Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maturation of the GABAergic Transmission in Normal and Pathologic Motoneurons

γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) acting on Cl−-permeable ionotropic type A (GABAA) receptors (GABAAR) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the adult central nervous system of vertebrates. In immature brain structures, GABA exerts depolarizing effects mostly contributing to the expression of spontaneous activities that are instructive for the construction of neural networks but GABA also acts as a potent trophic factor. In the present paper, we concentrate on brainstem and spinal motoneurons that are largely targeted by GABAergic interneurons, and we bring together data on the switch from excitatory to inhibitory effects of GABA, on the maturation of the GABAergic system and GABAAR subunits. We finally discuss the role of GABA and its GABAAR in immature hypoglossal motoneurons of the spastic (SPA) mouse, a model of human hyperekplexic syndrome.
Does the teacher’s pet phenomenon inevitably cause classroom conflict? Comparative viewpoints of three pet-student groups

Although most studies reveal a relationship between the teacher’s pet phenomenon with classroom conflict, it does not necessarily cause classroom conflict. This study confirms the model fit for teacher authority, the existence of the teacher’s pet phenomenon and its relationship to classroom conflict and students’ self-adjustment, as well as testing the different viewpoints of three pet-student groups. Participants in the study comprised 407 5th through 8th grade students from 12 schools in Taiwan. The findings indicate that the estimated model fits the observed data; teacher authority directly affects the teacher’s pet phenomenon and indirectly affects classroom conflict and students’ self-adjustment. Non-pet students, popular-pet students, and unpopular pet students have different viewpoints of the variables. Three sub-models reveal different path effects; the inclusion of popular-pet students does not lead to classroom conflict. Implications for theory, practice, and research are discussed.
A Critical Analysis of the Workplace Creativity Criterion Space

This article outlines a criterion-oriented framework for understanding workplace creativity. Drawing from research on job performance, the authors make three important conceptual distinctions. First, they add theoretical and methodological precision to the workplace creativity literature by separating creative performance behaviors from the creative outcomes they produce. Second, they explain inconsistent findings in the extant creativity literature by distinguishing expected versus unexpected creative performance behaviors. Third, they provide an alternative approach to conceptualizing and measuring novelty and usefulness by considering them as formative dimensions of a creative outcome. These distinctions form the basis for their framework, which provides researchers with a theoretically grounded approach to measuring creativity in a more nuanced way. Finally, the authors highlight several key avenues for future research.
Study of the beliefs and practices of churchgoers in rural Wales

This study focuses on the beliefs and practices of a group of churchgoers from three congregations in Mid Wales. The theoretical framework selected is that of Astley whose term 'ordinary theology' provides the initial impetus for the work. The research questions focus on the beliefs and expressions of these beliefs by ordinary churchgoers, the origin of their theology and the extent to which these beliefs and practices could be described as an ordinary theology. The review of the literature situates ordinary theology in the area of practical theology and compares and contrasts its features with other related fields such as pew theology, common religion and folk religion. There is also a discussion of theological and religious learning and of the relationship between language and theology. The empirical study adopts a social science methodology, a phenomenological hermeneutic approach and uses a semi-structured interview as the main research instrument. The findings reveal that the interviewees have firmly held beliefs which for many of them had remained since their childhood these beliefs find expression in their involvement in church and community life and, in particular in the liturgy and rituals of the Church. There is little evidence of the participants having received any systematic religious education and the findings present some tentative support for the ordinary people in churches having ownership of their own ordinary theology. The concluding chapter presents some recommendations, namely the need for churchgoers to be equipped with a vocabulary and grammar with which to articulate their faith, to be provided with a more coherent programme of religious or theological education and for there to be a forum in which churchgoers can express and develop in their theology. The final chapter also presents some areas for further investigation and argues for a more in-depth analysis of a more tightly defined theological issue.
Picturing success: photographs and stereotyping in men's collegiate basketball.

This study investigated the use of photos to ascertain the level of belief that certain attributes contribute to success in men's collegiate basketball. Four population groups were represented. Subjects were asked to rate their level of belief that eight specific factors contributed to the success of pictured male athletes. Significant differences were found for the four population groups utilized. Subjects perceived success for a Black athlete to be the result of innate athletic abilities: natural quickness and speed, natural jumping ability, longer limbs, and extra muscle tissue. Success for a White athlete was viewed as resulting from hard work, leadership ability, access to better coaching, and access to better equipment and facilities. Scores for an Hispanic athlete reflected a lack of athletic identity or stereotype. The composite athlete's success was seen as resulting from a combination of the factors attributed to the Black athlete and the White athlete. The results support the "stereotyping theory" of positional stacking reported in collegiate and professional sports. Implications for participation patterns of young athletes are also discussed.
Molecular size-fractionation during endocytosis in macrophages

