Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Von Willebrand Factor Abnormalities Studied in the Mouse Model: What We Learned about VWF Functions

Up until recently, von Willebrand Factor (VWF) structure-function relationships have only been studied through in vitro approaches. A powerful technique known as hydrodynamic gene transfer, which allows transient expression of a transgene by mouse hepatocytes, has led to an important shift in VWF research. Indeed this approach has now enabled us to transiently express a number of VWF mutants in VWF-deficient mice in order to test the relative importance of specific residues in different aspects of VWF biology and functions in an in vivo setting. As a result, mice reproducing various types of von Willebrand disease have been generated, models that will be useful to test new therapies. This approach also allowed a more precise identification of the importance of VWF interaction with subendothelial collagens and with platelets receptors in hemostasis and thrombosis. The recent advances gathered from these studies as well as the pros and cons of the technique will be reviewed here.
‘Sandplay, Clay and Sticks’: Multi-Sensory Research Methods to Explore the Long-Term Mental Health Effects of Childhood Play Experience

Abstract In this contribution we discuss the advantages of using multi-sensory methodologies in our study into the long-term mental health effects of different kinds of childhood play space. Working with a small group of young people aged 16–21 years old; we used a multi-method approach including practical workshops where the young people took part in a day of woodland activities and artwork sessions. We argue that use of such practical methodologies is particularly appropriate in research with teenagers and young adults, helping to overcome their self-consciousness and supporting their need to explore and articulate memories, feelings and ideas.
High Expression of SOX2 Is Associated with Poor Prognosis in Patients with Salivary Gland Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

Sex determining region Y-BOX2 (SOX2), one of the key members of the SOX family, is a transcription factor that is involved in the maintenance of embryonic stem cell pluripotency and in multiple developmental processes. Recent studies have shown that SOX2 is aberrantly expressed in several types of tumors. The present study aimed to investigate the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of SOX2 in adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) of salivary gland. In this study, the expression of SOX2 in ACC tissues and matched adjacent non-cancerous tissues was measured by immunohistochemistry, western blot, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction. High SOX2 expression occurred in approximately 62.6% of primary ACC. In addition, high expression of SOX2 was significantly associated with T classification (p = 0.003) and distant metastasis (p = 0.002). The 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with high SOX2 expression is poorer than those with low SOX2 expression. When adjusted by multivariate analysis, high SOX2 expression, together with distant metastasis, was an independent prognostic factor. The findings of the present study provide evidence that SOX2 represents a potential novel prognostic biomarker for ACC patients.
Mild cognitive impairment and on to dementia

In this issue of Neurology ®, a study from the Chicago Health and Aging Project shows that persons with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) decline more rapidly than persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and that patients with MCI decline more rapidly than cognitively normal persons.1 The findings have important implications for understanding the relationships between the clinical manifestations and the pathology of Alzheimer disease (AD). In longitudinal studies, there is an acceleration of decline in cognition preceding the diagnosis of dementia.2,3 The observations of Wilson et al.1 on the differences between normal cognition and MCI are consistent with these prior observations. The finding of acceleration of decline between MCI and DAT has not been previously established in persons with incident cognitive impairment. Clinical trial experience in MCI and DAT certainly shows differences in rates of progression between the 2 groups. Patient groups with prevalent MCI or DAT are more likely to include some persons with static conditions. In contrast, incident cases are those persons who, by definition, are exhibiting recently recognized decline. By studying incident cases of MCI, Wilson et al. have a reasonable assurance that they have identified persons with MCI who have a progressive condition. In addition, the Chicago Health …
Critical thinking in a second language

