Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teachers' Attributions and Beliefs in Relation to Gender and Success of Students.

Attribution theory supports the notion that teachers respond to student behavior based upon their own beliefs regarding the causation of behavior. This study examined differences in male and female teachers' attributions and beliefs in relation to gender and success of their students. Subjects, 250 high school teachers, half male and half female, completed a 2-part survey to measure their attributions of student success or failure in relation to gender-associated behaviors. The teachers were also asked to identify the gender of students believed to be most successful within the teacher's content area. Findings indicated over half of the female teachers and a third of the male teachers reported female students to be more successful in their content areas. Both male and female teachers reported boys to be most successful only in traditional male subjects, such as metal shop and woodworking, whereas female students were identified as most successful in all content areas with the exception of these traditionally male dominant areas. The results implied that male and female students are receiving different educational experiences based upon a combination of their own ability and what their teachers believe to be appropriate gender-based behavior. It was recommended that educators be made aware of any sex-biases which influence their behavior toward students and that schools provide students with a balance of male and female teachers from K-12. Findings are reported in 86 tables, which comprise the bulk of the document. (Contains 20 references.) (LL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Teachers' Attributions and Beliefs in Relation to Gender and Success of Students By Christene K. Bennett and Jerry A. Bennett Eastern New Mexico University Paper 1994 AERA Annual Meeting New Orleazs, LA April 6, 1994 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATFPIAL IIA:1 BEEN GRANTED BY
Children and Household Wealth

This paper examines the effects of children on consumption and wealth. To anchor intuition, we develop implications using a simple permanent income model with no uncertainty and complete markets. But this framework does not come close to matching the distribution of existing wealth. We therefore examine the effects of children using a rich, augmented life-cycle model, and using a life-cycle model with endogenous fertility. We find that children have a large effect on household’s net worth and consequently are an important factor in understanding the wealth distribution. The effects of children are much larger than the effects of asset tests associated with cash and near-cash transfers, given earnings realizations and the social security system experienced by households in the original HRS cohort. We also show that fertility and credit constraints interact in ways that significantly affect wealth accumulation.
Does It Matter Who Scouts

Scouting is the most widely used integrated pest management (IPM) technique. It has been argued that only independent crop consultants provide unbiased scouting information. In contrast, chemical dealers inflate scouting reports and/or reduce economic thresholds in order to increase pesticide sales while farmers may use excessively low treatment thresholds due to risk aversion and/or overestimation of pest pressure. Since the majority of scouting is done by farmers and chemical dealer employees, it follows that scouting may not be a very effective means of reducing reliance on chemical pesticides. This study applies an implicit demand formulation of the Lichtenberg-Zilberman damage abatement model to data from a survey of Maryland field crop growers to examine differences in pesticide demand between growers using scouts trained and supervised by extension and those using chemical dealer employees or scouting themselves. Our results give partial support to those skeptical of the quality of scouting by farmers themselves and by consultants working for chemical dealers. We found that soybean growers using extension trained scouts had significantly lower pesticide demand than those using chemical dealer employees or scouting themselves. However, we found no significant differences in the pesticide demands for alfalfa, corn, and small grains. Since soybeans in Maryland are substantially more pesticide-intensive than corn, alfalfa, or small grains, these results suggest that it does matter who scouts when there is scope for substantial savings in pesticides.
Expression of CD40 and its ligand, CD40L, in intestinal lesions of Crohn's disease

Objective:Selected mechanisms of the immune system participate in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. Recently, overexpression of the ligand for CD40 (CD40L), a lymphocyte costimulatory molecule, was shown to induce severe inflammatory bowel disease in transgenic mice. In the present study, we examined the expression of CD40 and CD40L on surgical specimens of ileum from 12 patients with Crohn's disease and 10 patients with diverticulitis.Methods:Several CD40L+ cells were present in the affected tissue of patients with Crohn's disease, whereas few scattered CD40L+ cells were detected in sections of histologically normal ileum, resected distantly from the affected tissue, in patients with diverticulitis and in normal ileum portions obtained from colorectal cancer undergoing extensive surgery. The phenotype of CD40L+ cells was mainly CD4+. Results:In patients with Crohn's disease, several CD40+ cells were detectable in the same areas of lymphocytes expressing CD40L, whereas in patients with diverticulitis, the number of CD40+ cells was significantly lower. Most of the CD40+ cells costained with CD20, thus showing to be B-lymphocytes, and only a few were CD14+ macrophages. Several von Willebrand-positive vessels were also positive for CD40. In addition, several infiltrating macrophages were found to express B7-1 and B7-2 molecules, the ligands of CD28 and CTLA-4, which cooperate with the CD40-CD40L pathway in lymphocyte activation. Staining of ileal lesions with anti-CTLA-4 antibodies resulted in detection of none or very few positive cells. In contrast, in patients with diverticulitis, an enhanced number of B7-1 and B7-2 and CTLA-4 was observed.Conclusion:The local accumulation of CD40L+ together with CD40+ cells within intestinal lesions of Crohn's disease suggests the involvement of this co-stimulatory pathway.
CitePlag : A Citation-based Plagiarism Detection System Prototype

