Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identity Construction Environments: Developing Personal and Moral Values Through the Design of a Virtual City

We live in a society where concepts of self, community, and "what is right and wrong" are constantly changing. This makes it particularly challenging for young people to construct a sense of self and to identify their most cherished values. Therefore, there is an amounting pressure in schools and society to create learning environments to explore these issues. Two research questions are at the heart of the work presented in this article: What kind of learning environment will afford opportunities for young people to naturally engage in reflection and discussion about issues of identity, in particular personal and moral values? and How can technologies have an impact on character and moral education? I propose identity construction environments (ICEs) as technological tools purposefully designed with the goal of supporting young people in the exploration of these issues. I first describe the design principles that distinguish these environments from other learning technologies. I also specify the learning experiences they do afford-namely the understanding of identity as a complex construction composed by different elements, including personal and moral values. Then I present the conceptual foundations and implementation of the Zora ICE. Zora is a three dimensional multi-user virtual environment that engages learners in the design of a graphical virtual city and its social organization. I describe a summer workshop conducted with a multicultural group of teenagers using Zora. They designed a virtual city populated with objects and characters representing aspects of themselves and their values. In this participatory microcommunity those values were put to test. Finally I conclude with reflections and future work that points toward a new research agenda in the area of the learning sciences.
Leader feedback and knowledge sharing: A regulatory focus theory perspective

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of leader feedback on followers’ knowledge-sharing behavior through a regulatory focus theory perspective. Data were collected through an experiment with 129 college students. Results showed that compared with leader’s prevention feedback style and negative feedback valence, promotion style and positive feedback valence inspire employee knowledge-sharing behavior better. These two positive relationships are mediated by promotion situational regulatory focus. The negative relationship between prevention leader feedback style and knowledge sharing is mediated by prevention situational regulatory focus, while negative leader feedback valence has its negative effect on knowledge sharing directly.
MicroRNA-27a Regulates Lipid Metabolism and Inhibits Hepatitis C Virus Replication in Human Hepatoma Cells

ABSTRACT The replication and infectivity of the lipotropic hepatitis C virus (HCV) are regulated by cellular lipid status. Among differentially expressed microRNAs (miRNAs), we found that miR-27a was preferentially expressed in HCV-infected liver over hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected liver. Gene expression profiling of Huh-7.5 cells showed that miR-27a regulates lipid metabolism by targeting the lipid synthetic transcription factor RXRα and the lipid transporter ATP-binding cassette subfamily A member 1. In addition, miR-27a repressed the expression of many lipid metabolism-related genes, including FASN, SREBP1, SREBP2, PPARα, and PPARγ, as well as ApoA1, ApoB100, and ApoE3, which are essential for the production of infectious viral particles. miR-27a repression increased the cellular lipid content, decreased the buoyant density of HCV particles from 1.13 to 1.08 g/cm3, and increased viral replication and infectivity. miR-27a overexpression substantially decreased viral infectivity. Furthermore, miR-27a enhanced in vitro interferon (IFN) signaling, and patients who expressed high levels of miR-27a in the liver showed a more favorable response to pegylated IFN and ribavirin combination therapy. Interestingly, the expression of miR-27a was upregulated by HCV infection and lipid overload through the adipocyte differentiation transcription factor C/EBPα. In turn, upregulated miR-27a repressed HCV infection and lipid storage in cells. Thus, this negative feedback mechanism might contribute to the maintenance of a low viral load and would be beneficial to the virus by allowing it to escape host immune surveillance and establish a persistent chronic HCV infection.
Age-Size E ® ects in Firm Growth and Productive E ± ciency : The Case of Manufacturing Establishments in Ethiopia Taye Mengistae August 1998

Several studies in developed economies have reported that the rate of growth of small ̄rms decreases with ̄rm age as well as size. This result is consistent with Jovanovic's (1982) version of the passive learning model of competitive selection and is con ̄rmed by data on a random sample of manufacturing ̄rms in Ethiopia. This paper uses the Ethiopian data to test three other implications of the Jovanovic model. These link age-size e®ects in ̄rm growth to an underlying distribution of of ̄rms by technical e±ciency, but have not been investigated empirically before. I ̄nd, ̄rst, that the same e®ects as detected in the Ethiopian data are matched by time-invariant inter̄rm di®erences in technical e±ciency. Secondly, the data exhibit age-size e®ects in technical e±ciency as well, whereby bigger ̄rms are more e±cient given age and older ̄rms are more e±cient given size. Thirdly, ̄rm age and ̄rm size mainly proxy for owner human capital variables in as far as they explain e±ciency scores. In other words, it is not the case that some ̄rms are more e±cient than others because they are bigger or older but the other way round: some ̄rms are bigger or longer lived than others because they have proved to be more e±cient. Advantageous location is a major source of technical e±ciency but is signi ̄canlty less important than entrepreneurial human capital. Among the human capital variables considered, the level formal schooling completed has by far the strongest in°uence on e±ciency scores. The owner's access to business networks and his or her ethnicity also have signi ̄cant e®ects. On the other hand, there is no evidence that e±ciency depends on any one of pre-ownership employment experience in the current industry, occupational following of parents or prior vocational training.
A Fast Hybrid Algorithm for Large-Scale l1-Regularized Logistic Regression