The sorting of macromolecules within and between membranous organelles is often directed by information contained in protein primary or secondary structure. We show here that absent such structural information, macromolecules internalized by endocytosis in macrophages can be sorted by size. After endocytosis, small solute probes of fluid- phase pinocytosis were recycled to the extracellular medium more efficiently than large solutes. Using macropinosomes pulse labeled with fluorescent dextrans, we examined the ability of organelles to exchange solute contents. Dextran exchange was optimal between organelles of similar age, and small dextrans exchanged more efficiently than large dextrans. Efferent solute movement, from lysosomes or phagolysosomes toward the plasma membrane, occurred through the same endocytic vesicles as afferent movement, toward lysosomes and this movement was solute size dependent. Remarkably, uniform mixtures of different-sized dextrans delivered into lysosomes separated into distinct organelles containing only one dextran or the other. Thus, the dynamics of endosomes and lysosomes were sufficient to segregate macromolecules by size. This intracellular size fractionation could explain how, during antigen presentation, peptides generated by lysosomal proteases recycle selectively from lysosomes to endosomes for association with class II MHC molecules.
Density of Antennal Sensilla Influences Efficacy of Communication in a Social Insect

Effective communication requires reliable signals and competent receptors. Theoretical and empirical accounts of animal signaling focus overwhelmingly on the capacity of the signaler to convey the message. Nevertheless, the intended receiver’s ability to detect a signal depends on the condition of its receptor organs, as documented for humans. The impact of receptor organ condition on signal reception and its consequences for functional behavior are poorly understood. Social insects use antennae to detect chemical odors that distinguish between nestmates and enemies, reacting aggressively to the latter. We investigated the impact of antennal condition, determined by the density of sensilla, on the behavior of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. Worker aggression depended upon the condition of their antennae: workers with fewer sensilla on their antennae reacted less aggressively to nonnestmate enemies. These novel data highlight the largely unappreciated significance of receptor organ condition for animal communication and may have implications for coevolutionary processes in animal communication.
The value of splenic preservation with distal pancreatectomy.

HYPOTHESIS Splenic-preserving distal pancreatectomy for benign or low-grade malignant disease is associated with decreased perioperative morbidity compared with conventional distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy. DESIGN A retrospective review of a prospective database of patients. SETTING Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. PATIENTS All patients (N = 211) undergoing distal pancreatectomy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Perioperative complications, length of postoperative stay, and overall survival times were analyzed. RESULTS After excluding patients with adenocarcinoma and those who had other major organ resection, 125 patients underwent distal pancreatectomy for benign or low-grade malignant disease with splenectomy (n = 79) or splenic preservation (n = 46). Perioperative complications occurred in 39 (49%) of the 79 patients following splenectomy and 18 (39%) of the 46 patients following splenic preservation (P =.21). Perioperative infectious complications and severe complications were significantly higher in the splenectomy group (28% and 11%) compared with the splenic preservation group (9% and 2%) (P =.01 and.05), respectively. Length of hospital stay was 9 days (range, 5-41 days) following splenectomy and 7 days (range, 5-26 days) following splenic preservation (P<.01). No difference in length of surgery, units of blood transfused, or perioperative mortality was noted between groups. CONCLUSIONS Splenic preservation following distal pancreatectomy for benign or low-grade malignant disease is safe and is associated with a reduction in perioperative infectious complications, severe complications, and length of hospital stay compared with conventional distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy. Therefore, splenic preservation should be considered in this group of patients.
The effects of chlorhexidine gel on Streptococcus mutans infection in 10-month-old infants: a longitudinal, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial.

