Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diverse effects of fibronectin and laminin on phenotypic properties of cultured arterial smooth muscle cells

Plasma fibronectin promotes modulation of rat arterial smooth muscle cells from a contractile to a synthetic phenotype during the first few days in primary culture. This process includes cell adhesion and spreading, loss of myofilaments, and formation of a widespread rough endoplasmic reticulum and a prominent Golgi complex. The structural reorganization is accompanied by activation of overall RNA and protein synthesis. Moreover, the cells gain the ability to replicate their DNA and divide in response to platelet-derived growth factor. Here, it is demonstrated that the power of fibronectin to bring about this change in the differentiated properties of the smooth muscle cells resides in a 105-kD cell-binding fragment, whereas a 70-kD collagen-binding fragment and a 31-kD heparin-binding fragment are inactive in this respect. Laminin, another adhesive glycoprotein and a component of the basement membrane that normally surrounds arterial smooth muscle, was contrarily found to maintain the cells in a contractile phenotype. However, with increasing time more and more cells went through the modulation into a synthetic phenotype. This "catch-up" was counteracted by a peptide that contained the cell-attachment sequence of fibronectin (Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser). Hence, it is possible that the delayed modulation on laminin was due to production of fibronectin by the cells themselves. In support of this notion, fibronectin isolated from smooth muscle cultures was found to be as effective as plasma fibronectin in stimulating the phenotypic modulation. Moreover, using a combination of chemical, immunochemical, and immunocytochemical methods, it was demonstrated that the cells secreted fibronectin as well as laminin at an increasing rate during the first 4 d in primary culture and, notably, cells cultured on laminin produced more fibronectin than cells cultured on fibronectin. Newly synthesized fibronectin was incorporated into a network of pericellular and intercellular fibrils, whereas laminin formed a more diffuse layer covering the cells in a basement membrane-like manner. Taken together, the findings suggest diverse roles for fibronectin and laminin in the control of the differentiated properties of arterial smooth muscle cells. They further indicate that the ability of arterial smooth muscle cells to produce fibronectin and laminin early in primary culture is not directly related to the phenotypic state as determined morphologically and by measurement of overall rates of RNA and protein synthesis. This may be due to the cells being able to sense the macromolecular composition of the pericellular matrix and to modify their secretory activity accordingly. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
The psychological representation of corporate ‘personality’

Summary: As with any other object, people represent companies along a number of dimensions. But what are the key psychological dimensions that best describe companies, organizations, or brands? We apply research methods initially developed for studying attitudes, including attitudes to other people, to look at how the public represents corporate ‘personality’. The major dimensions that psychologically differentiate companies resemble human factors of personality and can be labelled Honesty, Prestige, Innovation, and Power. These dimensions are confirmed after a time gap of 1 year, also capturing specific changes in the rating of individual companies. The proposed methodology not only has substantial commercial value in helping companies understand and track their public perception, but scales of this type can potentially guide and manage the decision-making of individuals or groups inside and outside rated organizations, thus influencing their organizational culture. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In the continuous interaction with our environment, we need not only to be able to quickly perceive new information but also have to rely on existing information as a benchmark. Behaviour always takes place under a specific frame or is embedded in context, and evaluations are always in relation to similar objects of the respective class of objects. But is there a general mechanism which describes this formation of differences between perceived objects? Do we apply comparable processes in different domains? Kelly (1955) proposed the theory of personal constructs for personality evaluations, using methods that appear more generally applicable. Osgood (1962) developed methods for finding semantic ‘dimensions’ for objects of all kinds. More recently computational corpus analysis has been applied to ‘dimensionalizing’ semantic materials in a uniform way (Griffiths & Steyvers, 2004; Landauer & Dumais, 1997). Moreover, in the literature on categorization, it is typically assumed that uniform principles guide the representation of diverse categories, although certain fundamental distinctions (e.g. the distinction between natural kind versus artefact concepts) are sometimes viewed as representationally significant (Gelman, 1988; Murphy, 2002; Sloman & Malt, 2003). The focus in this work is how well existing research methods developed for uncovering psychological dimensions can be transferred to understanding how people represent companies. Its public perception may be a substantial factor within a company and for its outside relations, guiding consumer purchasing decisions as well as potentially influencing investors’ decision making. Thus, it would be of considerable practical interest to have a workable model of the dimensions of what we term corporate ‘personality’, which proposes a taxonomy of companies based on their public perception. To tackle this question, we derive an evaluation process for measuring generally perceived company differences, which combines existing methods to provide a new and unified approach.
Incorporating adaptive responses into future projections of coral bleaching

