Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Animal models for Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia: a perspective

In dementia research, animal models have become indispensable tools. They not only model aspects of the human condition, but also simulate processes that occur in humans and hence provide insight into how disease is initiated and propagated. The present review discusses two prominent human neurodegenerative disorders, Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. It discusses what we would like to model in animals and highlights some of the more recent achievements using species as diverse as mice, fish, flies and worms. Advances in imaging and therapy are explored. We also discuss some anticipated new models and developments. These will reveal how key players in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia, such as the peptide Aβ (amyloid β) and the protein tau, cause neuronal dysfunction and eventually, neuronal demise. Understanding these processes fully will lead to early diagnosis and therapy.
Students’ opinions on the light pollution application

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of computer-animated concept cartoons and outdoor science activities on creating awareness among seventh graders about light pollution. It also aims to identify the views of the students on the activities that were carried out. This study used one group pre-test/post-test experimental design model with 30 seventh graders. The data in the study were collected via open-ended questions on light pollution and semi-structured interview questions. The open-ended questions on light pollution were administered as a pre-test and a post-test. After the post-test was administered, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven students. The data collected from the open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews were qualitatively analysed and quotes from the students’ statements were included. Looking at the answers of the students to questions on light pollution, it was understood that the activities that were carried out were effective. Furthermore, all of the students that were interviewed made positive statements about the activities that were carried out.
THE EFFECTS OF STRATEGY INSTRUCTION IN READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT ON READING LEVEL AND MOTIVATION OF FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS

The purpose of this nonequivalent control-group design study was to determine if students had an increase in reading level and motivation to read when more informational text and instruction was added into the curriculum. The independent variables were the reading curriculum, with Success for All (SFA) used with the control group and SFA with additional instruction in informational text used with the study group. The dependent variables were reading level and levels of motivation determined by the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) and the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) measured after eight weeks of instruction and again three months post-study. The research questions sought to determine if there was a two population case significance test of means difference in reading level and motivational gains between the group that received traditional reading instruction and the group that received additional instruction in reading informational text. The study also sought to determine if the academic reading and recreational reading gains differed between two instructional groups. Finally, the study also looked at immediate and three month post-study reading level gains. The sample included approximately sixty fifth graders from a mid-sized elementary school in the mid-west. Reading levels were measured with the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), a quantitative assessment that is both valid and reliable, and attitude gains were measured with the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS), also valid and reliable. After Levene’s tests were run, ANCOVA was used to compare means. Results showed that students in the study group scored significantly higher on the academic, recreational, and total score of the ERAS post-study but did not score significantly better on the SRI, neither eight weeks post-study nor three months poststudy.
Prognostic value and quality of life in patients with normal rest thallium-201/stress technetium 99m-tetrofosmin dual-isotope myocardial SPECT

BackgroundThe prognostic value of normal dual-isotope single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), with technetium 99m-tetrofosmin for the stress images, is not well known. Furthermore, thallium-201 cross talk in the Tc-99m window may reduce the defect severity of the Tc-99m images.Methods and ResultsIn a consecutive series of 610 patients, 246 patients with normal rest and stress SPECT images by means of visual semiquantitative analysis were included. The patients' pre-test likelihood of coronary artery disease was determined, based on age, sex, symptoms, and the results of stress electrocardiography. Quality of life was assessed by using a mailed self-administered general quality-of-life questionnaire. We compared the mean scores (8 dimensions) of our study population with the scores of 1063 control subjects, sampled randomly out of the inhabitant register of a Dutch city. The mean follow-up period was 25±3 months. Compared with the control group, patients in our study scored lower (less perceived health) for all dimensions of the SF-36 (P<.05), suggesting a selection of symptomatic or otherwise diseased patients. The primary cardiac event rate was 0.4% per year. The cardiac events occurred in patients with an intermediate-to-high pre-test likelihood of disease and negative or nondiagnostic exercise electrocardiographic results. In a subset of patients with a high pre-test likelihood of coronary artery disease (more than 85%), the primary cardiac event rate was 0.7% per year.ConclusionsPatients with normal results on dual-isotope myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, performed with Tc-99m-tetrofosmin for the stress images, have an excellent prognosis. Furthermore, our results suggest that Tl-201 cross talk in the Tc-99m window may be low and functionally and clinically unimportant.
Linking Time Geography and Activity Theory to Support the Activities of Mobile Information Seekers

