Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
p130CAS Is Required for Netrin Signaling and Commissural Axon Guidance

Netrins are an important family of axon guidance cues. Here, we report that netrin-1 induces tyrosine phosphorylation of p130CAS (Crk-associated substrate). Our biochemical studies indicate that p130CAS is downstream of the Src family kinases and upstream of the small GTPase Rac1 and Cdc42. Inhibition of p130CAS signaling blocks both the neurite outgrowth-promoting activity and the axon attraction activity of netrin-1. p130CAS RNA interference inhibits the attraction of commissural axons in the spinal cord by netrin-1 and causes defects in commissural axon projection in the embryo. These results demonstrate that p130CAS is a key component in the netrin signal transduction pathway and plays an important role in guiding commissural axons in vivo.
The rank of the fundamental group of certain hyperbolic 3-manifolds fibering over the circle

We determine the rank of the fundamental group of those hyperbolic 3‐manifolds fibering over the circle whose monodromy is a sufficiently high power of a pseudoAnosov map. Moreover, we show that any two generating sets with minimal cardinality are Nielsen equivalent. 57M50; 57M07
PROJECT BASED ACTIVITIES IN A CALL CLASSROOM: EFL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES

This study investigates students’ perspectives and measured their attitude, confidence, and anxiety when interacting with omputer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) through project-based instructions. Thirty students from a CALL course participated in this study by responding to a questionnaire and writing a reflective note about their experiences in the course. The qualitative research findings indicate that the majority of the students possess a ositive attitude, confidence and anxiety levels towards the use of technology in their course even though the statistical analysis indicated that there were no significant differences of the students’ attitudes, confidence, and anxiety levels before and after taking the CALL course. Considering the findings, the researchers suggest hat the technology-based projects discussed in the present study can become viable learning activities to prepare pre-service EFL teachers to deal with the effort and initiative by the Ministry of Education in some countries to encourage local teachers integrating the best and wisest use of technology into lessons. Pedagogical implications for teaching and learning CALL as well as direction for further research are discussed in the study.
Chinese Proverb Scale: Development and validation of an indigenous measure of Chinese traditional values

The aim of this study was to develop and validate an indigenous measure of Chinese traditional values using Chinese proverbs. A sample of 363 Mainland Chinese undergraduates participated in Study 1, in which a 26-item Chinese Proverb Scale (CPS) was developed through factor analysis on an initial pool of 118 Chinese proverbs. Four factors were clearly identified: (a) Diligence, (b) Integrity, (c) SelfPreservation, and (d) Self-Interest. The CPS showed satisfactory convergent validity with personal values (S. H. Schwartz, 1992, Advances In Experimental Social Psychology, San Diego, Academic Press) and social axioms (K. Leung et al., 2002, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, p. 286). For incremental validity, the CPS predicted life satisfaction beyond the Big Five personality, personal values, and social axioms. In Study 2, a sample of 239 Mainland Chinese participants completed the CPS across two measurement occasions with an interval of 6 months. Longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed the structure of the CPS was robust and invariant over time. In Study 3, a sample of 167 Chinese undergraduates from Hong Kong responded to an adapted version of the CPS. Multigroup SEM showed structural equivalence of the scale across the mainland and Hong Kong samples. The cultural origins of the factors in the CPS and future applications of the scale in various research areas are discussed.
Working Paper 296 - Relative Deprivation and Well-Being of the Rural Youth

Relative income deprivation is one mechanism through which income or wealth inequality is hypothesized to affect human behaviour, with consequences on well-being. The study checks these effects against multiple self-identified reference groups using a unique rich panel data set from Ethiopia, enabling us to examine a broader range of questions related to youth well-being than in previous studies in developing countries. In doing so, the study extends the standard analysis of relative deprivation (RD) from income per se, to consider social relative deprivation as well as assets (nonmonetary) relative deprivation. Since the effects of relative deprivation on well-being are also sensitive to the kind of measurements employed, the study employs two measurements of relative deprivation: objective and subjective, and compere the results from both. Our empirical results indicate that objective relative income deprivation has a ‘’signal effect’’ or a ‘’positive externality’’— higher income of others in the reference group indicate higher prospects for youth (that induce motivation), whereas the subjective income RD has a ‘’status effect’’—higher income of others in the reference group reduces life satisfaction. Both objective and subjective measures of social and nonmonetary RD have a ‘’status effect’’. Our findings are robust to different specifications. The policy implications of the results are discussed.JEL classification: D31, D63, I31, Z13. Keywords: Objective relative deprivation, subjective relative deprivation, income, non-income, social capital, subjective well-being, rural youth, Ethiopia
Hydrogen Bonding Interaction between Atmospheric Gaseous Amides and Methanol

