Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Netrin-1 Signaling in Nerve Regeneration

Netrin-1 was the first axon guidance molecule to be discovered in vertebrates and has a strong chemotropic function for axonal guidance, cell migration, morphogenesis and angiogenesis. It is a secreted axon guidance cue that can trigger attraction by binding to its canonical receptors Deleted in Colorectal Cancer (DCC) and Neogenin or repulsion through binding the DCC/Uncoordinated (Unc5) A–D receptor complex. The crystal structures of Netrin-1/receptor complexes have recently been revealed. These studies have provided a structure based explanation of Netrin-1 bi-functionality. Netrin-1 and its receptor are continuously expressed in the adult nervous system and are differentially regulated after nerve injury. In the adult spinal cord and optic nerve, Netrin-1 has been considered as an inhibitor that contributes to axon regeneration failure after injury. In the peripheral nervous system, Netrin-1 receptors are expressed in Schwann cells, the cell bodies of sensory neurons and the axons of both motor and sensory neurons. Netrin-1 is expressed in Schwann cells and its expression is up-regulated after peripheral nerve transection injury. Recent studies indicated that Netrin-1 plays a positive role in promoting peripheral nerve regeneration, Schwann cell proliferation and migration. Targeting of the Netrin-1 signaling pathway could develop novel therapeutic strategies to promote peripheral nerve regeneration and functional recovery.
Research into Communicative Language Teaching

The problems of research into communicative language teaching are a special case of the problems facing research into any kind of foreign language pedagogy. They also overlap to a considerable degree with those facing any research in teaching, regardless of subject matter. This article reviews a range of research approaches which have been, or might be, used in researching various dimensions of communicative language teaching. It draws on the general literature on educational research methods to some extent, and on the general language pedagogy research literature, as well as on the growing body of research literature on communicative language teaching. This is not an exhaustive survey, however; instead, a limited number of studies are chosen for discussion so as to exemplify the major research problems and approaches.
Large-Scale Convex Minimization with a Low-Rank Constraint

We address the problem of minimizing a convex function over the space of large matrices with low rank. While this optimization problem is hard in general, we propose an efficient greedy algorithm and derive its formal approximation guarantees. Each iteration of the algorithm involves (approximately) finding the left and right singular vectors corresponding to the largest singular value of a certain matrix, which can be calculated in linear time. This leads to an algorithm which can scale to large matrices arising in several applications such as matrix completion for collaborative filtering and robust low rank matrix approximation.
Use of student support services among university students: associations with problem-focused coping, experience of personal difficulty and psychological distress

ABSTRACT Universities provide a range of problem-focused social support services to help students who are experiencing personal difficulties. The current study examines how the effectiveness of students' (N = 131) problem-coping style, experience of personal difficulty and psychological distress are associated with actual use of support services in the academic setting. Results indicate that students who experienced a personal difficulty and who had a more reflective problem-coping style were more likely to use student support services. In addition, students with less effective problem-focused coping styles (more reactive and suppressive, less reflective) reported greater psychological distress. The potential personal, psychological and academic benefits of the reflective problem-coping style are discussed.
Repeat victim support

SUMMARY The occurrence of a crime may be regarded as a good predictor of where and whena further crime will occur. In consequence, a practical form of support for victimsmay well be the prevention of repeat victimization. To a variable and largely unknownextent, this approach is already being implemented by Victim Support volunteers.Making such practice routine might provide a worthwhile supplement to the serviceswhich Victim Support already offers. Some ways are suggested in which this approachmight be developed. The effectiveness of such an approach would be measured interms of customer (victim) satisfaction and lower than expected rates of swift repeatvictimizations. It is stressed that Victim Support may turn out not to be a viableplatform for the delivery of combined support-prevention services, although it shouldbe the agency first considered for this role. Possible experimental test-beds for suchan approach are proposed. INTRODUCTIONThere is an urgent need for good data to guide the allocation of scarceresources. Victim services are also at an early stage of evolution, sothat practice and priorities will need to be kept under constant reviewas better information becomes available.Helen Reeves, Director of Victim Support, 1988, p. 206The Victim Support (hereafter VS) movement has improved the lot ofthe crime victim in practical ways. No less important, as any criminolo-gical reading list and party political conference will attest, has been itsrole in moving victim interests towards the centre of criminal justiceconcern from their previously marginal position. As the quotation from
Elevated Peak Plantar Pressures in Patients Who Have Charcot Arthropathy*