Critical thinking (CT) skills are generally considered to be vital to success at university, but Asian students are sometimes perceived as lacking these skills. This research explores the effect that thinking in a second language has on CT performance. To assess this, two groups of students were tested on a split‐test version of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal ® Short Form A in both English and Chinese, one group taking the English half of the test first and the second group taking the Chinese half first. Three participants were also interviewed about the test‐taking experience. The findings indicate CT performance is more difficult in an L2: participants who took the English test first performed significantly better when they took the Chinese test second, the group who took the Chinese test first performed significantly better than the group who took the English test first and interviewees reported experiencing the English test as more difficult.
Microbial Transformations of 7-Hydroxyflavanone

Microbial transformations of racemic 7-hydroxyflavanone using strains of genus Aspergillus (A. niger KB, A. niger 13/5, A. ochraceus 456) and the species Penicillium chermesinum 113 were studied. The products of O-methylation, O-methylation along with hydroxylation at C-3′ and C-4′, reduction of the carbonyl group, reduction of the carbonyl group along with hydroxylation at C-5, and dehydrogenation of C-2 and C-3 were obtained. Most of the products (with the exception of the O-methylation one) have stronger antioxidant properties than the initial substrate.
Impact of using physiotherapy self-referral in the medical-surgical neurological intensive care unit.

PURPOSE To describe physiotherapy (PT) referral practice in a medical-surgical neurological intensive care unit (MSNICU) of a large quaternary teaching hospital before and after the implementation of PT self-referral. METHODS Charts were reviewed for MSNICU patients who received PT pre-implementation (Pre; n=90) and post-implementation (Post; n=100) to collect data on timeliness, number of referrals, and MSNICU length of stay (LOS); t-tests were conducted to determine group differences. RESULTS The mean age of MSNICU patients referred to PT was 60.6 (SD=18.6) years; 59.5% were male. PT treatment consisted of cardiorespiratory (39% Pre, 51.1% Post), mobility (22% Pre, 28.8% Post), and combined (39% Pre, 20% Post) interventions. Overall, the number of days between MSNICU admission and PT initiation and MSNICU LOS did not differ significantly from Pre to Post. However, for patients (n=50) receiving early (within 7 days of MSNICU admission) PT self-referral Post versus patients receiving physician referral only Pre (n=83), there was a significant decrease (p=0.01) in time to PT initiation of 1.4 days (3.2 Pre, 1.8 Post). CONCLUSIONS PT self-referral increased both the number of patients receiving more timely access to PT and the provision of treatment of a deferred group of patients previously not referred. Future studies need to evaluate the impact of referral methods across a variety of clinical populations.
DNA barcoding of Canada’s skates

DNA‐based identifications have been employed across broad taxonomic ranges and provide an especially useful tool in cases where external identification may be problematic. This study explored the utility of DNA barcoding in resolving skate species found in Atlantic Canadian waters. Most species were clearly resolved, expanding the utility for such identification on a taxonomically problematic group. Notably, one genus (Amblyraja) contained three of four species whose distributions do not overlap that could not be readily identified with this method. On the other hand, two common and partially sympatric species (Little and Winter skates) were readily identifiable. There were several instances of inconsistency between the voucher identification and the DNA sequence data. In some cases, these were at the intrageneric level among species acknowledged to be prone to misidentification. However, several instances of intergeneric discrepancies were also identified, suggesting either evidence of past introgressive hybridization or misidentification of vouchered specimens across broader taxonomic ranges. Such occurrences highlight the importance of retaining vouchered specimens for subsequent re‐examination in the light of conflicting DNA evidence.
Physiques in Migrant Peasant Worker's Children by Comparison with Rural and Urban Children in Shanghai, China