Amides are important atmospheric organic–nitrogen compounds. Hydrogen bonded complexes of methanol (MeOH) with amides (formamide, N-methylformamide, N,N-dimethylformamide, acetamide, N-methylacetamide and N,N-dimethylacetamide) have been investigated. The carbonyl oxygen of the amides behaves as a hydrogen bond acceptor and the NH group of the amides acts as a hydrogen bond donor. The dominant hydrogen bonding interaction occurs between the carbonyl oxygen and the OH group of methanol as well as the interaction between the NH group of amides and the oxygen of methanol. However, the hydrogen bonds between the CH group and the carbonyl oxygen or the oxygen of methanol are also important for the overall stability of the complexes. Comparable red shifts of the C=O, NH- and OH-stretching transitions were found in these MeOH–amide complexes with considerable intensity enhancement. Topological analysis shows that the electron density at the bond critical points of the complexes fall in the range of hydrogen bonding criteria, and the Laplacian of charge density of the O–H∙∙∙O hydrogen bond slightly exceeds the upper value of the Laplacian criteria. The energy decomposition analysis further suggests that the hydrogen bonding interaction energies can be mainly attributed to the electrostatic, exchange and dispersion components.
Prevalence and Risk Factors of Overweight and Obesity among Children Aged 6–59 Months in Cameroon: A Multistage, Stratified Cluster Sampling Nationwide Survey

Background Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children (<5 years) in Cameroon, based on weight-for-height index, has doubled between 1991 and 2006. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and risk factors of overweight and obesity among children aged 6 months to 5 years in Cameroon in 2011. Methods Four thousand five hundred and eighteen children (2205 boys and 2313 girls) aged between 6 to 59 months were sampled in the 2011 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) database. Body Mass Index (BMI) z-scores based on WHO 2006 reference population was chosen to estimate overweight (BMI z-score > 2) and obesity (BMI for age > 3). Regression analyses were performed to investigate risk factors of overweight/obesity. Results The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 8% (1.7% for obesity alone). Boys were more affected by overweight than girls with a prevalence of 9.7% and 6.4% respectively. The highest prevalence of overweight was observed in the Grassfield area (including people living in West and North-West regions) (15.3%). Factors that were independently associated with overweight and obesity included: having overweight mother (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.51; 95% CI 1.15 to 1.97) and obese mother (aOR = 2.19; 95% CI = 155 to 3.07), compared to having normal weight mother; high birth weight (aOR = 1.69; 95% CI 1.24 to 2.28) compared to normal birth weight; male gender (aOR = 1.56; 95% CI 1.24 to 1.95); low birth rank (aOR = 1.35; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.72); being aged between 13–24 months (aOR = 1.81; 95% CI = 1.21 to 2.66) and 25–36 months (aOR = 2.79; 95% CI 1.93 to 4.13) compared to being aged 45 to 49 months; living in the grassfield area (aOR = 2.65; 95% CI = 1.87 to 3.79) compared to living in Forest area. Muslim appeared as a protective factor (aOR = 0.67; 95% CI 0.46 to 0.95). compared to Christian religion. Conclusion This study underlines a high prevalence of early childhood overweight with significant disparities between ecological areas of Cameroon. Risk factors of overweight included high maternal BMI, high birth weight, male gender, low birth rank, aged between 13–36 months, and living in the Grassfield area while being Muslim appeared as a protective factor. Preventive strategies should be strengthened especially in Grassfield areas and should focus on sensitization campaigns to reduce overweight and obesity in mothers and on reinforcement of measures such as surveillance of weight gain during antenatal consultation and clinical follow-up of children with high birth weight. Meanwhile, further studies including nutritional characteristics are of great interest to understand the association with religion, child age and ecological area in this age group, and will help in refining preventive strategies against childhood overweight and obesity in Cameroon.
Clustering high dimensional data: examining differences and commonalities between subspace clustering and text clustering - a position paper

The goal of this position paper is to contribute to a clear understanding of the commonalities and differences between subspace clustering and text clustering. Often text data is foisted as an ideal fit for subspace clustering due to its high dimensional nature and sparsity of the data. Indeed, the areas of subspace clustering and text clustering share similar challenges and the same goal, the simultaneous extraction of both clusters and the dimensions where these clusters are defined. However, there are fundamental differences between the two areas w.r. t object feature representation, dimension weighting and incorporation of these weights in the dissimilarity computation. We make an attempt to bridge these two domains in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas and best practices between them.
The Relationship Between Male and Female Youth Volunteering and Extrinsic Career Success: A Growth Curve Modeling Approach