PURPOSE This study investigated the long-term effects of 0.2% chlorhexidine gel, used as a weekly brush-on gel, on Streptoccocus mutans infection in 10-month-old infants. METHODS The investigation followed the criteria of a placebo-controlled, double-blind, longitudinal clinical trial. Infants were recruited at birth and oral microbiological swabs were taken at 3 monthly intervals, together with medical, dental, dietary and brushing histories. Children who were found to be colonized with S. mutans were randomly assigned to either the chlorhexidine-gel group (N = 50) or placebo gel group (N = 46), and parents were instructed to brush the gel on the teeth once per week for 12 weeks. In another control group (N = 210), infants did not use either chlorhexidine or placebo gels. Saliva samples were cultured using S. mutans-selective tryptone-yeast extract-cysteine-sucrose-bacitracin (TYCSB) agar. The mean age of the children was 10.2 +/- 2.6 months at the start of the trial and subjects were followed until the ages of 18 months. RESULTS In the children with initial low S. mutans counts of < 300 CFU/mL, there was a significant percentage reduction in S. mutans counts in the chlorhexidine-gel group compared to the placebo gel and no-gel control groups after 3 months of weekly gel brushing. However, no significant differences with the placebo group were observed after 15 months of follow-up. There were 39 children (41%) who achieved reduction of their S. mutans to 0 CFU/mL. Compared to those who remained infected with S. mutans, these children had higher toothbrushing frequencies (P < .001) and toothpaste use (P < .001), as well as lower frequencies of daily feeds (P < .01), and lesser weekly frequencies of sweet solids and liquids (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS Children with relatively low initial S. mutans counts (< 300 CFU/mL) showed a reduction in S. mutans counts in the first 3 months when 0.2% chlorhexidine gel was brushed on the teeth weekly. No differences were observed when compared with the placebo and no-treatment groups at later follow-up periods.
The Construct-Related Validity of Assessment Center Ratings: A Review and Meta-Analysis of the Role of Methodological Factors

In the present study, we provide a systematic review of the assessment center literature with respect to specific design and methodological characteristics that potentially moderate the construct-related validity of assessment center ratings. We also conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between these characteristics and construct-related validity outcomes. Results for rating approach, assessor occupation, assessor training, and length of assessor training were in the predicted direction such that a higher level of convergent, and lower level of discriminant validity were obtained for the across-exercise compared to the within-exercise rating method; psychologists compared to managers/supervisors as assessors; assessor training compared no assessor training; and longer compared to shorter assessor training. Partial support was also obtained for the effects of the number of dimensions and assessment center purpose. Our review also indicated that relatively few studies have examined both construct-related and criterion-related validity simultaneously. Furthermore, these studies provided little, if any support for the view that assessment center ratings lack construct-related validity while at the same time demonstrating criterion-related validity. The implications of these findings for assessment center construct-related validity are discussed.
Epilepsy in a rural elderly population.

PURPOSE The first goal of this study was to describe the characteristics of elderly patients with epilepsy and the antiepileptic drugs used to treat them. Next, the factors (such as epilepsy type, seizure frequency, medical comorbidities, etc.) influencing antiepileptic drug choice and living situation were explored. METHODS Retrospective chart review of patients older than 70 with epilepsy seen in a rural health care system. This yielded 449 patients with epilepsy, 54 patients with isolated seizures and 38 patients with syncope as the primary diagnosis. RESULTS The most commonly used antiepileptic drug was phenytoin. New generation AED's which had fewer side effects were used much less frequently than old generation AED's but the probability of using new generation AED's was increased in patients with renal failure and congestive heart failure as well as in patients that had seen a neurologist. Patients with acute symptomatic seizures, dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, frequent seizures and advanced age were less likely to be independent. Patients that had seen a neurologist as an outpatient were more likely to live independently. CONCLUSIONS The elderly are a vulnerable population because of difficulty communicating their symptoms and their needs. This leads to the suboptimal use of AED's as well as poor outcomes. Careful attention to seizure control and medication side effects is critical in promoting good outcomes in this patient group. This retrospective study suggests that access of elderly patients with epilepsy to specialty care improves outcomes in terms of living status. This important information needs to be confirmed by prospective studies.
Environmental Risk Factors and Parkinson's Disease: Selective Degeneration of Nigral Dopaminergic Neurons Caused by the Herbicide Paraquat

Environmental toxicants and, in particular, pesticides have been implicated as risk factors in Parkinson's disease (PD). The purpose of this study was to determine if selective nigrostriatal degeneration could be reproduced by systemic exposure of mice to the widely used herbicide paraquat. Repeated intraperitoneal paraquat injections killed dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) pars compacta, as assessed by stereological counting of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive and Nissl-stained neurons. This cell loss was dose- and age-dependent. Several lines of evidence indicated selective vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons to paraquat. The number of GABAergic cells was not decreased in the SN pars reticulata, and counting of Nissl-stained neurons in the hippocampus did not reveal any change in paraquat-treated mice. Degenerating cell bodies were observed by silver staining, but only in the SN pars compacta, and glial response was present in the ventral mesencephalon but not in the frontal cortex and cerebellum. No significant depletion of striatal dopamine followed paraquat administration. On the other hand, enhanced dopamine synthesis was suggested by an increase in TH activity. These findings unequivocally show that selective dopaminergic degeneration, one of the pathological hallmarks of PD, is also a characteristic of paraquat neurotoxicity. The apparent discrepancy between pathological (i.e., neurodegeneration) and neurochemical (i.e., lack of significant dopamine loss) effects represents another important feature of this paraquat model and is probably a reflection of compensatory mechanisms by which neurons that survive damage are capable of restoring neurotransmitter tissue levels.
Foxtail Mosaic Virus-Induced Gene Silencing in Monocot Plants1[OPEN]