Climate warming threatens to increase mass coral bleaching events, and several studies have projected the demise of tropical coral reefs this century. However, recent evidence indicates corals may be able to respond to thermal stress though adaptive processes (e.g., genetic adaptation, acclimatization, and symbiont shuffling). How these mechanisms might influence warming‐induced bleaching remains largely unknown. This study compared how different adaptive processes could affect coral bleaching projections. We used the latest bias‐corrected global sea surface temperature (SST) output from the NOAA/GFDL Earth System Model 2 (ESM2M) for the preindustrial period through 2100 to project coral bleaching trajectories. Initial results showed that, in the absence of adaptive processes, application of a preindustrial climatology to the NOAA Coral Reef Watch bleaching prediction method overpredicts the present‐day bleaching frequency. This suggests that corals may have already responded adaptively to some warming over the industrial period. We then modified the prediction method so that the bleaching threshold either permanently increased in response to thermal history (e.g., simulating directional genetic selection) or temporarily increased for 2–10 years in response to a bleaching event (e.g., simulating symbiont shuffling). A bleaching threshold that changes relative to the preceding 60 years of thermal history reduced the frequency of mass bleaching events by 20–80% compared with the ‘no adaptive response’ prediction model by 2100, depending on the emissions scenario. When both types of adaptive responses were applied, up to 14% more reef cells avoided high‐frequency bleaching by 2100. However, temporary increases in bleaching thresholds alone only delayed the occurrence of high‐frequency bleaching by ca. 10 years in all but the lowest emissions scenario. Future research should test the rate and limit of different adaptive responses for coral species across latitudes and ocean basins to determine if and how much corals can respond to increasing thermal stress.
High-Temperature Microwave Performance of Submicron AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on SiC

The effect of temperature on the small-signal radio-frequency (RF) performance of submicron AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors on SiC has been studied from room temperature (RT) up to 600 K. A relation between ambient and channel temperatures has been established by means of finite-element simulations. The thermal behavior of the intrinsic parameters <i>C</i> <sub>gs</sub>, <i>C</i> <sub>gd</sub>, <i>gm</i>, int, and <i>g</i> <sub>ds</sub> has been extracted accurately from RF measurements by means of the small-signal equivalent circuit. Main dc parameters (<i>ID</i>, <i>gm</i>, ext) show reductions close to 50% between RT and 600 K, mainly due to the decrease in the electron mobility and drift velocity. In the same range, <i>fT</i> and <i>f</i> <sub>max</sub> suffer a 60% decrease due to the reduction in <i>gm</i>, ext and a slight increase of <i>C</i> <sub>gs</sub> and <i>C</i> <sub>gd</sub>. An anomalous thermal evolution of <i>C</i> <sub>gd</sub> at low <i>ID</i> has been identified, which is indicative of the presence of traps.
A comprehensive review of reporting practices in psychological journals: Are effect sizes really enough?

Over-reliance on significance testing has been heavily criticized in psychology. Therefore the American Psychological Association recommended supplementing the p value with additional elements such as effect sizes, confidence intervals, and considering statistical power seriously. This article elaborates the conclusions that can be drawn when these measures accompany the p value. An analysis of over 30 summary papers (including over 6,000 articles) reveals that, if at all, only effect sizes are reported in addition to p’s (38%). Only every 10th article provides a confidence interval and statistical power is reported in only 3% of articles. An increase in reporting frequency of the supplements to p’s over time owing to stricter guidelines was found for effect sizes only. Given these practices, research faces a serious problem in the context of dichotomous statistical decision making: since significant results have a higher probability of being published (publication bias), effect sizes reported in articles may be seriously overestimated.
Controversies in cardiovascular medicine Mitral valve surgery : wait and see vs . early operation

Mitral valve repair represents the optimal surgical treatment for severe degenerative mitral regurgitation. According to the current guidelines, mitral repair is indicated in the presence of symptoms and/or signs of left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. In asymptomatic patients with preserved LV function, surgery should be considered in the presence of atrial fibrillation (AF) and/or pulmonary hypertension. In asymptomatic patients with preserved LV function, normal pulmonary artery pressure, and no episodes of AF, surgical timing is still an object of debate. The controversial issue is whether, in those circumstances, a ‘wait and see (watchful waiting)’ approach should be followed or an ‘early repair’ policy should be preferred. Indeed, a randomized trial comparing the two strategies has never been performed. In the absence of evidencebased arguments definitely supporting any particular course of action, advantages, drawbacks, and requirements for both strategies will be discussed in this review on the basis of the most significant observational studies which have focused on this issue.
Novel Actuation Methods for High Force Haptics

