Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drawing Stories: The Power of Children's Drawings to Communicate the Lived Experience of Starting School

ALL TOO FREQUENTLY THE process of starting school is viewed through the eyes of teachers and parents alone. What is often overlooked is that the children, who live this experience, and their interpretation of events, may be vastly different from that of their parents and teachers. The use of drawings in conjunction with oral retellings is an innovative strategy in terms of studies related to transition. In the study reported on in this article, experiences were shared not only through what the children themselves said, but also through what they have drawn. This article highlights the nature of children's experiences as they start school, and how both oral and visual narratives can be effectively combined to access the lived experiences of young children. The wider study reported in this article was qualitative in nature and focused on the transition1 to Kindergarten2 experience at Callan Public School3, a small school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The study included three key stakeholders: the classroom teacher, the parents and, importantly, the children themselves. The children's drawings and comments have been combined with observations and anecdotes from parents and the classroom teacher in order to offer a richer insight into the process of starting school in this small rural community.
Streptococcus pyogenes Sortase Mutants Are Highly Susceptible to Killing by Host Factors Due to Aberrant Envelope Physiology

Cell wall anchored virulence factors are critical for infection and colonization of the host by Gram-positive bacteria. Such proteins have an N-terminal leader sequence and a C-terminal sorting signal, composed of an LPXTG motif, a hydrophobic stretch, and a few positively charged amino acids. The sorting signal halts translocation across the membrane, allowing sortase to cleave the LPXTG motif, leading to surface anchoring. Deletion of sortase prevents the anchoring of virulence factors to the wall; the effects on bacterial physiology however, have not been thoroughly characterized. Here we show that deletion of Streptococcus pyogenes sortase A leads to accumulation of sorting intermediates, particularly at the septum, altering cellular morphology and physiology, and compromising membrane integrity. Such cells are highly sensitive to cathelicidin, and are rapidly killed in blood and plasma. These phenomena are not a loss-of-function effect caused by the absence of anchored surface proteins, but specifically result from the accumulation of sorting intermediates. Reduction in the level of sorting intermediates leads to a return of the sortase mutant to normal morphology, while expression of M protein with an altered LPXTG motif in wild type cells leads to toxicity in the host environment, similar to that observed in the sortase mutant. These unanticipated effects suggest that inhibition of sortase by small-molecule inhibitors could similarly lead to the rapid elimination of pathogens from an infected host, making such inhibitors much better anti-bacterial agents than previously believed.
RND-type drug eﬄux pumps from Gram-negative bacteria: molecular mechanism and inhibition

Drug eﬄux protein complexes confer multidrug resistance on bacteria by transporting a wide spectrum of structurally diverse antibiotics. Moreover, organisms can only acquire resistance in the presence of an active eﬄux pump. The substrate range of drug eﬄux pumps is not limited to antibiotics, but it also includes toxins, dyes, detergents, lipids, and molecules involved in quorum sensing; hence eﬄux pumps are also associated with virulence and biofilm formation. Inhibitors of eﬄux pumps are therefore attractive compounds to reverse multidrug resistance and to prevent the development of resistance in clinically relevant bacterial pathogens. Recent successes on the structure determination and functional analysis of the AcrB and MexB components of the AcrAB-TolC and MexAB-OprM drug eﬄux systems as well as the structure of the fully assembled, functional triparted AcrAB-TolC complex significantly contributed to our understanding of the mechanism of substrate transport and the options for inhibition of eﬄux. These data, combined with the well-developed methodologies for measuring eﬄux pump inhibition, could allow the rational design, and subsequent experimental verification of potential eﬄux pump inhibitors (EPIs). In this review we will explore how the available biochemical and structural information can be translated into the discovery and development of new compounds that could reverse drug resistance in Gram-negative pathogens. The current literature on EPIs will also be analyzed and the reasons why no compounds have yet progressed into clinical use will be explored.
Toward a Structural Analysis of Illegal (Undocumented) Immigration

