Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep-branching Novel Lineages and High Diversity of Haptophytes in the Skagerrak (Norway) Uncovered by 454 Pyrosequencing

Microalgae in the division Haptophyta may be difficult to identify to species by microscopy because they are small and fragile. Here, we used high‐throughput sequencing to explore the diversity of haptophytes in outer Oslofjorden, Skagerrak, and supplemented this with electron microscopy. Nano‐ and picoplanktonic subsurface samples were collected monthly for 2 yr, and the haptophytes were targeted by amplification of RNA/cDNA with Haptophyta‐specific 18S ribosomal DNA V4 primers. Pyrosequencing revealed higher species richness of haptophytes than previously observed in the Skagerrak by microscopy. From ca. 400,000 reads we obtained 156 haptophyte operational taxonomic units (OTUs) after rigorous filtering and 99.5% clustering. The majority (84%) of the OTUs matched environmental sequences not linked to a morphological species, most of which were affiliated with the order Prymnesiales. Phylogenetic analyses including Oslofjorden OTUs and available cultured and environmental haptophyte sequences showed that several of the OTUs matched sequences forming deep‐branching lineages, potentially representing novel haptophyte classes. Pyrosequencing also retrieved cultured species not previously reported by microscopy in the Skagerrak. Electron microscopy revealed species not yet genetically characterised and some potentially novel taxa. This study contributes to linking genotype to phenotype within this ubiquitous and ecologically important protist group, and reveals great, unknown diversity.
Network Performance of Broadband Hosts: Measurements & Implications

With the rapid growth in the popularity of and the research interest in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, an interesting question is what the quality of network connectivity between peers in the “real world” is and what implications this has for applications. In this paper, we describe an effort called PeerMetric to directly measure P2P network performance from the vantage point of broadband-connected residential hosts. Our measurements indicate significant asymmetry in bandwidth, with median downstream and upstream available bandwidths of 900 Kbps and 212 Kbps, respectively. We argue that the availability of last-hop bandwidth is more important than the traditional consideration of locality for overlay multicast over broadband hosts. We also considered the peer selection problem and found that a simple delay-vector based approach is effective for finding proximate peers (in terms of latency). However, P2P latency turns out to be a poor predictor of P2P TCP throughput, which may be the metric of interest for applications such as file sharing.
Talking About Behaviors in the Passive Voice Increases Task Performance

Summary: Self-talk can help people redirect their attention focused on themselves to the tasks they are working on with important consequences for their task performance. Across four experiments and two different types of languages, Turkish and Slovak, people describing their own behaviors to themselves, as well as merely reading or writing sentences depicting some fictitious events, in the passive (vs. the active) voice performed better on various tasks of motor and verbal performance. The effect was present to the extent that people maintained their control over task-distracting thoughts or felt more responsible for their task success/failure. In sum, talking about task behaviors in the passive voice may increase the perceived role of task-related factors while decreasing the role of agent-related factors in achieving task success, whereby the task focus, hence performance, increases. The results are important for understanding the role of self-talk in performance with implications for changing important outcomes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. After it was first proposed by L.S. Vygotsky (1934/1987), numerous studies have shown the fundamental role played by self-talk in the control of thoughts and behaviors (e.g., Winsler, Fernyhough, & Montero, 2009). In the present investigation, we focus on self-talk about task performance. We ask if the grammatical structure of self-talk can give us a clue about its role in improving task performance. Can, for example, a subtle difference in the way in which we linguistically think of our behaviors as the causes of task success, such as the difference between ‘I will do it’ versus ‘It will be done’, change our task performance? If yes, we can not only better understand the phenomenon of self-talk as it links language and behavior but also improve behavioral performance in various domains of psychology including athletic performance, work, school, health, and clinical contexts. Self-talk can improve task performance by directing people’s attention either to themselves or to the tasks they may be working on. In athletic performance settings, for example, athletes use self-talk for two basic purposes: selfinstruction and motivation (for a review, see, e.g., Hardy, 2006). The self-instructional self-talk relates to the technical aspects of tasks (e.g., ‘I see the target’) whereas the motivational self-talk focuses on people’s own role in these tasks (e.g., ‘I can do it’). Given the beneficial effects of both types of self-talk on task performance (Hardy, Gammage, & Hall, 2001), it becomes critical to understand how agents versus tasks can be differentially highlighted via language.
Transactive Memory Systems