Background: a few studies have been conducted which describe health status of Migrant Peasant Worker’s children. However, there are no studies which compare physiques of MPW’s children with those of rural children and urban children. Also, few studies have been done on physiques of MPW’s children as it relates to socioeconomic factors in China. Methods: We examined across-sectional study of 2457 children from Shanghai and Wuhu city in 2011. First, we compared the differences of physiques among three groups by ANOVA. Second, ANCOVA were applied to analyze the associations between the physiques and socioeconomic factors by taking physiques as dependent variables. The independent variables included socioeconomic factors such as the parental occupation, the parental education and family monthly income. Third, ANCOVA were used to assess differences in physiques among the three groups by adjusting socioeconomic factors. Results: There were significant differences in all physical indexes, no matter they were boys and girls (P < .001). Children’s physiques of MPW were smaller than those of children of Citizen in Shanghai City. Among all ages, regardless of gender, Children’s physiques of MPW were bigger than those of children of rural resident. In both boys and girls all indexes displayed statistically significant associations with parental occupations (P < .001). There were strong associations between parental education and all physical indexes (P < .001). Family monthly income was found to be significantly associated with children’s physiques (P < .001). In both boys and girls, there were strong associations between physique and group in all indexes (P < .001), but physiques hardly had any associations with socioeconomic factors. Conclusions: We find that physiques of MPW’s children were smaller than those of children of citizen in Shanghai City, and physiques of MPW’s children were bigger than those of children of rural resident. There are strong associations between physiques and socioeconomic factors.
Organizational Culture and Effectiveness in Higher Education: A Test of the “Culture Type” and “Strong Culture” Hypotheses

Two of the more promising lines of inquiry in efforts to understand the hypothesized linkage between organizational culture and effectiveness have focused on the differential effectiveness of organizations depending on their dominant culture type and their culture strength. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether these two lines of inquiry operate in an independent or conditional manner in explaining the hypothesized linkage between organizational culture and the performance of a sample of four-year colleges and universities. The findings provide support for both lines of inquiry, albeit not entirely in a manner suggested by their respective proponents. For example, while culture type has a decidedly stronger independent effect on institutional performance than culture strength, the differences are clearly more pronounced on campuses with “strong” rather than “weak” cultures. The implications of these findings for research on and efforts to improve the performance of colleges and universities are discussed.
Literacy skills of children born preterm

Most children born preterm are considered neurologically normal and free of disability. However in follow-up studies at school age, preterm children, born without major impairment, have been shown to have lower cognitive abilities and associated academic, social and behavioural difficulties. This study investigated the literacy, phonological awareness and language abilities of 169 preterm (<33 weeks gestational age) and 141 fullterm born children aged between 5 and 12 years. Reading, spelling, phonological awareness skills, language and cognitive skills were assessed. The results indicate the preterm children were significantly poorer across all domains assessed in comparison to their fullterm classmates. However, the results of the preterm children do not significantly differ to the standardised assessment populations. Spelling was particularly vulnerable in preterm children and a higher number were identified with speech difficulties. The study also provided further evidence for the strong relationship that exists between language ability, phonological skills and literacy.
The Phonetics and Phonology of the Polish Calling Melodies

Abstract Two calling melodies of Polish were investigated, the routine call, used to call someone for an everyday reason, and the urgent call, which conveys disapproval of the addressee's actions. A Discourse Completion Task was used to elicit the two melodies from Polish speakers using twelve names from one to four syllables long; there were three names per syllable count, and speakers produced three tokens of each name with each melody. The results, based on eleven speakers, show that the routine calling melody consists of a low F0 stretch followed by a rise-fall-rise; the urgent calling melody, on the other hand, is a simple rise-fall. Systematic differences were found in the scaling and alignment of tonal targets: the routine call showed late alignment of the accentual pitch peak, and in most instances lower scaling of targets. The accented vowel was also affected, being overall louder in the urgent call. Based on the data and comparisons with other Polish melodies, we analyze the routine call as LH* ! H-H% and the urgent call as H* L-L%. We discuss the results and our analysis in light of recent findings on calling melodies in other languages, and explore their repercussions for intonational phonology and the modeling of intonation.
Intelligence and personality variables of parents of autistic children.

