIAL SUPPORT SYSTEM AND FAMILY BURDEN DUE TO CHRONIC SCHIZOPHRENIA IN RURAL AND URBAN BACKGROUND

SUMMARY The present study discusses the possible relationship between the Family Burden as experienced by the family members of chronic schizophrenic patients and Social Support System as perceived by the patients and compares these two between rural and urban backgrounds. Thirty patients each from rural and urban areas were selected. Subjects were administered the Alan Vax et al (1986) Social Support Appraisal and Pai et al (1981) Interview Schedule for assessing Burden on the family of psychiatric patient. The rural and urban families were found to have experienced equal burden and also perceived equal Social Support System. The study finds no relationship between Family Burden and Social Support System. After discussion suggestions for future studies are offered.
Melatonin Entrains the Restored Circadian Activity Rhythms of Syrian Hamsters Bearing Fetal Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Grafts

A circadian pacemaker consists of at least three essential features: the ability to generate circadian oscillations, an output signal, and the ability to be entrained by external signals. In rodents, ablation of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) results in the loss of circadian rhythms in activity. Rhythmicity can be restored by transplanting fetal SCN into the brain of the lesioned animal, demonstrating the first two of the essential pacemaker features within the grafts. External signals, such as the light/dark cycle, have not, however, been shown to entrain the restored rhythms. Melatonin injections are an effective entraining stimulus in fetal and neonatal Syrian hamsters of the same developmental ages used to provide donor tissue for transplantation. Therefore, melatonin was used to test the hypothesis that SCN grafts contain an entrainable pacemaker. Daily injections of melatonin were given to SCN-lesioned hosts beginning on the day after transplantation of fetal SCN. Two groups that received melatonin at different times of day 12 hr apart each showed significantly clustered phases but with average phases that differed by 8.67 hr. Thus melatonin was able to entrain the restored circadian activity rhythms. In contrast to these initial injections, injections given 6 weeks after transplantation were unable to entrain or phase shift the rhythms. The results demonstrate that SCN grafts contain an entrainable circadian pacemaker. In addition, the results also indicate that the fetal SCN is directly sensitive to melatonin and, as with intact hamsters, sensitivity to melatonin is lost during SCN development.
Good teacher perceptions of students attending the pedagogical formation certificate program

A pedagogical formation certificate is required to become a teacher in secondary schools in Turkey. This certificate program, which is required to obtain in addition to a bachelor’s degree from any faculty other than the education faculties, aims at providing the knowledge, capabilities and attitudes required by the profession of teaching. This study aims at determining the perceptions of prospective teachers attending the pedagogical formation program about the properties of a good teacher. Data were collected using a survey comprising an open-ended question and content analysis was conducted to obtain the themes in this study, which adopted a descriptive method. Based on the properties of a good teacher, expressed by the prospective teachers, the themes “personal characteristics”, “enforcement of teaching process”, “establishing a democratic classroom environment” and “assessment and evaluation” are obtained.
Engaging International Publics via Mobile-Enhanced CSR (mCSR): A Cross-National Study on Stakeholder Reactions to Corporate Disaster Relief Efforts

With globalization, corporations increasingly have to consider both domestic stakeholders and overseas stakeholders (i.e., international publics) in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice. Digitalization empowers international publics to scrutinize and react to a (multinational) corporation’s CSR strategy, further affecting corporate outcomes of CSR practice. Drawing on the social media context and attribution theory, this study investigated international publics’ reactions to corporate disaster relief, an emerging type of mobile-enhanced CSR (i.e., mCSR) practice, in the United States and China by looking at individuals’ engagement with mobile social media during disasters, attribution of CSR motives, and level of CSR skepticism. Using structural equation modeling analysis, the survey data of randomly recruited Americans (n = 816) and mainland Chinese (n = 430) suggested that mobile social media engagement reinforces the values-, strategic-, and stakeholder-driven motives of mCSR in the United States and China. Egoistic-driven CSR motives elicited publics’ skepticism toward mCSR, while values- and stakeholder-driven motives inhibited skepticism in both countries. However, the effect of strategic-driven motives on skepticism was inconsistent internationally. Last, CSR skepticism triggered negative relational outcomes between the mCSR-performing corporation and various stakeholders in both countries. This study advances CSR and attribution theory and contributes to the practice of CSR, public relations, and international business in the social media and disaster response context.
MIPAS detects Antarctic stratospheric belt of NAT PSCs caused by mountain waves

Space borne infrared limb emission measurements by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) reveal the formation of a belt of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles over Antarctica in mid-June 2003. By mesoscale microphysical simulations we show that this sudden onset of NAT PSCs was caused by heterogeneous nucleation on ice in the cooling phases of large-amplitude stratospheric mountain waves over the Antarctic Peninsula and the Ellsworth Mountains. MIPAS observations of PSCs before this event show no indication for the presence of NAT clouds with volume densities larger than about 0.3 µm 3 /cm 3 and radii smaller than 3 µm, but are consistent with supercooled droplets of ternary H 2 SO 4 /HNO 3 /H 2 O solution (STS). Simulations indicate that homogeneous surface nucleation rates have to be reduced by three orders of magnitude to comply with the observations.
Are there differences between the secretion characteristics of NGF and BDNF? Implications for the modulatory role of neurotrophins in activity‐dependent neuronal plasticity

