Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE HISTOCHEMICAL DEMONSTRATION OF URICASE ACTIVITY

The histochemical demonstration of uricase activity in rat and guinea pig liver is described. The technique depends upon the generation of H2O2 during the uricase reaction. The liberated H2O2 participates in a coupled peroxidatic oxidation of 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole, resulting in the deposition of an insoluble red oxidation product at the sites of uricase activity. This activity appeared as small, discrete red granules througout the cytoplasm of hepatic parenchymal cells of the rat and guinea pig. The distribution was clearly different from that of acid phosphatase activity in similar sections, which appeared typically pericanalicular. These results are consistent with other data indicating that uricase is associated with microbodies in the rat liver, and that microbodies and lysosomes are separate entities.
Beyond phosphate--role of uraemic toxins in cardiovascular calcification.

Vascular calcification (VC) is a hallmark of atherosclerosis and has been linked to increased cardiovascular disease and mortality. VC is highly prevalent in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), in whom it occurs more frequently and progresses more rapidly than in the general population [1–3]. In CKD patients, cardiovascular mortality increases exponentially with age and is up to 500 times higher than in the general population [4]. The presence of VC is independently predictive of subsequent cardiovascular disease and mortality, beyond established conventional risk factors [5,6]. VC develops at two sites of the arterial wall: the intima and the media. The survival of CKD patients with arterial media calcification is longer than in patients with arterial intima calcification, whose survival in turn is significantly shorter than that of VC-free patients [7]. Metabolic disturbances in CKD involving calcium, phosphorus, parathyroid hormone and vitamin D, and exogenous factors including excessive vitamin D and calcium intake contribute to the initiation and progression of VC. Disorders of mineral and bone metabolism in CKD patients (CKD-MBD) are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular calcification, morbidity and mortality [8]. Among them, increased serum phosphorus and serum calcium–phosphorus ion product have been shown to correlate with progressive vascular and/or valvular calcification and mortality in numerous observational studies [2,9]. However, evidence has been accumulating that soft tissue calcification is not only a passive process involving calcium and phosphate precipitation due to low ion solubility in serum, but also an active process involving numerous players. The major role of circulating and local promoters and inhibitors of extraosseous calcification has been progressively recognized in recent years [10]. The complex interaction between active and passive processes guarantees the prevention of soft tissue calcium phosphate deposition under physiological circumstances. Disturbances of this subtle balance in CKD lead to calcification of blood vessels and other soft tissues. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms is of great importance for the treatment and prevention of this dramatic complication. It may eventually allow us to improve the poor prognosis of these patients.
The endocrine control of spermatogenesis.

The hormonal regulation of spermatogenesis involves a complex interplay within the hypothalamo-pituitary-testicular axis, which commences before birth with male sexual development and continues through puberty and into adulthood. Hypothalamic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone drives these events by inducing pituitary gonadotrophin secretion, thereby stimulating testicular androgen secretion (providing virility) and spermatogenesis (providing fertility). Evidence from both animal models and man supports a need for both follicle-stimulating hormone and testosterone in achieving full spermatogenic potential, but a species difference in their relative roles exists. Clinical endocrine disorders can arise from a deficiency of hypothalamic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone and/or pituitary gonadotrophins, which results in hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism, featuring delayed/absent puberty and infertility. Physiologically-based and effective treatment with pulsatile gonadotrophin-releasing hormone or gonadotrophins can often restore fertility. Clinical conditions can also be caused by rare genetic disorders of the gonadotrophin molecules or the receptors for androgens and gonadotrophins, which result in a range of phenotypes (from male pseudohermaphroditism through to infertility); these disorders provide a unique insight into the physiology of sexual development and spermatogenesis.
What Do We Know about Pretend Play and Narrative Development ?

An article by Angeline S. Lillard and others in the January 2013 issue of Psychological Bulletin comprehensively reviewed and criticized the existing body of research on pretend play and children’s development. Nicolopoulou and Ilgaz respond specifically to the article’s critical review of research on play and narrative development, focusing especially on its assessment of research—mostly conducted during the 1970s and 1980s—on play-based narrative interventions. The authors consider that assessment overly negative and dismissive. On the contrary, they find this research strong and valuable, offering some solid evidence of beneficial effects of pretend play for narrative development. They argue that the account of this research by Lillard and her colleagues was incomplete and misleading; that their treatment of relevant studies failed to situate them in the context of a developing research program; and that a number of their criticisms were misplaced, overstated, conceptually problematic, or all of the above. They conclude that this research—while not without flaws, gaps, limitations, unanswered questions, and room for improvement—offers more useful resources and guidance for future research than Lillard and her colleagues acknowledged.
No African renaissance without disabled women: a communal approach to human development in Cape Town South Africa