In his introduction to this issue of IMR which attempts to understand more fully different aspects of undocumented immigration, the guest editor situates the articles in the present context of research and policy, and complements them by summarizing some of the ideas common to all and by analyzing, on their basis, the significance of the current Administration's plan to deal with the illegal flow.
Reticular formation responses to magnetic brain stimulation of primary motor cortex

• Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a popular technique for the non‐invasive investigation of motor function and is often assumed to influence spinal circuits solely via the corticospinal tract. • In anaesthetized monkeys, we observed robust responses to TMS over motor cortex in single units recorded within the brainstem reticular formation. • Short latency responses were consistent with activation of a cortico‐reticular pathway. More powerful later responses seemed to be associated with the click sound produced by the coil on discharge. • Activation of brainstem neurones by sound must be considered as a potential confound during future TMS studies. • TMS might provide an easy, non‐invasive method for activating the motor reticular formation in human subjects.
Sex Differences in Stress-Responsive Neural Substrates and the Development of Mood Disorder-Like Behavior Following a Rodent Model of Early-Life Adversity

Stress-related mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are the most common psychiatric conditions, occurring with a lifetime risk of 15-20%. Women are twice as likely to develop anxiety and depression than men, and this sex difference emerges during puberty. Exposure to abuse or maltreatment during early life increases mood disorder susceptibility, suggesting that females may be especially sensitive to long-lasting, negative effects of early-life stress. While the female-bias in mood disorders is one of the most robust sex differences in psychiatry, the origin of this difference remains unknown. Sexually dimorphic processing of stressors by the adolescent brain, or the sex-specific expression of stress-related neural substrates, may be mechanisms by which stress-related mood disorders are more prominent in females. We developed a novel animal model of early-life adversity, Juvenile Social Subjugation (JSS), to test the effect of chronic adolescent social stress on mood disorder-like pathology in adulthood. This dissertation addressed the following research questions: (1) Does chronic JSS induce sex-specific anxiety and depression-like behaviors and HPA axis dysfunction in adulthood? (2) Is JSS differentially processed by the male and female adolescent brain? (3) Is the corticotropin-releasing factor receptor (CRF) system sex-specifically expressed across development? Together our data point to regional sex differences in neuronal activation and CRF receptor expression in the brain as potential mechanisms by which stressors such as JSS induce sex-specific mood disorder-like behavior in adulthood. INDEX WORDS: Stress, Sex differences, Mood disorder, Anxiety, Depression, Animal model, Puberty, Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, Corticotropin-releasing factor, Amygdala SEX DIFFERENCES IN STRESS-RESPONSIVE NEURAL SUBSTRATES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOOD DISORDER-LIKE BEHAVIOR FOLLOWING A RODENT MODEL OF EARLY-LIFE ADVERSITY
Gastritis cystica profunda in a patient with no history of gastric surgery

A 79−year−old woman was admitted be− cause of intermittent epigastric pain. She had no history of gastrectomy or gastro− enterostomy. Gastroscopy revealed giant gastric folds along the anterior wall of the fundus (Figure 1). A partial mucosec− tomy of the lesion showed dilated cystic glands in the basal portion of mucosa, ex− tending to the submucosa through an in− terruption of the muscularis mucosae (Figure 2). No dysplastic changes were ob− served. Contrast−enhanced abdominal computed tomography revealed an intra− luminal polypoid mass with a thick per− ipheral wall (Figure 3). Endoscopic ultra− sound showed a thickened, echo−poor submucosal layer containing multiple an− echogenic areas, indicating the presence of submucosal cysts (Figure 4). These findings were consistent with gastritis cy− stica profunda. Because of the age of the patient, no surgical resection was per− formed. A follow−up gastroscopy 3 months after the initial examination showed no macroscopic changes.
In vitro antimicrobial susceptibility testing of rapidly growing mycobacteria using the tablet diffusion method: resistance pattern of Norwegian Mycobacterium fortuitum and Mycobacterium chelonae isolates

