Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Professional Development Coaches: Perceptions of Critical Characteristics

Current recommendations for achieving high-quality professional development for teachers include the creation of a professional learning community. Key to the success of this approach, however, is the role of the peer mentor or coach. This study examined the experiences and perceptions of 31 professional development coaches in order to highlight the characteristics believed to be essential for success. Results suggest that, while content expertise is perceived to be important, coaches believe that strong interpersonal skills are more critical since, without them, they are unable to use their content knowledge to facilitate changes in teachers’ practice. Suggestions for selecting and training peer coaches are included.
Low pH and Helicobacter pylori increase nuclear factor kappa B binding in gastric epithelial cells: A common pathway for epithelial cell injury?

Helicobacter pylori infection results in peptic ulceration and chronic gastritis through mechanisms which are not fully elucidated. Live H. pylori activate the pro‐inflammatory transcription factor NF‐κB in gastric epithelial cells. Patients may have peptic ulcer disease in the absence of H. pylori infection; therefore other factors contribute to the inflammatory process. Maximal acid output in patients with H. pylori infection and duodenal ulceration is significantly increased indicating a role for acid in the pathogenesis of mucosal ulceration. The effect of low pH on NF‐κB activation in gastric epithelial cells has not been studied. Human gastric epithelial cells (AGS) were exposed to a range of pH changes in the presence or absence of H. pylori. NF‐κB DNA‐binding and cytosolic IκB‐α were measured using electrophoretic mobility shift assay and Western blotting. NF‐κB DNA‐binding in gastric epithelial cells dramatically increased when the pH of the culture medium decreased. Increases in NF‐κB nuclear binding were paralleled by decreasing amounts of cytosolic IκB‐α. These findings were similar but less potent than those observed when cells were exposed to H. pylori. Low pH resulted in enhancement of H. pylori‐induced NF‐κB nuclear binding. DNA binding of NF‐κB activation secondary to low pH was attenuated by PD98059 but not by SB203580. Similar to H. pylori, low pH potently and independently augments NF‐κB nuclear binding in AGS cells and such activation appears to be mediated through MEK1‐dependant signaling pathways. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Trophic actions of oral vanadium and improved glycemia on the pancreatic beta-cell ultrastructure of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.

CONTEXT Oral vanadyl sulfate (vanadium) has potent hypoglycemic effects in diabetes animals, but data about its actions on pancreatic beta-cells (BC) ultrastructure is limited. OBJECTIVE Partial diabetic rats were treated with vanadium and insulin injection and their effects on BC ultrastructure are studied. METHODS Male rats were made diabetic with intravenous streptozotocin injection (STZ, 40 mg/kg). Animals were randomly divided to control (CD), vanadium-treated (1 mg/mL VOSO4 + 5H2O in base solution, VTD) and insulin-treated (80 U/kg/day NPH insulin injection, ITD) diabetic groups. Treatments started 10 days after STZ injection and terminated after 2 months. Intermittent tail blood samples were taken for measurements of blood glucose (BG) and plasma insulin (PI). Finally animals were sacrificed and pancreata prepared for assessments of BC ultrastructure, islets histology and insulin immunoreactivity (IIR). RESULTS Vanadium decreased BG (P<0.0001), elevated the reduced PI (P<0.001), prevented islet atrophy and restored BC ultrastructure. Low BG seen during treatment in VTD and ITD only persisted in VTD after vanadium withdrawal. Hyperglycemia worsened in CD and repaired in ITD shortly after insulin withdrawal. CD islets were atrophied, had scattered IIR spots. BC had pyknotic nuclei, vacuolated cytoplasm and few tiny insulin secretory granules. VTD islets looked normal with compact centered IIR spots. BC had well-developed endoplasmic reticulum, many insulin secretory granules and mitochondria. ITD islet structure was slightly better than CD and BC had some immature insulin secretory granules. CONCLUSION The trophic actions of vanadium in diabetic rats effectively renovated beta cell ultrastructure and prevented pancreatic islets atrophy, whereas the relief of glucotoxicity seen with insulin treatment could repair some beta cells and partially prevented islet atrophy.
Clinical and Pathological Impact of Tissue Fibrosis on Lethal Arrhythmic Events in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Patients With Impaired Systolic Function.