Intelligence, occupation, and education levels of both parents, as well as personality characteristics of mothers, the primary nurturant adults, were investigated as related to early infantile autism. Our sample consisted of 50 sets of parents of disturbed children, 15 whose children had met Rimland 's stringent criteria for autism, 24 whose children, though not having met these criteria, had been diagnosed clinically as autistic, and 11 sets whose severely disturbed children were never diagnosed autistic. All parents were tested for intelligence. In addition, mothers' personality was tested via Human Figure Drawings and Eysenck's Personality Inventory. Rimland 's E-2 questionnaire was generally filled out by mothers. Results indicated that fathers of autists , but not mothers, were of significantly above-average intelligence. Mothers were significantly more neurotic on Eysenck's scale than mothers of disturbed nonautistic children, and significantly more introverted than his normative sample. Finally, there was a significant correlation between neuroticism of mothers and children's autism.
Influence of Parental Monitoring, Sensation Seeking, Expected Social Benefits, and Refusal Efficacy on Tobacco and Alcohol Use in Chinese Adolescents

AbstractThe relationships between parental monitoring (PM), sensation seeking (SS), expected social benefits (ESB), refusal efficacy (RE), and tobacco and alcohol use (TAU) have been well documented among adolescents. However, the mechanisms by which these 4 determinants affect TAU remain unclear. Based on the Theory of Triadic Influence, this study aimed to explore how PM, SS, ESB, and RE simultaneously influenced TAU in Chinese adolescents.From September 2013 to June 2014, we used multistage cluster sampling to select 6269 students from 179 classes of 7 vocational high schools in 3 cities of China. Each student completed a battery of 5 measures: PM, SS, ESB, RE, and TAU. Then, we used structural equation modeling techniques and mediation analyses to investigate the relationships among these 5 measures, with TAU as the final dependent variable.Results demonstrated that the relationship between PM and TAU was fully mediated by ESB and RE (b = −0.18, P < 0.001), that SS influenced TAU directly (b = 0.10, P < 0.001) and indirectly through ESB and RE (b = 0.15, P < 0.001), and that ESB influenced TAU directly (b = 0.09, P < 0.001) and indirectly through RE (b = 0.28, P < 0.001). These findings indicate that the link between PM and SS to TAU among Chinese adolescents can be explained by ESB and RE. These 4 precursory determinants can play an important role in TAU prevention among adolescents in China.
Cardiac Stem Cells in Brown Adipose Tissue Express CD133 and Induce Bone Marrow Nonhematopoietic Cells to Differentiate into Cardiomyocytes

Recently, there has been noteworthy progress in the field of cardiac regeneration therapy. We previously reported that brown adipose tissue (BAT) contained cardiac progenitor cells that were relevant to the regeneration of damaged myocardium. In this study, we found that CD133‐positive, but not c‐Kit‐ or Sca‐1‐positive, cells in BAT differentiated into cardiomyocytes (CMs) with a high frequency. Moreover, we found that CD133+ brown adipose tissue‐derived cells (BATDCs) effectively induced bone marrow cells (BMCs) into CMs. BMCs are considered to have the greatest potential as a source of CMs, and two sorts of stem cell populations, the MSCs and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), have been reported to differentiate into CMs; however, it has not been determined which population is a better source of CMs. Here we show that CD133‐positive BATDCs induce BMCs into CMs, not through cell fusion but through bivalent cation‐mediated cell‐to‐cell contact when cocultured. Moreover, BMCs induced by BATDCs are able to act as CM repletion in an in vivo infarction model. Finally, we found that CD45−CD31− CD105+ nonhematopoietic cells, when cocultured with BATDCs, generated more than 20 times the number of CMs compared with lin−c‐Kit+ HSCs. Taken together, these data suggest that CD133‐positive BATDCs are a useful tool as CM inducers, as well as a source of CMs, and that the nonhematopoietic fraction in bone marrow is also a major source of CMs.
Estimation of Aerobic Capacity and Determination of Its Associated Factors Among Male Workers of Industrial Sector of Iran

