Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A FOLLOW‐UP STUDY OF SOME ASPECTS OF THE WORK OF PIAGET AND INHELDER ON THE CHILD'S CONCEPTION OF SPACE

Summary. In their book, The Child's Conception of Space, Piaget and Inhelder suggest that a child's first spatial concepts are topological ones and that these later lead to projective and euclidean concepts. A number of experiments from five chapters of their book were undertaken with some 140 children of nursery-school age. Part of the evidence presented agrees with that of the authors' and some is at variance with theirs. It is suggested that much more experimentation is needed before the main thesis of Piaget and Inhelder is accepted.
Attitudes toward advertising held by the boomers and the busters: some facts and myths

In the United States one of the common perceptions of young consumers, called the baby busters or the Xers, is that they are more critical of advertising in general than the baby boomers. Unfortunately, however, little empirical evidence is available to back up this perception. This study compares the boomers and the busters in terms of their general attitude towards advertising and specific advertising beliefs. Contrary to popular press reports that busters have a more negative attitude towards advertising than baby boomers, no significant differences were found in the two groups' general attitude towards advertising and in four of five ad-belief factors. In fact, the busters were found to have more favourable beliefs about advertising's utility as a source of hedonic amusement, challenging the popular press portrayal of the busters as ‘cynical gripers’. On the other hand, consistent with the popular press reports, regression analysis showed that the busters are knowing consumers and they are perhaps mor.
Identification of a Candidate Gene for Panicle Length in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Via Association and Linkage Analysis

Panicle length (PL) is an important trait for improving panicle architecture and grain yield in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Three populations were used to identify QTLs and candidate genes associated with PL. Four QTLs for PL were detected on chromosomes 4, 6, and 9 through linkage mapping in the recombinant inbred line population derived from a cross between the cultivars Xiushui79 (short panicle) and C-bao (long panicle). Ten SSR markers associated with PL were detected on chromosomes 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 in the natural population consisting of 540 accessions collected from East and Southeast Asia. A major locus on chromosome 9 with the largest effect was identified via both linkage and association mapping. LONG PANICLE 1 (LP1) locus was delimited to a 90-kb region of the long arm of chromosome 9 through fine mapping using a single segment segregating F2 population. Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) leading to amino acid changes were detected in the third and fifth exons of LP1. LP1 encodes a Remorin_C-containing protein of unknown function with homologs in a variety of species. Sequencing analysis of LP1 in two parents and 103 rice accessions indicated that SNP1 is associated with panicle length. The LP1 allele of Xiushui79 leads to reduced panicle length, whereas the allele of C-bao relieves the suppression of panicle length. LP1 and the elite alleles can be used to improve panicle length in rice.
Down-regulation of oxidative phosphorylation in the liver by expression of the ATPase inhibitory factor 1 induces a tumor-promoter metabolic state

The ATPase Inhibitory Factor 1 (IF1) is an inhibitor of the mitochondrial H+-ATP synthase that regulates the activity of both oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and cell death. Here, we have developed transgenic Tet-On and Tet-Off mice that express a mutant active form of hIF1 in the hepatocytes to restrain OXPHOS in the liver to investigate the relevance of mitochondrial activity in hepatocarcinogenesis. The expression of hIF1 promotes the inhibition of OXPHOS in both Tet-On and Tet-Off mouse models and induces a state of metabolic preconditioning guided by the activation of the stress kinases AMPK and p38 MAPK. Expression of the transgene significantly augmented proliferation and apoptotic resistance of carcinoma cells, which contributed to an enhanced diethylnitrosamine-induced liver carcinogenesis. Moreover, the expression of hIF1 also diminished acetaminophen-induced apoptosis, which is unrelated to differences in permeability transition pore opening. Mechanistically, cell survival in hIF1-preconditioned hepatocytes results from a nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2)-guided antioxidant response. The results emphasize in vivo that a metabolic phenotype with a restrained OXPHOS in the liver is prone to the development of cancer.
Regulatory fit improves putting in top golfers.

