Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fingerprints and the Organization of the Ceramic Industry Over Time at Tell Leilan Gender and the State in Northern Mesopotamia during the Early and Middle Bronze Age

The goal of my research is to elucidate the organization of ceramic production at Tell Leilan with respect to gender roles during from 3400 to 1700 BCE through a study of fingerprint impressions on pottery. I have developed and tested a technique for determining the proportion of men and women who formed and finished vessels in a certain ceramic assemblage using the distribution of epidermal ridge densities. There is a discrete change in the sex of potters at Leilan with the rise of urbanism and state formation at the site, but there is no alteration in this pattern that correlates with changes in the various regimes that had hegemony over the site over time during the Early and Middle Bronze Age. This result informs us about the effect of state authority on the public and private organization of crafts as well as the division of society along gender lines. Surprisingly, the change that occurs with the rise of the state at Tell Leilan does not occur at village sites in the Leilan Regional Survey. This result indicates that the changes in social fabric that occurred at urban sites with the establishment of state institutions did not occur to the same extent in hinterland settlements even though the state did control some of the ceramic production at these sites, at least during the Akkadian period. This methodology and research should allow for further evaluation of the highly theoretical literature on the relationship of gender to craft production in the ancient world. Disciplines Anthropology This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn. edu/anthro_seniortheses/153 Fingerprints and the Organization of the Ceramic Industry Over Time at Tell Leilan Gender and the State in Northern Mesopotamia during the Early and Middle Bronze Age
Seeking Quality Mentors: Exploring Program Design Characteristics to Increase an Individual’s Likelihood to Participate as a Mentor

Previous mentoring research has focused on informal mentoring relationships, but as formal mentoring programs proliferate throughout organizations as a means to train and retain highquality employees, there is a need for more empirical research investigating the specific elements of formal mentoring programs that positively impact their success. The purpose of the current study, therefore, is to explore the causal relationship between formal mentoring program design characteristics and the likelihood that a qualified individual will choose to participate as a mentor. This relationship is examined through the hypothesized mediator of potential mentors’ perceptions of organizational support. Participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and had to score above a cutoff on either the personality behavior (i.e., prosocial orientation) or trait (i.e., openness to experience) measure to participate. The sample included 288 participants divided almost evenly between males and females (54% and 46% respectively), with a mean age of 35 years. Seventy-one percent were white and the average years of work experience was 13. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three formal mentoring program descriptions: (a) a program that offered no form of organizational support, (b) one that offered time in work to facilitate the dyadic relationships, or (c) one that offered to provide training for the mentors to prepare them for their role. It was hypothesized that both features of organizational support would yield an increase in a potential mentor’s likelihood to participate compared to the mentoring program that did not offer these supportive elements. Results indicated that providing time in work to facilitate a mentoring relationship caused a significant increase in willingness to serve as a mentor (t(169) = -3.29, p = . 001, d = . 25) whereas training for the mentor failed to emerge as a predictor (t(184) = -1.07, p = . 915, d = . 008). Mediation analyses revealed that both time in work (Bab = .33; BC 95% CI = .13 to .52) and SEEKING QUALITY MENTORS ix training (Bab = .23; BC 95% CI = .04 to .46) for the mentor increased an individual’s likelihood to participate through the mediating mechanism of perceived organizational support. The results of this study provide guidance for practitioners in allocating resources toward designing effective formal mentoring programs that attract quality mentors.
Toward a "Culturally Responsive Music Curriculum": Harnessing the Power of Ghanaian Popular Music in Ghana's Public Education Sector

The extent to which education is successful in any setting depends largely on the extent to which it is able to capture and develop the core values of that culture. Music is, undoubtedly, one of the most cherished values within Ghanaian society. In spite of the plurality of musical forms that exist concurrently, popular music genres have continuously emerged as the most preferred in weekly charts and in studies on music preference(s). Popular music in Ghana has been explored for political, religious, social, emotional, and other significant purposes. It stands to reason that such a pervasive art would form a core part of Ghanaian popular education in terms of training people to become aesthetically, cognitively, and emotionally responsive to it. But is this really the case? In this paper, I engage in a critical reflection on this question. I examine the place of popular music at various levels of public education and recommend, based on its marginalized status, that much should be done to improve popular music studies in order to better satisfy the value it holds in the society.
Improve collaborative filtering through bordered block diagonal form matrices

