Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrophysiological characterization of entopeduncular nucleus neurons in anesthetized and freely moving rats

The EntoPeduncular nucleus (EP), which is homologous to the internal segment of the Globus Pallidus (GPi) in primates, is one of the two basal ganglia (BG) output nuclei. Despite their importance in cortico-BG information processing, EP neurons have rarely been investigated in rats and there is no available electrophysiological characterization of EP neurons in vivo. We recorded and analyzed the activity of EP neurons in freely moving as well as anesthetized rats, and compared their activity patterns. Examination of neuronal firing statistics during wakefulness suggested that similar to neurons recorded in the primate GPi, EP neurons are a single population characterized by Poisson-like firing. Under isoflurane anesthesia the firing rate of EP neurons decreased substantially and their coefficient of variation and relative duration of quiescence periods increased. Investigation of the relationship between firing rate and depth of anesthesia revealed two distinct neuronal groups: one that decreased its firing rate with the increase in anesthesia level, and a second group where the firing rate was independent of anesthesia level. Post-hoc examination of the firing properties of the two groups showed that they were statistically distinct. These results may thus help reconcile in vitro studies in rats and primates which have reported two distinct neuronal populations, and in vivo studies in behaving primates indicating one homogeneous population. Our data support the existence of two distinct neuronal populations in the rat EP that can be distinguished by their characteristic firing response to anesthesia.
Evaluating School Principals: Supervisor Ratings of Principal Practice and Principal Job Performance

Numerous studies investigate high-stakes personnel evaluation systems in education, but nearly all focus on evaluation of teachers. We instead examine the evaluation of school principals at scale using data from the first 4 years of implementation of Tennessee’s multiple-measure administrator evaluation system. We focus specifically on the rubric-based practice ratings given by principals’ supervisors that constitute one half of principals’ overall evaluation scores. We find that supervisors’ ratings are internally consistent, relatively stable over time, and predictive of other performance measures, such as student achievement growth and teachers’ ratings of school leadership quality. However, raters fail to differentiate dimensions of principal practice, and ratings may be biased by factors, such as school poverty, outside the principal’s control.
Low power compact radio galaxies at high angular resolution

We present sub-arcsecond resolution multi-frequency (8 and 22 GHz) VLA images of five low power compact (LPC) radio sources, and phase referenced VLBA images at 1.6 GHz of their nuclear regions. At the VLA resolution we resolve the structure and identify component positions and flux densities. The phase referenced VLBA data at 1.6 GHz reve als flat-spectrum, compact cores (down to a few milliJansky) in f our of the five sources. The absolute astrometry provided by t he phase referencing allows us to identify the center of activi ty on the VLA images. Moreover, these data reveal rich structures, including two-sided jets and secondary components. On the basis of the arcsecond scale structures and of the nuclear properties, we rule out the presence of strong relativistic effects in our LPCs, which must be intrinsically small (deprojected linear sizes < 10 kpc). Fits of continuous injection models reveal break frequencies in the GHz domain, and ages in the range 10 5 − 10 7 yrs. In LPCs, the outermost edge may be advancing more slowly than in more powerful sources or could even be stationary; some LPCs might also have ceased their activity. In general, the properties of LPCs can be related to a number of reasons, including, but not limited to: youth, frustration, low kinematic power jets, and short-lived activity in the radio.
What Is Nonformal Education

I believe that these are important questions. I believe that agricultural educators do a disservice to the profession when they use such basic terms in an unscholarly manner. I believe that important distinctions exist between formal and nonformal education and between nonformal and informal education. I believe that agricultural educators need to be aware of the distinctions in order to be effective educators, especially when moving from formal settings to nonformal settings. I believe that the differences of opinion between classroom teachers and extension educators will never be resolved until the distinctions are fully understood and appreciated.
Impact of Emotional Literacy Training on Students’ Emotional Intelligence Performance in Primary Schools

The present study seeks to reveal the impact Emotional Literacy Training (ELT) that lasted for two months, on students' emotional intelligence performance. The study was designed as a quasi-experimental research. The experimental group consisted of 16 students, while 12 students were assigned to control group. Data in pre-test and post-test were collected through the Ten Years Emotional Intelligence Scale (TYEIS) developed by Coskun, Oksuz and Yilmaz (2017). Data were analysed through the paired sample t-test and independent sample t-test. Findings of the study indicated that ELT significantly increased experimental group students' emotional intelligence performance and this significant increase remained permanently. Results were discussed according to Experiential Learning and Radical Behaviourism and in the light of relevant literature; several implications were developed for teachers, other school staffs and researchers.
The Impact of Social Media on Non-Monosexuals’ Responses to Discrimination: A Co-Cultural Approach

