Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
p–n diode with hole- and electron-doped lanthanum manganites

The hole-doped (p-) manganite La0.7Ca0. 3MnO3 and the electron-doped (n-) manganite La0.7Ce0. 3MnO3 undergo an insulator-to-metal transition at around 250 K, above which both behave as a polaronic semiconductor. We have fabricated an epitaxial trilayer (La0.7Ca0.3MnO3/SrTiO3/La0.7Ce0.3MnO3), where SrTiO3 is an insulator. At room temperature, i.e., in the semiconducting regime, it exhibits asymmetric current–voltage (I–V) characteristics akin to a p–n diode. The observed asymmetry in the I–V characteristics disappears at low temperatures where both the manganite layers are metallic. These results indicate that using the polaronic semiconducting regime of doped manganites, a p–n diode can be constructed.
Religiosity, subjective well-being, self-esteem, and anxiety among Kuwaiti Muslim adolescents

The purpose of this study was to explore the association between religiosity, subjective well-being (SWB), self-esteem, and anxiety among a sample of 499 Muslim Kuwaiti adolescents (Mages = 16.87, SD = 1.49). It is expected that there will be significant correlations between religiosity and SWB, self-esteem (positive), and anxiety (negative). Six self-rating scales were used to assess religiosity, religious belief, physical health, mental health, happiness, and satisfaction with life, along with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale. No significant sex-related differences were detected on all the scales. All the correlations were significant between religiosity and SWB rating scales, self-esteem (positive) and anxiety (negative). A principal components analysis yielded a high loaded, bipolar factor labelled “Religiosity and well-being versus anxiety. ” Results suggest that religiosity is associated with high levels of self-rating of SWB, self-esteem and low levels of anxiety. The present findings provide further evidence for a probable mollifying role of religiosity in providing a buffering effect on anxiety in the current sample of Muslim adolescents.
Mobilizing Ideas in Knowledge Networks: A Social Network Analysis of the Human Resource Management Community 1990-2005.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the role of social networks in mobilizing how actors both impact and are impacted on by their colleagues. It seeks to compare the human resource management (HRM) academic community with two other comparable communities, and to identify those groups that are seen to work closely together.Design/methodology/approach – It is shown how social network analysis (SNA) can be utilized to analyse data in social networks, shedding light on the cliques and networks of people that work together over a period of time. This is based on an analysis of co‐authored papers in the field of HRM between 1990 and 2005.Findings – It is shown how the HRM community has developed over time utilizing various SNA metrics and this community of scholars is shown to be less “dense” than comparable academic networks, being made up of several weakly‐linked subcomponents. The paper also identifies the “ego‐nets” of individuals that are indicative of different publishing strategies.Originality.
Functional Features of TonB Energy Transduction Systems of Acinetobacter baumannii

ABSTRACT Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen that causes severe nosocomial infections. Strain ATCC 19606T utilizes the siderophore acinetobactin to acquire iron under iron-limiting conditions encountered in the host. Accordingly, the genome of this strain has three tonB genes encoding proteins for energy transduction functions needed for the active transport of nutrients, including iron, through the outer membrane. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that these tonB genes, which are present in the genomes of all sequenced A. baumannii strains, were acquired from different sources. Two of these genes occur as components of tonB-exbB-exbD operons and one as a monocistronic copy; all are actively transcribed in ATCC 19606T. The abilities of components of these TonB systems to complement the growth defect of Escherichia coli W3110 mutants KP1344 (tonB) and RA1051 (exbBD) under iron-chelated conditions further support the roles of these TonB systems in iron acquisition. Mutagenesis analysis of ATCC 19606T tonB 1 (subscripted numbers represent different copies of genes or proteins) and tonB 2 supports this hypothesis: their inactivation results in growth defects in iron-chelated media, without affecting acinetobactin biosynthesis or the production of the acinetobactin outer membrane receptor protein BauA. In vivo assays using Galleria mellonella show that each TonB protein is involved in, but not essential for, bacterial virulence in this infection model. Furthermore, we observed that TonB2 plays a role in the ability of bacteria to bind to fibronectin and to adhere to A549 cells by uncharacterized mechanisms. Taken together, these results indicate that A. baumannii ATCC 19606T produces three independent TonB proteins, which appear to provide the energy-transducing functions needed for iron acquisition and cellular processes that play a role in the virulence of this pathogen.
The focal dystonias: Current views and challenges for future research