Although diabetes and peripheral neuropathy are perhaps the most important risk factors for neuropathic osteoarthropathy, we hypothesized that peak plantar pressures may also be higher in patients who have this condition. We are unaware of any reports in the medical literature that have specifically addressed this hypothesis. We obtained data from the medical records of 164 diabetic patients who had been managed in a multidisciplinary tertiary-care diabetic foot-specialty clinic. We then divided the patients into four groups: those who had acute Charcot arthropathy, those who had neuropathic ulceration, those who had neuropathy without ulceration, and those who had neither neuropathy nor ulceration. The peak plantar pressures were significantly higher in the patients who had acute Charcot arthropathy and those who had a neuropathic ulcer (p < 0.001 for both) compared with the pressures in those who had no history of arthropathy and those who had neuropathy without ulceration. With the numbers available, we could not detect a significant difference in the peak pressure between the affected and the unaffected foot in the patients who had Charcot arthropathy (mean [and standard deviation], 100 ± 8.5 compared with 101 ± 9.6 newtons per square centimeter; p > 0.05). However, the mean peak pressure was significantly higher on the ulcerated side than on the contralateral side in the patients who had a neuropathic ulcer (90 ± 18.8 compared with 86 ± 20.7 newtons per square centimeter; p < 0.02). Although the midfoot was the site of maximum involvement in all patients who had Charcot arthropathy, the peak plantar pressure was on the forefoot, suggesting that the forefoot may function as a lever, forcing collapse in the midfoot.
Personality and riskier sexual behaviour: Motivational mediators

A model was hypothesized whereby personality traits influenced motives for having sex, which influenced self-determination of safer sex, which influenced riskier sexual behaviour. The study was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. The participants were 18 to 21-year-old university students, 200 of whom were sexually experienced. The model was tested using structural equation modelling. According to the final model, autonomous motivation for safer sex reduced riskier sexual behaviour, whereas controlled motivation had no effect. Agreeableness reduced riskier behaviour by increasing autonomous motivation for safer sex, an effect mediated by intimacy motive for having sex. Conscientiousness reduced riskier sexual behaviour by increasing autonomous motivation for safer sex. Enhancement motive for having sex increased riskier behaviour. Such individual differences in personality and motivational processes should be taken into account when designing interventions to reduce riskier sexual behaviour.
On Similarity Preserving Feature Selection

In the literature of feature selection, different criteria have been proposed to evaluate the goodness of features. In our investigation, we notice that a number of existing selection criteria implicitly select features that preserve sample similarity, and can be unified under a common framework. We further point out that any feature selection criteria covered by this framework cannot handle redundant features, a common drawback of these criteria. Motivated by these observations, we propose a new "Similarity Preserving Feature Selection” framework in an explicit and rigorous way. We show, through theoretical analysis, that the proposed framework not only encompasses many widely used feature selection criteria, but also naturally overcomes their common weakness in handling feature redundancy. In developing this new framework, we begin with a conventional combinatorial optimization formulation for similarity preserving feature selection, then extend it with a sparse multiple-output regression formulation to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. A set of three algorithms are devised to efficiently solve the proposed formulations, each of which has its own advantages in terms of computational complexity and selection performance. As exhibited by our extensive experimental study, the proposed framework achieves superior feature selection performance and attractive properties.
The involvement of the cytoskeleton in regulating IP3 receptor‐mediated internal Ca2+ release in human blood platelets.

In this study we have used saponin to permeabilize platelet membranes in order to test directly the involvement of IP3 in regulating internal Ca2+ release, and to measure IP3 binding to its receptor. Our results indicate that platelet vesicles release Ca2+ as early as 3 seconds after IP3 addition. Using [3H]IP3, we have found that platelets contain a single class of high affinity IP3 binding sites with a Kd of ∼0.20 (± 0.01) nM. Immuno‐blotting shows that platelets contain a 260 kDa polypeptide which shares immunological cross reactivity with brain IP3 receptor. Immunofluorescence staining data indicate that the IP3 receptor is preferentially located at the periphery of the platelet plasma membrane. Most importantly, both IP3 binding and IP3‐induced Ca2+ release activities are significantly inhibited by cytochalasin D (a microfilament inhibitor) and colchicine (a microtubule inhibitor). These findings suggest that the cytoskeleton is involved in the regulation of IP3 binding and IP3 receptor‐mediated Ca2+ release during platelet activation.
Understanding reciprocity in organizations: a US‐China comparison

Purpose – The goal of this paper is to examine the relation of reciprocity to organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship. In addition, it aims to investigate cross‐cultural differences on this relation between China and the USA.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a sample of Chinese employees working on their MBAs (n=321), a sample of employed MBA students in the USA (n=199), and a sample of employed undergraduates from the USA (n=348). Hierarchical moderated regression analyses were used to explore the interactive effects of the three dimensions of reciprocity on organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship.Findings – The three dimensions of reciprocity were related to organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship in all three samples. Nonetheless, in the US samples these dimensions reflected an additive model and in the Chinese sample the dimensions interacted, supporting the notion that Chinese perceive their employme.
The role of neutrophil-gelatinase-associated lipocalin in early diagnosis of contrast nephropathy