Mobile geographic information seeking systems are often employed to support spatial activities in an unfamiliar geographic environment. However, current systems are unable to incorporate the spatio‐temporal constraints of these activities in order to support this information seeking. This article describes a methodology addressing the nature of these spatio‐temporal activities that has the potential to contribute solutions to this problem. A key element of this approach is the awareness that both the planning and acting phases must be considered in supporting such activities. This means the development of plans that can be amended ad‐hoc, whilst still adhering to the spatio‐temporal constraints of the activity. The results of such an approach are the ability for a more descriptive representation of a spatio‐temporal activity, which can then be used to support spatio‐temporal accessibility analyses and disclose geographic information objects that are no longer accessible to the mobile information seeker. The introduction of these spatio‐temporal constraints also allows the mobile information seeker to build up an itinerary that adheres to the given spatio‐temporal constraints of the activity.
Inflammatory bowel

Intestinal anti-inflammatory activity of combined quercitrin and dietary olive oil supplemented with fish oil, rich in EPA and DHA (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids, in rats with DSS-induced colitis Summary Background & Aims: Previous studies have described the intestinal anti-inflamma-tory effects exerted by the bioflavonoid quercitrin (QR) and by an n-3 polyunsatu-rated fatty acids (PUFA)-enriched diet in experimental models of rat colitis. The aim of the present study was to test if the combination of both treatments would result in an improvement in the intestinal anti-inflammatory effect achieved separately. Methods: Colitis was induced in female Wistar rats by incorporating dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) in drinking water at 5% (w/v) for 5 days and at 2% (w/v) for the following 10 days. Five groups of rats (n ¼ 10) were used: two of them received an olive-oil-based diet with fish oil, rich in n-3 PUFA (FO diet) for 2 weeks before colitis induction and until the end of the experiment, and one of those also was administered daily QR (1 mg/kg, PO), starting when DSS concentration was changed. DSS colitis was induced in other two groups fed with standard rat diet, one of them being administered QR as before. A non-colitic group fed standard diet was also included. After that period, the rats were sacrificed and colonic damage was assessed both histologically and biochemically. Results: The concurrent administration of FO diet and QR exhibited an intestinal anti-inflammatory effect, as evidenced by a significant improvement of all biochemical parameters of colonic inflammation assayed in comparison with non-treated colitic rats. Thus, both colonic myeloperoxidase (MPO) and alkaline phosphatase (AP) activities were significantly reduced compared with untreated colitic rats. In addition, a complete restoration of colonic glutathione content, which was depleted as a consequence of the colonic insult, was obtained in rats treated with QR plus FO diet; this content was even higher than that obtained when colitic rats were treated with FO diet alone. When compared with the control colitic group, the combined treatment was also associated with a lower colonic nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 expression as well as with a significant reduction in different colonic proinflammatory mediators assayed, i.e. leukotriene B 4 , tumor necrosis factor a and interleukin 1b, showing a significantly greater inhibitory effect of the latter in comparison with rats receiving FO diet without the flavonoid. Conclusions: These results support the potential synergism between the administration of the flavonoid …
Causal Models as Minimal Descriptions of Multivariate Systems

By applying the minimality principle for model selection, one should seek the model that describes the data by a code of minimal length. Learning is viewed as data compression that exploits the regularities or qualitative properties found in the data, in order to build a model containing the meaningful information. The theory of causal modeling can be interpreted by this approach. The regularities are the conditional independencies reducing a factorization and the v-structure regularities. In the absence of other regularities, a causal model is faithful and offers a minimal description of a probability distribution. The causal interpretation of a faithful Bayesian network is motivated by the canonical representation it offers and faithfulness. A causal model decomposes the distribution into independent atomic blocks and is able to explain all qualitative properties found in the data. The existence of faithful models depends on the additional regularities in the data. Local structure of the conditional probability distributions allow further compression of the model. Interfering regularities, however, generate conditional independencies that do not follow from the Markov condition. These regularities has to be incorporated into an augmented model for which the inference algorithms are adapted to take into account their influences. But for other regularities, like patterns in a string, causality does not offer a modeling framework that leads to a minimal description.
Sentiment Classification on Polarity Reviews: An Empirical Study Using Rating-based Features