The most common forms of dystonia are those that develop in adults and affect a relatively isolated region of the body. Although these adult‐onset focal dystonias are most prevalent, knowledge of their etiologies and pathogenesis has lagged behind some of the rarer generalized dystonias, in which the identification of genetic defects has facilitated both basic and clinical research. This summary provides a brief review of the clinical manifestations of the adult‐onset focal dystonias, focusing attention on less well understood clinical manifestations that need further study. It also provides a simple conceptual model for the similarities and differences among the different adult‐onset focal dystonias as a rationale for lumping them together as a class of disorders while at the same time splitting them into subtypes. The concluding section outlines some of the most important research questions for the future. Answers to these questions are critical for advancing our understanding of this group of disorders and for developing novel therapeutics. © 2013 Movement Disorder Society
Differential expression of receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand and osteoprotegerin mRNA in periodontal diseases.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand (RANKL) is responsible for the induction of osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption, whereas its decoy receptor, osteoprotegerin, can directly block this action. Because this dyad of cytokines is crucial for regulating the bone remodelling process, imbalances in their expression may cause a switch from the physiological state to enhanced bone resorption or formation. This study investigated the mRNA expression of RANKL and osteoprotegerin, as well as their relative ratio, in the gingival tissues of patients with various forms of periodontal diseases. MATERIAL AND METHODS Gingival tissue was obtained from nine healthy subjects and 41 patients, who had gingivitis, chronic periodontitis, generalized aggressive periodontitis, and chronic periodontitis and were receiving immunosuppressant therapy. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was employed to evaluate the mRNA expression of RANKL and osteoprotegerin in these tissues. RESULTS Compared with healthy individuals, patients in all periodontitis groups, but not those with gingivitis, exhibited stronger RANKL expression and a higher relative RANKL/osteoprotegerin ratio. In addition, osteoprotegerin expression was weaker in patients with chronic periodontitis. When patients with generalized aggressive periodontitis and chronic periodontitis were compared, the former exhibited stronger RANKL expression, whereas the latter exhibited weaker osteoprotegerin expression, and there was no difference in their relative ratio. When chronic periodontitis patients were compared with chronic periodontitis patients receiving immunosuppressant therapy, osteoprotegerin, but not RANKL, expression was stronger in the latter. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that RANKL and osteoprotegerin expression are differentially regulated in various forms of periodontitis, and the relative RANKL/osteoprotegerin ratio appears to be indicative of disease occurrence. This information may confer diagnostic and therapeutic value in periodontitis.
Locus of the Predictive Advantage in Pathfinder-Based Representations of Classroom Knowledge.

Earlier T. E. Goldsmith, P. J. Johnson, and W. H. Acton (1991) reported that a Pathfinder-based representation of domain knowledge was more predictive of classroom exam performance than the underlying data from which the Pathfinder representation was derived (relatedness ratings of pairs of concepts from the domain). The question is, what affords Pathfinder this predictive advantage? Analyses reveal that whereas the relatedness ratings are based on a 7-point scale, all of the predictiveness is contained in the most highly related pairs. Moreover, Pathfinder's advantage is related to the manner in which it dichotomizes the relatedness data into directly linked and indirectly linked concept pairs
Promoting the Transition from Implicit to Explicit Understanding: A Training Study of False Belief

Ninety-one children aged between 2;10 and 5;0 participated in a training study of false belief. Children were assigned to either an explanation condition, a practice condition or a control condition where children heard two stories unrelated to false belief. Children’s eye movements in anticipation of the protagonist reappearing were monitored at pre-test. Only the explanation condition led to improvements in judgement and justification of a protagonist’s future action based on false belief. Children who looked in anticipation to where the protagonist thought the object was at pre-test were more likely to give a correct judgement at post-test than those who did not. Those children in the explanation group who gave a correct judgement at pre-test were more likely to give an appropriate justification at post-test than those who did not. Three main conclusions are drawn: (1) providing explanation about the underlying principles of a task is more likely to lead to improvements in performance than merely informing children of whether their response is correct; (2) the nature of improvements in performance will depend on the level of knowledge of the child at pre-test; (3) training will only be beneficial for those children who demonstrate evidence of implicit understanding.
Analogical specification reuse during requirements analysis

