Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intervention and Capacity Considerations in Community-Based Deer Management: The Stakeholders’ Perspective

Community involvement with white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) management in suburban areas has increased recently, presenting wildlife agencies, interest groups, local governments, and other stakeholders with challenges and opportunities for collaboration. Community-based deer management requires that stakeholders involved have capacity to engage in situation analysis, decision making, and management implementation (in some cases). The authors interviewed 55 stakeholders involved in collaborative deer management in six suburban communities in New York and Massachusetts, identifying dimensions of stakeholder capacity and capacity-developing intervention for effective collaboration. Capacity dimensions identified included: partnerships, credibility, funding, relationships, common purpose, knowledge, and leadership. Intervention dimensions included: stakeholder involvement, education, communication, assessment, agency flexibility, and planning. Using a public-issue evolution model, this article describes how deer management issues evolve and the capacity considerations in various stages of the issue-evolution process.
Partitioning net ecosystem carbon exchange with isotopic ̄ uxes of CO 2

Because biological and physical processes alter the stable isotopic composition of atmospheric CO 2 , variations in isotopic content can be used to investigate those processes. Isotopic ¯ux measurements of 13 CO 2 above terrestrial ecosystems can potentially be used to separate net ecosystem CO 2 exchange (NEE) into its component ¯uxes, net photosynthetic assimilation (F A) and ecosystem respiration (F R). In this paper theory is developed to partition measured NEE into F A and F R , using measurements of ¯uxes of CO 2 and 13 CO 2 , and isotopic composition of respired CO 2 and forest air. The theory is then applied to ¯uxes measured (or estimated, for 13 CO 2) in a temperate deciduous forest in eastern Tennessee (Walker Branch Watershed). It appears that there is indeed enough additional information in 13 CO 2 ¯uxes to partition NEE into its photosynthetic and respiratory components. Diurnal patterns in F A and F R were obtained, which are consistent in magnitude and shape with patterns obtained from NEE measurements and an exponential regression between night-time NEE and temperature (a standard technique which provides alternate estimates of F R and F A). The light response curve for photosynthesis (F A vs. PAR) was weakly nonlinear, indicating potential for saturation at high light intensities. Assimilation-weighted discrimination against 13 CO 2 for this forest during July 1999 was 16.8±17. 1½, depending on canopy conductance. The greatest uncertainties in this approach lie in the evaluation of canopy conductance and its effect on whole-canopy photosynthetic discrimination , and thus the indirect methods used to estimate isotopic ¯uxes. Direct eddy covariance measurements of 13 CO 2 ¯ux are needed to assess the validity of the assumptions used and provide defensible isotope-based estimates of the component ¯uxes of net ecosystem exchange.
Use of Electronic Information Resources and Academic Performance of University Teachers: A case study

Electronic Information Resources (e-resources) play an important role in teaching and learning process at university level and provide superior assistance to its users. The main objective of this study is to identify the impact of usage of e-resources on academic performance of the university teachers. As this study was limited to the university teachers, working at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Stratified random sampling technique were adopted to select a sample from each of the five different faculties in proportion to the actual size of the group in the total population. The study employs correlation and regression model to test the operational hypotheses and results revealed that usage of e-resources has a strong positive association with academic performance (r = 0.623, p < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that the usage of e-resources has an impact on academic performance at the rate of 38.8 % (R 2 = 0.388), which is statistically significant at the levels of 0.01 (p < 0.01). This study would absolutely benefit the research scholars through exploring impact of usage
Developing an intercultural competence programme at an international cross‐border university

The European University Viadrina located on the German–Polish border, with a high number of international students, was founded to promote the ‘growing‐together’ of Europe. Despite those aims, it is becoming more evident that international institutions must develop special strategies to sensitize their members on an intercultural level and to encourage intercultural communication. The case of Viadrina University serves as example of how a course programme can be created in order to promote intercultural competence. One of the programme’s main aims is to give students the possibility of experiencing, discovering and discussing the diversity of values and worldviews in special workshops. Today, the training programme, which at first had not been considered necessary by many university employees, has turned into a success story which can be transferred to other international academic institutions.
A Substitution in the Fingers Domain of DNA Polymerase δ Reduces Fidelity by Altering Nucleotide Discrimination in the Catalytic Site*