We present a new feature type named rating-based feature and evaluate the contribution of this feature to the task of document-level sentiment analysis. We achieve state-of-the-art results on two publicly available standard polarity movie datasets: on the dataset consisting of 2000 reviews produced by Pang and Lee (2004) we obtain an accuracy of 91.6% while it is 89.87% evaluated on the dataset of 50000 reviews created by Maas et al. (2011). We also get a performance at 93.24% on our own dataset consisting of 233600 movie reviews, and we aim to share this dataset for further research in sentiment polarity analysis task.
Attachments to recreation settings: The case of rail‐trail users

Abstract The authors explore the nature of place attachment (the extent to which an individual values or identifies with a particular environmental setting) and develop a model to help explain how such relationships with recreation settings form. This model is then tested with a sample of users of three “rail‐trails” (multiuse recreation trails constructed on unused railroad rights‐of‐way). Results support the literature, suggesting that place attachment has at least two dimensions: a place dependence, reflecting the importance of the place in facilitating a user's activity, and a more affective place identity, reflecting an individual's valuing of a setting for more symbolic or emotional reasons. Analysis reveals that place identity can best be predicted by how long users have been associated with the trail, the importance they ascribe to their trail activity, and their level of place dependence. Level of place dependence is best predicted by the distance between the trail and the user's home and users’ .
Attachment Styles, Loneliness, Quality, and Stability of Marital Relationships

Quality and stability of intimate relationships are determined by various factors. Associations between attachment styles, social and emotional loneliness, competence in being alone, and relationship qualities in couples have not yet been investigated. Sixty-three couples completed self-report measures of current relationship quality and duration, attachment style, and loneliness. Marital quality is predicted by means of experienced emotional loneliness, fearful attachment style, age, and participation in relationship counseling (R 2 corrected = .568). Length of relationship is predicted by age, experienced social loneliness, and competence in being alone (R 2 corrected = .648). Attachment styles, loneliness, age, competence in being alone, and participation in relationship counseling are all possible determinants of relationship qualities.
Genome Wide Characterization of Short Tandem Repeat Markers in Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis)

Sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) is one of the major cultivated and most-consumed citrus species. With the goal of enhancing the genomic resources in citrus, we surveyed, developed and characterized microsatellite markers in the ≈347 Mb sequence assembly of the sweet orange genome. A total of 50,846 SSRs were identified with a frequency of 146.4 SSRs/Mbp. Dinucleotide repeats are the most frequent repeat class and the highest density of SSRs was found in chromosome 4. SSRs are non-randomly distributed in the genome and most of the SSRs (62.02%) are located in the intergenic regions. We found that AT-rich SSRs are more frequent than GC-rich SSRs. A total number of 21,248 SSR primers were successfully developed, which represents 89 SSR markers per Mb of the genome. A subset of 950 developed SSR primer pairs were synthesized and tested by wet lab experiments on a set of 16 citrus accessions. In total we identified 534 (56.21%) polymorphic SSR markers that will be useful in citrus improvement. The number of amplified alleles ranges from 2 to 12 with an average of 4 alleles per marker and an average PIC value of 0.75. The newly developed sweet orange primer sequences, their in silico PCR products, exact position in the genome assembly and putative function are made publicly available. We present the largest number of SSR markers ever developed for a citrus species. Almost two thirds of the markers are transferable to 16 citrus relatives and may be used for constructing a high density linkage map. In addition, they are valuable for marker-assisted selection studies, population structure analyses and comparative genomic studies of C. sinensis with other citrus related species. Altogether, these markers provide a significant contribution to the citrus research community.
Optimizing one million variable NK landscapes by hybridizing deterministic recombination and local search

In gray-box optimization, the search algorithms have access to the variable interaction graph (VIG) of the optimization problem. For Mk Landscapes (and NK Landscapes) we can use the VIG to identify an improving solution in the Hamming neighborhood in constant time. In addition, using the VIG, deterministic Partition Crossover is able to explore an exponential number of solutions in a time that is linear in the size of the problem. Both methods have been used in isolation in previous search algorithms. We present two new gray-box algorithms that combine Partition Crossover with highly efficient local search. The best algorithms are able to locate the global optimum on Adjacent NK Landscape instances with one million variables. The algorithms are compared with a state-of-the-art algorithm for pseudo-Boolean optimization: Gray-Box Parameterless Population Pyramid. The results show that the best algorithm is always one combining Partition Crossover and highly efficient local search. But the results also illustrate that the best optimizer differs on Adjacent and Random NK Landscapes.
Luminescent behavior of cadmium sulfide quantum dots for gallic acid estimation