Introduction. The aim of this study was to estimate maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max), to determine its associated factors among workers of industrial sector of Iran and to develop a regression equation for subjects’ VO2max. Methods. In this study, 500 healthy male workers employed in Shiraz industries participated voluntarily. The subjects’ VO2max was assessed with the ergocycle test according to the Åstrand protocol. Required data was collected with a questionnaire covering demographic details (i.e., age, job tenure, marital status, education, nature of work, shift work, smoking and weekly exercises). Results. The subject’s mean VO2max was 2.69 ± 0.263 L/min. The results showed that there was an association between VO2max and age, BMI, hours of exercise and smoking, but there was no association between VO2max and height, weight, nature of work and working schedule. On the basis of the results, regression equations were developed to estimate VO2max. Conclusion. Final regression equation developed in this study may be used to estimate VO2max reliably without the need to use other laboratory instruments for aerobic measurement.
Distinct patterns of DNA copy number alterations associate with BRAF mutations in melanomas and melanoma‐derived cell lines

A majority of malignant melanomas harbor an oncogenic mutation in either BRAF or NRAS. If BRAF and NRAS transform melanoma cells by a similar mechanism, then additional genetic aberrations would be similar (or random). Alternatively, distinct mutation‐associated changes would suggest the existence of unique cooperating requirements for each mutation group. We first analyzed a panel of 52 melanoma cell lines (n = 35, 11, 6 for BRAF*, NRAS*, and BRAF/NRASwt/wt, respectively) by array‐based comparative genomic hybridization for unique alterations that associate with each mutation subgroup. Subsequently, those DNA copy number changes that correlated with a mutation subgroup were used to predict the mutation status of an independent panel of 43 tumors (n = 17, 13, 13 for BRAF*, NRAS*, and BRAF/NRASwt/wt, respectively). BRAF mutant tumors were classified with a high rate of success (74.4%, P = 0.002), whereas NRAS mutants were not significantly distinguished from wild types (26/43, P = 0.12). Copy number gains of 7q32.1‐36.3, 5p15.31, 8q21.11, and 8q24.11 were most strongly associated with BRAF* tumors and cell lines, as were losses of 11q24.2‐24.3. BRAF* melanomas appear to be associated with a specific profile of DNA copy number aberrations that is distinct from those found in NRAS* and BRAF/NRASwt/wt tumors. These findings suggest that although both BRAF and NRAS appear to function along the same signal transduction pathway, each may have different requirements for cooperating oncogenic events. The genetic loci that make up this profile may harbor therapeutic targets specific for tumors with BRAF mutations. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Transport characteristics of AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN double heterostructures with high electron mobility

The AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN double heterostructure (DH) with high electron mobility of 1862 cm2/Vs at room temperature and 478 cm2/Vs at 573 K high temperature was obtained by a combination of optimization schemes considering scattering mechanisms. First, a composite buffer layer structure, including GaN and AlGaN layer, was used to improve the crystal quality of the AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN DH. Second, interface roughness scattering was reduced by increasing the channel thickness, thus the two-dimensional electron gas mobility was further improved. Moreover, an ultrathin AlN interlayer was inserted between the GaN channel layer and the AlGaN buffer layer to decrease the alloy disorder scattering. The Hall effect measurements showed that the DH had better transport characteristics at high temperatures, and an electron mobility of 478 cm2/Vs was achieved at 573 K, which is twice larger than that of the conventional single heterostructure (∼200 cm2/Vs at 573 K). Therefore, AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN DH is more suitable for the applica.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF SERUM GAMMA-GLOBULIN CONCENTRATION TO MALARIA AND SICKLING

The serum protein patterns of groups of Nigerians including 98 children partially protected by “daraprim” against malaria, and 113 unprotected children, have been studied. The protected children have a significantly lower concentration of serum γ globulin than the unprotected children from the age of 12 months onwards. In children, sicklers have a significantly higher serum γ globulin than non-sicklers. It is suggested that sickling protects against malaria by enhancing the antibody response against the malaria parasite.