Background: Amino acid substitutions near the catalytic site of DNA polymerases can affect base discrimination. Results: An A699Q substitution in the fingers domain of eukaryotic DNA polymerase δ (Pol δ) yields reduced fidelity via base misincorporation. Conclusion: Intramolecular interactions involving the Pol δ fingers and N-terminal domains can affect base selectivity. Significance: The structural determinants of fidelity intrinsic to replicative polymerases provide insight into general polymerase function. DNA polymerase δ (Pol δ) is one of the major replicative DNA polymerases in eukaryotic cells, catalyzing lagging strand synthesis as well as playing a role in many DNA repair pathways. The catalytic site for polymerization consists of a palm domain and mobile fingers domain that opens and closes each catalytic cycle. We explored the effect of amino acid substitutions in a region of the highly conserved sequence motif B in the fingers domain on replication fidelity. A novel substitution, A699Q, results in a marked increase in mutation rate at the yeast CAN1 locus, and is synthetic lethal with both proofreading deficiency and mismatch repair deficiency. Modeling the A699Q mutation onto the crystal structure of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pol δ template reveals four potential contacts for A699Q but not for A699. We substituted alanine for each of these residues and determined that an interaction with multiple residues of the N-terminal domain is responsible for the mutator phenotype. The corresponding mutation in purified human Pol δ results in a similar 30-fold increase in mutation frequency when copying gapped DNA templates. Sequence analysis indicates that the most characteristic mutation is a guanine-to-adenine (G to A) transition. The increase in deoxythymidine 5′-triphosphate-G mispairs was confirmed by performing steady state single nucleotide addition studies. Our combined data support a model in which the Ala-to-Gln substitution in the fingers domain of Pol δ results in an interaction with the N-terminal domain that affects the base selectivity of the enzyme.
Mass communication and public understanding of environmental problems: the case of global warming

Public understanding of global warming, also known as global climate change, is treated here as an example of a mass communication problem that has yet to be adequately solved. A survey of metropolitan area residents found that although people are aware of this problem in a general sense, understanding of particular causes, possible consequences, and solutions is more limited. Both mass media and interpersonal communication appear to make a positive contribution to understanding, as well as to perpetuating some popular misconceptions.
Clinical features of adenosine sensitive syncope and tilt induced vasovagal syncope

AIM To evaluate the possible relation between adenosine sensitive syncope and tilt induced vasovagal syncope. METHODS An ATP test and a head up tilt test were performed in 175 consecutive patients with syncope of uncertain origin. The ATP test consisted of the rapid intravenous injection of 20 mg of ATP; a positive response was defined as the induction of a ventricular pause (maximum RR interval) ⩾ 6000 ms. The head up tilt test was performed at 60° for 45 minutes; if negative, 0.4 mg oral glyceryl trinitrate spray was given and the test continued for a further 20 minutes; a positive response was defined as induction of syncope in the presence of bradycardia, hypotension, or both. RESULTS Of the 121 patients with a positive response, 77 (64%) had a positive head up tilt alone, 18 (15%) had a positive ATP test alone, and in 26 (21%) both ATP and head up tilt were positive. Compared with the patients with isolated positive head up tilt, those with isolated positive ATP were older (mean (SD) age, 68 (10) v 45 (20) years), had a lower median number of syncopal episodes (2 v 3), a shorter median duration of syncopal episodes (4v 36 months), a lower prevalence of situational, vasovagal, or triggering factors (11%v 64%), a lower prevalence of warning symptoms (44% v 71%), and a higher prevalence of systemic hypertension (22% v5%) and ECG abnormalities (28% v9%). The patients with a positive response to both tests had intermediate features. Of the 44 positive responses to the ATP test, atrioventricular block was the cause of the ventricular pause in 43; of the 29 positive cardioinhibitory responses to head up tilt, sinus arrest was present in 23 cases and atrioventricular block in six. CONCLUSIONS ATP and head up tilt tests identify different populations of patients affected by syncope; these have different general clinical features, different histories of syncopal episodes, and different mechanism sites of action. Therefore, adenosine sensitive syncope and tilt induced vasovagal syncope are two distinct clinical entities.
The variation in family background amongst young homeless shelter users in Denmark