Collaborative Filtering-based recommendation algorithms have achieved widespread success on the Web, but little work has been performed to investigate appropriate user-item relationship structures of rating matrices. This paper presents a novel and general collaborative filtering framework based on (Approximate) Bordered Block Diagonal Form structure of user-item rating matrices. We show formally that matrices in (A)BBDF structures correspond to community detection on the corresponding bipartite graphs, and they reveal relationships among users and items intuitionally in recommendation tasks. By this framework, general and special interests of a user are distinguished, which helps to improve prediction accuracy in collaborative filtering tasks. Experimental results on four real-world datasets, including the Yahoo! Music dataset, which is currently the largest, show that the proposed framework helps many traditional collaborative filtering algorithms, such as User-based, Item-based, SVD and NMF approaches, to make more accurate rating predictions. Moreover, by leveraging smaller and denser submatrices to make predictions, this framework contributes to the scalability of recommender systems.
N-Glycan Branching Affects the Subcellular Distribution of and Inhibition of Matriptase by HAI-2/Placental Bikunin

The gene product of SPINT 2, that encodes a transmembrane, Kunitz-type serine protease inhibitor independently designated as HAI-2 or placenta bikunin (PB), is involved in regulation of sodium absorption in human gastrointestinal track. Here, we show that SPINT 2 is expressed as two species of different size (30-40- versus 25-kDa) due to different N-glycans on Asn-57. The N-glycan on 25-kDa HAI-2 appears to be of the oligomannose type and that on 30-40-kDa HAI-2 to be of complex type with extensive terminal N-acetylglucosamine branching. The two different types of N-glycan differentially mask two epitopes on HAI-2 polypeptide, recognized by two different HAI-2 mAbs. The 30-40-kDa form may be mature HAI-2, and is primarily localized in vesicles/granules. The 25-kDa form is likely immature HAI-2, that remains in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in the perinuclear regions of mammary epithelial cells. The two different N-glycans could, therefore, represent different maturation stages of N-glycosylation with the 25-kDa likely a precursor of the 30-40-kDa HAI-2, with the ratio of their levels roughly similar among a variety of cells. In breast cancer cells, a significant amount of the 30-40-kDa HAI-2 can translocate to and inhibit matriptase on the cell surface, followed by shedding of the matriptase-HAI-2 complex. The 25-kDa HAI-2 appears to have also exited the ER/Golgi, being localized at the cytoplasmic face of the plasma membrane of breast cancer cells. While the 25-kDa HAI-2 was also detected at the extracellular face of plasma membrane at very low levels it appears to have no role in matriptase inhibition probably due to its paucity on the cell surface. Our study reveals that N-glycan branching regulates HAI-2 through different subcellular distribution and subsequently access to different target proteases.
Quantitative Proteomic Comparison of Rat Mitochondria from Muscle, Heart, and Liver *S

Mitochondria, through oxidative phosphorylation, are the primary source of energy production in all tissues under aerobic conditions. Although critical to life, energy production is not the only function of mitochondria, and the composition of this organelle is tailored to meet the specific needs of each cell type. As an organelle, the mitochondrion has been a popular subject for proteomic analysis, but quantitative proteomic methods have yet to be applied to tease apart subtle differences among mitochondria from different tissues or muscle types. Here we used mass spectrometry-based proteomics to analyze mitochondrial proteins extracted from rat skeletal muscle, heart, and liver tissues. Based on 689 proteins identified with high confidence, mitochondria from the different tissues are qualitatively quite similar. However, striking differences emerged from the quantitative comparison of protein abundance between the tissues. Furthermore we applied similar methods to analyze mitochondrial matrix and intermembrane space proteins extracted from the same mitochondrial source, providing evidence for the submitochondrial localization of a number of proteins in skeletal muscle and liver. Several proteins not previously thought to reside in mitochondria were identified, and their presence in this organelle was confirmed by protein correlation profiling. Hierarchical clustering of microarray expression data provided further evidence that some of the novel mitochondrial candidates identified in the proteomic survey might be associated with mitochondria. These data reveal several important distinctions between mitochondrial and submitochondrial proteomes from skeletal muscle, heart, and liver tissue sources. Indeed approximately one-third of the proteins identified in the soluble fractions are associated predominantly to one of the three tissues, indicating a tissue-dependent regulation of mitochondrial proteins. Furthermore a small percentage of the mitochondrial proteome is unique to each tissue.
Polder dutch: aspects of the /ei/-lowering in standard dutch

