Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parasitism of Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) by Pseudapanteles dignus (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) Under Laboratory Conditions

Abstract Laboratory studies were conducted to measure selected life history traits and the functional response of the parasitoid Pseudapanteles dignus (Muesebeck), a major enemy of Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) in tomato crops in South America. Newly mated P. dignus females were individually exposed to 10 host larvae in mines for 24 h. We determined developmental time from egg to pupal formation and pupal stage duration, female adult life span, fecundity, reproductive period, daily parasitism rate, and sex ratio of offspring. For the functional response experiment, treatments consisted of six host densities: 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, or 30 larvae. The number and proportion of parasitized hosts were calculated for each density. The shape of the functional response curve was analyzed by logistic regression. P. dignus females attacked hosts daily, exhibiting modest lifetime fecundity (≈32 parasitized hosts per female) and a female-biased offspring sex ratio. Female adult life span was 36 d. P. dignus showed a type I functional response within the range of host densities tested. We observed that females detect and parasitize the host within a wide range of densities, including low densities. The functional response curve reached an asymptote at a mean density of six hosts per day and seemed not to be egg-limited. Percent parasitism was ≈30%. The ecological implications of the results in relation to the potential of P. dignus for the biological control of T. absoluta in tomato are discussed.
In the Zone: New Zealand's Legislation for a System of School Choice and Its Effects.

This paper examines the legislative framework developed in New Zealand over the last 15 years to facilitate greater parental choice in education. The discussion is set within the context of changes to admission practices in a number of education systems to advance the privatisation agenda, and outlines the resurgence of interest in the development of voucher-based models of school choice. The New Zealand case study describes the series of regulatory changes that governed admissions and selection from 1989 onwards, with particular focus on selection in situations of school over-subscription.
A rosemary extract enriched in carnosic acid improves circulating adipocytokines and modulates key metabolic sensors in lean Zucker rats: Critical and contrasting differences in the obese genotype.

SCOPE Carnosic acid (CA) and rosemary extracts (REs) have antiobesity effects but the mechanisms are not understood. We investigated some of the potential mechanisms contributing to the metabolic effects of an RE enriched in CA. METHODS AND RESULTS An RE (∼40% CA) was administered to lean (Le, fa/+) and obese (Ob, fa/fa) female Zucker rats for 64 days. Several adipocytokines, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase, and hepatic gene expression changes were investigated. The RE significantly decreased circulating tumor necrosis factor alpha (RE/CT = 0.36, p < 0.0003), IL-1β (0.48, p < 0.032), and leptin (0.48, p < 0.002), and upregulated adiponectin (1.47, p < 0.045) in the Le rats. The RE also induced phase I and phase II gene expression and the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha. Notably, the RE decreased adipose phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase and did not affect hepatic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha in the Ob rats. CONCLUSION Our results show that an RE rich in CA exerts anti-inflammatory effects and affects hepatic metabolism in normal Le rats. We report significant differences in the expression and regulation of key metabolic sensors between Le and Ob rats that may contribute to explain the different ability of the two genotypes to respond to the RE.
Self/Inner Development of Educational Administrators

This national study of 128 superintendents from urban, large-city schools and college of education deans investigates strategies for coping with stress through self/inner development. Participants defined self/inner development as: balance, self-actualization, values, personal improvement, inner focus, and relationships. Self/inner development terms used most frequently in the workplace were: values, ethics, heart, love, morals, spirit, and meaning of life. Practices most often used include: physical activities, reading, music, meditation, silence and solitude, and dream work. Participants also shared suggestions for how to find time for these practices. Self/inner development should be incorporated into university administrator preparation programs and in-service professional development using mentoring, modeling, and dialogue. Implications are important to addressing shortages, frequent turnover, and burnout of leaders.
Genetics of natural resistance to salmonellae in mice.