Thirty‐one Norwegian clinical isolates of rapidly growing mycobacteria classified as Runyon's group IV, including 20 Mycobacterium fortuitum and 11 Mycobacterium chelonae strains, were found resistant to a majority of tuberculostatic agents. Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined for twelve other antimicrobial agents: amikacin, tobramycin, streptomycin, cefoxitin, imipenem, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, erythromycin, fusidic acid, co‐trimoxazole and capreomycin. The agar plate dilution method was employed and compared with the agar tablet diffusion method. Regression lines were established correlating MIC values and inhibition zones. The agar tablet diffusion method was found to be a simple and useful method for testing antimicrobial susceptibilities of M. fortuitum and M. chelonae, and a good correlation between MIC values and zone sizes with twelve antimicrobial agents was revealed. Correlation coefficients for most of these antimicrobial agents were around ‐0.90. M. chelonae was generally more resistant than M. fortuitum. Four antimicrobial agents, capreomycin, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin and amikacin, showed differences between M. fortuitum and M. chelonae large enough to allow the zone diameter to be used diagnostically.
Face recognition with histograms of fractional differential gradients

Abstract. It has proved that fractional differentiation can enhance the edge information and nonlinearly preserve textural detailed information in an image. This paper investigates its ability for face recognition and presents a local descriptor called histograms of fractional differential gradients (HFDG) to extract facial visual features. HFDG encodes a face image into gradient patterns using multiorientation fractional differential masks, from which histograms of gradient directions are computed as the face representation. Experimental results on Yale, face recognition technology (FERET), Carnegie Mellon University pose, illumination, and expression (CMU PIE), and A. Martinez and R. Benavente (AR) databases validate the feasibility of the proposed method and show that HFDG outperforms local binary patterns (LBP), histograms of oriented gradients (HOG), enhanced local directional patterns (ELDP), and Gabor feature-based methods.
Semantic Priming From Crowded Words

Vision in a cluttered scene is extremely inefficient. This damaging effect of clutter, known as crowding, affects many aspects of visual processing (e.g., reading speed). We examined observers’ processing of crowded targets in a lexical decision task, using single-character Chinese words that are compact but carry semantic meaning. Despite being unrecognizable and indistinguishable from matched nonwords, crowded prime words still generated robust semantic-priming effects on lexical decisions for test words presented in isolation. Indeed, the semantic-priming effect of crowded primes was similar to that of uncrowded primes. These findings show that the meanings of words survive crowding even when the identities of the words do not, suggesting that crowding does not prevent semantic activation, a process that may have evolved in the context of a cluttered visual environment.
Dynamics and cooperativity of microtubule decoration by the motor protein kinesin.

We describe a theoretical and experimental analysis of the interaction between microtubules and dimeric motor proteins (kinesin, NCD), with special emphasis on the stoichiometry of the interaction, cooperative effects, and their consequences for the interpretation of biochemical and image reconstruction results. Monomeric motors can bind equivalently to microtubules without interference, at a stoichiometry of one motor head per tubulin subunit (alphabeta-heterodimer). By contrast, dimeric motors can interact with stoichiometries ranging between one and two heads per tubulin subunit, depending on binding constants of the first head and the subsequent binding of the second head, and the concentration of dimers in solution. Further, we show that an attractive interaction between the bound motor molecules can explain the higher periodicities observed in decorated microtubules (e.g. 16 nm periodicity), and the non-uniform decoration of a population of microtubules and give an estimate of the strength of this interaction.
Differences in Burnout Among Special Education Teachers

·-·-·--·····3 Introduction . ____ . 4 Met hod . _, ___ . 18 Participants . ::. 8 Materials . 18 Procedure . 2 0 Resul ts . 2 1 Discussion . 2 5 Re= erences . -. 2 9 Appendix A. 3 5 Appendix B . -. 3 6 Appendix C . 37
Mechanisms Underlying the Link between Cannabis Use and Prospective Memory