This article examines how social media consumption habits predict non-monosexuals’ (people who are neither gay nor straight) communication with dominant groups. Using a survey (N = 716), the study applies co-cultural theory to evaluate how they respond to discrimination. The findings of this study indicate that non-monosexuals are heavy users of social media and that it plays a significant role in their perceptions of their environment. Several lifestyle variables, including their field of experience, ability, and perceptions of costs and rewards, can predict the outcomes that non-monosexuals seek when responding to discrimination. Furthermore, social media moderate those relationships. Overall, the sample preferred an outcome of accommodation, indicating that they hope for equality and acceptance.
Language Learning Strategies Used by Secondary Schools Students in Enhancing Speaking Skills

Mastering English as the second language has been a constant challenge for speakers of other languages. Malaysians, especially school students who are from sub-urban and rural areas are persistently struggling to fulfill the demands of becoming competent English language speakers. Students’ low self-confidence and unfamiliarity with language structures hinder their potential to improve their speaking skills. Hence, there is a need to discover the students’ most preferred strategies to enhance their speaking skills and refine the strategies to be further employed by the students. In this study, the researchers aim to: 1) identify the most frequently used strategies among secondary school students to enhance their speaking skills and, 2) analyse if there is any difference on the use of strategies among genders. Mixed-method approach was employed to answer the research questions. 60 secondary school students from a sub-urban area participated in the survey and six students volunteered to be the participants in a semi-structured interview. Oxford’s SILL Questionnaire was adapted and translated into the respondents’ native language and SPSS 7.0 version was used for data analysis. Results in this study revealed that practicing strategies are the most frequently used strategies and female students showed higher tendency to employ the strategies to enhance their speaking skills. The study suggests more integration of other strategies to be employed in language classroom such as metacognitive strategies, compensation and communication strategies to improve their language competency.
LIK1, A CERK1-Interacting Kinase, Regulates Plant Immune Responses in Arabidopsis

Chitin, an integral component of the fungal cell wall, is one of the best-studied microbe-associated molecular patterns. Previous work identified a LysM receptor-like kinase (LysM-RLK1/CERK1) as the primary chitin receptor in Arabidopsis. In order to identify proteins that interact with CERK1, we conducted a yeast two-hybrid screen using the intracellular kinase domain of CERK1 as the bait. This screen identified 54 putative CERK1-interactors. Screening mutants defective in 43 of these interacting proteins identified only two, a calmodulin like protein (At3g10190) and a leucine-rich repeat receptor like kinase (At3g14840), which differed in their response to pathogen challenge. In the present work, we focused on characterizing the LRR-RLK gene where mutations altered responses to chitin elicitation. This LRR-RLK was named LysM RLK1-interacting kinase 1 (LIK1). The interaction between CERK1 and LIK1 was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation using protoplasts and transgenic plants. In vitro experiments showed that LIK1 was directly phosphorylated by CERK1. In vivo phosphorylation assays showed that Col-0 wild-type plants have more phosphorylated LIK1 than cerk1 mutant plants, suggesting that LIK1 may be directly phosphorylated by CERK1. Lik1 mutant plants showed an enhanced response to both chitin and flagellin elicitors. In comparison to the wild-type plants, lik1 mutant plants were more resistant to the hemibiotrophic pathogen Pseudomonas syringae, but more susceptible to the necrotrophic pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Consistent with the enhanced susceptibility to necrotrophs, lik1 mutants showed reduced expression of genes involved in jasmonic acid and ethylene signaling pathways. These data suggest that LIK1 directly interacts with CERK1 and regulates MAMP-triggered innate immunity.
Triglyceride Concentration is Independently Associated with Variation inthe LPL Gene in African American and European American Women

Objective: The regulation of triglyceride (TG) metabolism may be affected by many factors including: race/ethnicity, body composition, body fat distribution, insulin action, and the activity of the lipoprotein lipase (LPL) enzyme. This study was designed to identify the independent effects of body composition, body fat distribution, insulin action, and LPL genetic variation on TG and HDL-C concentration. Subjects: The study consisted of premenopausal European American (EA) (n=114) and African American (AA) (n=140) women. Measurements: Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), intra-abdominal adipose tissue (IAAT) by computed tomography (CT), insulin sensitivity (SI) and the acute insulin response to glucose (AIRg) by intravenous glucose tolerance test, median household income by zip-code. An estimate of individual genetic admixture was obtained from the genotyping of 85 ancestry informative markers and used to control for population stratification. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to identify contributions of body composition, IAAT, SI, AIRg, African genetic admixture, and LPL polymorphisms to TG and HDL-C. Results: AA had lower TG and higher HDL-C than EA. African genetic admixture, IAAT, AIRg, SI, and RS285 were significantly and independently related to TG concentration. SI was the only independent contributor to HDL-C. RS1800590 was not associated with variation in TG or HDL. Conclusion: Triglyceride concentration appears to be multifactorial in origin and emanates in part from variance in LPL RS285. Future investigations are necessary to understand the mechanisms through which gene polymorphisms, body fat distribution, and insulin action influence the lipid profile.
Recent Trends in Economic Methodology: A Literature Review