The genetics of natural resistance to salmonellae were studied in F1 hybrid and backcross mice. Overall resistance to Salmonella typhimurium C5 is complex, but one parameter, the early net growth rate of the organism in vivo, is controlled by a single autosomal gene or cluster of genes. 'Slow' net growth rate is necessary but insufficient, for resistance to S. typhimurium C5. Resistance requires the participation of other mechanisms, detectable by the end of the first week, which presumably involve an immune response. F1 hybrids bred from parents of low, intermediate and high natural resistance showed either high or low resistance. Most of the F1 hybrids were of a similar high resistance, and were bred from pairs in which at least one parent showed slow net growth rate. Hybrids of low resistance were only obtained when neither parent showed slow net growth rate. No hybrid was less resistant than the parents, many were more resistant. Backcross analysis on two hybrids challenged with S. typhimurium C5 supports the hypothesis of complex genetic control of overall resistance but with single gene control of the early net growth rate of the organism. Similar experiments were performed using a much more virulent organism, S. enteritidis 5694. All mouse strains were very susceptible (LD 50 less than ten organisms) to this strain given either i.v. or s.c. This organism produced an overwhelming infection which did not allow the cell-mediated immune response time to develop. This, however, did not interfere with the mechanism controlling early net growth rate, and genetic analysis using this organism gave similar results to those obtained with S. typhimurium C5. These results suggest that the mechanism regulating early net growth rate does not operate via the cell-mediated immune response, which develops later in the course of the infection.
Perceptual Training Using Explicit and Implicit Instructional Techniques: Does it Benefit Skilled Performers?

This study investigated the efficacy of explicit and implicit perceptual training approaches designed to improve the pattern perception capabilities of skilled basketball players, relative to control and placebo groups. The explicit and implicit groups completed 4 weeks of training using temporally occluded video footage while the placebo group used general visual stimuli. Results from a video-based test showed no significant differences between the four groups after the training intervention, despite large absolute gains by the two experimental groups. After a 14-day retention interval, improvements by the control group suggested that test familiarity may have influenced the retention test results. The transfer data showed that the laboratory-based training failed to elicit a significant change in on-court performance. The results, while not statistically significant, highlight a number of key considerations when attempting to develop perceptual-cognitive abilities in experienced athletes and provide direction for researchers and practitioners when designing similar training approaches.
A User-Centered Theoretical Framework for Meaningful Gamification

Gamification is the "use of game design elements in non-game contexts" (Deterding et al, 2011, p.1). A frequently used model for gamification is to equate an activity in the non-game context with points and have external rewards for reaching specified point thresholds. One significant problem with this model of gamification is that it can reduce the internal motivation that the user has for the activity, as it replaces internal motivation with external motivation. If, however, the game design elements can be made meaningful to the user through information, then internal motivation can be improved as there is less need to emphasize external rewards. This paper introduces the concept of meaningful gamification through a user-centered exploration of theories behind organismic integration theory, situational relevance, situated motivational affordance, universal design for learning, and player-generated content.
MotifVoter: a novel ensemble method for fine-grained integration of generic motif finders

MOTIVATION Locating transcription factor binding sites (motifs) is a key step in understanding gene regulation. Based on Tompa's benchmark study, the performance of current de novo motif finders is far from satisfactory (with sensitivity <or=0.222 and precision <or=0.307). The same study also shows that no motif finder performs consistently well over all datasets. Hence, it is not clear which finder one should use for a given dataset. To address this issue, a class of algorithms called ensemble methods have been proposed. Though the existing ensemble methods overall perform better than stand-alone motif finders, the improvement gained is not substantial. Our study reveals that these methods do not fully exploit the information obtained from the results of individual finders, resulting in minor improvement in sensitivity and poor precision. RESULTS In this article, we identify several key observations on how to utilize the results from individual finders and design a novel ensemble method, MotifVoter, to predict the motifs and binding sites. Evaluations on 186 datasets show that MotifVoter can locate more than 95% of the binding sites found by its component motif finders. In terms of sensitivity and precision, MotifVoter outperforms stand-alone motif finders and ensemble methods significantly on Tompa's benchmark, Escherichia coli, and ChIP-Chip datasets. MotifVoter is available online via a web server with several biologist-friendly features.
Ethnic Attitudes among Minority and Majority Children: The Role of Ethnic Identification, Peer Group Victimization and Parents.

This study examines the relative importance of key variables proposed by intergroup and social learning theories for understanding ethnic attitudes. The focus is on how ethnic identification, perceived parental attitudes and victimization by peers are related to ethnic attitudes. The sample includes Dutch (N = 295) and Turkish (N = 158) children (10–12 years of age) in the Netherlands. For both ethnic groups, stronger ethnic identification is related to more positive in-group evaluation, and a higher degree of victimization relates to more negative out-group evaluation. Furthermore, parental attitudes are related to out-group evaluation. Higher perceived in-group favoritism among parents was related to a less positive evaluation of the out-group. In addition, Turkish parental attitudes turn out to be related to ethnic identification and in-group evaluation. Further analyses suggest that the effect of perceived parental attitudes on children's group evaluations is not only due to projection. It is concluded that the study of ethnic attitudes among children should focus on group identification as well as on the social influences of parents and peers. Furthermore, it is important to distinguish between in-group and out-group aspects of ethnic attitudes and to include both majority and minority children.
When is Crowdsourcing Advantageous? The Case of Crowdsourced Software Testing