Drawing from investment and statistical discrimination theories, we test a model to examine the income growth trajectories of male and female youth volunteers and non-volunteers. Using growth curve modeling for four waves of longitudinal data for the reference period 2001-2007 (n = 7,447), we find that male and female youth volunteers face an initial earnings disadvantage vis-à-vis youth non-volunteers; this penalty is smaller for females compared with males. However, over time, the income growth of volunteers is higher than that of non-volunteers. Male volunteers experience faster earnings growth than female volunteers. Furthermore, we find that, given the more rapid earnings growth of male volunteers relative to female volunteers, volunteering serves to widen, rather than narrow, the gender wage gap. The implications for future research and the relevance of the findings for career counselors, youth, and voluntary organizations are discussed.
ROLAP implementations of the data cube

Implementation of the data cube is an important and scientifically interesting issue in On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and has been the subject of a plethora of related publications. Naive implementation methods that compute each node separately and store the result are impractical, since they have exponential time and space complexity with respect to the cube dimensionality. To overcome this drawback, a wide range of methods that provide efficient cube implementation (with respect to both computation and storage) have been proposed, which make use of relational, multidimensional, or graph-based data structures. Furthermore, there are several other methods that compute and store approximate descriptions of data cubes, sacrificing accuracy for condensation. In this article, we focus on Relational-OLAP (ROLAP), following the majority of the efforts so far. We review existing ROLAP methods that implement the data cube and identify six orthogonal parameters/dimensions that characterize them. We place the existing techniques at the appropriate points within the problem space defined by these parameters and identify several clusters that the techniques form with various interesting properties. A careful study of these properties leads to the identification of particularly effective values for the space parameters and indicates the potential for devising new algorithms with better overall performance.
Factorial Invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale among Senior Women in the Nurses’ Health Study Cohort

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS-A) across subgroups based on demographic, health-related, behavioral, and environmental characteristics among Nurses’ Health Study participants (N = 2,919; age M = 73.0, SD = 6.9 years) living in California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. A series of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to evaluate increasingly restrictive hypotheses of factorial invariance. Factorial invariance was supported across age, walking limitations, and neighborhood walking. Only partial scalar invariance was supported across state residence and neighborhood population density. This evidence provides support for using the NEWS-A with older women of different ages, who have different degrees of walking limitations, and who engage in different amounts of neighborhood walking. Partial scalar invariance suggests that researchers should be cautious when using the NEWS-A to compare older adults living in different states and neighborhoods with different levels of population density.
Polarized dark solitons in isotropic Kerr media

We characterize dark-type vector optical solitons of arbitrary polarization in isotropic, Kerr-type media by applying Hirota's method to the integrable Manakov model with a defocusing nonlinearity. We find that nonuniformly polarized solitons comprise a rich solution family that can be divided into two categories: dark-dark and dark-bright vector solitons. We consider the propagation dynamics and the interactions of these vector solitons by deriving multisoliton solutions, and show the existence of stationary bound states, a phenomenon not observed for scalar dark solitons.
Assessment of the Body Composition and the Loss of Fat-Free Mass through Bioelectric Impedance Analysis in Patients Who Underwent Open Gastric Bypass

Background. Bariatric surgery is considered an effective option for the management of morbid obesity. The incidence of obesity has been gradually increasing all over the world reaching epidemic proportions in some regions of the world. Obesity can cause a reduction of up to 22% in the life expectancy of morbidly obese patients. Objective. The objective of this paper is to assess the weight loss associated with the first 6 months after bariatric surgery using bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) for the evaluation of fat mass and fat-free mass. Method. A total of 36 morbidly obese patients were subjected to open gastric bypass surgery. The patients weight was monitored before and after the procedure using the bioelectric impedance analysis. Results. Bariatric surgery resulted in an average percentage of weight loss of 28.6% (40 kg) as determined 6 months after the procedure was performed. Analysis of the different components of body weight indicated an undesirable loss of fat-free mass along with the reduction of total body weight. Conclusion. Open gastric bypass induced a significant loss of total weight and loss of fat-free mass in patients six months after the surgery. The use of bioelectric impedance analysis resulted in an appropriate estimation of the total weight components in individuals subjected to bariatric surgery allowing a more real analysis of the variation of weight after the surgery.
The effect of the number of ingredient images on package evaluation and product choice

In the highly competitive context of food product sales in supermarkets, consumers may have difficulty processing deeply the information on a given package. This research examines how the number of ingredients depicted on packaging in addition to the picture of the whole product impacts its efficacy depending on consumers’ motivation (hunger), opportunity (via cognitive load), and ability (via need for cognition – NFC) to process information. Three studies find that, under high cognitive load, packages depicting many ingredients induce more mental taste imagery, heighten purchase intention, and improve taste evaluations. For consumers with high NFC (vs low), under high cognitive load, packaging not depicting ingredients (vs five ingredients) is preferred when consumers are motivated by hunger. Under low cognitive load and whatever the NFC, information is processed centrally and evaluation does not depend on the number of ingredient images depicted.
Neoliberal place competition and culturephilia: explored through the lens of Derry~Londonderry