Abstract This essay is a review of the recent literature on the methodology of economics, with a focus on three broad trends that have defined the core lines of research within the discipline during the last two decades. These trends are: (a) the philosophical analysis of economic modelling and economic explanation; (b) the epistemology of causal inference, evidence diversity and evidence-based policy and (c) the investigation of the methodological underpinnings and public policy implications of behavioural economics. The final output is inevitably not exhaustive, yet it aims at offering a fair taste of some of the most representative questions in the field on which many philosophers, methodologists and social scientists have recently been placing a great deal of intellectual effort. The topics and references compiled in this review should serve at least as safe introductions to some of the central research questions in the philosophy and methodology of economics.
The Cognitive Informatics Theory and Mathematical Models of Visual Information Processing in the Brain

It is recognized that the internal mechanisms for visual information processing are based on semantic inferences where visual information is represented and processed as visual semantic objects rather than direct images or episode pictures in the long-term memory. This article presents a cognitive informatics theory of visual information and knowledge processing in the brain. A set of cognitive principles of visual perception is reviewed particularly the classic gestalt principles, the cognitive informatics principles, and the hypercolumn theory. A visual frame theory is developed to explain the visual information processing mechanisms of human vision, where the size of a unit visual frame is tested and calibrated based on vision experiments. The framework of human visual information processing is established in order to elaborate mechanisms of visual information processing and the compatibility of internal representations between visual and abstract information and knowledge in the brain.
Product attachment and replacement: implications for sustainable design

This research investigated a number of main areas of attachment in order to determine how consumer-product relationships are formed and to identify whether these feelings influence replacement decisions. Primary research comprised of interviews with consumers to discuss the topic area in relation to three possessions selected for their attachment qualities. The research highlighted how attachment is determined by multiple themes, many of which are circumstantial to consumers' experiences and therefore difficult for designers to control. Findings showed that memories were the most prominent theme of participants' attachment, closely followed by pleasure and usability. Enjoyment and pleasure were found to be the primary reason for attachment to newly purchased items, whereas nostalgia was highest for older possessions. Appearance and reliability were found to have considerable influence on participants' attitudes towards replacement.
Lifetime Prediction for Supercapacitor-powered Wireless Sensor Nodes

Energy-aware task scheduling is a novel research direction for wireless sensor networks. It depends on accurate models for lifetime prediction. In other terms, nodes must be aware of present and future energy resources. This paper addresses the first step towards reaching this goal: It explores discharging-characteristics of supercapacitors, discusses analytical discharging-models for lifetime prediction, and evaluates these models by comparing them with real discharging curves. Christian Renner, Jürgen Jessen, and Volker Turau. Lifetime Prediction for Supercapacitor-powered Wireless Sensor Nodes. In Proceedings of the 8th GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch Sensornetze, FGSN ’09, August 2009.
Real Time Estimation of the Calgary Floods Using Limited Remote Sensing Data

Every year, flood disasters are responsible for widespread destruction and loss of human life. Remote sensing data are capable of providing valuable, synoptic coverage of flood events but are not always available because of satellite revisit limitations, obstructions from cloud cover or vegetation canopy, or expense. In addition, knowledge of road accessibility is imperative during all phases of a flood event. In June 2013, the City of Calgary experienced sudden and extensive flooding but lacked comprehensive remote sensing coverage. Using this event as a case study, this work illustrates how data from non-authoritative sources are used to augment traditional data and methods to estimate flood extent and identify affected roads during a flood disaster. The application of these data, which may have varying resolutions and uncertainities, provide an estimation of flood extent when traditional data and methods are lacking or incomplete. When flooding occurs over multiple days, it is possible to construct an estimate of the advancement and recession of the flood event. Non-authoritative sources also provide flood information at the micro-level, which can be difficult to capture from remote sensing data; however, the distibution and quantity of data collected from these sources will affect the quality of the flood estimations.
A New Variety of Swedish

Many adolescents in Sweden speak Swedish with what appears to be a foreign accent. Whereas some people perceive their way of speaking Swedish as the result of imperfect or incomplete learning of Swedish, others argue that they speak a new variety of Swedish. In this paper, several arguments of anecdotal character are tested experimentally in order to investigate whether or not a new variety of Swedish is developing.
IGF1R Signaling in Ewing Sarcoma Is Shaped by Clathrin-/Caveolin-Dependent Endocytosis