Based on regulatory focus theory, it has recently been shown that a regulatory fit enhances performance for nontop athletes in football and basketball. In the present research, we extend this research to top athletes and a task involving minimal muscular effort—putting in golf. We measured the chronic focus of 30 of the best German golfers (average handicap [HCP] 0.76) and experimentally manipulated the focus of a putting task staged on an outdoor putting green. Results showed that regulatory fit, when the golfers’ chronic focus matched that of the task, improved putting performance by close to 20%. Attentional and motivational mechanisms are discussed as potential explanations. A practical implication is that expert golfers should actively build a regulatory fit between their chronic focus and task framing.
Molecular Evidence for Multiple Infections as Revealed by Typing of Asaia Bacterial Symbionts of Four Mosquito Species

ABSTRACT The recent increased detection of acetic acid bacteria (AAB) of the genus Asaia as symbionts of mosquitoes, such as Anopheles spp. and Aedes spp. , prompted us to investigate the diversity of these symbionts and their relationships in different mosquito species and populations. Following cultivation-dependent and -independent techniques, we investigated the microbiota associated with four mosquito species, Anopheles stephensi, Anopheles gambiae, Aedes aegypti, and Aedes albopictus, which are important vectors of human and/or animal pathogens. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene revealed the presence of several bacterial taxa, among which Asaia sequences were among the dominant in most of the samples. A collection of 281 Asaia isolates in cell-free media was established from individuals belonging to the four species. The isolates were typed by internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-PCR, tRNA-PCR, BOX-PCR, and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR, revealing that different Asaia strains are present in different mosquito populations, and even in single individuals.
Effect of Plant Harvesting on the Performance of Constructed Wetlands during Summer

Plants can remove pollutants through direct absorption and by providing habitats for microbes to stimulate their activities. The aboveground plant biomass is usually harvested to remove pollutants absorbed in plant tissues. However, the effect of plant harvesting during summer on the performance of constructed wetlands and microbial abundance is unclear. In this study, three types of microcosms were set up, including: cleared group (both shoots and roots were harvested), harvested group (only shoots were harvested) and unharvested group. The concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and chemical oxygen demand in the effluent of the harvested group were the lowest. The nitrogen mass balance showed that summer harvesting improved nitrogen absorbance by plants, which was 1.24-times higher than that in the unharvested group. Interestingly, the other losses were taken up by the highest amounts in the cleared group, which were 1.66- and 3.72-times higher than in the unharvested and harvested group, respectively. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that harvesting of shoots during summer increased the microbial abundance. Additionally, Proteobacteria was the dominant phylum among all bacteria according to pyrosequencing analysis. These results indicate that harvesting of shoots during summer has positive effects on pollutant removal and microbial abundance.
Determination of earthquake early warning parameters, τ c and Pd, for southern California

SUMMARY We explore a practical approach to earthquake early warning in southern California by determining a ground-motion period parameter τc and a high-pass filtered displacement amplitude parameter Pd from the initial 3 s of the P waveforms recorded at the Southern California Seismic Network stations for earthquakes with M > 4.0. At a given site, we estimate the magnitude of an event from τc and the peak ground-motion velocity (PGV ) from Pd. The incoming threecomponent signals are recursively converted to ground acceleration, velocity and displacement. The displacements are recursively filtered with a one-way Butterworth high-pass filter with a cut-off frequency of 0.075 Hz, and a P-wave trigger is constantly monitored. When a trigger occurs, τc and Pd are computed. We found the relationship between τc and magnitude (M) for southern California, and between Pd and PGV for both southern California and Taiwan. These two relationships can be used to detect the occurrence of a major earthquake and provide onsite warning in the area around the station where onset of strong ground motion is expected within seconds after the arrival of the P wave. When the station density is high, the methods can be applied to multistation data to increase the robustness of onsite early warning and to add the regional warning approach. In an ideal situation, such warnings would be available within 10 s of the origin time of a large earthquake whose subsequent ground motion may last for tens of seconds.
Sensation Seeking and Tourist Behavior

Abstract This study analyzed the effects of the psychological characteristic of sensation seeking on the choice of tourist activities and preferred travel arrangements. The results of the study, which was conducted among 349 undergraduate students in Israel, found that those who preferred to participate in extreme sports while on a leisure trip, scored higher on Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) than those who preferred to visit cultural/heritage attractions, man made attractions, natural attractions, view sporting games or participate in traditional sports. The study also discovered that individuals who made their own travel arrangements (FIT) scored higher on the SSS, than those who preferred to travel with guided tour groups, with packaged tours, with family or with friends.
Model Selection for Cox Models with Time‐Varying Coefficients

