Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age-Related Changes in Performance and Strategies in an Area and Volume Comparison

The 2008 course of study (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology 2008), which is the curriculum development guideline for schools, stipulates that teachers should enhance pupils’ abilities to acquire concepts for quantity and measurement through an abundance of experience to compare the lengths, areas, and volumes of objects around them. Regarding area, pupils learn that they can compare the areas of objects by piling one object on top of another. They also learn that when the piling strategy is not available, they may compare areas by counting and comparing the numbers of plates that they spread on top of the compared objects. With volume, pupils learn that they may compare volumes of objects by putting a smaller box into a bigger box, pouring water into one container and out of another, or examining how many times they may ladle water in a container using a cup. The key question here is when do children acquire the above-mentioned strategies with which they compare areas and volumes. The development of a child's performance in various domains, such as concepts, language, cognition, and sociality tends to change in a u-shaped manner: rising, descending, and rising once again with age (SHIMIZU 2002; AOKI 1989). MARATSOS (1973) was the first to demonstrate that children's ability to compare areas develops in a u-shaped manner. He asked children whose ages ranged from three to five years to compare the areas of a pair of rectangles. The results showed that the percentage of correct answers decreased with age. Given that adults have sufficient ability to compare the areas of rectangles, he suggested that the area comparison ability develops in a u-shaped manner. SENA and SMITH (1990) conducted a replication of a study by MARATSOS (1973) with tasks that were identical in his experiment. The results of their study were partially consistent with those of Maratsos (1973). Children whose ages ranged from three to five years, exhibited age-related decreases in correct answer rates in the area Age-Related Changes in Performance and Strategies in an Area and Volume Comparison *
Harnessing neuroplasticity for clinical applications.

ARTICLE Sir, The recent review article ‘Harnessing neuroplasticity for clinical applications’ (Cramer et al. , 2011) is in many respects an impressively sophisticated summary of current knowledge of CNS plasticity and its potential translation to important new therapeutic applications. However, this otherwise excellent article has one very major omission: anyone reading it who did not already know better would assume that neuroplasticity essentially ends at the foramen magnum. Apart from several brief references to corticospinal tract plasticity, there is no mention of spinal cord plasticity, of its importance in sensorimotor function, and of the rapidly growing evidence that appropriate engagement and guidance of spinal cord plasticity could play a major role in restoring useful function after spinal cord injuries, strokes and other trauma or disease. A major area of active and successful research that applies directly to the subject of the article, ‘Harnessing neuroplasticity for clinical applications,’ is not addressed. A full review of activity-dependent spinal cord plasticity and its potential clinical applications would be nearly as lengthy as Cramer et al . (2011). The relevant information comprises at least six substantial bodies of data, three coming from pathological situations or reduced preparations and three coming from normal life. These six areas are briefly summarized and illustrated here. First, the long-term changes in spinal cord function that develop after injury or disease disrupt supraspinal control have been recognized for at least a century (Riddoch, 1917; Brodal, 1981; Hiersemenzel et al. , 2000; Wolpaw and Tennissen, 2001). Indeed, long-term survival after spinal cord injury depends on meticulous bladder, bowel and skin-care regimens that serve to moderate this plasticity. Perhaps, the best early laboratory evidence of activity-dependent spinal cord plasticity was Anna DiGiorgio's (1929, 1942) demonstration that a short period of abnormal descending activity produced by a …
Aging related responses to conflicting proprioceptive and visual information about initial position during reaching

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of the current study was to examine whether age-related differences are exhibited in the relative contributions of vision and proprioception with initial hand position to the control of movement distance of single-joint reaching movements. METHODS: We use a virtual reality display to systematically change the relationship between the actual hand position and the displayed hand position (virtual position) as subjects' positioned a cursor within a start circle. Visual feedback of the reaching hand was only available before movement onset. Two groups of subjects (older and young) reached to two different visual targets (115o and 125o elbow angle) from four possible starting locations (90o, 95o, 100o, 105o elbow angle) under four virtual/actual dissociation conditions (0o, 5o, 10o, 15o). RESULTS: For the mismatched conditions movement distance was generally longer for the older adults as compared to the younger. Also, the younger group better scaled their movement extent with cursor initial location, whereas, the older group showed scaling with hand location. Our results indicate age-related differences in the effects of initial position information when vision and proprioception initial information were dissociated. CONCLUSION: The young were able to completely rely on visual information through feedforward mechanism applying acceleration amplitude manipulation for controlling movement distance. In contrast, older subjects relied on proprioceptive information for the scaling of peak velocity with movement distance, suggesting more reliance on feedback-mediated error-correction mechanisms during the course of movement.
Cell isolation procedures matter: a comparison of different isolation protocols of bone marrow mononuclear cells used for cell therapy in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