A persistent puzzle in management research is competitive advantage and why certain firms excel in getting ahead while others falter (Knott, 2003). One explanation is the dynamic capability argument, which emphasizes a firm’s superior ability in sensing new opportunities in its environment and seeking those opportunities by continuously adapting, integrating, and reconfiguring its key assets and competences (Teece et al., 1997). Researchers have called for more work to identify the micro-processes or mechanisms through which firms develop dynamic capabilities (Argote and Ingram, 2000; Spender and Grant, 1996; Teece, 2007). In this paper, we present transactive memory as a microfoundation of dynamic capabilities and describe how an organizational system for collectively encoding, storing, and retrieving knowledge can facilitate the combinative integration and renovation of an organization’s knowledge assets.
Thymosin β4 has a major role in dermal burn wound healing that involves actin cytoskeletal remodelling via heat‐shock protein 70

Rapid vascular remodelling of damaged dermal tissue is required to heal burn wounds. Thymosin β4 (Tβ4) is a growth factor that has been shown to promote angiogenesis and dermal wound repair. However, the underlying mechanisms based on Tβ4 function have not yet been fully investigated. In the present study, we investigated how Tβ4 improves dermal burn wound healing via actin cytoskeletal remodelling and the action of heat‐shock proteins (HSPs), which are a vital set of chaperone proteins that respond to heat shock. Our in vitro results achieved with the use of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) revealed a possible signal between Tβ4 and HSP70. Moreover, we confirmed that remodelling of filamentous actin (F‐actin) was regulated by Tβ4‐induced HSP70 in HUVECs. Based on these in vitro results, we confirmed the healing effects of Tβ4 in an adapted dermal burn wound in vivo model. Tβ4 improved wound‐healing markers, such as wound closure and vascularization. Moreover, Tβ4 maintained the long‐term expression of HSP70, which is associated with F‐actin regulation during the wound‐healing period. These results suggest that an association between Tβ4 and HSP70 is responsible for the healing of burn wounds, and that this association may regulate F‐actin remodelling. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Science Teaching Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy Beliefs of Secondary School Teachers in UAE

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of three levels of subject matter taught, three levels of years of experience, and two levels of gender on two levels of self-efficacy beliefs, namely, personal science teaching efficacy belief, and science teaching outcome expectancy belief. Data for this study was collected from 230 secondary science teachers employed within various school zones in UAE. The participants' responses on both dimensions of the in-service STEBI-A scale were used to collect data. Using a series of Kruskal-Wallis one way ANOVA and Mann-Whitney statistics revealed no significant differences in PSTE scores on levels of subject matter taught, years of teaching experiences and gender. However, the findings revealed only significant differences in STOE scores between the three levels of years of experiences.
2-D optimisation current–voltage characteristics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with influence of passivation layer

ABSTRACT In the present work, the electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors HEMTs is analysed using Nextnano device simulation software, The passivation layer which considered in this study, have been shown an important role on the gate leakage blocking and off-state breakdown voltage enhancement. We can see the influence of different types of passivation materials such as HfO2, Al2O3, and Si3N4 on the output and transfer characteristics of our device, and maximum drain current. A good agreement of the measured I-V characteristics with the simulated one was found which show clearly the validation of the calculation.
Histopathological features predictive of a clinical diagnosis of ophthalmic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA).

BACKGROUND The limited form of Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA), formerly known as Wegener's Granulomatosis (WG) primarily involves the head and neck region, including the orbit, but is often a diagnostic challenge, particularly as it commonly lacks positive anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA) titres or classical features on diagnostic orbital biopsies. The purpose of this study was to relate biopsy findings with clinical outcome and to determine which histopathological features are predictive of a clinical diagnosis of GPA. METHODS Retrospective case series of 234 patients identified from the database of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology Department of Eye Pathology as having had orbital biopsies of orbital inflammatory disorders performed between 1988 and 2009. Clinical records were obtained for the patients and analysed to see whether patients had GPA or not, according to a standard set of diagnostic criteria (excluding any histopathological findings). Biopsy features were then correlated with the clinical diagnosis in univariate and multivariate analyses to determine factors predictive of GPA. RESULTS Of the 234 patients, 36 were diagnosed with GPA and 198 with other orbital pathologies. The majority of biopsies were from orbital masses (47%). Histology showed a range of acute and chronic inflammatory pictures in all biopsies, but the presence of neutrophils (P<0.001), vasculitis (P<0.001), necrosis (P<0.001), eosinophils (P<0.02) and macrophages (P=0.05) were significantly associated with a later clinical diagnosis of GPA. In a multivariate analysis, only tissue neutrophils (OR=3.6, P=0.01) and vasculitis (OR=2.6, P=0.02) were independently associated with GPA, in contrast to previous reports associating eosinophils and necrosis with the diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS Neutrophil, eosinophil and macrophage infiltration of orbital tissues, together with vasculitis and necrosis, are all associated with a clinical diagnosis of GPA, but only neutrophil infiltration and vasculitis are independently associated with this diagnosis. These features may assist in the establishing the diagnosis of limited GPA among patients with early orbital disease, particularly in the absence of positive serum ANCA titres.
Production and processing asymmetries in the acquisition of tense morphology by sequential bilingual children*