l1-regularized logistic regression, also known as sparse logistic regression, is widely used in machine learning, computer vision, data mining, bioinformatics and neural signal processing. The use of l1 regularization attributes attractive properties to the classifier, such as feature selection, robustness to noise, and as a result, classifier generality in the context of supervised learning. When a sparse logistic regression problem has large-scale data in high dimensions, it is computationally expensive to minimize the non-differentiable l1-norm in the objective function. Motivated by recent work (Koh et al., 2007; Hale et al., 2008), we propose a novel hybrid algorithm based on combining two types of optimization iterations: one being very fast and memory friendly while the other being slower but more accurate. Called hybrid iterative shrinkage (HIS), the resulting algorithm is comprised of a fixed point continuation phase and an interior point phase. The first phase is based completely on memory efficient operations such as matrix-vector multiplications, while the second phase is based on a truncated Newton's method. Furthermore, we show that various optimization techniques, including line search and continuation, can significantly accelerate convergence. The algorithm has global convergence at a geometric rate (a Q-linear rate in optimization terminology). We present a numerical comparison with several existing algorithms, including an analysis using benchmark data from the UCI machine learning repository, and show our algorithm is the most computationally efficient without loss of accuracy.
Codon Deletions in the Influenza A Virus PA Gene Generate Temperature-Sensitive Viruses

ABSTRACT The influenza virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, which is composed of three subunits, PB1, PB2, and PA, catalyzes genome replication and transcription within the cell nucleus. The PA linker (residues 197 to 256) can be altered by nucleotide substitutions to engineer temperature-sensitive (ts), attenuated mutants that display a defect in the transport of the PA–PB1 complex to the nucleus at a restrictive temperature. In this study, we investigated the ability of the PA linker to tolerate deletion mutations for further in vitro and in vivo characterization. Four viable mutants with single-codon deletions were generated; all of them exhibited a ts phenotype that was associated with the reduced efficiency of replication/transcription of a pseudoviral reporter RNA in a minireplicon assay. Using fluorescently tagged PB1, we observed that the deletion mutants did not efficiently recruit PB1 to reach the nucleus at a restrictive temperature (39.5°C). Mouse infections showed that the four mutants were attenuated and induced antibodies that were able to protect mice from challenge with a lethal homologous wild-type virus. Serial in vitro passages of two deletion mutants at 39.5°C and 37°C did not allow the restoration of a wild-type phenotype among virus progeny. Thus, our results identify codons that can be deleted in the PA gene to engineer genetically stable ts mutants that could be used to design novel attenuated vaccines. IMPORTANCE In order to generate genetically stable live influenza A virus vaccines, we constructed viruses with single-codon deletions in a discrete domain of the RNA polymerase PA gene. The four rescued viruses exhibited a temperature-sensitive phenotype that we found was associated with a defect in the transport of the PA–PB1 dimer to the nucleus, where viral replication occurs. These ts deletion mutants were shown to be attenuated and to be able to produce antibodies in mice and to protect them from a lethal challenge. Assays to select revertants that were able to grow efficiently at a restrictive temperature failed, showing that these deletion mutants are genetically more stable than conventional substitution mutants. These results are of interest for the design of genetically stable live influenza virus vaccines.
Cellulose Acetate Phthalate (CAP): An ‘Inactive” Pharmaceutical Excipient with Antiviral Activity in the Mouse Model of Genital Herpesvirus Infection

The spread of sexually transmitted infections caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) has continued unabated. At least 20% of the United States population has been infected with HSV-2 and there is a high probability of further virus transmission by asymptomatic carriers. Given the absence of effective vaccines, this indicates the need to develop prophylactic measures such as topical microbicides that have antiviral activity. Recent studies indicate that cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP), an inactive pharmaceutical excipient commonly used in the production of enteric tablets and capsules, is a broad specificity microbicide against diverse sexually transmitted pathogens. When appropriately formulated in micronized form, it inactivates various viruses, including HSV-2, in vitro. Here we show that CAP inhibits HSV-2 infection in the mouse model of genital HSV-2 infection. Pretreatment with micronized CAP formulated in a glycerol-based cream with colloidal silicone dioxide significantly reduced the proportion of HSV-2-infected mice (10% virus shedding, 0–5% lesion development and 0% fatality for CAP as compared to 84% shedding, 63% lesion development and 63% fatality in saline-treated mice). These differences were significant (P≤0.0002 by the test of equality of two proportions). Virus titres in the minority of mice that developed infection were similar to those in untreated mice. HSV-2 infection was not inhibited by treatment with CAP formulated with other inactive ingredients (for example povidone plus crosprovidone) instead of silicone dioxide, presumably reflecting CAP complexation/inactivation. These data suggest that properly formulated, CAP may be an efficacious agent for preventing vaginal transmission of genital herpesvirus infections.
ON THE RULES OF NORWEGIAN TONALITY