Most haptic devices are intended primarily, if not exclusively, to exchange information with a human operator, and often replace or augment traditional computer displays with backdrivable, force-producing tactile interfaces. This includes popular commercial devices such as the PHANTOM (Massie & Salisbury, 1994) that are typically limited to at most several Newtons of endpoint force capacity, just enough to display simple virtual environments to the operator. Less conventional wearable haptic devices operate differently, but similarly have a low force capacity sufficient only to convey information (e.g. see devices described in (Biggs & Srinivasan, 2002)). By contrast, a class of applications that we refer to as high force haptics requires devices that exchange significant forces (and sometimes power) with an operator, often up to and exceeding the force to move limbs or even large fractions of body weight. While achieving high forces, these devices must also present low mechanical endpoint impedance to the operator (i.e. be backdrivable or feel “gentle”) in order to avoid injury and, frequently, to exchange information with the operator by representing virtual environments. We propose the following working definition:
The Spitzer Space Telescope Extragalactic First Look Survey: 24 μm Data Reduction, Catalog, and Source Identification

We present the reduction of the 24 μm data obtained during the first cosmological survey performed by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Images of a region of sky at moderately high Galactic latitude (l = 88.°3, b = +34.°9) were obtained on 2003 December 9-11. The survey consists of a shallow observation of 2. °5 × 2° centered at 17h18m, +59°30′ (main survey) and a deeper observation of 1° × 0. °5 centered at 17h17m, +59°45′ (verification survey). Issues with the reduction of the 24 μm MIPS data are discussed and solutions to attenuate instrumental effects are proposed and applied to the data. Approximately 17,000 sources are extracted with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) greater than 5. The photometry of the point sources is evaluated through point-spread function (PSF) fitting using an empirical PSF derived from the data. Aperture corrections and the absolute calibration have been checked using stars in the field. Astrometric and photometric errors depend on the S/N of the source varying between 0. ″35-1″ and 5%-15%, respectively, for sources detected at 20-5 σ. The fluxes of the 123 extended sources have been estimated through aperture photometry. The extended sources cover less than 0.3% of the total area of the survey. Based on simulations, the main and verification surveys are 50% complete at 0.3 and 0.15 mJy, respectively. Counterparts have been searched for in optical and radio catalogs. More than 80% of the 24 μm sources have a reliable optical counterpart down to R = 25.5; 16% of the sources have a 20 cm counterpart down to 0.1 mJy and ∼80% of the radio-IR associations have a reliable optical counterpart. A residual map is obtained by subtracting point sources detected at the 3 σ level and interpolating the regions occupied by extended sources. Several Galactic clouds with low and intermediate velocities are identified by comparison with neutral hydrogen data from this field.
Understanding Change in National Sport Organizations: An Integration of Theoretical Perspectives

Increased interest in organizational change (i.e., shifts in an organization's structure, strategy, and processes) has led to considerable diversity in the theoretical approaches used to explain the phenomenon. This theoretical diversity has caused some scholars to suggest that a more complete understanding of organizational phenomena such as change is obtained when different theoretical perspectives are used in conjunction with one another. This paper examines a process of change that has been occurring in Canadian national sport organizations. Utilizing the theoretical approaches found in work on resource dependence theory, institutional theory, organizational culture, and the role of transformational leaders in managing change, the paper shows how these approaches explain different aspects of the change process. It also shows how a more complete understanding of change may be gained by using more than one theoretical perspective.
An Electropalatographic and Acoustic Study of Consonant-to-Vowel Coarticulation

Coarticulatory effects from consonants on vowels are investigated by means of electropalatography and acoustical analysis. The electropalatographic data confirm the validity of an articulatory classification of vowels in a front and a back categories. Moreover, vowels are shown to differ in degree of sensitivity to coarticulatory effects from the adjacent consonants. In general, consonant-dependent effects are larger upon those articulatory regions which do not intervene in the formation of a vowel constriction. Other gestural constraints (e.g., lip rounding for [un are called forth to interpret some data in lingual coarticulation. The paper also'concludes that the degree ofC-to-V coarticulation is influenced by the production requirements on the consonant; that explains why the degree of linguopalatal contact for [i] is more affected by velarized UJ than by other consonants. The electropalatographic data are correlated with acoustic (F2) data.
Impact of Disability of Mentally Retarded Persons on their Parents