Crowdsourcing describes a novel mode of value creation in which organizations broadcast tasks that have been previously performed in-house to a large magnitude of Internet users that perform these tasks. Although the concept has gained maturity and has proven to be an alternative way of problem-solving, an organizational cost-benefit perspective has largely been neglected by existing research. More specifically, it remains unclear when crowdsourcing is advantageous in comparison to alternative governance structures such as in-house production. Drawing on crowdsourcing literature and transaction action cost theory, we present two case studies from the domain of crowdsourced software testing. We systematically analyze two organizations that applied crowdtesting to test a mobile application. As both organizations tested the application via crowdtesting and their traditional in-house testing, we are able to relate the effectiveness of crowdtesting and the associated costs to the effectiveness and costs of in-house testing. We find that crowdtesting is comparable in terms of testing quality and costs, but provides large advantages in terms of speed, heterogeneity of testers and user feedback as added value. We contribute to the crowdsourcing literature by providing first empirical evidence about the instances in which crowdsourcing is an advantageous way of problem solving.
Associative Memory-Based Reasoning: Some Experimental Results

Deduction, induction and analogy are considered as slightly different manifestations of one and the same reasoning process. A model of this reasoning process called associative memory-based reasoning is proposed. A computer simulation demonstrates that deduction, induction and analogy in problem solving could be performed by a single mechanism which combines the neural network approach with symbol level processing. Psychological experiments on priming effects in problem solving tasks have been carried out in order to test the hypothesis about the uniformity of human reasoning. In pil.rtic11lar it has been shown that there are priming effects in all three cases (deduction, induction and analogy) and these priming effects decrease in the course of time which corresponds to the model's predictions based on the retrieval mechanism. The computer simulation demonstrates the same type of priming effects as observed in the psychological experiments. -
Reply to Christensen and Christensen and to Malter: Pitfalls of erroneous analyses of hurricanes names

Our article (1) reports evidence for a relationship between femininity of hurricane names and fatality rates, along with experimental evidence that female-named storms elicit lower risk perceptions and preparedness intentions. In response, Malter (2) cites some bloggers’ critiques about inclusion of hurricanes from the era of female-only names, interpretation of results, and external validity of experiments. Christensen and Christensen (3) assert that the conclusions are invalidated by another significant interaction in the model. We show below that these critiques arise from inappropriate statistical treatments or other misunderstandings and do not qualify our findings.
Vildagliptin increases butyrate-producing bacteria in the gut of diabetic rats

Emerging evidence supports a key role for the gut microbiota in metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity. The dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor vildagliptin is highly efficacious in treating T2D. However, whether vildagliptin can alter the gut microbiome is still unclear. This study aimed to identify whether vildagliptin modifies the gut microbiota structure during T2D treatment. Diabetic Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were induced by a high-fat diet and streptozotocin injection (HFD/STZ). Diabetic rats were orally administered a low dose of vildagliptin (LV, 0.01 g/kg/d vildagliptin), high dose of vildagliptin (HV, 0.02 g/kg/d vildagliptin), or normal saline for 12 weeks. Fasting blood glucose, blood glucose after glucose loading, and serum insulin levels were significantly reduced in the LV and HV groups compared with those in the T2D group. The serum GLP-1 level increased more in the vildagliptin-treated group than in the T2D group. Pyrosequencing of the V3-V4 regions of 16S rRNA genes revealed that vildagliptin significantly altered the gut microbiota. The operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and community richness (Chao1) index were significantly reduced in the vildagliptin and diabetic groups compared with those in the control group. At the phylum level, a higher relative abundance of Bacteroidetes, lower abundance of Firmicutes, and reduced ratio of Fimicutes/Bacteroidetes were observed in the vildagliptin-treated group. Moreover, vildagliptin treatment increased butyrate-producing bacteria, including Baceroides and Erysipelotrichaeae, in the diabetic rats. Moreover, Lachnospira abundance was significantly negatively correlated with fasting blood glucose levels. In conclusion, vildagliptin treatment could benefit the communities of the gut microbiota.
Was Coverage of the 1988 Presidential Race by Washington's Two Major Dailies Biased?