This paper presents an open-source prototype of a citation-based plagiarism detection system called CitePlag. The underlying idea of the system is to evaluate the citations of academic documents as language independent markers to detect plagiarism. CitePlag uses three different detection algorithms that analyze the citation sequence of academic documents for similar patterns that may indicate unduly used foreign text or ideas. The algorithms consider multiple citation-related factors such as proximity and order of citations within the text, or their probability of co-occurrence in order to compute document similarity scores. We present technical details of CitePlag’s detection algorithms and the acquisition of test data from the PubMed Central Open Access Subset. Future advancement of the prototype lies in increasing the reference database by enabling the system to process more document and citation formats. Improving CitePlag’s detection algorithms and scoring functions to reduce the number of false positives is another major goal. Eventually, we plan to integrate text-based detection algorithms in addition to the citation-based detection algorithms within CitePlag.
Achievable standards, benchmarks for reporting and criteria for evaluating cervical cytopathology

Summary of the report of a working party set up by the Royal College of Pathologists, British Society for Clinical Cytology (BSCC) and NHS Cervical Screening Programme (NHSCSP) which is circulated with this issue of Cytopathology and is also available as an NHSCSP document.
Low-rank representation based action recognition

Human action recognition is an important problem in computer vision, which has been applied to many applications. However, how to learn an accurate and discriminative representation of videos based on the features extracted from videos still remains to be a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel method named low-rank representation based action recognition to recognize human actions. Given a dictionary, low-rank representation aims at finding the lowest-rank representation of all data, which can capture the global data structures. According to its characteristics, low-rank representation is robust against noises. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach on several publicly available datasets.
Sometimes new results raise new questions The question marks between mitogen-activated protein kinase and ethylene signaling

672 Plant Signaling & Behavior 2009; Vol. 4 Issue 7 In Arabidopsis thaliana, mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling cascades that contain MPK3, MPK4 and MPK6 have been implicated in various aspects of developmental processes and stress responses. We identified an ethylene response factor (ERF104), which controls innate immunity, to be a specific substrate of MPK6 and showed that ethylene signaling regulates the release of the ERF104 substrate from its kinase. Implications and questions that arise from our findings are addressed. To promote discussions, previously unpublished data, that are rather confounding, are presented and possible explanation provided on how these may fit into our current model.
Zinc finger protein-dependent and -independent contributions to the in vivo off-target activity of zinc finger nucleases

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) facilitate tailor-made genomic modifications in vivo through the creation of targeted double-stranded breaks. They have been employed to modify the genomes of plants and animals, and cell-based therapies utilizing ZFNs are undergoing clinical trials. However, many ZFNs display dose-dependent toxicity presumably due to the generation of undesired double-stranded breaks at off-target sites. To evaluate the parameters influencing the functional specificity of ZFNs, we compared the in vivo activity of ZFN variants targeting the zebrafish kdrl locus, which display both high on-target activity and dose-dependent toxicity. We evaluated their functional specificity by assessing lesion frequency at 141 potential off-target sites using Illumina sequencing. Only a minority of these off-target sites accumulated lesions, where the thermodynamics of zinc finger–DNA recognition appear to be a defining feature of active sites. Surprisingly, we observed that both the specificity of the incorporated zinc fingers and the choice of the engineered nuclease domain could independently influence the fidelity of these ZFNs. The results of this study have implications for the assessment of likely off-target sites within a genome and point to both zinc finger-dependent and -independent characteristics that can be tailored to create ZFNs with greater precision.
RNA fingerprinting as a method for distinguishing dengue 1 virus strains.

Virion RNAs of 12 geographically distinct dengue type 1 (DEN-1) virus isolates were clearly unique by RNA fingerprinting. Isolates from the same geographic area were very similar but differed from those of other areas, allowing us to establish three geographical groupings based upon percent shared oligonucleotides. Three Caribbean strains were virtually identical (85-91% homologous oligonucleotides) whereas Pacific/S.E. Asian strains exhibited considerably less homology to one another (44-49%). The Pacific/S.E. Asian strains exhibited little relationship (20-30%) to the Caribbean and African strains. A Sri Lankan isolate displayed a relatively high degree of homology to Nigerian isolates (60-66% homologous oligonucleotides), suggesting that the Sri Lanka DEN-1 infection originated from Africa. A 1978 Nigerian DEN-1 isolate and the 1969 Sri Lankan strain each exhibited greater than 50% homology with a 1977 Jamaican strain. The similarities observed between the African/Sri Lankan and Jamaican strains suggest that the DEN-1 virus which caused the 1977 Jamaican epidemic may have originated from Africa or Sri Lanka. The RNA fingerprint is a unique characteristic of DEN-1 strains from a particular geographic region, suggesting this technique as a useful tool for dengue epidemiological investigations.
BCH code based multiple bit error correction in finite field multiplier circuits