This paper is an initial report on the systematic analysis of changes within the vowel system of Standard Dutch. The work focuses on the recent lowering of the diphthong /Ei/, known as ‘Polder Dutch’ (Poldernederlands). The purpose was to find an automatizable method to reliably analyze and compare speakers of a large corpus of Dutch spontaneous speech. Diphthong variants of twelve native speakers were compared by measuring both formants and spectral energy distributions. The resulting pc1-pc2 plane of a principal component analysis (PCA) on the barkfiltered spectrum of anchor vowels /a/, /i/, /u/ was comparable to the F1-F2 bark plane of the same segments and explained 90% of the variance in the data. The differences between the speakers’ vowel spaces appeared not to depend on sex, so male and female data could be calculated within the same analysis. The distance of the diphthong /Ei/ to the anchor vowels in the pc1-pc2 plane, together with the dipthong dynamics were the major cues to diphthong quality. Further indication of a sound change in progress for the ‘Polder Dutch’ speakers was the position of /E/ in the vowel space.
Fast Variability of Nonthermal X-Ray Emission in Cassiopeia A: Probing Electron Acceleration in Reverse-Shocked Ejecta

Recent discovery of the year-scale variability in the synchrotron X-ray emission of the supernova remnant (SNR) RX J1713.7–3946 has initiated our study of multiepoch X-ray images and spectra of the young SNR Cassiopeia A based on the Chandra archive data taken in 2000, 2002, and 2004. We have found year-scale time variations in the X-ray intensity for a number of X-ray filaments or knots associated with the reverse-shocked regions. The X-ray spectra of the variable filaments are characterized by a featureless continuum, and described by a power law with a photon index within 1.9-2.3. The upper limits on the iron K-line equivalent width are 110 eV, which favors a synchrotron origin of the X-ray emission. The characteristic variability timescale of 4 yr can be explained by the effects of fast synchrotron cooling and diffusive shock acceleration with a plausible magnetic field of 1 mG. The X-ray variability provides a new effective way of studying particle acceleration at supernova shocks.
Rapid changes in cochlear nucleus cell size following blockade of auditory nerve electrical activity in gerbils

Large spherical cells of the mammalian anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) receive direct excitatory input from auditory nerve axons. Trans‐synaptic regulation of neuronal cell size and cell number after cochlear ablation has been previously demonstrated in neonates of several vertebrate species, including the gerbil. Such changes may be related to loss of spontaneous or evoked auditory nerve electrical activity or to loss of activity‐independent factors. We have developed a method to chronically, yet reversibly, block auditory nerve electrical activity without violating the integrity of the inner ear. Tetrodotoxin (TTX) was embedded in an ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer resin (Elvax). A small piece of Elvax containing TTX was placed next to the round window membrane, which allowed TTX to diffuse into the inner ear. As a measure of the effectiveness of manipulation, the onset, duration, and magnitude of the auditory threshold shift were measured by the auditory brainstem response. The sound‐evoked response was abolished within 10 minutes of placement of TTX on the round window membrane. The duration of threshold shift was dose‐dependent and lasted 24–46 hours. Implants of Elvax without TTX did not produce a significant threshold shift. TTX, which blocks voltage‐gated sodium channels, did not abolish the potassium‐based cochlear microphonic response.
STRING EFFECTS AND FIELD THEORY PUZZLES WITH SUPERSYMMETRY

We investigate field theory puzzles occuring in the interplay between supersymmetry and duality in the presense of rotational isometries (also known as non-triholomorphic in hyper-Kahler geometry). We show that T-duality is always compatible with supersymmetry, provided that non-local world-sheet effects are properly taken into account. The underlying superconformal algebra remains the same, and T-duality simply relates local with non-local realizations of it. The non-local realizations have a natural description using parafermion variables of the corresponding conformal field theory. We also comment on the relevance of these ideas to a possible resolution of long standing problems in the quantum theory of black holes.
Coaching competency and trust in coach in sport teams

This study examines the relationship between coaching competency as evaluated by athletes and their perceptions of trust in their coaches. The authors hypothesize that athletes’ evaluation of four dimensions of coaching competency is positively related to their trust in their coaches, and that this relationship is stronger at the team level than at the individual level. In total, 438 basketball players (251 males and 187 females) from 34 teams completed the Coaching Competency Scale (CCS) and the trust in the coach questionnaire during the postseason. The hypotheses were tested through hierarchical linear modeling. The analyses revealed that individual- and group-level evaluations of the four-dimensional CCS (motivation, game-strategy, technique, and character-building competencies) positively predicted trust in the coach; furthermore, group-level coaching competency was the primary contributor to this relationship. Therefore, improving the psychological and tactical skills of coaches and their skill detection abilities and instruction at training together with a positive attitude toward sports may help improve the trust of athletes in their coaches.
Efficacy of Entecavir in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients with Persistently Normal Alanine Aminotransferase: Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study