AIM The recently published REPAIR-AMI and ASTAMI trial showed differences in contractile recovery of left ventricular function after infusion of bone marrow-derived cells in acute myocardial infarction. Since the trials used different protocols for cell isolation and storage (REPAIR-AMI: Ficoll, storage in X-vivo 10 medium plus serum; ASTAMI: Lymphoprep, storage in NaCl plus plasma), we compared the functional activity of BMC isolated by the two different protocols. METHODS AND RESULTS The recovery of total cell number, colony-forming units (CFU), and the number of mesenchymal stem cells were significantly reduced to 77 +/- 4%, 83 +/- 16%, and 65 +/- 15%, respectively, when using the ASTAMI protocol compared with the REPAIR protocol. The capacity of the isolated BMC to migrate in response to stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1) was profoundly reduced when using the ASTAMI cell isolation procedure (42 +/- 8% and 78 +/- 3% reduction in healthy and CAD-patient cells, respectively). Finally, infusion of BMC into a hindlimb ischaemia model demonstrated a significantly blunted blood-flow-recovery by BMC isolated with the ASTAMI protocol (54 +/- 6% of the effect obtained by REPAIR cells). Comparison of the individual steps identified the use of NaCl and plasma for cell storage as major factors for functional impairment of the BMC. CONCLUSION Cell isolation protocols have a major impact on the functional activity of bone marrow-derived progenitor cells. The assessment of cell number and viability may not entirely reflect the functional capacity of cells in vivo. Additional functional testing appears to be mandatory to assure proper cell function before embarking on clinical cell therapy trials.
Children learning Chinese as a home language in an English-dominant society

Many Chinese families face many difficulties in maintaining their heritage language for their children in English-dominant societies. This article first looks at the losses from monolingualism and benefits of bilingualism. Then, it explores the common methods used today in teaching Chinese. We conclude that families and community play an indispensable role in their children's acquisition. For children to acquire adequate proficiency in the language, educators should inform families about this topic and partner with them. Families can indeed be active in the process. Hence, the article further describes a guide designed and written by the author to accommodate the needs of parents. It can be used as a model for future guides. Further, the article recommends effective media routes by which families can have access to similar guides.
Spaceborne bi- and multistatic SAR: potential and challenges

Bi- and multistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) operates with distinct transmit and receive antennas that are mounted on separate platforms. Such a spatial separation has several operational advantages, which will increase the capability, reliability and flexibility of future SAR missions. Various spaceborne bi- and multistatic SAR configurations are introduced, and their potential for different applications such as frequent monitoring, wide-swath imaging, scene classification, single pass cross-track interferometry and resolution enhancement is compared. Furthermore, some major challenges such as phase and time synchronisation, bi- and multistatic SAR processing, satellite orbit selection and relative position sensing are addressed.
Intrinsic motivation of Chinese learning in predicting online learning self-efficacy and flow experience relevant to students’ learning progress

ABSTRACT Students of Southeast Asian Heritage Learning Chinese (SSAHLC) in Taiwan have frequently demonstrated difficulty with traditional Chinese (a graphical character) radical recognition due to their limited exposure to the written language form since childhood. In this study, we designed a Chinese radical learning game (CRLG), which adopted a drill and practice mode, for SSAHLC to practice recognizing Chinese radicals. To facilitate Chinese writing, non-native learners need to use aspects of the radical knowledge as cues to encode characters, from which the contents of the game were built up for SSAHLC to master the Chinese written forms by playing the CRLG with gesture-based interactions. In addition, the game was used to explore the students’ intrinsic motivation relevant to online learning self-efficacy, as well as the experience of flow, to predict the degree of learning progress. Data were collected from 78 SSAHLC participating in the study, and 73 valid questionnaires were returned. After applying confirmatory factor analysis as well as structural equation modeling to the valid data, it was found that four constructs, namely intrinsic motivation, online learning self-efficacy, flow experience, and learning progress, were all positively correlated. Our results indicated that intrinsic motivation of Chinese learning predicted online learning self-efficacy, and that flow experience was relevant to the students’ learning progress. Moreover, the degree of learning progress could be predicted by the mediating factors. These findings imply that heritage language teachers may utilize the CRLG to enhance learners’ Chinese radical recognition ability, and eventually improve their Chinese character recognition ability.
Potential Phytoextraction with in-vitro regenerated plantlets of Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. in presence of CdCl$_2$: Cadmium accumulation and physiological parameter measurement