Foxtail Mosaic Virus-induced gene silencing works in multiple monocot plants including barley, wheat, and foxtail millet. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a powerful technique to study gene function in plants. However, very few VIGS vectors are available for monocot plants. Here we report that Foxtail mosaic virus (FoMV) can be engineered as an effective VIGS system to induce efficient silencing of endogenous genes in monocot plants including barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica). This is evidenced by FoMV-based silencing of phytoene desaturase (PDS) and magnesium chelatase in barley, of PDS and Cloroplastos alterados1 in foxtail millet and wheat, and of an additional gene IspH in foxtail millet. Silencing of these genes resulted in photobleached or chlorosis phenotypes in barley, wheat, and foxtail millet. Furthermore, our FoMV-based gene silencing is the first VIGS system reported for foxtail millet, an important C4 model plant. It may provide an efficient toolbox for high-throughput functional genomics in economically important monocot crops.
Software fault prediction based on one-class SVM

Software fault prediction (SFP) is useful for helping the software engineer to locate potential faulty modules in software testing more easily, so that it can save a lot of time and budgets to improve the software quality. In this paper, aiming at solving the problem that the faulty samples are too rare to train a classifier, an one-class SFP model is proposed by using only non-faulty samples based on one-class SVM. The empirical validation is conducted on 6 extremely imbalanced datasets collected from real-world software containing only small amounts of faulty instances. The test results suggest that the proposed model can achieve a reasonable fault prediction performance when using only a small proportion of training samples, and performs much better than conventional and class imbalanced learning based SFP models in terms of G-mean measure. Thus the proposed model provided a considerable solution for SFP with a few faulty modules in early life of software testing.
Karaoke in Costa Rica: A Multidimensional Approach to Study Abroad

This case study was conducted to determine the benefits of a multi-dimensional study abroad program that included a community service component. It encompassed the following aspects of the study abroad experience: motivation for travel, language learning research, the role of autonomy in language learning, and cultural awareness, behaviors, and attitudes. The researcher acted as a participant and an observer through ongoing ethnographical observations as the program took place. The researcher also implemented an oral assessment to determine the subjects’ language skills, and conducted one-on-one interviews with participants about the culture of Costa Rica and the comprehensive impact of the study abroad experience. To assess what aspects of the program facilitated and impeded target language fluency, the researcher collected information on student participation in the everyday lives of the natives, their living accommodations, the number of hours per week of formal second language (L2) instruction, and the opportunities for consistent, daily conversation in the target language.
Whole-Genome Comparative Analysis of Two Carbapenem-Resistant ST-258 Klebsiella pneumoniae Strains Isolated during a North-Eastern Ohio Outbreak: Differences within the High Heterogeneity Zones

Klebsiella pneumoniae has become one of the most dangerous causative agents of hospital infections due to the acquisition of resistance to carbapenems, one of the last resort families of antibiotics. Resistance is usually mediated by carbapenemases coded for by different classes of genes. A prolonged outbreak of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae infections has been recently described in northeastern Ohio. Most strains isolated from patients during this outbreak belong to MLST sequence type 258 (ST258). To understand more about this outbreak two isolates (strains 140 and 677), one of them responsible for a fatal infection, were selected for genome comparison analyses. Whole genome map and sequence comparisons demonstrated that both strains are highly related showing 99% average nucleotide identity. However, the genomes differ at the so-called high heterogeneity zone (HHZ) and other minor regions. This study identifies the potential value of the HHZ as a potential marker for K. pneumoniae clinical and epidemiological studies.
A Phenomenon of Overqualification in Personnel Psychology

This study examines the concept of overqualification as a phenomenon of nonlinearity in the upper deciles of the ability–performance relationship. In three job contexts (military, academic, and industrial), the ability–performance relationship is characterized by a strong linear component below the mean and a ceiling effect at various points above the mean. Consequently, overqualified individuals maintain above-average performance levels, rather than having low performance as was previously hypothesized. However, these individuals also fail to yield increasingly higher performance above the point of overqualification, as classical selection methods would have predicted. Overall, these findings raise possible concerns for traditional top-down ranking procedures, for the setting of high cut scores, and for possible overestimations in the validity and utility of upper-tail test scores.