BACKGROUND The natural history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) varies from an asymptomatic benign course to a poor prognosis. Myocardial fibrosis may play a critical role in ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VT/VF); however, the clinical significance of tissue fibrosis by right ventricular (RV) biopsy in the long-term prognosis of HCM patients remains unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS We enrolled 185 HCM patients (mean age, 57±14 years). The amount of fibrosis (%area) was quantified using a digital microscope. Hemodynamic, echocardiographic, and electrophysiologic parameters were also evaluated. Patients with severe fibrosis had longer QRS duration and positive late potential (LP) on signal-averaged ECG, resulting in a higher incidence of VT/VF. At the 5±4 year follow-up, VT/VF occurred in 31 (17%) patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that tissue fibrosis (hazard ratio (HR): 1.65; P=0.003 per 10% increase), lower left ventricular ejection fraction (HR: 0.64; P=0.001 per 10% increase), and positive SAECG (HR: 3.14; P=0.04) led to a greater risk of VT/VF. The combination of tissue fibrosis severity and lower left ventricular ejection fraction could be used to stratify the risk of lethal arrhythmic events in HCM patients. CONCLUSIONS Myocardial fibrosis in RV biopsy samples may contribute to abnormal conduction delay and spontaneous VT/VF, leading to a poor prognosis in HCM patients.
Net Immigration and Projecting the Social Security Burden

Annual Trustees Reports evaluate the future financial status of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund, relying upon economic and demographic assumptions. The latter assumptions on mortality, fertility, immigration, and disability more strongly influence the future financial status in the long term. With retirements of Baby Boom cohorts, payout levels on retiree benefits are expected to surpass OASDI tax revenues with a more imminent crisis due to higher unemployment, increasing retirements, higher disability, and the slow economy. Net immigration has consistently implied contributions from additions of both current workers and their children as future workers. With attention to recent data and developments, this paper reviews immigration trends, considers implications of current immigration policies, and addresses the modeling of future immigration for the 21 st century. Expert recommendations on immigration have deficit-decreasing impacts for the longterm financial status. Woodrow-Lafield, March 11, 2013 Draft 3 Net Immigration and Projecting the Social Security Burden
The role of secondary cities in managing urbanisation in South Africa

ABSTRACT Following on from earlier work dealing with the role of metropolitan municipalities in managing urbanisation, this article assesses the role played by secondary cities in this regard. Although secondary cities have largely provided adequate infrastructure in line with the demands of population growth, three differences between metropolitan municipalities and secondary cities should be noted. First, on most indicators, secondary cities have more outliers than do metropolitan municipalities. Second, household incomes in secondary cities remain lower than those in metropolitan municipalities. Third, the ability of secondary cities to provide basic infrastructure does not differ much from that of metropolitan municipalities. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that, in terms of certain indicators, secondary cities have managed to deliver these faster than their metropolitan counterparts. We argue that the progress made in secondary cities during the period under consideration cannot be separated from the fact that the economic growth in more than 50% of secondary cities has been linked either to mining or to another dominant economic driver.
A multi‐model approach to simultaneous segmentation and classification of heterogeneous populations of cell nuclei in 3D confocal microscope images

Automated segmentation and morphometry of fluorescently labeled cell nuclei in batches of 3D confocal stacks is essential for quantitative studies. Model‐based segmentation algorithms are attractive due to their robustness. Previous methods incorporated a single nuclear model. This is a limitation for tissues containing multiple cell types with different nuclear features. Improved segmentation for such tissues requires algorithms that permit multiple models to be used simultaneously. This requires a tight integration of classification and segmentation algorithms. Two or more nuclear models are constructed semiautomatically from user‐provided training examples. Starting with an initial over‐segmentation produced by a gradient‐weighted watershed algorithm, a hierarchical fragment merging tree rooted at each object is built. Linear discriminant analysis is used to classify each candidate using multiple object models. On the basis of the selected class, a Bayesian score is computed. Fragment merging decisions are made by comparing the score with that of other candidates, and the scores of constituent fragments of each candidate. The overall segmentation accuracy was 93.7% and classification accuracy was 93.5%, respectively, on a diverse collection of images drawn from five different regions of the rat brain. The multi‐model method was found to achieve high accuracy on nuclear segmentation and classification by correctly resolving ambiguities in clustered regions containing heterogeneous cell populations. © 2007 International Society for Analytical Cytology
Plastic as a Persistent Marine Pollutant

Synthetic organic polymers—or plastics—did not enter widespread use until the 1950s. By 2015, global production had increased to 322 million metric tons (Mt) year−1, which approaches the total weight of the human population produced in plastic every year. Approximately half is used for packaging and other disposables, 40% of plastic waste is not accounted for in managed landfills or recycling facilities, and 4.8–12.7 Mt year−1 enter the ocean as macroscopic litter and microplastic particles. Here, we argue that such mismanaged plastic waste is similar to other persistent pollutants, such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which once threatened a “silent spring” on land. Such a scenario seems now possible in the ocean, where plastic cannot be easily removed, accumulates in organisms and sediments, and persists much longer than on land. New evidence indicates a complex toxicology of plastic micro- and nanoparticles on marine life, and transfer up the food chain, in.
Efficient & Effective Prioritized Matching for Large-Scale Image-Based Localization