Heavy metal contamination of agricultural land is partly responsible for limiting crop productivity. Cd$^{2+}$ is known as a non-essentiel HM that can be harmful to plants even at low concentrations. Brassica juncea (L.) is able to accumulate more than 400 $\mu$g.g$^{-1}$ D.W. in the shoot, a physiological trait which may be exploited for the phytoremediation of contaminated soils and waters. The application of 75 $\mu$M CdCl$_2$ for three days does not show any effect in the B. juncea growth parameters (F.W. and D.W.) whatever the type of plantlets. This application decreases also the contents of chlorophyll a, carotenoids and Chl a/b ratio (2.26) for plantlets regenerated in the absence of CdCl$_2$ but not those of plantlets regenerated in its presence. Roots have the highest contents (3071; 1544 $\mu$g.g$^{-1}$ D.W.) followed by stems (850; 687$\mu$g.g$^{-1}$ D.W.) and leaves (463; 264$\mu$g.g$^{-1}$ D.W.) respectively. In our conditions, we suggest that the low accumulation in the plantlets regenerated in the presence of CdCl$_2$ by the means of in-vitro regeneration technology is still benefical, to some extent, for the phytoextraction process and seems to be an interesting technology that allows the cultivation of these plantlets in contaminated soils with low accumulation of metal in their shoots and probably in their seeds used in many food technologies.
Proficiency testing project for brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and the N-terminal part of the propeptide of BNP (NT-proBNP) immunoassays: the CardioOrmocheck study

Abstract Background: We organized and conducted a proficiency testing study (CardioOrmocheck) to evaluate the differences in analytical performance of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) immunoassays. Methods: Approximately 90 Italian laboratories were involved in the 2005–2007 proficiency testing cycles, while 112 laboratories took part in the 2008 cycle (from January to May 2008). A total of 28 study samples were measured by participating laboratories for a total of 2354 determinations. Results: The mean total variability for BNP (50.6 %CV) was significantly higher than that for NT-proBNP (8.4 %CV). In addition, the mean variability due to differences between-methods (46.4 %CV) comprised the majority of the total variability for BNP. Between-method variability for BNP comprised, on average, 84% of total variability, while the within-method variability comprised an average of 20.2 %CV. On the contrary, for NT-proBNP the within-method variability (7.3 %CV) represented the majority of total variability (average 75%), while between-method variability was smaller (4.1 %CV). Imprecision around the cut-off value showed marked differences among methods, especially for BNP immunoassay methods. In addition, BNP methods were affected by large systematic differences, for example an average 2.7-fold difference between Access and ADVIA Centaur methods, while agreement between NT-proBNP methods was better (an average 1.2-fold difference between Dimension and ECLIA on the Elecsys methods). Conclusions: This multicenter collaborative study demonstrates that there are significant differences in analytical characteristics and measured values among the most popular commercial methods for BNP and NT-proBNP. Clinicians should be very careful when comparing results obtained by laboratories that use different methods. Clin Chem Lab Med 2009;47:762–8.
Extending WS-Notification with an Expressive Event Notification Broker

Web service applications integrate explicit client-service interactions with notification-style programming. Such event-driven interactions are often called implicit invocations because the notification message is not in itself a business interaction. Rather, it is used to implicitly trigger such interactions as a means for reacting to events. Web Services specifications such as WS-Notification have been developed in order to standardize the way notifications are sent, but they only support the most basic form of event notification. In this paper, we discuss the architecture and the implementation of an expressive notification broker based on extension mechanisms presented by the WS-Notification specification. This broker improves the standard WSN broker in three ways. First, it supports event correlation and hence allows for composite event detection. Second, it integrates events and reactions into Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules that can be registered directly at the broker. Third, it introduces event-driven lifecycle management for ECA rules, thus allowing to dynamically adapt these ECA rules to changing situations.
An Analytical Approach to Network Motif Detection in Samples of Networks with Pairwise Different Vertex Labels

Network motifs, overrepresented small local connection patterns, are assumed to act as functional meaningful building blocks of a network and, therefore, received considerable attention for being useful for understanding design principles and functioning of networks. We present an extension of the original approach to network motif detection in single, directed networks without vertex labeling to the case of a sample of directed networks with pairwise different vertex labels. A characteristic feature of this approach to network motif detection is that subnetwork counts are derived from the whole sample and the statistical tests are adjusted accordingly to assign significance to the counts. The associated computations are efficient since no simulations of random networks are involved. The motifs obtained by this approach also comprise the vertex labeling and its associated information and are characteristic of the sample. Finally, we apply this approach to describe the intricate topology of a sample of vertex-labeled networks which originate from a previous EEG study, where the processing of painful intracutaneous electrical stimuli and directed interactions within the neuromatrix of pain in patients with major depression and healthy controls was investigated. We demonstrate that the presented approach yields characteristic patterns of directed interactions while preserving their important topological information and omitting less relevant interactions.
CASE STUDY: In situ determinationof protein digestibility of drieddistillers grains containing 3lipid concentrations using amobile bag method