This article analyses variation in the family background of young homeless people in a cohort of young Danes. The study is based on administrative data for individuals who were 18 years old in 2007 and their parents. Homelessness is measured by shelter use over a five-year period. Data also cover education, employment, mental illness, substance abuse problems and placement outside home in childhood for the young persons, and education, employment, civil status, mental illness and substance abuse problems for their parents. A cluster analysis identifies two groups, each comprising half of the young shelter users. In the first group, social marginalisation is transmitted between generations, as most parents have low education and mental illness or substance abuse problems, and are unemployed. In contrast, the young people in the second group come from wider socioeconomic backgrounds, with few of their parents having mental illness or substance abuse problems. These young people develop psychosocial problems and become homeless without strong predictors from their family background. Amongst the young shelter users from families with severe social problems a higher share are in the Not in Education, Employment or Training group. They also have more shelter stays, compared to young shelter users from families with fewer social problems.
EMOTION AND MOTIVATION IN LEARNING : CURRENT RESEARCH , FUTURE DIRECTIONS , AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Emotion and motivation are fundamental to learning, something that is well illustrated in the large body of research that these topics generate. However, because of the divergence of theoretical approaches and preferred empirical methods, the nature and the interrelatedness of emotion, motivation and learning, remain controversial. This review surveys both controversial and consensual issues with a focus on basic research on the involvement of emotion and motivation in different modes of learning, among them Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning, and social learning. Special attention is given to the mechanisms responsible for assigning stimuli, events, and behaviors, their emotional value and how this affects subsequent behavior in both experimental and in real-world applications. In addition, explicit (declarative) and implicit (non-declarative) aspects of the learning process are discussed. Although, relevant research is drawn from different levels of analysis, links between levels are emphasized and, when feasible, related to models derived from evolutionary theory. Throughout the paper, each reviewed theme is followed by a number of questions that address important issues for future research. Finally, it is argued that a more systematic approach is needed to better integrate basic research on emotion, motivation and learning with practical applications. Four research-topics that illustrate promising avenues for further integration are presented and discussed. 1 The author is now at Department of Psychology New York University, 6 Washington Place New York, N.Y. 10003, USA
Playing the Telephone Game: Determining the Hierarchical Structure of Perspective and Speech Expressions

News articles report on facts, events, and opinions with the intent of conveying the truth. However, the facts, events, and opinions appearing in the text are often known only secondor third-hand, and as any child who has played "telephone" knows, this relaying of facts often garbles the original message. Properly understanding the information filtering structures that govern the interpretation of these facts, then, is critical to appropriately analyzing them. In this work, we present a learning approach that correctly determines the hierarchical structure of information filtering expressions 78.30% of the time.
Population Pharmacokinetics of Amlodipine in Hypertensive Children and Adolescents