Accurately determining the position and orientation from which an image was taken, i.e., computing the camera pose, is a fundamental step in many Computer Vision applications. The pose can be recovered from 2D-3D matches between 2D image positions and points in a 3D model of the scene. Recent advances in Structure-from-Motion allow us to reconstruct large scenes and thus create the need for image-based localization methods that efficiently handle large-scale 3D models while still being effective, i.e., while localizing as many images as possible. This paper presents an approach for large scale image-based localization that is both efficient and effective. At the core of our approach is a novel prioritized matching step that enables us to first consider features more likely to yield 2D-to-3D matches and to terminate the correspondence search as soon as enough matches have been found. Matches initially lost due to quantization are efficiently recovered by integrating 3D-to-2D search. We show how visibility information from the reconstruction process can be used to improve the efficiency of our approach. We evaluate the performance of our method through extensive experiments and demonstrate that it offers the best combination of efficiency and effectiveness among current state-of-the-art approaches for localization.
The impact of FDI on CO2 emission in a small island developing state: A cointegration approach

This paper examines the long run and short run impact of FDI (disaggregated into manufacturing and non- manufacturing sector), on CO2 emission in Mauritius. In this study the bounds testing approach to cointegration is used. For instance, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is used on time series data over the period 1980 to 2012. The main findings of this study show that foreign investment in the manufacturing sector is harmful for the environment whereas FDI in non-manufacturing sectors does not really affect the environment. Moreover, an increase in growth is as well seen to increase the level of CO2 emission. Energy use in the country also proved to result in an increase in CO2 emission. The findings further confirm the stability of the model for the small island economy of Mauritius.
Multiple Microvascular and Astroglial 5-Hydroxytryptamine Receptor Subtypes in Human Brain: Molecular and Pharmacologic Characterization

Physiologic and anatomic evidence suggest that 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) neurons regulate local cerebral blood flow and blood-brain barrier permeability. To evaluate the possibility that some of these effects occur directly on the blood vessels, molecular and/or pharmacologic approaches were used to assess the presence of 5-HT receptors in human brain microvascular fractions, endothelial and smooth muscle cell cultures, as well as in astroglial cells which intimately associate with intraparenchymal blood vessels. Isolated microvessels and' capillaries consistently expressed messages for the h5-HT1B, h5-HT1D, 5-HT1F, 5-HT2A but not 5-HT7 receptors. When their distribution within the vessel wall was studied in more detail, it was found that capillary endothelial cells exhibited mRNA for the h5-HT1D and for the 5-HT7 receptors whereas microvascular smooth muscle cells, in addition to h5-HT1D and 5-HT7, also showed polymerase chain reaction products for h5-HT1B receptors. Expression of 5-HT1F and 5-HT2A receptor mRNAs was never detected in any of the microvascular cell cultures. In contrast, messages for all 5-HT receptors tested were detected in human brain astrocytes with a predominance of the 5-HT2A and 5-HT7 subtypes. In all cultures, sumatriptan inhibited (35–58%, P < .05) the forskolin-stimulated production of cyclic AMP, an effect blocked by the 5-HT1B/1d receptor antagonists GR127935 and GR55562. In contrast, 5-carboxamidotryptamine induced strong increases (≥ 400%, P < .005) in basal cyclic AMP levels that were abolished by mesulergine, a nonselective 5-HT7 receptor antagonist. Only astroglial cells showed a ketanserin-sensitive increase (177%, P < .05) in IP3 formation when exposed to 5-HT. These results show that specific populations of functional 5-HT receptors are differentially distributed within the various cellular compartments of the human cortical microvascular bed, and that human brain astroglial cells are endowed with multiple 5-HT receptors. These findings emphasize the complex interactions between brain serotonergic pathways and non-neuronal cells within the CNS and, further, they raise the possibility that some of these receptors may be activated by antimigraine compounds such as brain penetrant triptan derivatives.
Application of the q-factor Model to the Japanese Share Market

This paper tests the performance of the q-factor model proposed by Hou et al. (2015) to the Japanese share market. It examines ten years of monthly data for shares listed on both the First section and Second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The results suggest that the q-factor model does not adequately explain returns for shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. For comparison purposes the data sample is applied to the Fama French three-factor model. The results of this analysis suggest that the Fama French three-factor model is more appropriate for the Japanese share market, and it provides evidence of a strong value premium. The factor which correlates to the value factor in the q-factor model was not significant, providing stronger support against the q-factor model as an adequate asset pricing model for Japan.
Assessment of Passenger Satisfaction with Public Bus Transport Services: A Case Study of Lucknow City (India)

