Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Global Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Molecular Hallmarks of Neural Stem Cell Death, Survival, and Differentiation in Response to Partial FGF-2 and EGF Deprivation

Neurosphere cell culture is a commonly used model to study the properties and potential applications of neural stem cells (NSCs). However, standard protocols to culture NSCs have yet to be established, and the mechanisms underlying NSC survival and maintenance of their undifferentiated state, in response to the growth factors FGF-2 and EGF are not fully understood. Using cultures of embryonic and adult olfactory bulb stem cells (eOBSCs and aOBSCs), we analyzed the consequences of FGF-2 and EGF addition at different intervals on proliferation, cell cycle progression, cell death and differentiation, as well as on global gene expression. As opposed to cultures supplemented daily, addition of FGF-2 and EGF every 4 days significantly reduced the neurosphere volume and the total number of cells in the spheres, mainly due to increased cell death. Moreover, partial FGF-2 and EGF deprivation produced an increase in OBSC differentiation during the proliferative phase. These changes were more evident in aOBSC than eOBSC cultures. Remarkably, these effects were accompanied by a significant upregulation in the expression of endogenous Fgf-2 and genes involved in cell death and survival (Cryab), lipid catabolic processes (Pla2g7), cell adhesion (Dscaml1), cell differentiation (Dscaml1, Gpr17, S100b, Ndrg2) and signal transduction (Gpr17, Ndrg2). These findings support that a daily supply of FGF-2 and EGF is critical to maintain the viability and the undifferentiated state of NSCs in culture, and they reveal novel molecular hallmarks of NSC death, survival and the initiation of differentiation.
Are great innovations driven by utopian ideas?

Case studies of well documented, great innovations were performed with focus on their underlying, basic ideas. In retrospect, these ideas may seem obvious, but at the time of conception, they were considered utopian, here defined as imaginative, unexpected, counterintuitive, or unrealistic by most people, including experts. The build-up of the utopian ideas in each of the case studies is shortly described along with a critical analysis about their roles, importance, and risk exposure in the individual cases. The ideas were ranked according to defined criteria of importance, risk, and utopian potential, and this ranking was compared to the ranking of the overall impact of the analyzed innovations. The results suggest that the utopian idea potential correlates with the overall impact. The World Wide Web and the smartphones are prominent examples of great innovations driven by utopian ideas. The significance of these findings is discussed in view of current innovation models and in recognition of the heuristic character of the reported investigation.
Bisleuconothine A, a bisindole alkaloid, inhibits colorectal cancer cell in vitro and in vivo targeting Wnt signaling

Wnt signaling pathway is aberrantly activated in a variety of cancers, especially in colorectal cancer and small molecule antagonists of Wnt/β-catenin signaling are attractive candidates for developing effective therapeutics. In the present study, we identified Bisleuconothine A, a bisindole alkaloid with an eburnane-aspidosperma type skeleton, as a novel and selective Wnt signaling inhibitor by using a cell-based luciferase assay system. Our study found that Bisleuconothine A down-regulated the endogenous Wnt target gene expression through promoting phosphorylation of β-catenin and the subsequent inhibition of its nuclear translocation in HCT116 and SW480 colorectal cancer cells. In vitro, Bisleuconothine A inhibited cell proliferation through induction of apoptosis by increasing the cleavage of caspases in HCT116 and SW480 colorectal cancer cells. Moreover, in vivo, Bisleuconothine A dramatically suppressed tumor growth in HCT116 Xenograft. And further analysis showed that Bisleuconothine A suppressed the Wnt target gene expression in HCT116 Xenograft, which was associated with up-regulation of β-catenin phosphorylation and subsequent Wnt signaling inhibition. Taken together, our study indicated that bisindole alkaloids could be included as a new chemotype of small-molecule Wnt signaling inhibitors, and have great potential to be further developed for anti-tumor agents.
The role of learning and development in employer brand practices

THE ROLE OF LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN EMPLOYER BRAND PRACTICES Ann Elizabeth Schulte Dissertation Supervisor: Jonathan Supovitz, EdD Employer brand represents a unique value proposition about what individuals might receive as a result of working for a particular employer. This proposition, if delivered as promised, also contributes to a firm's positive reputation as a workplace. However, much of the literature on employer brand focuses on the attractiveness of an organization in the eyes of potential employees. The importance of engaging existing employees and influencing their commitment to advance organizational objectives can be argued as an equally critical purpose of employer brand. In practice, this notion of applying employer brand management to the employee experience is a more recent focus and may be considered under explored. Building organizational commitment and influencing workplace behaviors that drive employee engagement and high performance are often addressed by the learning and development function in a firm. Using a cross-case comparison method, this qualitative research study examined how learning and development activities are leveraged in firms with strong workplace reputations to fulfill the employer brand expectations of both individuals and companies in the employee phase of the employment
Deconstructing Whiteness: An Analysis of Dominant Perceptions of Chinese University Students