Neutrophil-gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is a biomarker of acute kidney injury. The aim of this study was to define a cut-off for NGAL in the early diagnosis of contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) in patients with normal kidney function. We enrolled 121 patients with normal serum creatinine who underwent coronary angiography. NGAL was measured in urine before the procedure and 12 and 24 h afterward. CIN was defined as a 0.3 mg/dl increase in serum creatinine within 48 h after the procedure. Seven of 121 patients had CIN (5.8%). The NGAL levels in the 12- and 24-h urine samples of these patients were 30 (5–45) and 20 (15–40) ng/ml, respectively, whereas those in patients without CIN were 15 (5–45) and 15 (10–51) ng/ml, respectively (P = 0.8). In patients with CIN, the sensitivity and specificity of NGAL with a cut-off of 22.5 ng/ml were 71.4% and 57.9% in 12-h urine samples, with the negative predictive values (NPV) and positive predictive values (PPV) of 97.1% and 9.4%, respectively. In conclusion, we suggest that urine NGAL with cut-off point of 22.5 ng/ml has acceptable sensitivity and specificity for early diagnosis of CIN in patients with normal serum creatinine, but regarding NPV and PPV the best performance of this value is to rule out the CIN in patients at risk who received contrast media.
List context effects in languages with opaque and transparent orthographies: a challenge for models of reading

This paper offers a review of data which show that reading is a flexible and dynamic process and that readers can exert strategic control over it. Two main hypotheses on the control of reading processes have been suggested: the route de-emphasis hypothesis and the time-criterion hypothesis. According to the former, the presence of irregular words in the list might lead to an attenuation of the non-lexical process, while the presence of non-words could trigger a de-emphasis of the lexical route. An alternative account is proposed by the time-criterion hypothesis whereby the reader sets a flexible deadline to initiate the response. According to the latter view, it is the average pronunciation difficulty of the items in the block that modulates the time-criterion for response. However, it is worth noting that the list composition has been shown to exert different effects in transparent compared to opaque orthographies, as the consistency of spelling-sound correspondences can influence the processing costs of the non-lexical pathway. In transparent orthographies, the non-lexical route is not resource demanding and can successfully contribute to the pronunciation of regular words, thus its de-emphasis could not be as useful/necessary as in opaque orthographies. The complex patterns of results from the literature on list context effects are a challenge for computational models of reading which face the problem of simulating strategic control over reading processes. Different proposals suggest a modification of parameter setting in the non-lexical route or the implementation of a new module aimed at focusing attention on the output of the more convenient pathway. Simulation data and an assessment of the models’ fit to the behavioral results are presented and discussed to shed light on the role of the cognitive system when reading aloud.
Category Formation and the History of 'New Age'

Based on theories of category formation (Baird) and genealogy (Foucault and Asad), and writing myself reflexively into the field, I question the consensus view that there is (or ever was) a viable social or religious ‘movement’ called ‘New Age’. Through a brief review of secondary sources, I disaggregate and historicise the field, drawing attention to signs of incompleteness, heterogeneity and cultural diffusion in preference to the dominant argument for a sui generis phenomenon. Within the field, I trace connections between Alice Bailey's discourse and Findhorn colony practice to illustrate one particular ‘New Age’ genealogy. I argue that ‘New Age’ is better represented as an expression of contemporary Anglo-American ‘popular religion’, a (re)conceptualisation that encourages more fruitful comparative historical and ethnographical analyses. Finally, I identify an emergent ‘second wave’ of ‘New Age’ studies, characterised by a concern for localised and contextualised representations.
Deletions within the DNA recognition subunit of M.EcoR124I that identify a region involved in protein-protein interactions between HsdS and HsdM.

The DNA recognition subunit (HsdS) of type I restriction endonucleases can be divided into domains by means of amino acid identity between subunits from the same family. It has been proposed that DNA-protein interactions occur within the variable domains of the subunit and that protein-protein interactions involve the conserved domains. We have constructed a number of deletion mutants of HsdS that have allowed us to investigate protein-protein interactions. Using a combination of a "competitive" complementation assay and the ability of HsdM to "solubilize" HsdS, we have defined a region within the central conserved domain of HsdS that is responsible for HsdS-HsdM interaction. Computer analysis of amino acid identity between the N-terminal half and the C-terminal half of HsdS identifies a region (repeated in both conserved domains), one copy of which overlaps the region we have identified as essential for HsdS-HsdM interactions, which may be responsible for such protein-protein interactions.
Distributed Asymptotic Minimization of Sequences of Convex Functions by a Broadcast Adaptive Subgradient Method