ABSTRACT Ethanol producers remove lipid from distillers grains (DG) for applications such as biodiesel production. The effects of the lipid removal on ruminal protein degradability and total-tract CP digestibility of DG are not known. Five ruminally and duodenally cannulated Angus-cross steers (BW = 434 ± 15 kg) were used to incubate in situ bags for determination of protein digestibility of low-lipid (5.54%) DG, medium-lipid (8.40%) DG, high-lipid (12.46%) DG, and cottonseed meal. Ingredients were weighed into individual in situ bags and incubated in the ventral sac of the rumen for 16 h. After ruminal incubation and simulated abomasal digestion, bags were inserted into the duodenal cannula of corresponding steers and collected from feces approximately 12 to18 h later. Bags were washed, dried, and analyzed for CP. The CP concentration in DG increased with decreasing lipid concentrations, and the RUP fraction of the CP in DG decreased with decreasing lipid concentration (54.5, 54.8, and 60.1 ± 1.8% RUP for low-, medium-, and high-lipid DG, respectively) suggesting that lipid extraction increased rumen protein degradability. The total-tract indigestible protein and postruminal digestibility of RUP were not different among the varying lipid concentrations in DG. The RUP digestibility of the low-, medium-, and high-lipid DG (79.5, 80.4, and 80.6 ± 2.0%, respectively) was consistent with the commonly used NRC model value of 80%. These data suggest the extraction of lipid from DG may alter ruminal degradability of CP but does not change the postruminal digestibility of the RUP.
Three-dimensional printing of complex biological structures by freeform reversible embedding of suspended hydrogels

Freeform reversible embedding of suspended hydrogels enables three-dimensional printing of soft extracellular matrix biopolymers in biomimetic structures. We demonstrate the additive manufacturing of complex three-dimensional (3D) biological structures using soft protein and polysaccharide hydrogels that are challenging or impossible to create using traditional fabrication approaches. These structures are built by embedding the printed hydrogel within a secondary hydrogel that serves as a temporary, thermoreversible, and biocompatible support. This process, termed freeform reversible embedding of suspended hydrogels, enables 3D printing of hydrated materials with an elastic modulus <500 kPa including alginate, collagen, and fibrin. Computer-aided design models of 3D optical, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging data were 3D printed at a resolution of ~200 μm and at low cost by leveraging open-source hardware and software tools. Proof-of-concept structures based on femurs, branched coronary arteries, trabeculated embryonic hearts, and human brains were mechanically robust and recreated complex 3D internal and external anatomical architectures.
Exploiting structure for information retrieval

Structured elements are pervasive in digital libraries, product catalogs, scientific data collections and on the Internet. One of our research aims is to investigate the ways in which the additional structure of a collection can be brought to bear on retrieval effectiveness. This paper reports on our experiments on the use of manually assigned keywords in domain specific collections; on the use of URL and link structure on the Internet; and on the use of XML-structure in annotated scientific collections.
Evaluation of Soil Moisture Retrieval from the ERS and Metop Scatterometers in the Lower Mekong Basin

The natural environment and livelihoods in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) are significantly affected by the annual hydrological cycle. Monitoring of soil moisture as a key variable in the hydrological cycle is of great interest in a number of Hydrological and agricultural applications. In this study we evaluated the quality and spatiotemporal variability of the soil moisture product retrieved from C-band scatterometers data across the LMB sub-catchments. The soil moisture retrieval algorithm showed reasonable performance in most areas of the LMB with the exception of a few sub-catchments in the eastern parts of Laos, where the land cover is characterized by dense vegetation. The best performance of the retrieval algorithm was obtained in agricultural regions. Comparison of the available in situ evaporation data in the LMB and the Basin Water Index (BWI), an indicator of the basin soil moisture condition, showed significant negative correlations up to R = −0.85. The inter-annual variation of the calculated BWI was also found corresponding to the reported extreme hydro-meteorological events in the Mekong region. The retrieved soil moisture data show high correlation (up to R = 0.92) with monthly anomalies of precipitation in non-irrigated regions. In general, the seasonal variability of soil moisture in the LMB was well captured by the retrieval method. The results of analysis also showed significant correlation between El Nino events and the monthly BWI anomaly measurements particularly for the month May with the maximum correlation of R = 0.88.