The African Renaissance is upon us. Those who have eyes to see, let them see. Disabled women who live in wooden shacks in the peri-urban areas of Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa, participated in storytelling workshops over a two-and-a-half-year period. They shared experiences of what helped or hindered their social and economic development since becoming disabled. The workshops were part of a participatory action research (PAR) study of the Division of Occupational Therapy, University of Cape Town, together with Disabled People South Africa (DPSA) and the Zanempilo Health Trust [formerly South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) Primary Health Care Project]. The findings revealed the struggles and sadness, as well as the strengths and spirit that the women experienced within their every day context at an individual, family and community level. The women spoke strongly about meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs (human development) as the means to social and economic development. The discussion reflects on the many paradoxes of disability encapsulated in the essence of interdependence of Ubuntu. Three themes discussed are building emotional resourcefulness: nurturing children and families in disability issues; and renewing spirituality and Ubuntu in disability and development programmes. In conclusion, managing the paradoxes of disability, the creation of a new individual and collective identity, and the capacity to change are proposed as the way forward.
Goal Orientation in Organizational Research: A Conceptual and Empirical Foundation

Although some have argued that goal orientation could be beneficially integrated into organizational research, progress in this area has been impeded by several problematic conceptual issues and a lack of validated dispositional measures. This research was intended to address these issues and to provide a foundation for future organizational research in this area. We argue that goal orientation is a two-dimensional construct that has both dispostional and situational components. In each of four independent studies, LISREL VIII confirmatory factor analyses (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993) illustrated that a two-factor model fit a set of goal orientation items better than a single-factor model. In addition, the latent goal orientations were found to be uncorrelated in each study. Moreover, correlational analyses indicated that demographic and substantive variables exhibited differential relationships with the latent learning goal and performance goal orientation constructs. Other analyses illustrated that the dispositional and situational aspects of goal orientation are distinguishable. Collectively, the results provided ample support for the convergent and discriminant validity of eight-item measures of each goal orientation and help to define the nomological network within which the two goal orientations reside. The importance of goal orientation as a multidimensional construct is discussed and several recommendations for further research are suggested.
Family characteristics and intergenerational conflicts over the Internet

The rapid expansion of computer use and Internet connection has the potential to change patterns of family interaction, with conflicts arising over adolescents' autonomy, parental authority and control of the computer. This study applied a conceptual framework derived from family development and human ecology theory to investigate family characteristics related to the likelihood of such conflicts. A secondary analysis was conducted of a special survey of 754 children aged 12 to 17 who used the Internet, and of their parents, performed by Pew Internet and the American Life project. Adolescent–parent conflicts over Internet use proved strongly related to the perception that the adolescent was a computer expert. Families in which adolescents were considered experts in new technologies were more likely to experience conflicts. Parents' attempt to reduce adolescent autonomy by regulating the time of Internet use increased the likelihood of family arguments over the Internet. Intergenerational conflicts over the Internet were higher in families in which parents expressed concern over the potentially negative consequences of Internet use. The implications of the findings are discussed.
Fundamental Determinants of National Equity Market Returns: A Perspective on Conditional Asset Pricing

This paper provides a global asset pricing perspective on the debate over the relation between predetermined attributes of common stocks, such as ratios of price-to-book-value, cash-flow, earnings, and other variables to the future returns. Some argue that such variables may be used to find securities that are systematically undervalued by the market, while others argue that the measures are proxies for exposure to underlying economic risk factors. It is not possible to distinguish between these views without explicitly modelling the relation between such attributes and risk factors. We present an empirical framework for attacking the problem at a global level, assuming integrated markets. Our perspective pulls together the traditional academic and practitioner viewpoints on lagged attributes. We present new evidence on the relative importance of risk and mispricing effects, using monthly data for 21 national equity markets. We find that the cross-sectional explanatory power of the lagged attributes is related to both risk and mispricing in the two-factor model, but the risk effects explain more of the variance than mispricing. This paper is an unabridged version of our 1997 publication in the Journal of Banking and Finance.
Development and validation of the Location Learning Test (LLT): A test of visuo-spatial learning designed for use with older adults and in dementia