tones are lexical in nature and therefore more similar to the tonal patterns of Chinese and other languages usually called 'tonal'. The marked constraints on their distribution, however, ally them more nearly with the tones of such ultimately cognate languages as Lithuanian and Serbo-Croatian. At a linguistic seminar held at the University of Oslo a number of years ago, which I was privileged to attend, the participants discussed with some vigor the problem of these tones in relation to the whole linguistic structure. The question that the discussants found most puzzling was the fact that while there are numerous minimal pairs, probably more than for quantity or stress, the tones are eminently dispensable. The tone patterns vary sharply both in melodic realization and in lexical incidence, without causing any great confusion of understanding. There are dialect areas where the distinction is either markedly reduced or wholly absent; a well-known case is the Swedish spoken in Finland, while more recently it has been shown to be characteristic also of a large area in Norway surrounding (but not including) the city of Bergen (Jensen 1961). It is absent in Icelandic and Faroese, both of them conservative Scandinavian dialects. After World War II a Norwegian neurophysiologist presented the case of a woman struck by a piece of shrapnel, who relearned her own language without tones (Monrad-Krohn 1947). The case was mysterious and was not solved by the linguists consulted. It will be a purpose of this paper to explore the problem, taking into account some recent studies of the word tones in Norway and Sweden, and to present a theory of the tones that will highlight their function in the prosodic and gram185
The Pathological Substrate of Limbic Epilepsy: Neuronal Loss in the Medial Dorsal Thalamic Nucleus as the Consistent Change

Summary: Purpose: The focus of research in limbic epilepsy has been the hippocampus because of its well‐known pathology of hippocampal atrophy and sclerosis as well as the strong propensity for this structure to seize under a variety of circumstances. There is ample evidence, however, for pathological alterations in other regions of the limbic system in limbic/mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, including the amygdala, the entorhinal cortex, and, in some cases, the thalamus. In this preliminary evaluation of the pathological substrate for limbic epilepsy, we wished to determine if there was consistent anatomic change at extrahippocampal sites.
When plausibility manipulations work: An examination of their role in the development of false beliefs and memories

In the current study we examined whether prevalence information and imagery encoding influence participants' general plausibility, personal plausibility, belief, and memory ratings for suggested childhood events. Results showed decreases in general and personal plausibility ratings for low prevalence events when encoding instructions were not elaborate; however, instructions to repeatedly imagine suggested events elicited personal plausibility increases for low-prevalence events, evidence that elaborate imagery negated the effect of our prevalence manipulation. We found no evidence of imagination inflation or false memory construction. We discuss critical differences in researchers' manipulations of plausibility and imagery that may influence results of false memory studies in the literature. In future research investigators should focus on the specific nature of encoding instructions when examining the development of false memories.
The Metabolic Syndrome: A Modern Plague Spread by Modern Technology

Malnutrition and infectious disease represent the most common health threats facing the developing world. However, increasing technological developments and the expansion of western culture have contributed to the increasing prevalence of the metabolic syndrome. The epidemiologic significance and potential costs to governmental health care systems of an increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome could become high. The role of environmental influences that lead to the development of the metabolic syndrome needs to be explored. Because the metabolic syndrome becomes more common as nations develop, investigations into the ramifications of this disease often come too late.
Impact of Integration of Multislice Computed Tomography Imaging into Three‐Dimensional Electroanatomic Mapping on Clinical Outcomes, Safety, and Efficacy Using Radiofrequency Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Circumferential radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) around the orifices of the pulmonary veins (PV) is a curative catheter‐based therapy of paroxysmal, persistent, and permanent atrial fibrillation (AF). Integration of multislice computed tomography into three‐dimensional electroanatomic mapping to guide catheter ablation has been shown to be accurate and feasible. This study investigated whether the use of such sophisticated imaging technology translates into better clinical outcomes, procedural efficacy, and safety in comparison with a control group treated with conventional three‐dimensional electroanatomic mapping.
Quantitative Analysis of Driving Factors of Grassland Degradation: A Case Study in Xilin River Basin, Inner Mongolia