Through analysis of results from four in-depth interviews and two online forums, this thesis examines the current views White Canadian university students hold about Chinese students at the University of British Columbia. Drawing on critical Whiteness studies and Foucauldian critical discourse analysis, this study aims to examine the complex ways White hegemony is perpetuated on university campuses. The results reveal that historical constructions of Chinese Canadians as foreign and threatening were perpetuated at the university. Additionally, the results show that although the interviewed students recognized the existence of racism on campus, they minimized its effects and denied the level of privilege they held. The thesis concludes by exploring the larger policy and educational implications of these views, as well as the possible consequences for Chinese students.
Phospholemman Phosphorylation Alters Its Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer with the Na/K-ATPase Pump*

Phospholemman (PLM) or FXYD1 is a major cardiac myocyte phosphorylation target upon adrenergic stimulation. Prior immunoprecipitation and functional studies suggest that phospholemman associates with the Na/K-pump (NKA) and mediates adrenergic Na/K-pump regulation. Here, we tested whether the NKA-PLM interaction is close enough to allow fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between cyan and yellow fluorescent (CFP/YFP) fusion proteins of Na/K pump and phospholemman and whether phospholemman phosphorylation alters such FRET. Co-expressed NKA-CFP and PLM-YFP in HEK293 cells co-localized in the plasma membrane and exhibited robust FRET. Selective acceptor photobleach increased donor fluorescence (FCFP) by 21.5 ± 4.1% (n = 13), an effect nearly abolished when co-expressing excess phospholemman lacking YFP. Activation of protein kinase C or A progressively and reversibly decreased FRET assessed by either the fluorescence ratio (FYFP/FCFP) or the enhancement of donor fluorescence after acceptor bleach. After protein kinase C activation, forskolin did not further reduce FRET, but after forskolin pretreatment, protein kinase C could still reduce FRET. This agreed with phospholemman phosphorylation measurements: by protein kinase C at both Ser-63 and Ser-68, but by protein kinase A only at Ser-68. Expression of PLM-YFP and PLM-CFP resulted in even stronger FRET than for NKA-PLM (FCFP increased by 37 ± 1% upon YFP photobleach), and this FRET was enhanced by phospholemman phosphorylation, consistent with phospholemman multimerization. Co-expressed PLM-CFP and Na/Ca exchange-YFP were highly membrane co-localized, but FRET was undetectable. We conclude that phospholemman and Na/K-pump are in very close proximity (FRET occurs) and that phospholemman phosphorylation alters the interaction of Na/K-pump and phospholemman.
Instructional Supervision: Applying Tools and Concepts, 2nd Edition

Editor Higher Education, Educational Administration & Leadership (including Eye On Education) (USA) Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Complex Dilemmas, 4th Edition. By Joan Poliner How better governors make better schools, 2nd Edition Instructional Supervision. Applying Tools and Concepts, 3rd Edition. Instructional Supervision: Applying Tools and Concepts, 2nd Edition. Sally J. Zepeda. What Great Principals Do Differently: 15 Things That Matter Most.
[Ricardian Equivalence: An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence]: Comment

When I first saw the title of this article, I thought that I was about to embark on an objective tour of the theory and evidence pertaining to "Ricardian Equivalence. " Given what I knew to be the difficulties of the task I was anxious to see the outcome. Unfortunately, by page two I gave up my hope that this was going to be a dispassionate discussion of the issues and became curious as to how the author could justify his inter-
Psychometric Validation and Prevalence of Compulsive Buying Behavior in an Emerging Economy

Prevalence of compulsive buying varies to great extent that may be attributed to conceptual, methodological, cultural, sample, unreliable cutoff criteria and demographic differences in scales that measure this harmful behavior. This study aims to validate psychometric properties of two compulsive buying scales; The Clinical Screener [TCS] and Compulsive Buying Index [CBI] and develops a universal consumer classification criterion. We collected data from systematically selected 2820 shopping mall consumers and 895 university students. We used exploratory factor analysis for identifying new factor structures and confirmatory factor analysis for validating factor structures. TCS yielded two dimensions; shopping anxiety with five items and CBI proved to be a four items unidimensional measure. Both scales exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity and correlated with their antecedents in theoretically predicted directions. About 13 to 14 % of shopping mall consumers and 7 to 8 % university students were classified as compulsive buyers with Revised-TCS and Revised-CBI respectively. Compulsive buying scales provide a better preview of the phenomenon when their theoretical, methodological and cultural differences are adjusted. This study measured prevalence of compulsive buying with a new comprehensive classification continuum that categorizes consumers with respect to their level of compulsiveness. Revised scales and classification scheme will help psychologist, financial councilors and other practitioners to identify affected consumers on multiple levels. Study was limited to fashion clothing consumption in shopping mall consumers and university students.
Effects of High Temperature Frying of Spinach Leaves in Sunflower Oil on Carotenoids, Chlorophylls, and Tocopherol Composition