Abstract The main aim of this study is threefold. First, it tries to assess the passenger satisfaction with public bus transport services in the city of Lucknow in India. Second, it tries to examine the service quality attributes that influence the passenger satisfaction. Third, it tries to evaluate the relative importance of service quality attributes to find out the priority for service quality improvements to enhance passenger satisfaction. The study is based on a survey of objective as well as subjective questions conducted between May and July 2014. Five major bus stops of Lucknow were selected for the survey. Total 148 respondents were randomly selected to elicit their overall satisfaction and factors that influence their satisfaction in the use of public bus transport services in Lucknow using a self-rated questionnaire. The collected sample of responses is subjected to principal component analysis, a statistical technique for dimensionality reduction of the dataset, and descriptive analysis. The result of theses analyses shows that passengers are mostly dissatisfied with public bus transport services in Lucknow. Using principal component analysis, five underlying factors were extracted that influenced passenger satisfaction with public bus transport services in the city. Out of these five factors, comfort and safety has the greatest impact on overall satisfaction, followed by the adequacy of capacity of public bus transport services, orderly and clean environment inside buses, elegant design of buses and bus stops, and accessibility to public bus transport services in the city. The study thus provides a direction for public bus transport administration in the city to understand the gaps that exist and try to fill them to improve its services so that passenger satisfaction can be enhanced and consequently more people can be attracted towards public bus transport.
Modernity Aspirations: The Struggle of Qatari Male Public High School Students to Become Successful Academically

Modernity Aspirations: The Struggle of Qatari Male Public High School Students to Become Successful Academically Hessa Al-Thani The small Gulf nation of Qatar, despite its vast oil and gas wealth, suffers from a lack of human capital, particularly with respect to deficits in academic outcomes. Despite extensive investment in education, Qataris, and in particular Qatari boys, are still underperforming relative to international standards and relative to its wealth. In this dissertation I explored political, economic, and sociological approaches to investigate factors contributing to the underperformance of male Qatari students. Specifically, I have examined how male Qatari high school students internalize social values and economic and political policies as “signals” that inform and are reflected in their attitudes towards education and learning. I have hypothesized that Qatari male students who perceive the economic entitlement signals, and who perceive wasta (social status) as a venue of success, and who lack civic engagement, will do worse academically. My research focused on Qatari males attending public high schools in Qatar, which are operated by the Ministry of Education, and examined their performance on national standardized tests. To investigate my research question, I conducted a quantitative study using an original survey instrument. The target population included a representative sample of Qatari high school students who were in grades 10, 11, and 12 in the public schools in Qatar. My analysis of the data found mixed results in which economic signals appear to be strongly associated with male academic performance. Furthermore, Qatari high school boys’ perceptions of the value of wasta was correlated with their achievement on test scores. Surprisingly, Qatari high school boys’ perceptions of civic engagement did not appear to associate with Qatari males’ academic underperformance.
Single-Event Effects in Power MOSFETs During Heavy Ion Irradiations Performed After Gamma-Ray Degradation

The robustness of commercial power metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors to combined gamma-heavy ion irradiation has been investigated, evidence that the degradation of the gate oxide caused by the γ irradiation can severely corrupt the robustness to single-event effects and drastically modify the physical behavior of the device under test after the impact of a heavy ion. A decrease of the critical voltages at which destructive burnouts and gate ruptures for heavy ion impact appear, has been detected in the devices under test, which were previously irradiated with γ rays. In addition, the amount of critical voltage reduction is strictly related to the amount of the absorbed γ-ray dose. Furthermore, at the failure voltage, the behavior of the device is affected by the conduction of a current through the gate oxide. Moreover, the single-event gate rupture” of the device appears at lower voltages because of the reduction of the Fowler-Nordheim limit in the γ-irradiated devices.
Measuring Socioeconomic Status/Position in Studies of Racial/Ethnic Disparities: Maternal and Infant Health

Objective. Theoretical and empiric considerations raise concerns about how socioeconomic status/position (abbreviated here as SES) is often measured in health research. The authors aimed to guide the use of two common socioeconomic indicators, education and income, in studies of racial/ethnic disparities in low birthweight, delayed prenatal care, unintended pregnancy, and breastfeeding intention. Methods. Data from a statewide postpartum survey in California (N = 10,055) were linked to birth certificates. Overall and by race/ethnicity, the authors examined: (a) correlations among several measures of education and income; (b) associations between each SES measure and health indicator; and (c) racial/ethnic disparities in the health indicators “adjusting” for different SES measures. Results. Education-income correlations were moderate and varied by race/ethnicity. Racial/ethnic associations with the health indicators varied by SES measure, how SES was specified, and by health indicator. Conclusions. Conclusions about the role of race/ethnicity could vary with how SES is measured. Education is not an acceptable proxy for income in studies of ethnically diverse populations of childbearing women. SES measures generally should be outcome- and population-specific, and chosen on explicit conceptual grounds; researchers should test multiple theoretically appropriate measures and consider how conclusions might vary with how SES is measured. Researchers should recognize the difficulty of measuring SES and interpret findings accordingly.