This study investigates the production and online processing of English tense morphemes by sequential bilingual (L2) Turkish-speaking children with more than three years of exposure to English. Thirty-nine six- to nine-year-old L2 children and twenty-eight typically developing age-matched monolingual (L1) children were administered the production component for third person -s and past tense of the Test for Early Grammatical Impairment (Rice & Wexler, 2001) and participated in an online word monitoring task involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with presence/omission of tense (third person -s, past tense -ed) and non-tense (progressive -ing, possessive 's) morphemes. The L2 children's performance on the online task was compared to that of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in Montgomery and Leonard (1998, 2006) to ascertain similarities and differences between the two populations. Results showed that the L2 children were sensitive to the ungrammaticality induced by the omission of tense morphemes, despite variable production. This reinforces the claim about intact underlying syntactic representations in child L2 acquisition despite non-target-like production (Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997).
Testing the effects of food quality, price fairness, and physical environment on customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant industry

Building customer satisfaction is considered to be a key priority for business success. Therefore, determining the factors that affect customer satisfaction is important. This paper was designed to examine the effects of food quality, price fairness and physical environment on customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant industry in Malaysian market. The data were collected from 242 customers of international fast food restaurants in east coast Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using SPSS and structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings indicated that food quality has a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction. Moreover, the findings revealed that price fairness and physical environment have significant positive effects on customer satisfaction. These findings provide useful suggestions and guidelines for the policy makers in fast food restaurant industry and confirm the importance of the selected factors in affecting customer satisfaction.
Crystallins in water soluble-high molecular weight protein fractions and water insoluble protein fractions in aging and cataractous human lenses.

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to comparatively analyze crystallin fragments in the water soluble high molecular weight (WS-HMW) and in the water insoluble (WI) protein fractions of human cataractous (with nuclear opacity) and age matched normal lenses to determine the identity of crystallin species that show cataract specific changes such as truncation and post-translational modifications. Because these changes were cataract specific and not aging specific, the results were expected to provide information regarding potential mechanisms of age related cataract development. METHODS The WS-alpha-crystallin, WS-HMW protein, and WI protein fractions were isolated from normal lenses of different ages and from cataractous lenses. The three fractions were subjected to two dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis (IEF in the first dimension and SDS-PAGE in the second dimension). Individual spots from 2D gels were trypsin digested and the tryptic fragments were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. RESULTS The 2D protein profiles of WS-alpha-crystallin fractions of normal human lenses showed an age related increase in the number of crystallin fragments. In young normal lenses, the WS-alpha-crystallin fragments were mostly C-terminally truncated, but in older lenses these were both N- and C-terminally truncated. The WS-HMW protein fraction from normal lenses contained mainly fragments of alphaA- and alphaB-crystallin, whereas additional fragments of betaB1- and betaA3-crystallin were present in this fraction from cataractous lenses. Similarly, the WI proteins in normal lenses contained fragments of alphaA- and alphaB-crystallin, but cataractous lenses contained additional fragments of betaA3- and betaB1-crystallin. The modifications identified in the WS-HMW and WI crystallin species of cataractous lenses were truncation, oxidation of Trp residues, and deamidation of Asn to Asp residues. CONCLUSIONS The results show that the components of WS-HMW and WI protein fractions of cataractous lenses differed from normal lenses. Selective insolubilization of fragments of betaA3/A1- and betaB1-crystallin occurred during cataract development compared to normal lenses. Further, the crystallin species of cataractous lenses showed increased truncation, deamidation of Asn to Asp residues, and oxidation of Trp residue.
Seeing while moving: Measuring the online influence of action on perception

The online influence of movement production on motion perception was investigated. Participants were asked to move one of their hands in a certain direction while monitoring an independent stimulus motion. The stimulus motion unpredictably deviated in a direction that was either compatible or incompatible with the concurrent movement. Participants’ task was to make a speeded response as soon as they detected the deviation. A reversed compatibility effect was obtained: Reaction times were slower under compatible conditions—that is, when motion deviations and movements went in the same direction. This reversal of a commonly observed facilitatory effect can be attributed to the concurrent nature of the perception–action task and to the fact that what was produced was functionally unrelated to what was perceived. Moreover, by employing an online measure, it was possible to minimize the contribution of short-term memory processes, which has potentially confounded the interpretation of related effects.
An adaptive spatio-temporal coding scheme for indoor wireless communication