This thesis investigates analogy as a paradigm for retrieving, understanding and customising reusable specifications during requirements engineering. Cooperation between software engineers and support tools is necessary for effective analogical reuse. Retrieval uses a computational implementation of analogical reasoning to search and match many reusable specifications. On the other hand understanding, transferring and adapting specifications requires cooperation between the tool and software engineer. Cooperative support was designed for less-experienced software engineers with most to gain from successful specification reuse. Deliverables from this research have implications for software engineering, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and human-computer interaction. Specification retrieval is founded on a framework of software engineering analogies. This framework includes a set of domain abstractions describing key facts about software engineering domains. A computational model of analogical reasoning which matches domain descriptions to these abstractions was designed, implemented and evaluated during user studies with a prototype reuse advisor. An intelligent dialogue acts as a front-end to this retrieval mechanism by acquiring key domain facts prior to retrieving domain abstractions. This dialogue was designed from empirical studies of software engineering behaviour during requirements capture and modelling. Design of support tools for specification understanding and transfer was based on cognitive task and reasoning models of software engineering behaviour during analogical reuse and mental models of analogical understanding. Two empirical studies of inexperienced software engineers identified problematic mental laziness manifest as specification copying. A third study of expert software engineers who successfully reused specifications identified strategies for effective reuse. Detailed findings from all three studies informed the design of tool-based support for specification understanding and transfer. Findings also have implications for the design of tools to support other requirements engineering activities.
A Modelization of Differences between Early- and Late-Starter French-Canadian Offenders

Objective. Recent research has shown that there are two groups of mentally disordered offenders: early starters (early onset of behavioral problems) and late starters (behavior problems that start in adulthood). The present study sought to arrive at a better understanding of the differences between persons suffering from major mental disorder who are early- and late-starter offenders. Method. The sample was recruited within the province of Quebec, Canada. It is composed of 137 men diagnosed with a major mental disorder. Participants were recruited under three distinct legal statuses. Results. Results indicate that there are interesting and key differences between early and late starters on etiological and symptomatological variables, as well as in terms of antisocial behaviors. Conclusion. These findings have implications for the treatment, prevention, and risk assessment of persons with major mental disorders.
Increasing Career Self‐Efficacy for Women: Evaluating a Group Intervention

The study evaluated whether women participating in a career group designed to increase career-related self-efficacy would make gains on career decision-making self-efficacy and vocational exploration and commitment compared with women in a control group. Thirty-one women participated in a 6-week treatment group, and 30 women participated in a no-treatment control group. Results indicated that, compared with the control group, women in the treatment group improved on career decision-making self-efficacy and vocational exploration and commitment, and maintained those gains at 6-week follow-up. The discussion focuses on implications for counseling, limitations of the study, and future research.
Multisource Principal Evaluation Data

Purpose: A relatively new approach to principal evaluation is the use of multisource feedback, which typically entails a leader’s self-evaluation as well as parallel evaluations from subordinates, peers, and/or superiors. However, there is little research on how principals interact with evaluation data from multisource feedback systems. This article explores how principals orient and react to multisource feedback on their effectiveness as instructional leaders and how they interpret gaps between their self-assessments of their leadership effectiveness and their teachers’ ratings of their leadership effectiveness. Research Methods: Using interview data collected from 14 principals in an urban school district in the southeast United States at two points in time, this study conducts a qualitative analysis to examine principals’ orientations and reactions to their feedback. Findings: Our study finds that principals often experience cognitive dissonance when feedback from different data sources (e.g., their self-ratings to those of their teachers) contrasts. This can result in a motivation to reduce dissonance either by providing explanations and excuses, or making actual changes that result in improvement. Implications for Research and Practice: As performance feedback continues to become more commonplace in school settings, it will become increasingly necessary to build capacity around the processes of giving and receiving feedback. Results from this study have implications for how principals can be supported to use their evaluation data.
A systematic review of elderly suicide prevention programs.

BACKGROUND Suicide rates are highest among the elderly, yet research on suicide prevention in old age remains a much-neglected area. AIMS We carried out a systematic review to examine the results of interventions aimed at suicidal elderly persons and to identify successful strategies and areas needing further exploration. METHODS Searches through various electronic databases yielded 19 studies with an empirical evaluation of a suicide prevention or intervention program designed especially for adults aged 60 years and older. RESULTS Most studies were centered on the reduction of risk factors (depression screening and treatment, and decreasing isolation), but when gender was considered, programs were mostly efficient for women. The empirical evaluations of programs attending to the needs of high-risk older adults seemed positive; most studies showed a reduction in the level of suicidal ideation of patients or in the suicide rate of the participating communities. However, not all studies used measures of suicidality to evaluate the outcome of the intervention, and rarely did they aim at improving protective factors. CONCLUSIONS Innovative strategies should improve resilience and positive aging, engage family and community gatekeepers, use telecommunications to reach vulnerable older adult, and evaluate the effects of means restriction and physicians education on elderly suicide.
Material properties of the human cranial vault and zygoma.