Background It is still inconclusive whether chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with persistently normal alanine aminotransferase (PNALT) should receive nucleoside/nucleotide analogues. This study is to evaluate the efficacy of entecavir in improving liver histology in CHB patients with PNALT. Methods In this prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 380 CHB patients with PNALT were screened, 82 patients received biopsy and 43 patients met the HBV DNA and histology criteria and were randomly assigned to either an entecavir or placebo group for 52 weeks, with 22 and 21 in each group, respectively. The primary objective was to evaluate histological improvement. The secondary objective is to evaluate virological efficacy. Results A total of eight (38.1%) patients in the entecavir group and eight (44.4%) in the placebo group (P=0.752) showed histological improvement. The decrease in total Knodell scores (±sd) was 1.3 ±1.9 in the entecavir group and 1.5 ±2.2 in the placebo group (P=0.803). The subjects with undetectable HBV DNA at week 52 were 16/21 (76.2%) in the entecavir group and 0/18 (0%) in the placebo group (P<0.001). The mean HBV DNA reduction from baseline to week 52 was 4.73 ±0.83 in the entecavir and 0.25 ±0.81 in the placebo group (P<0.001). Conclusions CHB patients with PNALT receiving entecavir therapy for one year achieved virological efficacy, but not histological benefit. ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT01833611.
Observational Practice Promotes Action-Related Order Formation in Long-Term Memory: Investigating Action Observation and the Development of Cognitive Representation in Complex Motor Action

To date, it is commonly agreed that physical practice, as well as mental types of practice, have the potential to bring about improvements in motor performance and to induce motor learning. The perceptual-cognitive representational background of these changes, however, is still being debated. In this experiment, we investigated the influence of observational practice on the performance and the representation of the golf putt. With this we aimed at adding to the ongoing debate on the particular contribution of observational practice to motor learning. Novices were assigned to one of two groups: observational and combined observational and physical practice. Motor performance and mental representation were measured prior to and after practice and after a three-day retention interval. Performance improved in both practice groups from pre- to retention-test. Together with performance improvements, mental representation structures developed functionally and became more elaborate over the course of the experiment. Interestingly, however, the pattern of changes over the course of the experiment and across the two practice types was different. Combined practice led to improvements in motor performance from pre- to post-test with representations developing alongside these improvements. Observational practice alone did not lead to performance improvement until after task execution, as shown by improvements in motor performance from post- to retention-test, even though mental representations changed from pre- to post-test. From this, observational practice seems to promote the development of representational frameworks of complex action, and thus action-related order formation in long-term memory.
What is semantic in semantic dementia? The decay of knowledge of physical entities but not of verbs, numbers and body parts

ABSTRACT Background: Conceptual knowledge does not decay randomly in patients with cerebral damage, suggesting that dedicated neural substrates may support different categories of knowledge. Semantic dementia is an optimal natural model for studying the organization of semantic memory. Nevertheless, in a pathology primarily characterized by a semantic memory disorder categorical- and modality- specific effects are not obvious findings. In fact, there is no clear evidence of categorical effects, at least concerning two broad categories of knowledge, that is, natural items and artifacts. Furthermore, transmodal deficits do not seem to be the rule in SD. Also quite robust is the observation that some conceptual domains are relatively spared in this pathology, that is, numerical knowledge, abstract words, and action verbs. Aims: To explore category specific and modality specific deficit in SD and to support the evidence that semantic degradation in SD primarily involves knowledge of the objects in the real world, whereas categories of knowledge whose items can be less easily identified by surface attributes, such as verbs, numbers and body parts, are more preserved. Methods and Procedures: We investigated the semantic impairment in 8 patients with Semantic Dementia (SD). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in each patient was also obtained Outcomes and Results: In some patients manmade objects were significantly more preserved than natural items, verbs more preserved than nouns and the number system entirely preserved; the body parts category was the least impaired in all subjects; finally, in three patients visual semantic knowledge was significantly more preserved than verbal semantic knowledge. VBM showed that atrophy of the anterior inferior temporal regions was insufficient to impair knowledge about verbs, numbers and body parts, whose impairment was associated with more widespread atrophy. In subjects whose verbal semantic knowledge was significantly more impaired than visual semantic knowledge, atrophy was principally distributed in the left hemisphere. In patients with significant impairment for natural items compared to manmade objects, atrophy was not confine in the temporal lobes. Conclusion: We conclude that in SD semantic decay primarily involves the real-world items whose knowledge is processed by surface sensorifunctional features and that this is the type of knowledge stored in the temporal lobes. Our data support a model that associates a semantic hub with modality/category specific neural substrates.