Abstract The Location Learning Test (LLT) is a brief, new measure of visuo-spatial learning that has been developed for use with older adults and in dementia. It does not require fine motor control, verbal responses, or complex instructions. The validity of the LLT was established by comparing the performance of three groups of subjects: normal elderly controls, patients with Alzheimer's disease and patients with vascular dementia. There were significant differences between normal subjects and those with dementia, including those with mild dementia (MMSE ≥ 20). Performance on the LLT was not predicted by premorbid IQ or age, but did correlate highly with the MMSE (R = .77). A cut-off score was selected which yielded a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 82.8%, and a positive predictive value of 83.3%. Two groups of dementia patients were found; those who were able to improve their performance through learning and those who were not. The ability to learn was not predicted by degree of cognitive impairment .
The theory of reinvestment

This review provides an overview of a diverse, temporally distributed, body of literature regarding the effects of conscious attention to movement. An attempt is made to unite the many different views within the literature through Reinvestment Theory (Masters, 1992; Masters, Polman, & Hammond, 1993), which suggests that relatively automated motor processes can be disrupted if they are run using consciously accessed, task-relevant declarative knowledge to control the mechanics of the movements on-line. Reinvestment Theory argues that the propensity for consciousness to control movements on-line is a function of individual personality differences, specific contexts and a broad range of contingent events that can be psychological, physiological, environmental or even mechanical.
Facilitator, Teacher, or Leader? Managing Conflicting Roles in Outdoor Education

A facilitator is commonly defined as a substantively neutral person who manages the group process in order to help groups achieve identified goals or purposes. However, outdoor educators rarely experience the luxury of only managing the group process, because they are typically responsible for the provision of leadership, skill instruction, and safety management. Based on personal experience, the literature on facilitation, and my research on the theories and practices of facilitator educators providing facilitation training courses in Australia and New Zealand, I recommend strategies for managing the potentially conflicting facilitation roles that outdoor educators may be required to fulfill. The five facilitator roles identified by Schwarz (2002), which serve as a theoretical framework for this paper, are facilitator, facilitative leader, facilitative trainer, facilitative consultant, and facilitative coach. The similarities and differences between these roles are discussed, as are strategies that outdoor educators can apply to optimise their use of, and movement between, these roles.
Regulation and pathophysiological implications of UDP-GlcNAc 2-epimerase/ManNAc kinase (GNE) as the key enzyme of sialic acid biosynthesis

Abstract The key enzyme for the biosynthesis of N-acetylneuraminic acid, from which all other sialic acids are formed, is the bifunctional enzyme UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase/N-acetylmannosamine kinase (GNE). GNE is a highly conserved protein found throughout the animal kingdom. Its highest expression is seen in the liver and placenta. GNE is regulated by a variety of biochemical means, including tetramerization promoted by the substrate UDP-GlcNAc, phosphorylation by protein kinase C and feedback inhibition by CMP-Neu5Ac, which is defect in the human disease sialuria. GNE knock-out in mice leads to embryonic lethality, emphasizing the crucial role of this key enzyme for sialic acid biosynthesis. The metabolic capacity to synthesize sialic acid and CMP-sialic acid upon ManNAc loads is amazingly high. An additional characteristic of GNE is its interaction with proteins involved in the regulation of development, which might play a crucial role in the hereditary inclusion body myopathy. Due to the importance of increased concentrations of tumor-surface sialic acid, first attempts to find inhibitors of GNE have been successful.
Critical-temperature inhomogeneities and resistivity rounding in copper oxide superconductors.

By using effective-medium approaches, we obtain the onset of the electrical-resistivity rounding, above the normal-superconducting transition, associated with inhomogeneities of the mean-field critical temperature {ital T}{sub {ital c}0} at scales larger than the superconducting correlation length. These results are compared with available data in single-crystal and single-phase (to within 4%) polycrystalline YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7{minus}{delta}} samples. This comparison shows that the measured resistivity rounding cannot be explained by these types of local {ital T}{sub {ital c}0} inhomogeneities. Complementarily, our calculations allow us to check some proposals on {ital T}{sub {ital c}0} inhomogeneities associated with local sample strains or oxygen-content variations. The interplay between {ital T}{sub {ital c}0} inhomogeneities and superconducting order-parameter fluctuations (SCOPF) leads to the conclusion that in the mean-field-like region (MFR) above the superconducting transition, the {ital T}{sub {ital c}0} inhomogeneity contribution to the measured resistivity rounding in high-quality (single-phase) cuprate oxide superconductors is negligible. In contrast, our analysis confirms that in the MFR these effects may be explained quantitatively on the grounds of the Lawrence-Doniach theory for SCOPF.
Probing Muscle Ankyrin‐Repeat Protein (MARP) Structure and Function