While the effects of cannabis use on retrospective memory have been extensively examined, only a limited number of studies have focused on the links between cannabis use and prospective memory. We conducted two studies to examine the links between cannabis use and both time-based and event-based prospective memory as well as potential mechanisms underlying these links. For the first study, 805 students completed an online survey designed to assess cannabis consumption, problems with cannabis use indicative of a disorder, and frequency of experiencing prospective memory failures. The results showed small to moderate sized correlations between cannabis consumption, problems with cannabis use, and prospective memory. However, a series of mediation analyses revealed that correlations between problems with cannabis use and prospective memory were driven by self-reported problems with retrospective memory. For the second study, 48 non-users (who had never used cannabis), 48 experimenters (who had used cannabis five or fewer times in their lives), and 48 chronic users (who had used cannabis at least three times a week for one year) were administered three objective prospective memory tests and three self-report measures of prospective memory. The results revealed no objective deficits in prospective memory associated with chronic cannabis use. In contrast, chronic cannabis users reported experiencing more internally-cued prospective memory failures. Subsequent analyses revealed that this effect was driven by self-reported problems with retrospective memory as well as by use of alcohol and other drugs. Although our samples were not fully characterized with respect to variables such as neurological disorders and family history of substance use disorders, leaving open the possibility that these variables may play a role in the detected relationships, the present findings indicate that cannabis use has a modest effect on self-reported problems with prospective memory, with a primary problem with retrospective memory appearing to underlie this relationship.
Combination of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor/Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Receptor Inhibition Markedly Improves Radiation Tumor Therapy

Purpose: Investigations on the combination of radiotherapy with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) antiangiogenic agents, which has the potential to improve the clinical outcome in cancer patients. Experimental Design: Here, we analyze the combined VEGF (SU5416) and PDGF (SU6668) receptor tyrosine kinase inhibition with irradiation in human endothelium (HUVEC), prostate cancer (PC3), and glioblastoma (U87) in vitro and in vivo. Results: Combined inhibition of VEGF and PDGF signaling resulted in enhanced apoptosis, reduced cell proliferation, and clonogenic survival as well as reduced endothelial cell migration and tube formation compared with single pathway inhibition. These effects were further enhanced by additional irradiation. Likewise, in PC3 and U87 tumors growing s.c. on BALB/c nu/nu mice, dual inhibition of VEGF and PDGF signaling significantly increased tumor growth delay versus each monotherapy. Interestingly, radiation at ∼20% of the dose necessary to induce local tumor control exerts similar tumor growth-inhibitory effects as the antiangiogenic drugs given at their maximum effective dose. Addition of radiotherapy to both mono- as well as dual-antiangiogenic treatment markedly increased tumor growth delay. With respect to tumor angiogenesis, radiation further decreased microvessel density (CD31 count) and tumor cell proliferation (Ki-67 index) in all drug-treated groups. Of note, the slowly growing PC3 tumor responded better to the antiangiogenic drug treatments than the faster-growing U87 tumor. In addition to the beneficial effect of abrogating VEGF survival signaling when combined with radiation, we identified here a novel mechanism for the tumor escape from radiation damage. We found that radiation induced up-regulation of all four isoforms of PDGF (A-D) in endothelial cells supporting adjacent smooth muscle cells resulting in a prosurvival effect of radiation. The addition of SU6668 attenuated this undesirable paracrine radiation effect, which may rationalize the combined application of radiation with PDGF signaling inhibition to increase antitumor effects. Conclusion: A relative low radiation dose markedly enhances local antitumor effects of combined VEGF and PDGF signaling inhibition, suggesting a promising combination regimen for local tumor treatment with radiotherapy remaining an essential element.
Supporting service differentiation in wireless packet networks using distributed control