Spinach is one of the highly consumed vegetable, with significant nutritional, and beneficial properties. This study revealed for the first time, the effects of high temperature frying on the carotenoids, chlorophylls, and tocopherol contents of spinach leaves. Spinach leaves were thermally processed in the sunflower oil for 15, 30, 45, and 60 min at 250°C. Reversed phase HPLC-DAD results revealed a total of eight carotenoids, four chlorophylls and α-tocopherol in the spinach leaves. Lutein, neoxanthin, violaxanthin, and β-carotene-5,6-epoxide were the major carotenoids, while chlorophyll a and b' were present in higher amounts. Frying of spinach leaves increased significantly the amount of α-tocopherol, β-carotene-5,6-epoxide, luteoxanthin, lutein, and its Z-isomers and chlorophyll b' isomer. There was significant decrease in the amounts of neoxanthin, violaxanthin, chlorophyll b, b' and chlorophyll a with increase of frying time. The increase of frying time increased the total phenolic contents in spinach leaves and fried sunflower oil samples. Chemical characteristics such as peroxide values, free fatty acids, conjugated dienes, conjugated trienes, and radical scavenging activity were significantly affected by frying, while spinach leaves increased the stability of the frying oil. This study can be used to improve the quality of fried vegetable leaves or their products at high temperature frying in food industries for increasing consumer acceptability.
A ROBUST DATAPATH ALLOCATION METHOD FOR REALISTIC SYSTEM DESIGN

We present a novel datapath allocation method. Key features of this method are its exibility to handle accurate modeling of datapath units, use of direct objective functions, and the simultaneous optimization of all objective functions. The proposed method consists of a new binding model construction scheme and an optimization technique based on simulated annealing. Two new datapath allocation approaches have been devised based on the proposed method for two di erent problem environments. Experimental results show our approaches are very e ective for both datapath allocation problems.
Media Bias in Cases of Maternal vs. Paternal Filicide

Although filicide, the deliberate act of a parent killing a child, was historically regarded as a female crime, there has been an increase in the number of men killing their children. In the United States, maternal and paternal filicide now occur in roughly equal numbers. The purpose of this study was to determine whether media coverage of mothers who commit filicide differs from coverage of fathers who commit the same crime. We conducted a content analysis comparing two paired cases of actual filicide (maternal vs. paternal) described in print media articles. A 5-point Likert scale was used to assess degree of bias. A follow-up survey was also administered in which respondents were asked to read one of two versions of a fictional case study of filicide (maternal or paternal) and rate how harshly they would punish the offending parent. We expected our research to reveal that maternal filicide is treated with more bias in the media and viewed more harshly by the public than paternal filicide; these hypotheses were partially confirmed. One explanation for our findings might be that violating expected gender stereotypes, such as the view of mothers as nurturers, is viewed especially negatively. Faculty Mentor: Dr. Melissa Himelein
The Botany Array Resource: e-Northerns, Expression Angling, and promoter analyses.

The Botany Array Resource provides the means for obtaining and archiving microarray data for Arabidopsis thaliana as well as biologist-friendly tools for viewing and mining both our own and other's data, for example, from the AtGenExpress Consortium. All the data produced are publicly available through the web interface of the database at http://bbc.botany. utoronto.ca. The database has been designed in accordance with the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment convention -- all expression data are associated with the corresponding experimental details. The database is searchable and it also provides a set of useful and easy-to-use web-based data-mining tools for researchers with sophisticated yet understandable output graphics. These include Expression Browser for performing 'electronic Northerns', Expression Angler for identifying genes that are co-regulated with a gene of interest, and Promomer for identifying potential cis-elements in the promoters of individual or co-regulated genes.
Analysing and Interpreting Quantitative Eye-Tracking Data in Studies of Programming: Phases of Debugging with Multiple Representations

While eye-tracking systems become gradually improved and easier to apply, the methodological challenges of how to analyze, interpret and relate the eye-tracking data to user processing remain. Studies of programming behavior are not an exception. We have conducted a reanalysis of eye-tracking data from a previous study that involved programmers of two experience groups debugging a program with the help of graphical representation. Proportional fixation time on each representation, frequency of visual attention switches between the representations and type of switch were investigated in relation to five consequential phases of ten minutes of debugging. Therefore, we have increased the granularity of focus on debugging process. We found some repetitive patterns of visual strategies that were associated with less experienced programmers finding fewer errors. We also discovered that at the beginning of the process programmers make use of both the codeand graphical representations while frequently switching between them. During the process, more experienced programmers began to integrate also the output of the program and finish the debugging with frequent switching between the three representations. We discuss benefits and limitations of this approach to analyzing and interpreting the quantitative eye-tracking data. As part of future research we propose to investigate the symmetries of representation switching behavior.
First genotyping of Giardia duodenalis and prevalence of enteroparasites in children from Tetouan (Morocco)