A population pharmacokinetic study was conducted in 74 hypertensive children (mean age 10.4 ± 4.4 years [mean ± SD]) receiving amlodipine (mean dose 0.17 ± 0.13 mg/kg/d) chronically. Multiple blood samples were obtained from each subject to characterize amlodipine pharmacokinetics. Plasma amlodipine concentrations were determined by liquid chromatography/mass spectrophotometry with multiple‐reaction monitoring detection. Population pharmacokinetic analysis was performed using NONMEM. Amlodipine concentrations were similar in subjects dosed either once or twice daily. Amlodipine pharmacokinetics were well described by a 1‐compartment model with first‐order absorption and elimination. For a subject at the population median weight (45 kg), predicted apparent clearances (CL/F) were 23.7 L/h for males and 17.6 L/h for females, and the apparent volume of distribution (V/F) was 25.1 L/kg. Dosing frequency did not appear to affect amlodipine concentrations in children. Weight‐adjusted CL/F and V/F of amlodipine in younger children were significantly greater than in older children, suggesting a need for higher doses when treating young children with amlodipine.
A Comparative Study of Defect Energy Distribution and Its Impact on Degradation Kinetics in GeO2/Ge and SiON/Si pMOSFETs

The high mobility germanium (Ge) channel is considered as a strong candidate for replacing Si in pMOSFETs in the near future. It has been reported that the conventional power-law degradation kinetics of Si devices is inapplicable to Ge. In this paper, further investigation is carried out on defect energy distribution, which clearly shows that this is because the defects in GeO2/Ge and SiON/Si devices have different physical properties. The three main differences are: 1) energy alternating defects (EAD) exist in Ge devices but are insignificant in Si; 2) the distribution of as-grown hole traps has a tail in the Ge bandgap but not in Si, which plays an important role in the degradation kinetics and device lifetime prediction; and 3) EAD generation in Ge devices requires the injected charge carriers to overcome a second energy barrier, but not in Si. Taking the above differences into account, the power-law kinetics of EAD generation can be successfully restored by following a new procedure, which can assist in the Ge process/device optimization.
UML-Based Development of Embedded Real-Time Software on Multi-Core in Practice: Lessons Learned and Future Perspectives

Model-driven engineering has got a foothold in industry as an effective way to tame the complexity of modern software, which is meant to run on embedded systems with real-time constraints by promoting abstraction, in terms of prescriptive models, and automation, in terms of model manipulations. In the plethora of modeling languages, the unified modeling language (UML) has emerged and established itself as a de facto standard in industry, the most widely used architectural description language and an ISO/IEC standard. In the SMARTCore project, we have provided solutions for the UML-based development of software to run on multicore embedded real-time systems with the specific focus of automating the generation of executable code and the optimization of task allocation based on a unique combination of model-based and execution-based mechanisms. In this paper, we describe the lessons learned in the research work carried out within SMARTCore and provide a set of perspectives that we consider to be highly relevant for the forthcoming future of this research area to enable a wider adoption of UML-based development in industry in general, and in the multicore embedded real-time domain in particular.
Diagnostic subtypes of bipolar disorder in older versus younger adults.

OBJECTIVE To investigate differences in diagnostic subtypes of bipolar disorder as according to ICD-10 between patients whose first contact with psychiatric health care occurs late in life (over 50 years of age) and patients who have first contact earlier in life (50 years of age or below). METHODS From 1994 to 2002 all patients who received a diagnosis of a manic episode or bipolar disorder at initial contact with the mental healthcare system, whether outpatient or inpatient, were identified in Denmark's nationwide register. RESULTS A total of 852 (49.6%) patients, who were over age 50, and 867 patients, who were 50 or below, received a diagnosis of a manic episode or bipolar disorder at the first contact ever. Older inpatients presented with psychotic symptoms (35.4%) significantly less than younger inpatients (42.6%) due specifically to a lower prevalence of manic episodes with psychotic symptoms. Conversely, older inpatients more often presented with severe depressive episodes with psychotic symptoms than younger inpatients (32.0% versus 17.0%). Among outpatients, no significant differences were found between patients older than 50 years and patients 50 years of age or younger. However, a bimodal distribution of age at first outpatient contact was found with an intermode of 65 years and outpatients older than 65 years more often presented with severe depressive episodes with psychosis. CONCLUSIONS Bipolar patients who are older at first psychiatric hospitalization (>50 years) present less with psychotic manic episodes and more with severe depressive episodes with psychosis than younger patients. The distribution of age at first outpatient contact is bimodal with an intermode of 65 years and outpatients older than 65 years more often present with severe depressive episodes with psychosis.
Influence of cationic molecules on the hairpin to duplex equilibria of self-complementary DNA and RNA oligonucleotides