In previous experiments the activity‐dependent secretion of nerve growth factor (NGF) from native hippocampal slices and from NGF‐cDNA transfected hippocampal neurons showed unusual characteristics [Blöchl and Thoenen (1995) Eur J Neurosci 7:1220–1228; (1996) Mol Cell Neurosci 7:173–190]. In both hippocampal slices and cultured hippocampal neurons the activity‐dependent secretion proved to be independent of extracellular calcium, but dependent on the release of calcium from intracellular stores. Under different experimental conditions, Goodman et al. [(1996) Mol Cell Neurosci 7:222–238] reported that the high potassium‐mediated secretion of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) from hippocampal cultures was dependent on extracellular calcium. Mowla et al. [(1997) Proc 27th Annu Meet Soc Neurosci New Orleans 875.10] reported on even further‐reaching differences between NGF and BDNF secretion, namely, that in hippocampal neurons and in pituitary cell lines NGF was secreted exclusively according to the constitutive pathway, whereas BDNF was exclusively sorted according to the activity‐dependent regulated pathway. In view of the crucial importance of such potential differences between the processing, sorting, and secretory mechanisms of different neurotrophins for their modulatory roles in activity‐dependent neuronal plasticity, a thorough analysis under comparable experimental conditions was mandatory. We demonstrate that in native hippocampal slices and adenoviral‐transduced hippocampal neurons there are no differences between NGF and BDNF with respect to the subcellular distribution and mechanism of secretion; that the activity‐dependent secretion of both NGF and BDNF is dependent on intact intracellular calcium stores; and that the differences between our own observations and those of Goodman et al. (ibid.) regarding the dependence on extracellular calcium do not reflect differences between NGF and BDNF sorting and secretion, but reflect the differing experimental conditions used. Microsc. Res. Tech. 45:262–275, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Voltage-Gated Potassium Currents Are Targets of Diurnal Changes in Estradiol Feedback Regulation and Kisspeptin Action on Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neurons in Mice1

Estradiol has both negative and positive feedback actions upon gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) release; the latter actions trigger the preovulatory GnRH surge. Although neurobiological mechanisms of the transitions between feedback modes are becoming better understood, the roles of voltage-gated potassium currents, major contributors to neuronal excitability, are unknown. Estradiol alters two components of potassium currents in these cells: a transient current, IA, and a sustained current, IK. Kisspeptin is a potential mediator between estradiol and GnRH neurons and can act directly on GnRH neurons. We examined how estradiol, time of day, and kisspeptin interact to regulate these conductances in a mouse model exhibiting daily switches between estradiol negative (morning) and positive feedback (evening). Whole-cell voltage clamp recordings were made from GnRH neurons in brain slices from ovariectomized (OVX) mice and from OVX mice treated with estradiol (OVX+E). There were no diurnal changes in either IA or IK in GnRH neurons from OVX mice. In contrast, in GnRH neurons from OVX+E mice, IA and IK were greater during the morning when GnRH neuron activity is low and smaller in the evening when GnRH neuron activity is high. Estradiol increased IA in the morning and decreased it in the evening, relative to that in cells from OVX mice. Exogenously applied kisspeptin reduced IA regardless of time of day or estradiol status. Estradiol, interacting with time of day, and kisspeptin both depolarized IA activation. These findings extend our understanding of both the neurobiological mechanisms of estradiol negative vs. positive regulation of GnRH neurons and of kisspeptin action on these cells.
OCP: a distributed real time commit protocol

Most of the existing commit protocols try to improve the system performance by allowing a committing cohort to lend its data to an executing cohort, thus reducing data inaccessibility. However, these protocols block the borrower when it tries to send WORKDONE/PREPARED message (Qin & Liu 2003, Haritsa, Ramamritham & Gupta 2000, Gupta, Haritsa, Ramamritham & Seshadri 1996, Gupta, Haritsa, & Ramamritham 1997), thus increasing the transactions commit time. This paper first analyzes all kind of dependencies that may arise due to data access conflicts in executing-committing transaction when a committing cohort is allowed to lend its data to an executing cohort, and then proposes a static two phase locking based optimistic commit protocol i.e. OCP. In OCP, the execution phase of a cohort is divided into two parts locking phase and processing phase and then, in place of WORKDONE message, WORKSTARTED message is sent just before the start of processing phase of the cohort. Again, in case of dependency, borrower with only commit dependency is allowed to send WORKSTARTED message instead of being blocked. This reduces the time needed for commit processing and is free from cascaded aborts. To ensure non-violation of ACID properties, checking of completion of processing and removal of dependency of cohort are required before sending the Yes-Vote message. The performance of the OCP is also analyzed for partial read-only optimization.
Assisting Human Motion-Tasks with Minimal, Real-time Feedback

Teaching physical motions such as riding, exercising, swimming, etc. to human beings is hard. Coaches face difficulties in communicating their feedback verbally and cannot correct the student mid-action; teaching videos are two dimensional and suffer from perspective distortion. Systems that track a user and provide him real-time feedback have many potential applications: as an aid to the visually challenged, improving rehabilitation, improving exercise routines such as weight training or yoga, teaching new motion tasks, synchronizing motions of multiple actors, etc. It is not easy to deliver real-time feedback in a way that is easy to interpret, yet unobtrusive enough to not distract the user from the motion task. I have developed motion feedback systems that provide real-time feedback to achieve or improve human motion tasks. These systems track the user’s actions with simple sensors, and use tiny vibration motors as feedback devices. Vibration motors provide feedback that is both intuitive and minimally intrusive. My systems’ designs are simple, flexible, and extensible to large-scale, full-body motion tasks. The systems that I developed as part of this thesis address two classes of motion tasks: configuration tasks and trajectory tasks. Configuration tasks guide the user to a target configuration. My systems for configuration tasks use a motion-capture system to track the user. Configuration-task systems restrict the user’s motions to a set of motion primitives, and guide the user to the target configuration by executing a sequence of motion-primitives. Trajectory tasks assume that the user understands the motion task. The systems for trajectory tasks provide corrective feedback that assists the user in improving their performance. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and results of user experiments with the prototype systems I have developed.