This paper presents a design methodology for multiple bit error detection and correction in Galois field arithmetic circuits such as the bit parallel polynomial basis (PB) multipliers over GF(2m). These multipliers are crucial in most of the cryptographic hardware designs and hence it is essential to ensure that they are not vulnerable to security threats. Security threats arising from injected soft (transient) faults into a cryptographic circuit can expose the secret information, e.g. the secret key, to an attacker. To prevent such soft or transient fault related attacks, we consider fault tolerance as a method of mitigation. Most of the current fault tolerant schemes are only multiple bit error detectable but not multiple bit error correctable. Keeping this in view, we present a multiple bit error correction scheme based on the BCH codes, with an efficient bit-parallel Chien search module. This paper details the design procedure as well as the hardware implementation specs. Comparison with existing methods demonstrate improved area, and reduced delay performances.
Regulation of Motivation: Contextual and Social Aspects

Background Models of self-regulated learning have been used extensively as a way of understanding how students understand, monitor, and manage their own academic functioning. The regulation of motivation is a facet of self-regulated learning that describes students’ efforts to control their own motivation or motivational processing. The regulation of motivation includes students’ knowledge, monitoring, and active management of their motivation or motivational processing. Purpose The purpose of this article is threefold. One, a conceptual understanding of regulation of motivation highlighting three core facets is presented. These aspects are knowledge of motivation, monitoring of motivation, and use of strategies to regulate motivation. Two, prior empirical work documenting the regulation of motivation across contexts is reviewed. This work indicates that students at different developmental levels use motivational regulation strategies and that their use varies as a function of the academic task or context. Three, social influences on the development of regulation of motivation that include modeling, scaffolding, direct instruction, and sociocultural processes are discussed. Research Design This article is an analytic essay in which selected prior research is reviewed only briefly. Conclusions/Recommendations Overall, it is argued that motivational regulation is a critical aspect of self-regulated learning that must be studied more thoroughly. Specific avenues for future studies are noted and include work that examines students’ knowledge and monitoring of motivation, how regulation of motivation varies across contexts, and how instructional and social processes impact its development.
Safety Considerations: Breastfeeding after Transplant

Organ transplant is an effective treatment for end-stage organ failure. For women, restoration of organ function can restore fertility and the ability to successfully carry a pregnancy. Posttransplant pregnancies have been reported among recipients of all types of solid organ transplants via case and center reports plus registry data. Stable graft function is dependent on prevention of rejection, currently accomplished by using maintenance immunosuppressant medications, to which the fetus is exposed in utero. Common among neonatal outcomes in transplant recipients are preterm and low-birth-weight infants. Emotional, nutritional, and immunologic benefits of breastfeeding have been well-documented and could be valuable for these newborns. Concern must be directed at the effects of the child's exposure to immunosuppressive agents excreted into the breast milk. Breastfeeding could be considered in transplant recipients if it can be shown that the level of exposure does not result in risks to the newborn, immediately and throughout childhood. Despite concerns of health care professionals, some recipients have chosen to breastfeed. Breastfeeding after transplant must be approached with consideration of many issues, and the potential risks require further study. This review focuses on benefits of breastfeeding, common immunosuppressive agents used in organ transplant recipients, a summary of the reports of women who have breastfed their infants while on immunosuppressive therapy and the published studies on breastfeeding and immunosuppressive agents. Recommendations are provided to guide health care professionals to help mothers receiving immunosuppressive agents to make informed choices about breastfeeding their infants.
Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis reveals novel epigenetic changes in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

We conducted a genome-wide DNA methylation analysis in CD19+ B-cells from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients and normal control samples using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS). The methylation status of 1.8–2.3 million CpGs in the CLL genome was determined; about 45% of these CpGs were located in more than 23,000 CpG islands (CGIs). While global CpG methylation was similar between CLL and normal B-cells, 1764 gene promoters were identified as being differentially methylated in at least one CLL sample when compared with normal B-cell samples. Nineteen percent of the differentially methylated genes were involved in transcriptional regulation. Aberrant hypermethylation was found in all HOX gene clusters and a significant number of WNT signaling pathway genes. Hypomethylation occurred more frequently in the gene body including introns, exons, and 3′-UTRs in CLL. The NFATc1 P2 promoter and first intron was found to be hypomethylated and correlated with upregulation of both NFATc1 RNA and protein expression levels in CLL suggesting that an epigenetic mechanism is involved in the constitutive activation of NFAT activity in CLL cells. This comprehensive DNA methylation analysis will further our understanding of the epigenetic contribution to cellular dysfunction in CLL.
Poly(ADP-Ribose)Polymerase Activity Controls Plant Growth by Promoting Leaf Cell Number