The material properties of cortical bone from the diaphyses of long bones (e.g., the femur and tibia) vary by direction, such that bone is stiffer and stronger along its long axis. This configuration improves the abilities of these structures to resist axial compressive loads coupled with bending. As in long bones, cortical bone from the cranial vault is subject to mechanical loads from various orofacial functions and the contraction of attached muscles. However, experimental studies suggest that the resulting bone strains are at least an order of magnitude smaller than those found in the midshafts of the femur or tibia. The characteristics of the three-dimensional elastic properties of cortical bone are largely unexplored in regions of low bone strain, including the cranial vault, in which little is known regarding cortical structure and function. In the present study we examined variations in the cortical microstructure and material properties of the bone of the human cranial vault, including the parietal, frontal, temporal, and occipital bones. A facial bone, the zygoma, was also included to contrast the properties of the cranial vault with another craniofacial intramembranous bone that experiences larger strains. Cortical specimens from the outer cortical plate of the cranial vault were removed from 15 frozen human crania. We measured cortical thicknesses and densities, and determined the primary direction of stiffness within the bone specimens prior to ultrasonic testing to determine their elastic properties. There were statistically significant differences in elastic properties between bones and, in some cases, sites within bones, which for most variables were clustered by bone or region. In striking contrast to this pattern, elastic moduli in the direction of primary stiffness were larger in cortical regions underlying muscle attachments than in regions without muscle attachments. Few sites in the cranial vault or zygoma showed a consistent orientation of the material axes among individuals, although specimens from many regions had directional differences similar to those in cortical bone from the mandible, femur, or tibia.
Adaptive Immunity to Cryptococcus neoformans Infections

The Cryptococcus neoformans/Cryptococcus gattii species complex is a group of fungal pathogens with different phenotypic and genotypic diversity that cause disease in immunocompromised patients as well as in healthy individuals. The immune response resulting from the interaction between Cryptococcus and the host immune system is a key determinant of the disease outcome. The species C. neoformans causes the majority of human infections, and therefore almost all immunological studies focused on C. neoformans infections. Thus, this review presents current understanding on the role of adaptive immunity during C. neoformans infections both in humans and in animal models of disease.
Contingency, Context, and Change: Negotiating Female Genital Cutting in The Gambia and Senegal

Though the literature aimed at deepening our understanding of the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) is vast and growing, the issue of behavior change remains poorly understood. In this paper, we argue that, both within and beyond the context of formal intervention, the decision of whether, when, and how to perform FGC results from a constant process of negotiation about how to position oneself in light of shifting social relationships, contexts, and experiences, representing what Caroline H. Bledsoe calls contingencies—proximate social experiences and actors—that affect decisionmaking. Using qualitative data from an ongoing large-scale study of FGC in The Gambia and Senegal, we idenitify contingencies revealed through interviews and focus-group discussions. We find that proximate experiences and persons influence, in ongoing and sometimes conflicting ways, how individuals construct their "opinions" about the practice of FGC. Consequently, we argue that the decisionmaking process is more fluid than two diametrically opposed camps of supporters and opponents, and that dichotomizing those who retain or reject the practice oversimplifies the complexity of contemplation and decisionmaking. We propose that, to obtain an improved understanding of the dynamics of decsionmaking with respect to FGC, it will be essential to integrate the concept of contingency into theoretical models of behavior change.
Changes in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Associated with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A Single Case Study

ABSTRACT Background. In a pilot study, Baehr (2001) reports changes in frontal cortical alpha asymmetry during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle were documented in five depressed women who also experienced Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). In this paper detailed data is presented for one of these subjects and two comparison subjects who were part of the first study. The goal was two-fold: (a) to study how patterns of mood changes during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle correlated with changes in frontal alpha brainwave asymmetry, and (b) to determine whether treatment strategies, tailored to ameliorate symptoms, would be reflected in brainwave changes. Method. Neurofeedback, medical interventions, and prospective charting were collected over a period of six months for one patient. These data were compared with data collected for two monthly cycles from two non-PMDD comparison subjects. Results. The patient responded well to the neurofeedback protocol for depression and was normalizing h.
Melatonin: From Seasonal to Circadian Signal

In mammals, the role of melatonin in the control of seasonality is well documented, and the sites and mechanisms of action involved are beginning to be identified. The exact role of the hormone in the circadian timing system remains to be determined. However, exogenous melatonin has been shown to affect the circadian clock. Identification of the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in this well characterized chronobiotic effect will allow clarification of the role of endogenous melatonin in circadian organization