Systems that employ multiple antennas in both the transmitter and the receiver of a wireless system have been shown to promise extraordinary spectral efficiency. With full channel knowledge at the transmitter and receiver, Raleigh and Cioffi (1998) proposed a spatio-temporal coding scheme, discrete matrix multitone (DMMT), to achieve asymptotically optimum multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel capacity. The DMMT can be regarded as an extension of the discrete multitone for a digital subscriber lines (DSL) system to the MIMO wireless application. However, the DMMT is basically impracticable in nonstationary wireless environments due to its high-computational complexity. Exploring second-order statistics, we develop an efficient adaptive blind coding scheme for a high-capacity time-division duplexing (TDD) system with slow time-varying frequency-selective MIMO channels. With this method, neither a training sequence nor feedback of channel information is required in the proposed blind approach. Besides, the computational complexity of the proposed scheme is significantly lower than that of the coding scheme described by Raleigh and Cioffi. Simulation results show that the proposed architecture works efficiently in indoor wireless local area network applications.
Morals and Markets

Of Mice and Markets Some goods, such as widgets, are freely bought and sold in markets without protest, whereas others, such as indulgences, are not. Some mice that have been bred for use in laboratory experiments turn out to be surplus to requirements and are subsequently sacrificed. Falk and Szech (p. 707) studied the effect that marketplace negotiation has had on experimental subjects' willingness to pay for the upkeep of these surplus mice. Individuals were willing to pay much more to save the mice, but market-like exchanges lowered these prices. Marketplace interactions affect how much people are willing to pay to prolong the life of a mouse. The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either saving the life of a mouse or receiving money. We compare individual decisions to those made in a bilateral and a multilateral market. In both markets, the willingness to kill the mouse is substantially higher than in individual decisions. Furthermore, in the multilateral market, prices for life deteriorate tremendously. In contrast, for morally neutral consumption choices, differences between institutions are small.
A House Divided? Examining Persistence for On-Campus STEM and Non-STEM Students

Improving student persistence, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, continues to be at the forefront of national educational policy discussions. Living in university housing, with its focus specifically on assisting students in transition, has consistently been positively related to student persistence. Using institutional data and data from a first-year student transition study from all the first-year first-time residential students from Fall 2008 through Fall 2012 (N = 17,850), this study examined the relationship between student characteristics and experiences and retention for STEM and non-STEM students who live in on-campus housing. Results illustrate that experiences that contribute to retention differ between STEM and non-STEM students. Noncognitive factors related to academic self-efficacy, academic adjustment, and degree aspiration positively affect residential students’ persistence in STEM. Academic performance was a significant factor in institutional persistence for STEM and non-STEM students. Implications for future and practice are discussed.
Non-negative Matrix Factorization with Sparseness Constraints

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is a recently developed technique for finding parts-based, linear representations of non-negative data. Although it has successfully been applied in several applications, it does not always result in parts-based representations. In this paper, we show how explicitly incorporating the notion of 'sparseness' improves the found decompositions. Additionally, we provide complete MATLAB code both for standard NMF and for our extension. Our hope is that this will further the application of these methods to solving novel data-analysis problems.
Predictive Ability of Pender’s Health Promotion Model for Physical Activity and Exercise in People With Spinal Cord Injuries

The main objective of this study was to validate Pender’s Health Promotion Model (HPM) as a motivational model for exercise/physical activity self-management for people with spinal cord injuries (SCIs). Quantitative descriptive research design using hierarchical regression analysis (HRA) was used. A total of 126 individuals with SCI were recruited through the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, other SCI support groups, and professors in rehabilitation counseling across the United States. Outcome measures used were the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the Physical Activity Stages of Change Instrument. The HRA results indicated that preinjury physical activity/exercise level, severity of SCI, and commitment to a plan for exercise and physical activity were predictive of postinjury exercise and physical activity level. In addition, friend/family support, perceived self-efficacy, and perceived benefits were the strongest predictors of commitment to a plan of action for exercise and physical activity. The research findings support the applicability of Pender’s HPM as a motivational model for exercise/physical activity for people with SCI. The information can be used to design health promotion behavioral interventions for people with SCI living in the community.