Current literature suggests that grassland degradation occurs in areas with poor soil conditions or noticeable environmental changes and is often a result of overgrazing or human disturbances. However, these views are questioned in our analyses. Based on the analysis of satellite vegetation maps from 1984, 1998, and 2004 for the Xilin River Basin, Inner Mongolia, China, and binary logistic regression (BLR) analysis, we observe the following: (1) grassland degradation is positively correlated with the growth density of climax communities; (2) our findings do not support a common notion that a decrease of biological productivity is a direct indicator of grassland degradation; (3) a causal relationship between grazing intensity and grassland degradation was not found; (4) degradation severity increased steadily towards roads but showed different trends near human settlements. This study found complex relationships between vegetation degradation and various microhabitat conditions, for example, elevation, slope, aspect, and proximity to water.
Efficient polling point determination and physical model based throughput maximisation in wireless sensor network

A major challenge in wireless sensor network (WSN) is data collection in a disconnected network while ensuring a viable throughput for the sensors or the nodes in the network. Incorporating mobility-assisted data collection where no other means of data gathering is feasible is a growing trend among researchers. There are many works in literature which exploit mobility to derive throughput using protocol model. However, there is a dearth of work which employs mobility of sink and physical model together. In this work, we first propose a Polling Point Determination Algorithm which aims to reduce the end-to-end delay in a particular communication tree. Next, we propose a Time Slot Assignment and Throughput Derivation (TSA-TD) algorithm which employs physical model (signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio model) to determine the throughput of each node in a network and subsequently assign time slots to each link. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm fares better in terms of number of time slot assignment when compared to existing algorithms.
Using MACBETH with the Choquet Integral Fundamentals to Model Interdependencies between Elementary Concerns in the Context of Risk Management

Effective risk management typically requires the evaluation of multiple consequences of different sources of risk, and multicriteria value models have been used for that purpose. The value of mitigating a risk impact is often considered by risk managers as dependent on the levels of other impacts, therefore there is a need for procedures to identify and model these interactions within a value measurement framework. The Choquet Integral (CI) has been used for this purpose, and several studies in the performance measurement literature have combined the 2-additive CI operator with the MACBETH approach to model interdependencies in real contexts. In this paper, we propose an alternative procedure to model interdependencies and determine the CI parameters from one single MACBETH global matrix. The procedure is illustrated with the construction of a descriptor of impacts to evaluate the risk impacts at ALSTOM Power. The paper further explains the questioning protocol to apply the proposed procedure, as well as how decision-makers can interpret the CI parameters.
One Size Does Not Fit All

Many scholars argue that intimate partner violence is too complex to address through the “one-size-fits-all” approaches that are common in most criminal justice venues. Instead, they advocate for coordinated approaches that address the unique circumstances of each offender. For 3 years, El Paso County ran a “Pilot Program,” which applied in-depth analytical tools to tailor court orders to each defendant. The program, to which offenders were randomly assigned, ran parallel to the county’s “one-size-fits-all” program, providing a rare opportunity to assess the efficacy of each approach. We find the Pilot Program significantly increased compliance and reduced the likelihood of recidivism.
Absolute Difference of Hepatobiliary Transporter Multidrug Resistance-Associated Protein (MRP2/Mrp2) in Liver Tissues and Isolated Hepatocytes from Rat, Dog, Monkey, and Human

We previously reported that hepatobiliary transporter multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP2/Mrp2) is considered to be the major cause of the interspecies differences detected by efflux of fluorescent substrates in isolated hepatocytes. In the present study, the interspecies differences of MRP2/Mrp2 were first evaluated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. The mRNA levels were able to distinguish the difference among species with a rank order comparable with the corresponding activities observed, whereas the extents of the differences remained unknown. The cross-reactions of MRP2/Mrp2 protein of different species with anti-human MRP2 polyclonal antibody were found by Western blotting. However, because of the unknown binding affinity of antibody to MRP2/Mrp2 protein across species and lack of purified MRP2/Mrp2 proteins for calibration, the immunoblotting assay was excluded from the absolute quantification of MRP2/Mrp2 protein for multiple species. By using our newly developed liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry quantification method, we were able to measure the absolute amount of MRP2/Mrp2 in liver tissues and isolated hepatocytes across species. Freshly isolated hepatocytes conserved MRP2/Mrp2 protein levels that are comparable with those in the liver tissues. The amount of Mrp2 in rat liver was approximately 10-fold higher than that in other species. Moreover, a significant loss of Mrp2 protein in the membrane fraction of rat cryopreserved hepatocytes was observed. Thus, the absolute differences of MRP2/Mrp2 levels in various species were determined, for the first time, by direct quantification. The results could potentially fill the translational gaps of in vitro/in vivo or preclinical species to human extrapolation of hepatobiliary elimination mediated by MRP2/Mrp2.