Summary Cox models with time‐varying coefficients offer great flexibility in capturing the temporal dynamics of covariate effects on right‐censored failure times. Because not all covariate coefficients are time varying, model selection for such models presents an additional challenge, which is to distinguish covariates with time‐varying coefficient from those with time‐independent coefficient. We propose an adaptive group lasso method that not only selects important variables but also selects between time‐independent and time‐varying specifications of their presence in the model. Each covariate effect is partitioned into a time‐independent part and a time‐varying part, the latter of which is characterized by a group of coefficients of basis splines without intercept. Model selection and estimation are carried out through a fast, iterative group shooting algorithm. Our approach is shown to have good properties in a simulation study that mimics realistic situations with up to 20 variables. A real example illustrates the utility of the method.
Consistencies and Biases in Risk Perception: I. Anchoring Process and Response-Range Effect

49 undergraduate subjects provided intuitive frequency judgments of deaths due to 11 well-known causes. The responses were collected in three different formats, estimates of the frequency of deaths per 10,000 people in the population, estimates of the frequency of deaths per 100 people, and rank-order of the causes according to the estimated frequencies. Analysis showed that estimated proportions were reliably higher in the “out of 100” format than in the “out of 10,000” format. I argue that processes of anchoring and adjustment underlie this phenomenon. Also, the subjects' response tendencies seemed to maintain consistency across different methods of judgment. Relationship with previous risk-perception research is discussed.
Evidence for habitat partitioning based on adaptation to environmental light in a pair of sympatric lizard species

Terrestrial habitats exhibit a variety of light environments. If species exhibit evolutionary adaptations of their visual system or signals to habitat light conditions, then these conditions can directly influence the structure of communities. We evaluated habitat light characteristics and visual–signal design in a pair of sympatric species of lizards: Anolis cooki and Anolis cristatellus. We found that each species occupies a distinct microhabitat with respect to light intensity and spectral quality. We measured the relative retinal spectral sensitivity and found significant differences between the species that correlate with differences in habitat spectral quality. We measured the spectral reflectance of the dewlaps (colourful throat fans used in communication), and found that the A. cooki dewlap reflects little ultraviolet (UV), while that of A. cristatellus reflects strongly in the UV. For both species downwelling light (irradiance) is rich in UV. However the background light (radiance) is rich in UV for A. cooki, but low in UV for A. cristatellus. Thus, the dewlap of each species creates a high contrast with the background in the UV. Our findings strongly suggest that these two species are partitioning their habitat through specializations of the visual system and signal design to microhabitat light conditions.
From Insult to Injury: How Disputes Begin and Escalate among Adolescents and Young Adults in Medellin, Colombia

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of circumstances, causes of initiation, and process of escalation of physical disputes or fights resulting in physical injury. We analyzed data from a case-control study of perpetrators of violence between the ages of 15 to 24 (n=373) in the city of Medellin, Colombia. The findings show that 89% of conflicts resulting in injury took place in public places and most often involved males (78%). Six percent involved the consumption of alcohol, 20% reported having used illicit drugs before the initiation of the confrontation. Circa 50% of disputes began because of verbal aggression. Alcohol consumption was found to be associated with verbal aggression towards a friend or companion but not to other circumstances that start disputes. Drug use was not associated with the initiation of disputes. In 18.5% of the cases, a weapon was used while 5% of these disputes ended in a homicide. In none of the cases in which homicide was the outcome was there bystander intervention. In contrast, homicide did not result in the cases in which bystanders intervened.
Kamuzu's Mbumba: Malawi Women's Embeddedness to Culture in the Face of International Political Pressure and Internal Legal Change

The case of Malawi shows that while legal reform, transition to political pluralism, and adoption of the language of international human rights may facilitate the formation of a constitution that guarantees and respects all people's human rights, a cultural discourse that presents contradictions and ironies regarding women's status may limit the extent to which these processes are translated into automatic and predictable gains for women. Precolonial gender roles and historical processes in the colonial and postcolonial period have resulted in a fluidity with which the concept of culture is used. Under Kamuzu Banda's rule, the state appropriated the mbumba culture to create a mass-based political organization, and yet did not give women real power. Since the transition to liberal democracy in 1993-1994, the Malawi government has shown a willingness to preach gender equality by adopting a nondiscrimination clause in its constitution and undertaking legal reform and policy initiatives; however, the political will to act is not in evidence. Women have resisted the cultural opposition to their empowerment by utilizing their matrilineal role as kingmakers and adopting arguments consistent with traditional participatory decision-making processes to push for changes in their favor, albeit with little effect. Currently, civil society seems the most viable option for speeding up women's participation in the political process and the legal sphere. Through it, women can push for legal changes, provide legal literacy to women, address constraints to women's participation in the cultural arena through civic education, and work closely together within and outside the formal political process.
The Evolution of Continuous Variation in Ejaculate Expenditure Strategy