We propose a non-hierarchical decentralized algorithm for the asymptotic minimization of possibly time-varying convex functions. In our method, each agent in a network has a private, local (possibly time-varying) cost function, and the objective is to minimize asymptotically the sum of these local functions in every agent (this problem appears in many different applications such as, among others, motion planning, acoustic source localization, and environmental modeling). The algorithm consists of two main steps. First, to improve the estimate of a minimizer, agents apply a particular version of the adaptive projected subgradient method to their local functions. Then the agents exchange and mix their estimates using a communication model based on recent results of consensus algorithms. We show formally the convergence of the resulting scheme, which reproduces as particular cases many existing methods such as gossip consensus algorithms and recent decentralized adaptive subgradient methods (which themselves include as particular cases many distributed adaptive filtering algorithms). To illustrate two possible applications, we consider the problems of acoustic source localization and environmental modeling via network gossiping with mobile agents.
L2-accented speech in L3 production

Abstract The paper is aimed at investigating the sources of cross-linguistic influence in the third language (L3) phonology, and, particularly, the impact of the second language (L2) on the phonological acquisition of another foreign language. The study consisted in foreign accent judgements performed by a group of expert judges who were presented with recorded samples of L3 English. The findings confirm the results of some previous studies on the phenomenon of ‘L2 status’ and demonstrate a tendency for the L2 phonological transfer in L3 production at the initial stages of acquisition that decreases with growing third language proficiency.
Distinct Activities of the α-Catenin Family, α-Catulin and α-Catenin, on β-Catenin-Mediated Signaling

ABSTRACT α-Catenin, an integral part of cadherin-catenin adhesion complexes, is a major binding partner of β-catenin, a key component of the Wnt pathway, which activates T-cell factor (TCF)/lymphoid enhancer factor (LEF) transcription and is often upregulated in cancers. Recently, we identified an α-catenin-related protein, α-catulin, whose function is poorly understood, as part of a Rho GTPase signaling complex. Here, based on evidence suggesting that α-catulin may associate with a β-catenin fraction, we investigated the role of α-catenin family members in β-catenin-mediated signals. Expression of the full length or a 103-residue region of α-catenin strongly inhibits the induction of the TCF/LEF-responsive TOPFLASH reporter in HEK293T cells expressing activated β-catenin or in cancer cells with constitutively upregulated Wnt signaling, whereas α-catulin expression had no effect. Interestingly, α-catulin expression attenuates the activation of the cyclin D1 promoter, a target of Wnt pathway signals. α-Catulin appears to inhibit Ras-mediated signals to the cyclin D1 promoter, rather than β-catenin signals, and the synergy between Ras and β-catenin required to fully activate this promoter. Data suggesting the involvement of Rho in this response are presented and discussed. These results suggest a novel function for α-catulin and imply that α-catenin and α-catulin have distinct activities that downregulate, respectively, β-catenin and Ras signals converging on the cyclin D1 promoter.
The interplay between presentation material and decision mode for complex choice preferences

Recent research suggests that, when faced with a choice between several alternatives described with a large number of attributes, people make better choices if they do not consciously ponder over the alternatives but rather perform a distraction task assumed to elicit unconscious thought. Subsequent research attempting to replicate this finding, however, provided mitigated support for its existence. The research reported here contributes to this ongoing debate on two grounds. First, it highlights a methodological confound between qualitative and quantitative presentation material and proposes a novel procedure that can accommodate both. Second, it shows that, whereas conscious deliberation leads to better decisions when alternatives are characterised by quantitative information, the use of a qualitative format for presenting information cancels the advantage of conscious deliberation.
Localization of phosphorylated CK2α to the mitotic spindle requires the peptidyl-prolyl isomerase Pin1

CK2 is a serine/threonine kinase with many substrates, largely unknown modes of regulation and essential roles in mitotic progression. CK2α, a catalytic subunit of CK2, is phosphorylated in mitosis, and here we examine the effect of phosphorylation on CK2α localization. Using phosphospecific antibodies, we show that CK2α localizes to the mitotic spindle in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. Mitotic spindle localization requires the unique C-terminus of CK2α, and involves a novel regulatory mechanism in which phosphorylation of CK2α facilitates binding to the peptidyl-prolyl isomerase Pin1, which is required for CK2α mitotic spindle localization. This could explain how the constitutive activity of CK2α might be targeted towards mitotic substrates. Furthermore, because Pin1 has many important spindle substrates, this might represent a general mechanism for localization of mitotic signalling proteins.