ABSTRACT In this article, we contribute to international debates on the impact and legacy of major cultural events. Using the theoretical backdrop of neoliberal urbanism, and our conceptual contribution of culturephilia, impact inflation and the three Cs, we examine Derry~Londonderry (D ~ L) UK City of Culture (CoC) 2013. Neoliberal urbanism generates fierce inter-city competition to host major cultural events, conditioning the actions of local stakeholders who produce bid documents resulting in excessive targets for impact and legacy, i.e. impact inflation. This is part of a wider fetishisation of the alleged curing qualities of culture, or culturephilia, which is underpinned by claims that cultural and creative policy interventions can enhance cities’ competitiveness, what we term as the three Cs of local and regional development. We show that in D ~ L culture has been somewhat successful as a ‘peace resource’, but less dynamic as an ‘economic resource’. The key lesson from D ~ L is that not delivering on the excessive economic targets creates frustration and disillusionment amongst those at the margins of society. Our advice to future cities of culture is, notwithstanding the incentive to inflate, they must be fully cognisant of the consequences of not delivering on extravagant targets for those most marginalised in society.
Bayesian inference under differential privacy

Bayesian inference is an important technique throughout statistics. The essence of Beyesian inference is to derive the posterior belief updated from prior belief by the learned information, which is a set of differentially private answers under differential privacy. Although Bayesian inference can be used in a variety of applications, it becomes theoretically hard to solve when the number of differentially private answers is large. To facilitate Bayesian inference under differential privacy, this paper proposes a systematic mechanism. The key step of the mechanism is the implementation of Bayesian updating with the best linear unbiased estimator derived by Gauss-Markov theorem. In addition, we also apply the proposed inference mechanism into an online queryanswering system, the novelty of which is that the utility for users is guaranteed by Bayesian inference in the form of credible interval and confidence level. Theoretical and experimental analysis are shown to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of both inference mechanism and online query-answering system.
Impaired GAPDH-induced mitophagy contributes to the pathology of Huntington’s disease

Mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. In order to maintain a healthy population of functional mitochondria in cells, defective mitochondria must be properly eliminated by lysosomal machinery in a process referred to as mitophagy. Here, we uncover a new molecular mechanism underlying mitophagy driven by glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) under the pathological condition of Huntington's disease (HD) caused by expansion of polyglutamine repeats. Expression of expanded polyglutamine tracts catalytically inactivates GAPDH (iGAPDH), which triggers its selective association with damaged mitochondria in several cell culture models of HD. Through this mechanism, iGAPDH serves as a signaling molecule to induce direct engulfment of damaged mitochondria into lysosomes (micro‐mitophagy). However, abnormal interaction of mitochondrial GAPDH with long polyglutamine tracts stalled GAPDH‐mediated mitophagy, leading to accumulation of damaged mitochondria, and increased cell death. We further demonstrated that overexpression of inactive GAPDH rescues this blunted process and enhances mitochondrial function and cell survival, indicating a role for GAPDH‐driven mitophagy in the pathology of HD.
Integrating who “we” are with what “we” (will not) stand for: A further extension of the Social Identity Model of Collective Action

ABSTRACT Collective action refers to any action that individuals undertake as group members to pursue group goals such as social change. In this chapter, we further extend the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) by including not just (politicised) identity but also moral motivations into its core, effectively integrating who “we” are with what “we” (will not) stand for. Conceptually, we utilise self-categorisation theory’s notion of normative fit to elaborate this special relationship between the moral and identity motivations for collective action. Empirically, we review two research projects (the experimental and survey-based Value-Identity Fit Project and the longitudinal Politicisation Project) that both suggest that the SIMCA needs to be extended to include, both conceptually and empirically, a broader range of (violated) moral beliefs and a focus on identity content. We discuss key implications of expanding the core of the SIMCA for the social psychology of collective action and social change, and suggest new directions for future theorising and research in this field.
Lost and Found: The Damped Lyα Absorbers in the QSO OI 363

The galaxy giving rise to the damped Lyα absorbing system with z = 0.221 in the QSO OI 363 has been found. A galaxy that is probably associated with the second damped Lyα absorber (DLA) in the same QSO (z = 0.0912) has also been found. Neither galaxy is very luminous, and neither galaxy shows signs of extensive current star formation, a massive disk, or lots of gas. The impact parameters for both galaxies with respect to the QSO are reasonable. If most DLAs arise in such low-luminosity galaxies, it will be difficult to pick out the correct source galaxy for DLA systems at high redshift, given the large projected areal density on the sky of faint galaxies around distant QSOs.