Sperm competition theory has largely focused on the evolution of ejaculate expenditure strategies across different species or populations or across discrete mating roles on which sperm competition operates differentially. Few studies have considered the extent to which male ejaculate expenditure is influenced by continuous change in male phenotype within a population. Here we model how optimal ejaculate expenditure responds to two sources of continuous variation: (1) the quantity of resources allocated by a male to mating within a breeding season and (2) the resource cost of obtaining a mate. We find that variation in the amount of resources available for mating does not alone produce selection for differing ejaculate investment strategies. However, when there is variation in the cost of obtaining a mate, males with a lower cost will be selected to invest fewer sperm per mating than males whose cost is higher. Any parameter decreasing this cost will also select for decreased ejaculate investment per mating. These results provide a novel insight into the evolution of male ejaculate expenditure strategies, revealing that individual constraints on the ability to secure matings can lead to variation in ejaculate expenditure even when the risk of sperm competition is the same for all males.
Alexithymia and the automatic processing of affective information: Evidence from the affective priming paradigm

In Study 1, we examined the moderating impact of alexithymia (i.e., a difficulty identifying and describing feelings to other people and an externally oriented cognitive style) on the automatic processing of affective information. The affective priming paradigm was used, and lower priming effects for high alexithymia scorers were observed when congruent (incongruent) pairs involving nonverbal primes (angry face) and verbal target were presented. The results held after controlling for participants' negative affectivity. The same effects were replicated in Studies 2 and 3, with trait anxiety and depression entered as additional covariates. In Study 3, no moderating impact of alexithymia was found for verbal-facial pairs suggesting that the results cannot be merely explained in terms of transcoding limitations for high alexithymia scorers. Overall, the present results suggest that alexithymia could be related to a difficulty in processing and automatically using high arousal emotional information to respond to concomittant behavioural demands.
Do Chinese Self-Enhance or Self-Efface? It's a Matter of Domain

The assumption that Chinese tend to self-efface has mixed support in the scanty empirical literature. The conflicting findings may be attributable to measuring different domains in different studies. Therefore, we assessed self-enhancement across eight domains of person perception in a Hong Kong Chinese sample. Twenty-one groups of college students, after working together for 13 weeks on class projects, were asked to rate fellow group members on all eight domains. The degree of self-enhancement or self-effacement was determined by comparing self-ratings with mean peer ratings. Results showed an overall self-effacement effect, which was significant for five of eight personality dimensions. The exceptions were agentic traits such as Assertiveness, Openness to Experience, and Intellect. The overall rate of self-enhancers (43%) was substantially lower than the rate for a comparable North American sample (56%). Although those who self-enhanced most reported high self-esteem, they were not rated as better adjusted by their peers.
The relationship between involvement, attitude accessibility and attitude–behaviour consistency

A study was conducted to examine the simultaneous influence of attitude accessibility and involvement with the attitude object on the attitude–behaviour relationship. Ninety students reported their attitudes towards a number of consumer products and their involvement with the underlying product categories. In addition, the accessibility of product attitudes was assessed. The results revealed that both involvement and attitude accessibility moderated the impact of attitudes on product choice behaviour. High levels of both variables were associated with more attitude-consistent behaviour. The moderating influence of involvement and accessibility on attitude–behaviour consistency was independent. Further, the results provided some support for the notion that high involvement is associated with more accessible attitudes. Taken together, these findings suggest that involvement and accessibility constitute two distinct but interrelated dimensions of attitude strength.
Students' experiences in studying for multiple choice question examinations

ABSTRACT A sample of 190 first- and second-year university students from three courses in two faculties completed questionnaires on their general orientations to learning (classified as deep, surface or achieving), their perceptions of the skills and abilities being assessed by multiple choice question (MCQ) examinations and the study strategies (either deep or surface) they intended to employ for their forthcoming MCQ examinations. The above variables were analysed in relation both to one another and to outcome based on their performance in the examination. Results revealed an association between achievement and deep and/or achieving general, but not surface, orientations to study. Students with surface general orientations to study, in contrast, appear to have a confused perception of MCQ examinations and no planned strategies with which to prepare for them, suggesting that they are passive and unreflective about their studies. Suggestions are included for improving learning in higher education institut.