A self-complementary nucleotide sequence can form both a unimolecular hairpin and a bimolecular duplex. In this study, the secondary structures of the self-complementary DNA and RNA oligonucleotides with different sequences and lengths were investigated under various solution conditions by gel electrophoresis, circular dichroism (CD) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and a ultraviolet (UV) melting analysis. The DNA sequences tended to adopt a hairpin conformation at low cation concentrations, but a bimolecular duplex was preferentially formed at an elevated cationic strength. On the other hand, fully matched RNA sequences adopted a bimolecular duplex regardless of the cation concentration. The thermal melting experiments indicated a greater change in the melting temperature of the bimolecular duplexes (by ∼20°C) than that of the hairpin (by ∼10°C) by increasing the NaCl concentration from 10 mM to 1 M. Hairpin formations were also observed for the palindrome DNA sequences derived from Escherichia coli, but association of the complementary palindrome sequences was observed when spermine, one of the major cationic molecules in a cell, existed at the physiological concentration. The results indicate the role of cations for shifting the structural equilibrium toward a nucleotide assembly and implicate nucleotide structures in cells.
Acyl-CoA:Cholesterol Acyltransferase Inhibition Reduces Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein E—Deficient Mice

Background—Acyl-CoA:cholesterol acyltransferase (ACAT) converts cholesterol to cholesteryl esters. The form of ACAT in macrophages, ACAT1, contributes to foam cell formation in the arterial wall and the development of atherosclerosis. Recent studies in a mouse model of atherosclerosis (the apolipoprotein E [apoE]-deficient mouse), however, have suggested that complete deficiency of ACAT1 activity is not antiatherogenic, in part because of toxicity resulting from adverse effects on tissue cholesterol homeostasis. We have tested whether partial inhibition of ACAT1 and ACAT2 (expressed in liver and intestine) activities reduces atherosclerosis development in apoE-deficient mice and avoids toxicity. Methods and Results—ApoE-deficient mice were maintained for 17 weeks on a Western-type diet without (control) or with the ACAT inhibitor F-1394 (effective against ACAT1 and ACAT2) at doses of either 300 (low) or 900 (high) mg/kg. Intimal lesion area at the aortic sinus in controls was 0.69±0.06 mm2. F-1394 treatment significantly decreased lesional area by 39% (low) or 45% (high). F-1394 treatment also reduced lesional immunostaining for macrophages by 61% (low) or 83% (high). En face analysis showed that surface lipid staining in control aortas was 20.0±2.8%; F-1394 treatment reduced this by 46% (low) or 62% (high). There were no obvious signs of systemic or vessel wall toxicity associated with F-1394 treatment. Conclusions—Partial ACAT inhibition by F-1394 had antiatherogenic effects in apoE-deficient mice that were achieved without obvious toxicity. Partial ACAT inhibition may have therapeutic potential in the clinical treatment of atherosclerosis.
On the Effects of Process Variation in Network-on-Chip Architectures

The advent of diminutive technology feature sizes has led to escalating transistor densities. Burgeoning transistor counts are casting a dark shadow on modern chip design: global interconnect delays are dominating gate delays and affecting overall system performance. Networks-on-Chip (NoC) are viewed as a viable solution to this problem because of their scalability and optimized electrical properties. However, on-chip routers are susceptible to another artifact of deep submicron technology, Process Variation (PV). PV is a consequence of manufacturing imperfections, which may lead to degraded performance and even erroneous behavior. In this work, we present the first comprehensive evaluation of NoC susceptibility to PV effects, and we propose an array of architectural improvements in the form of a new router design-called SturdiSwitch-to increase resiliency to these effects. Through extensive reengineering of critical components, SturdiSwitch provides increased immunity to PV while improving performance and increasing area and power efficiency.