Receptor endocytosis is critical for cell signaling. IGF1R mediates an autocrine loop that is de-regulated in Ewing Sarcoma (ES) cells. Here we study the impact of IGF1R internalization, mediated by clathrin and caveolin-1 (CAV1), in ES signaling. We used clathrin and CAV1-siRNA to interfere in clathrin- and caveolin-dependent endocytosis. Chlorpromazine (CPMZ) and methyl-beta-cyclo-dextrin (MCD) were also used in order to inhibit clathrin- and caveolin-dependent endocytosis, respectively. We analyzed IGF1R internalization and co-localization with clathrin and CAV1 upon ligand binding, as well as the status of the IGF1R pathway, cellular proliferation, and the apoptosis of interfered and inhibited ES cells. We performed a high-throughput tyrosine kinase phosphorylation assay to analyze the effects of combining the IGF1R tyrosine kinase inhibitor AEW541 (AEW) with CPMZ or MCD on the intracellular phospho-proteome. We observed that IGF1R is internalized upon ligand binding in ES cells and that this process is dependent on clathrin or CAV1. The blockage of receptor internalization inhibited AKT and MAPK phosphorylation, reducing the proliferative rate of ES cells and increasing the levels of apoptosis. Combination of AEW with CPMZ or MCD largely enhanced these effects. CAV1 and clathrin endocytosis controls IGF1R internalization and signaling and has a profound impact on ES IGF1R-promoted survival signaling. We propose the combination of tyrosine-kinase inhibitors with endocytosis inhibitors as a new therapeutic approach to achieve a stronger degree of receptor inhibition in this, or other neoplasms dependent on IGF1R signaling.
On the interaction between velocity increment and energy dissipation in the turbulent cascade

AbstractWe adress the problem of interactions between the longitudinal velocityincrement and the energy dissipation rate in fully developed turbulence. Thecoupling between these two quantities is experimentally investigated by thetheory of stochastic Markovian processes. The so–called Markov analysis al-lows for a precise characterization of the joint statistical properties of velocityincrement and energy dissipation. In particular, it is possible to determinethe diﬀerential equation that governs the evolution along scales of the jointprobability density of these two quantities. The properties of this equationprovide interesting new insights into the coupling between energy dissipationand velocity incrementas leading to small scale intermittency. 1 Introduction Important details of the complex statistical behaviour of fully developed turbulentﬂows are still unknown, cf. [1]. Especially the eﬀect of small scale intermittency,i.e. the phenomenon of ﬁnding unexpected frequent occurences of large ﬂuctuationsof the local velocity on small length scales, is an open problem.It is commonly accepted that small scale intermittency is due to some kind ofcascading process: Kinetic energy which is fed into the ﬂow by external forces onsome (large) scale L is assumed to be in an equilibrium with the energy beingdissipated by viscosity on the smallest scale η. Inbetween the integral length scaleL and the dissipation scale η, energy is continuously transported towards smallerscales by the decay of eddies [2, 3, 4]. The statistical properties of the turbulent cascade are usually characterized bymeans of the diﬀerence between the velocities at two points in space separated bythe distance r, the so–called longitudinal velocity increment u(r):u(r) = e[v(x +re,t) −v(x,t)]. (1)The statistics of u(r) is commonly investigated by means of its moments S
“Serious and complex illness” in quality improvement and policy reform for end-of-life care

Americans are living longer — a mark of success in public health and medical care — but more will live the last few years with progressive illness and disability. The dominant conception of care delivery separates “aggressive” or life-extending care from “palliative” or death-accepting care, with an assumed “transition” between them. The physiology and the experience of this population are mismatched in this model. Here, we propose a more useful category for public policy and clinical quality improvement: persons who will die as a result of “serious and complex illness. ” Delivery system changes could ensure reliable, continuous, and competent care to this population.
Numbers and Topologies : Two Aspects of Ramsey Theory

In graph Ramsey theory, Burr and Erdős in 1970s posed two conjectures which may be considered as initial steps toward the problem of characterizing the set of graphs for which Ramsey numbers grow linearly in their orders. One conjecture is that Ramsey numbers grow linearly for all degenerate graphs and the other is that Ramsey numbers grow linearly for cubes. Though unable to settle these two conjectures, we have contributed many weaker versions that support the likely truth of the first conjecture and obtained a polynomial upper bound for the Ramsey numbers of cubes that considerably improves all previous bounds and comes close to the linear bound in the second conjecture. In topological Ramsey theory, Kojman recently observed a topological converse of Hindman’s theorem and then introduced the so-called Hindman space and van der Waerden space (both of which are stronger than sequentially compact spaces) corresponding respectively to Hindman’s theorem and van der Waerden’s theorem. In this thesis, we will strengthen the topological converse of Hindman’s theorem by using canonical Ramsey theorem, and introduce differential compactness that arises naturally in this context and study its relations to other spaces as well. Also by using compact dynamical systems, we will extend a classical Ramsey type theorem of Brown and Hindman et al on piecewise syndetic sets from natural numbers and discrete semigroups to locally connected semigroups.