Intestinal parasites are common in the Moroccan population. Enteroparasites in children from four schools in urban and rural areas of Tetouan (Morocco) were studied to treat these children and to design prevention and control programs. A total of 673 children were examined. The prevalence of parasitized children was 51%. The average number of enteroparasites was half in urban areas than in rural areas. Multiple parasitism appeared in 30% of the samples presenting two, three, or four parasites. The most prevalent parasite was Blastocystis hominis (64%). Giardia duodenalis was the most frequent pathogen, with an overall prevalence of 20% (24% in rural areas and 16% in urban areas). Other pathogenic enteroparasites were Cyclospora cayetanensis (5% in rural and urban areas), Iodamoeba butschlii, Hymenolepis spp. , Trichuris trichiura and Enterobius vermicularis, with prevalence lower than 2%. In this work, G. duodenalis genotypes were molecularly characterized by a study of the glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh) and 18S rRNA genes. This is the first study of molecular characterization of G. duodenalis in Moroccan children, and the sequence analysis revealed both Assemblage A (AII) and Assemblage B (BIII, BIV), with the predominance of Assemblage BIV (73%).
A seamless blend of research and professional practice: dual coupling in engineering education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to challenge the idea of incompatibility between links to research and links to professional practice in engineering education. The concept of ‘academic drift’ is introduced, both related to drift towards theory and towards research links in the curriculum. Empirical data were collected through a case study conducted at a department in a research-intensive technical university, including semi-structured interviews with academic staff and an analysis of course syllabuses. The results show that the respondents perceive no incompatibility between including links to research and including links to professional practice in engineering education. Indeed, they state that the two aspects are mutually reinforcing and overlapping. Their rationales for incorporating such coupled links to research and professional practice include increased motivation among students and preparing them for employment. In conclusion, including research in the curriculum does not necessarily lead to academic drift; conversely, the curriculum in engineering education can consist of a seamless blend of research and professional practice.
Potential of Immunoglobulin A to Prevent Allergic Asthma

Allergic asthma is characterized by bronchial hyperresponsiveness, a defective barrier function, and eosinophilic lower airway inflammation in response to allergens. The inflammation is dominated by Th2 cells and IgE molecules and supplemented with Th17 cells in severe asthma. In contrast, in healthy individuals, allergen-specific IgA and IgG4 molecules are found but no IgE, and their T cells fail to proliferate in response to allergens, probably because of the development of regulatory processes that actively suppress responses to allergens. The presence of allergen-specific secretory IgA has drawn little attention so far, although a few epidemiological studies point at a reverse association between IgA levels and the incidence of allergic airway disease. This review highlights the latest literature on the role of mucosal IgA in protection against allergic airway disease, the mechanisms described to induce secretory IgA, and the role of (mucosal) dendritic cells in this process. Finally, we discuss how this information can be used to translate into the development of new therapies for allergic diseases based on, or supplemented with, IgA boosting strategies.
Entanglement equivalence of N-qubit symmetric states

We study the interconversion of multipartite symmetric N-qubit states under stochastic local operations and classical communication (SLOCC). We demonstrate that if two symmetric states can be connected with a nonsymmetric invertible local operation (ILO), then they belong necessarily to the separable, W, or Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entanglement class, establishing a practical method of discriminating subsets of entanglement classes. Furthermore, we prove that there always exists a symmetric ILO connecting any pair of symmetric N-qubit states equivalent under SLOCC, simplifying the requirements for experimental implementations of local interconversion of those states.
EduCo: An Integrated Social Environment for Teaching and Learning Software Engineering Courses

There have been studies suggesting that collaboration and cooperation can deliver higher performance than competition or individual work. The Web does not only provide ubiquitous access to resources and computation power but also can be an open structure for better and continuous collaboration. In this study, we introduce our vision and construction of an integrated social environment called EduCo to assist teaching and learning software engineering courses. EduCo is a Web environment for instructors to teach and for students to learn and practice designing, programming, and managing software in software engineering courses. It is also a social network platform that helps stimulate participation, interaction, sharing, awareness, accountability, and teamwork. This paper describes the initial construction of the system with many core capabilities realized. The paper also presents our case studies from applying the system to several programming language classes. The results from the case studies suggest that the system has the potential to encourage students' participation and satisfaction. In addition, this paper presents our vision for future enhancements of the system with core capabilities such as feeds, dashboards, notifications, tracking, and reporting.