Thioglycolic acid capped cadmium sulfide (CdS/T) quantum dots have been synthesized using wet chemistry and their optical behavior has been investigated using UV–visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. The role of the capping agent, sulfide source concentration, pH and temperature has been studied and discussed. Studies showed that alkaline pH leads to a decrease in the size of quantum dots and reflux temperature above 70 °C resulted in red-shift of emission spectra which is due to narrowing of the bandgap. Further, to reduce the toxicity and photochemical instability of quantum dots, the quantum dots have been functionalized with polyethylene glycol (PEG), which resulted in a 20% enhancement of the fluorescence intensity. The application potential of CdS/T-PEG quantum dots was further studied using gallic acid as a model compound. The sensing is based on fluorescence quenching of quantum dots in the presence of gallic acid, and this study showed linearity in the range from 1.3 × 10−8 to 46.5 × 10−8 mM, with a detection limit of 3.6 × 10−8 mM.
The Double Edge of Common Interest

How can we reduce ethnic friendship segregation in ethnically heterogeneous schools? The Common Ingroup Identity Model suggests that interethnic friendships are promoted by those intervention programs that focus on the interests students have in common. The authors argue that the outcome of these common interest interventions may crucially depend on sufficient consensus in participants’ opinions regarding the shared interest. Such an intervention may backfire and increase ethnic segregation if participants from different ethnic groups have different opinions about the common interest. The authors test their argument analyzing the dynamics of friendship networks and opinions in 48 school classes with an actor-based stochastic model. Their findings suggest that salient common interests in ethnically mixed school classes can indeed reduce ethnic segregation. However, they also found that friendship selection on the basis of similar opinions can foster ethnic segregation. This occurred when ethnicity was correlated with the opinions that students held regarding the salient interest, even when these students did not prefer intra-ethnic friendship per se.
Role of auxin during intercellular infection of Discaria trinervis by Frankia

Nitrogen-fixing nodules induced by Frankia in the actinorhizal plant Discaria trinervis result from a primitive intercellular root invasion pathway that does not involve root hair deformation and infection threads. Here, we analyzed the role of auxin in this intercellular infection pathway at the molecular level and compared it with our previous work in the intracellular infected actinorhizal plant Casuarina glauca. Immunolocalisation experiments showed that auxin accumulated in Frankia-infected cells in both systems. We then characterized the expression of auxin transporters in D. trinervis nodules. No activation of the heterologous CgAUX1 promoter was detected in infected cells in D. trinervis. These results were confirmed with the endogenous D. trinervis gene, DtAUX1. However, DtAUX1 was expressed in the nodule meristem. Consistently, transgenic D. trinervis plants containing the auxin response marker DR5:VENUS showed expression of the reporter gene in the meristem. Immunolocalisation experiments using an antibody against the auxin efflux carrier PIN1, revealed the presence of this transporter in the plasma membrane of infected cells. Finally, we used in silico cellular models to analyse auxin fluxes in D. trinervis nodules. Our results point to the existence of divergent roles of auxin in intercellularly- and intracellularly-infected actinorhizal plants, an ancestral infection pathways leading to root nodule symbioses.
All Rivers Lead to the Sea: A Follow-Up Study of Gifted Young Adults.

Students who had entered the University of Washington's Early Entrance Program (EEP) between 1977 and 1986 were asked to participate in a follow‐up study, along with two comparison groups who had taken part in previous research efforts: non‐accelerated National Merit Scholarship finalists ("NATS"), and students who had qualified for the EEP but had proceeded to high school instead ("QUALS"). Return rates were 56% EEPers (n=61), 71% NATS (n=27), and 56% QUALS (n=36). Most respondents were satisfied with their decision to accelerate or not accelerate their secondary education. EEPers had entered graduate school in significantly greater numbers than had either the NATS or QUALS, although QUALS’ educational aspirations are as high as EEPers’. In attitudes, interests, and values, group similarities far outweighed differences; where significant differences occurred, however, EEPers tended to resemble NATS more than QUALS. Limitations of the study and implications for school choice are discussed.
A prospective study of changes in burnout and work engagement for beginning teachers

1 Forord 3 2 Abstract 4 3 Introduction 5 3.1 Predictors of burnout and work engagement 6 3.2 The present study 7 4 Method and measurement 8 4.1 Procedure and sample 8 4.2 Measurement 8 4.3 Data analysis 9 5 Results 12 6 Discussion 16 6.1 Levels of burnout and work engagement 17 6.2 Limitations and suggestions for future research 17 7 Acknowledgements 19 8 Reference s 20