This paper investigates differentiated services in wireless packet networks using a fully distributed approach that supports service differentiation, radio monitoring, and admission control. While our proposal is generally applicable to distributed wireless access schemes, we design, implement, and evaluate our framework within the context of existing wireless technology. Service differentiation is based on the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) originally designed to support best-effort data services. We analyze the delay experienced by a mobile host implementing the IEEE 802.11 DCF and derive a closed-form formula. We then extend the DCF to provide service differentiation for delay-sensitive and best-effort traffic based on the results from the analysis. Two distributed estimation algorithms are proposed. These algorithms are evaluated using simulation, analysis, and experimentation. A virtual MAC (VMAC) algorithm passively monitors the radio channel and estimates locally achievable service levels. The VMAC estimates key MAC level statistics related to service quality such as delay, delay variation, packet collision, and packet loss. We show the efficiency of the VMAC algorithm through simulation and consider significantly overlapping cells and highly bursty traffic mixes. In addition, we implement and evaluate the VMAC in an experimental differentiated services wireless testbed. A virtual source (VS) algorithm utilizes the VMAC to estimate application-level service quality. The VS allows application parameters to be tuned in response to dynamic channel conditions based on "virtual delay curves. " We demonstrate through simulation that when these distributed victual algorithms are applied to the admission control of the radio channel then a globally stable state can be maintained without the need for complex centralized radio resource management.
Neurturin and GDNF promote proliferation and survival of enteric neuron and glial progenitors in vitro.

Signaling through the c-Ret tyrosine kinase and the endothelin B receptor pathways is known to be critical for development of the enteric nervous system. To clarify the role of these receptors in enteric nervous system development, the effect of ligands for these receptors was examined on rat enteric neuron precursors in fully defined medium in primary culture. In this culture system, dividing Ret-positive cells differentiate, cluster into ganglia containing neurons and enteric glia, and create extensive networks reminiscent of the enteric plexus established in vivo. Glial cell-line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and neurturin both potently support survival and proliferation of enteric neuron precursors in this system. Addition of either neurturin or GDNF to these cultures increased the number of both neurons and enteric glia. Persephin, a third GDNF family member, shares many properties with neurturin and GDNF in the central nervous system and in kidney development. By contrast, persephin does not promote enteric neuron precursor proliferation or survival in these cultures. Endothelin-3 also does not increase the number of enteric neurons or glia in these cultures.
Ergenlikte Kimlik Statüleri ve Risk Alma Arasındaki İlişki

The purpose of this study is to examine whether an adolescent’s identity status predict their risk taking behavior. In addition, another purpose of this study is whether an adolescent’s risk taking behavior differs in terms of gender. The research group consisted of 315 (165 female, 150 male) university students. To collect data the EOM-EIS (Extended Version of Objective Measure of Ego Identity ) and the Risk Taking Scale (RTS) were used. To analyze data Pearson Correlation, Multiple Regression Analysis and t-test were used. According to results, achievement, foreclosure, moratorium and diffusion identity status together accounted for a significant proportion of the variance (% 26) of the risk taking behavior. The results of this study also revealed that an adolescent’s risk taking behavior differentiated by gender.
Identification of neoxanthin synthase as a carotenoid cyclase paralog.

Neoxanthin, a precursor of the plant hormone abscisic acid, is an allenic xanthophyll recognized as the last product of carotenoid synthesis in green plants. A cDNA for neoxanthin synthase (NSY) was isolated from tomato using a molecular approach based on the mechanistic and structural similarities of NSY to two other closely related carotenogenic enzymes, lycopene cyclase (LCY) and capsanthin-capsorubin synthase (CCS). The identified tomato NSY cDNA (T.NSY) encodes a 56-kDa plastid-targeted protein that when expressed in Escherichia coli, catalyzes the conversion of violaxanthin to neoxanthin. In tobacco leaves that transiently express T.NSY, an increase in neoxanthin content with a concomitant decrease in violaxanthin is observed. NSY is structurally similar to LCY and CCS. However, in Cyanobacteria, the generally accepted progenitor of plastids, both CCS and NSY are absent while LCY is present. LCY catalyzes a simplified version of the reaction catalyzed by NSY and CCS suggesting that these two enzymes were remodeled from LCY during higher plant evolution to create new forms of oxidized carotenoids.