A changing global environment, rising population and increasing demand for biofuels are challenging agriculture and creating a need for technologies to increase biomass production. Here we demonstrate that the inhibition of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase activity is a promising technology to achieve this under non-stress conditions. Furthermore, we investigate the basis of this growth enhancement via leaf series and kinematic cell analysis as well as single leaf transcriptomics and plant metabolomics under non-stress conditions. These data indicate a regulatory function of PARP within cell growth and potentially development. PARP inhibition enhances growth of Arabidopsis thaliana by enhancing the cell number. Time course single leaf transcriptomics shows that PARP inhibition regulates a small subset of genes which are related to growth promotion, cell cycle and the control of metabolism. This is supported by metabolite analysis showing overall changes in primary and particularly secondary metabolism. Taken together the results indicate a versatile function of PARP beyond its previously reported roles in controlling plant stress tolerance and thus can be a useful target for enhancing biomass production.
Piperacillin-tazobactam plus amikacin versus ceftazidime plus amikacin as empiric therapy for fever in granulocytopenic patients with cancer. The International Antimicrobial Therapy Cooperative Group of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer

Gram-positive bacteria have become the predominant infecting organisms in granulocytopenic cancer patients. Empiric antibiotic regimens used in febrile neutropenic patients often include an extended-spectrum cephalosporin, but the response to therapy in gram-positive coccal bacteremia has been unsatisfactory. Thus, new antibiotics with better activity against gram-positive bacteria should be tested. The objective of this prospective randomized controlled study was to evaluate and compare the efficacy and tolerance of piperacillintazobactam plus amikacin with that of ceftazidime plus amikacin, the standard regimen of the International Antimicrobial Therapy Cooperative Group of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, in the empiric treatment of febrile granulocytopenic cancer patients. A total of 858 episodes were eligible for this study, and 706 episodes were assessable for efficacy. The antibiotic treatment was successful in 210 (61%) of 342 episodes in the piperacillin-tazobactam-amikacin group compared with 196 (54%) of 364 episodes treated with ceftazidime plus amikacin (P = 0.05). The time to defervescence was significantly shorter (P = 0.01) and the time to failure was significantly longer (P = 0.02) in the piperacillin-tazobactam-amikacin group. A significant difference in response to bacteremic infections between the two patient groups was found: piperacillin-tazobactam plus amikacin was successful in 40 of 80 episodes (50%), and ceftazidime plus amikacin was successful in 35 of 101 episodes (35%) (P = 0.05). A multivariate analysis showed that the probability of failure was significantly greater with ceftazidime plus amikacin than with piperacillin-tazobactam plus amikacin (P = 0.02). This trial suggests that piperacillin-tazobactam plus amikacin is more effective than ceftazidime plus amikacin for the empiric treatment of fever and bacteremia in granulocytopenic cancer patients. Although cutaneous reaction was more frequently associated with piperacillin-tazobactam plus amikacin than with ceftazidime-amikacin, this unwanted effect was relatively mild and its incidence was comparable to that of other penicillin compounds.
Cerebellar Output in Zebrafish: An Analysis of Spatial Patterns and Topography in Eurydendroid Cell Projections

The cerebellum is a brain region responsible for motor coordination and for refining motor programs. While a great deal is known about the structure and connectivity of the mammalian cerebellum, fundamental questions regarding its function in behavior remain unanswered. Recently, the zebrafish has emerged as a useful model organism for cerebellar studies, owing in part to the similarity in cerebellar circuits between zebrafish and mammals. While the cell types composing their cerebellar cortical circuits are generally conserved with mammals, zebrafish lack deep cerebellar nuclei, and instead a majority of cerebellar output comes from a single type of neuron: the eurydendroid cell. To describe spatial patterns of cerebellar output in zebrafish, we have used genetic techniques to label and trace eurydendroid cells individually and en masse. We have found that cerebellar output targets the thalamus and optic tectum, and have confirmed the presence of pre-synaptic terminals from eurydendroid cells in these structures using a synaptically targeted GFP. By observing individual eurydendroid cells, we have shown that different medial-lateral regions of the cerebellum have eurydendroid cells projecting to different targets. Finally, we found topographic organization in the connectivity between the cerebellum and the optic tectum, where more medial eurydendroid cells project to the rostral tectum while lateral cells project to the caudal tectum. These findings indicate that there is spatial logic underpinning cerebellar output in zebrafish with likely implications for cerebellar function.