A content analysis of stories and photographs about 30 events in the 1988 presidential campaign found that the Washington Post's coverage was balanced and neutral, but the Washington Times' coverage favored the Republicans. More than one-third of the Times' headlines and stories were biased, and each time, they were biased in favor of the Republicans. These findings are important because they support Shoemaker and Reese's theory of news content, which states that ownership and financing determine news content.
The relative effects of timing of suspicion and outcome involvement on biased message processing

The propensity to believe information to be predominately truthful has been called the truth-bias (e.g., McCornack & Levine, 1990), although the lie-bias is the tendency to believe that information is mostly false. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect that timing of suspicion and outcome involvement has on biased message processing. A two-way interaction between timing of suspicion and outcome involvement is hypothesized. Specifically, suspicion induced prior to communication will make receivers more suspicious of the communicator and therefore encode more of their nonverbal cues as “suspicious” or “fishy. ” This effect is predicted to be magnified in conditions of high outcome involvement. If receivers are already suspicious, and carefully scrutinizing the message, it will be likely that they will note more “fishy behaviors” and demonstrate a heightened lie-bias. In two studies, Participants (Ps) were asked to view videotaped segments of a confederate making true or false statements. The Ps were induced to feel suspicious before or after viewing the videotaped interview. They were also induced to perceive high or low levels of outcome involvement. Results of Study 1 indicated that timing of suspicion has little effect on biased processing, but perceived suspicion did influence biased processing. Results of Study 2 indicated that the timing of suspicion did influence the strength of the truth-bias but did not create a lie-bias. Both studies demonstrated the strong effect of perceived outcome involvement on honesty perceptions.
Teaching Girls To Speak Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts.

This article seeks to understand why it is that many girls (relative to boys) experience difficulties when they are required to speak in formal, public or unfamiliar contexts. While girls are recognised to be good at using collaborative talk in small groups, it is still the public voice that is valorised in the world outside school. Thus, the current debate in Britain on underachieving boys is reviewed in the light of the discrepancy between what constitutes success in school, and what constitutes success in the adult world. Furthermore, language and gender research has tended to characterise the predominantly male, public voice as competitive, ego-enhancing and hegemonic. Yet the new generation of British GCSE syllabuses for English redefines this public voice in ways that might be empowering and enhancing for girls in their future lives. The issue for educators is how to encourage girls to acquire skills that are culturally coded as 'masculine'.
Influence of multiculturalism on the study programs in Malaysian public universities: international students' perceptions

In response to the emphasis on the benefits of enhanced multicultural educational experiences of international students in higher education, this study examined international students' perceptions of the influence of multiculturalism on the study programs in Malaysian public universities. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The respondents were 794 international students from 11 Malaysian public universities. Results show that international students perceive that the content of the courses had little consideration for including topics from countries of international students. In addition, the results reveal that the presence of international students in the study programs can be one of the factors to encourage lecturers to bring updated contents from international materials. Furthermore, the results reveal that motivation for learning, encouragement for active participation, and improvement of intellectual atmosphere in the study programs can be enhanced by the presence of international students. Practical implications for universities are provided.
Prevalence and determinants of cervical cytology use in an urban sample of Portuguese women

Understanding local patterns of opportunistic uptake of cervical cancer screening provides important baseline information for an efficient transition to organized screening. The objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of cervical cytology use at different intervals and to quantify its associated factors in an urban Portuguese population under no organized cervical cancer screening. As part of the first follow-up evaluation of a cohort of adult dwellers from Porto, 1032 women were evaluated between 2005 and 2008. Lifetime use and age at first cervical cytology, frequency of testing, socioeconomic factors, clinical history, and usual source of care were assessed using a structured questionnaire. Age-adjusted and education-adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for nonuse and underutilization (over 5 years interval between tests) of cervical cytology were computed by unconditional logistic regression. Life prevalence of cervical cytology testing was 91.2%. Among ever-users, 6.7% were screened at 3-year to 5-year intervals and the prevalence of underuse was 21.4%. Older women (≥70 vs. 30–39 years) were more likely to have never been screened (OR = 32.20, 95% CI: 4.17–248.68) and more prone to underuse (OR = 25.49, 95% CI: 6.89–94.30). Underuse was less likely in the more educated (9–12 vs. 0–3 years, OR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.08–0.52) and in women receiving private health care (private doctor vs. public health care center, OR = 0.28, 95% CI: 0.12–0.65). In conclusion, under opportunistic screening, the high life prevalence of cervical cytology use hides a small proportion of women tested at the recommended intervals and inequalities in access to and frequency of screening.