Mental retardation is a permanent condition unlike many other diseases. It is a highly prevalent and highly disabling condition. In this study an attempt has been made to study both positive and negative impact on parents so as to help manage this problem in the best possible way. The study was conducted at the outpatient department of P.G. I. Behavioral and Medical Sciences, Raipur, and two special schools of mentally challenged children and it was done by purposive sampling method. Using specially designed semi-structured sociodemographic and clinical data sheet, information was gathered about mentally challenged children and their parents. Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS) and Developmental Screening Test (DST) were used to assess their intelligence. Parents fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criteria consenting for the study were selected. National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped Disability Impact Scale (2003) was then administered on them. The results are reported and discussed.
Mutations in SYNGAP1 Cause Intellectual Disability, Autism, and a Specific Form of Epilepsy by Inducing Haploinsufficiency

De novo mutations in SYNGAP1, which codes for a RAS/RAP GTP‐activating protein, cause nonsyndromic intellectual disability (NSID). All disease‐causing point mutations identified until now in SYNGAP1 are truncating, raising the possibility of an association between this type of mutations and NSID. Here, we report the identification of the first pathogenic missense mutations (c.1084T>C [p.W362R], c.1685C>T [p.P562L]) and three novel truncating mutations (c.283dupC [p.H95PfsX5], c.2212_2213del [p.S738X], and (c.2184del [p.N729TfsX31]) in SYNGAP1 in patients with NSID. A subset of these patients also showed ataxia, autism, and a specific form of generalized epilepsy that can be refractory to treatment. All of these mutations occurred de novo, except c.283dupC, which was inherited from a father who is a mosaic. Biolistic transfection of wild‐type SYNGAP1 in pyramidal cells from cortical organotypic cultures significantly reduced activity‐dependent phosphorylated extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (pERK) levels. In contrast, constructs expressing p.W362R, p.P562L, or the previously described p.R579X had no significant effect on pERK levels. These experiments suggest that the de novo missense mutations, p.R579X, and possibly all the other truncating mutations in SYNGAP1 result in a loss of its function. Moreover, our study confirms the involvement of SYNGAP1 in autism while providing novel insight into the epileptic manifestations associated with its disruption.
Antecedents of Child Abuse

An integrative framework is provided for interpretation of the wide array of findings in the child abuse literature. This multiple aetiology model has implications for treatment and prevention, which would provide programmes which are far more comprehensive than those inspired by a single aetiology approach. The role of the school psychologist as a critical participant in identification and treatment of'at risk' families is discussed.
Beyond sex allocation: the role of mating systems in sexual selection in parasitoid wasps

Despite the diverse array of mating systems and life histories which characterise the parasitic Hymenoptera, sexual selection and sexual conflict in this taxon have been somewhat overlooked. For instance, parasitoid mating systems have typically been studied in terms of how mating structure affects sex allocation. In the past decade, however, some studies have sought to address sexual selection in the parasitoid wasps more explicitly and found that, despite the lack of obvious secondary sexual traits, sexual selection has the potential to shape a range of aspects of parasitoid reproductive behaviour and ecology. Moreover, various characteristics fundamental to the parasitoid way of life may provide innovative new ways to investigate different processes of sexual selection. The overall aim of this review therefore is to re‐examine parasitoid biology with sexual selection in mind, for both parasitoid biologists and also researchers interested in sexual selection and the evolution of mating systems more generally. We will consider aspects of particular relevance that have already been well studied including local mating structure, sex allocation and sperm depletion. We go on to review what we already know about sexual selection in the parasitoid wasps and highlight areas which may prove fruitful for further investigation. In particular, sperm depletion and the costs of inbreeding under chromosomal sex determination provide novel opportunities for testing the role of direct and indirect benefits for the evolution of mate choice.
Simulating amnesia and memories of a mock crime

Abstract Defendants often feign (i.e. simulate) dissociative amnesia for their crimes. The Symptom Validity Test (SVT) may be used to detect such feigning. Some studies have shown that feigning amnesia for a mock crime has memory-undermining effects. In this study, we wanted to replicate the memory-undermining effects of simulated amnesia. We also examined whether such effects would occur when participants’ memories were evaluated with a SVT. Thirty participants committed a mock crime and then simulated amnesia for it. During a follow-up test, participants were instructed to perform as well as they could on a free recall test and a SVT. Their memory performance was compared with that of a control group (n=30). Although only a minority of simulating participants (7%) was detected by our SVT, the memory-undermining effect of simulating amnesia appeared to be a robust phenomenon. That is, ex-simulators displayed poorer free recall, more commission errors, and lower SVT scores relative to memory performance of honestly responding controls. However, at follow-up testing the poor memory of ex-simulators did not take the form of a real amnesia (i.e. random performance on SVT).