Muscle ankyrin‐repeat proteins (MARPs) have been shown to serve diverse functions within cardiac and skeletal muscle cells. Apart from their interactions with sarcomeric proteins like titin or myopalladin that locate them along myofilaments, MARPs are able to shuttle to the nucleus where they act as modulators for a variety of transcription factors. The deregulation of MARPs in many cardiac and skeletal myopathies contributes to their use as biomarkers for these diseases. Many of their functions are attributed to their domain composition. MARPs consist of an N‐terminal coiled‐coil domain responsible for their dimerization. The C‐terminus contains a series of ankyrin repeats, whose best‐characterized function is to bind to the N2A region of the giant sarcomeric protein titin. Here we investigate the nature of their dimerization and their interaction with titin more closely. We demonstrate that the coiled‐coil domain in all MARPs enables their homo‐ and hetero‐dimerization in antiparallel fashion. Protein complementation experiments indicate further antiparallel binding of the ankyrin repeats to titin's N2A region. Binding of MARP to titin also affects its PKA mediated phosphorylation. We demonstrate further that MARPs themselves are phosphorylated by PKA and PKC, potentially altering their structure or function. These studies elucidate structural relationships within the stretch‐responsive MARP/titin complex in cross‐striated muscle cells, and may relate to disease relevant posttranslational modifications of MARPs and titin that alter muscle compliance. Anat Rec, 297:1615–1629, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Semantic Coherence-based User Profile Modeling in the Recommender Systems Context

Recommender systems usually produce their results to the users based on the interpretation of the whole historic interactions of these. This canonical approach sometimes could lead to wrong results due to several factors, such as a changes in user taste over time or the use of her/his account by third parties. This work proposes a novel dynamic coherence-based approach that analyzes the information stored in the user profiles based on their coherence. The main aim is to identify and remove from the previously evaluated items those not adherent to the average preferences, in order to make a user profile as close as possible to the userâs real tastes. The conducted experiments show the effectiveness of our approach to remove the incoherent items from a user profile, increasing the recommendation accuracy.
Observing aggression of teachers in school teams

To fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge on workplace aggression by teachers working in teams, this study explored its components, its targets, and its contextual determinants. Data were collected through three observations at different schools and at different times on 29 math, homeroom, language, and science studies teams. Qualitative analysis found the components of team teachers’ aggression to include obstructionist behaviors and expressions of hostility to colleagues. Determinants of the aggression such as injustice and sense of workload were identified. Theoretical and practical implications for the educational system and educational research are suggested. Principals are strongly encouraged to establish a school environment that promotes justice and reduces work overload. Educational leaders should create workshops for teachers coping with the negative effects of aggression and implement dispute resolution systems. New directions for research on teachers’ role in preventing aggression are offered.
Time-Dependent Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.11p Vehicular Networks

The performance of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is subject to frequent changes due to node mobility so that nonstationary/transient network behavior always exists. In addition, safety applications in VANETs are very sensitive to the real-time performance of delay and packet delivery ratio (PDR). Although there are extensive studies on the steady-state (SS) performance analysis of vehicular networks, little work exists on evaluating their time-varying behavior. In this paper, we develop a performance model to efficiently estimate the dynamic behavior of VANETs. In this paper, vehicle's transmission queue is modeled using fluid-flow (FF)-based differential equations, which are solved using numerical methods, whereas the network hearing topology is modeled by a time-varying adjacency matrix that can be determined from stochastic models, measurements, or discrete event simulations. Numerical results illustrate that our performance model is able to promptly respond to the ongoing dynamic conditions of VANETs and provide reasonably accurate performance results.
COMPARATIVE ONTOGENY OF A WILD CUCURBIT AND ITS DERIVED CULTIVAR

Most previous studies of evolutionary modification of form in plants have focused primarily on individual organs or flowers. Few have investigated the role of evolutionary changes in timing or position at the level of whole plant ontogeny. This study compares ontogenies of the primary shoots of two subspecies of Cucurbita argyrosperma, one a cultivar and the other its wild progenitor. Differences in flowering times between these subspecies suggested that the cultivar may have evolved from the wild subspecies via heterochronic processes leading to paedomorphosis. Analyses showed that both subspecies are similar in vegetative architecture and rates of leaf production. Earlier flowering in the cultivar, both in terms of position and absolute time, appears to have arisen through progenesis. Initial observations of leaf blade morphology led to the hypothesis that paedomorphosis and gigantism also may have been involved in the evolution of leaf blade shape in the cultivar: all leaves of the cultivar are larger and visually similar in shape to early leaves of the wild subspecies. However, quantitative analysis revealed that leaves of the cultivar are neither geometrically, nor solely allometrically larger versions of early leaves of the progenitor. Leaf shape in the cultivar exhibits novel features as well as effects of allometry shared with the progenitor, hence a simple hypothesis of paedomorphic evolution of leaf shape is not supported.