Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Socioeconomic Risk and School Readiness: Longitudinal Mediation Through Children's Social Competence and Executive Function

The association of socioeconomic status with academic readiness and school achievement is well established. However, the specific contributions of cognitive and social aspects of self-regulation, and potential reciprocal relations between them in the prediction of school readiness and early school achievement have not previously been examined. This study examined mediational processes involving children's executive function (EF) skills at 58 months and Grade 1 (G1) and social competence in Kindergarten (K) and G1, as potential pathways by which early-life poverty-related risks influence Grade 2 (G2) math and reading achievement. Data came from the Family Life Project, which is a prospective longitudinal study of 1,292 children and families followed from birth in primarily low-income, non-urban counties in Pennsylvania (PA) and North Carolina (NC). Autoregressive cross-lagged mediation analyses indicated that EF at 58 months through EF at G1 mediated negative associations between cumulative risk exposure and academic skills, with this pathway mediating 36% of the total effect. Furthermore, social competence at K through EF at G1 mediated negative associations between early-life cumulative socioeconomic risk and academic skills, mediating 16% of the total effect. These findings provide evidence that poverty-related risks can influence school readiness and academic achievement via EF. Additionally, these results provide preliminary support for the premise that social competence through EF is a pathway by which cumulative poverty-related risk predicts early academic competence. Our findings are consistent with studies demonstrating developmental associations between EF and social competence. Furthermore, our findings are consistent with prekindergarten programs for children in poverty that emphasize both cognitive and social aspects of self-regulation.
Inferring dynamic topology for decoding spatiotemporal structures in complex heterogeneous networks

Significance Inferring connections forms a critical step toward understanding large and diverse complex networks. To date, reliable and efficient methods for the reconstruction of network topology from measurement data remain a challenge due to the high complexity and nonlinearity of the system dynamics. These obstacles also form a bottleneck for analyzing and controlling the dynamic structures (e.g., synchrony) and collective behavior in such complex networks. The novel contribution of this work is to develop a unified data-driven approach to reliably and efficiently reveal the dynamic topology of complex networks in different scales—from cells to societies. The developed technique provides guidelines for the refinement of experimental designs toward a comprehensive understanding of complex heterogeneous networks. Extracting complex interactions (i.e., dynamic topologies) has been an essential, but difficult, step toward understanding large, complex, and diverse systems including biological, financial, and electrical networks. However, reliable and efficient methods for the recovery or estimation of network topology remain a challenge due to the tremendous scale of emerging systems (e.g., brain and social networks) and the inherent nonlinearity within and between individual units. We develop a unified, data-driven approach to efficiently infer connections of networks (ICON). We apply ICON to determine topology of networks of oscillators with different periodicities, degree nodes, coupling functions, and time scales, arising in silico, and in electrochemistry, neuronal networks, and groups of mice. This method enables the formulation of these large-scale, nonlinear estimation problems as a linear inverse problem that can be solved using parallel computing. Working with data from networks, ICON is robust and versatile enough to reliably reveal full and partial resonance among fast chemical oscillators, coherent circadian rhythms among hundreds of cells, and functional connectivity mediating social synchronization of circadian rhythmicity among mice over weeks.
Distractor Efficiency in an Item Pool for a Statistics Classroom Exam: Assessing Its Relation With Item Cognitive Level Classified According to Bloom’s Taxonomy

Multiple-choice items are one of the most commonly used tools for evaluating students’ knowledge and skills. A key aspect of this type of assessment is the presence of functioning distractors, i.e., incorrect alternatives intended to be plausible for students with lower achievement. To our knowledge, no work has investigated the relationship between distractor performance and the complexity of the cognitive task required to give the correct answer. The aim of this study was to investigate this relation, employing the first three levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (Knowledge, Comprehension, and Application). Specifically, it was hypothesized that items classified into a higher level of Bloom’s classification would show a greater number of functioning distractors. The study involved 174 items administered to a sample of 848 undergraduate psychology students during their statistics exam. Each student received 30 items randomly selected from the 174-item pool. The bivariate results mainly supported the authors’ hypothesis: the highest percentage of functioning distractors was observed among the items classified into the Application category (η2 = 0.024 and Phi = 0.25 for the dichotomized measure). When the analysis controlled for other item features, it lost statistical significance, partly because of the confounding effect of item difficulty.
Metformin Use Associated with Reduced Risk of Dementia in Patients with Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Metformin, a first line antihyperglycemic medication, is an AMPK activator and has been hypothesized to act as a geroprotective agent. Studies on its association with various classifications of age-related cognitive decline have shown mixed results with positive and negative findings. Objective: To synthesize the best available evidence on the association of metformin-use with risk, progression, and severity of dementia. Method: Eligible research investigated the effect of metformin on dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or any measure of cognitive impairment compared to any control group who were not receiving metformin. The initial search resulted in 862 citations from which 14 studies (seven cohort, four cross-sectional, two RCTs, and one case control) were included. Results: Meta-analysis of three studies showed that cognitive impairment was significantly less prevalent in diabetic metformin (Odds ratio = 0.55, 95% CI 0.38 to 0.78), while six studies showed that dementia incidence was also significantly reduced (Hazard ratio = 0.76, 95% CI 0.39 to 0.88). Mini-Mental State Examination scores were not significantly affected by metformin-use, although both RCTs showed that metformin had a neuroprotective effect compared to placebo. Some studies found negative or neutral effects for metformin use by people with diabetes; the potential mechanism of metformin-induced vitamin B12 deficiency is discussed. Conclusions: Metformin should continue to be used as a first line therapy for diabetes in patients at risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. The use of metformin by individuals without diabetes for the prevention of dementia is not supported by the available evidence.
Isolation and Molecular Identification of Lactic Acid Bacteria Using 16s rRNA Genes from Fermented Teff (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)) Dough

Injera is soft fermented baked product, which is commonly prepared from teff (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)) flour and believed to be consumed on daily basis by two-thirds of Ethiopians. As it is a product of naturally fermented dough, the course of fermentation is done by consortia of microorganisms. The study was aimed at isolating and identifying some dominant bacteria from fermenting teff (Eragrostis tef) dough. A total of 97 dough samples were collected from households, microenterprises, and hotels with different fermentation stage from Addis Ababa. The bacterial isolates obtained from the fermenting teff dough samples were selected on the basis of their acid production potentials. A total of 24 purified bacterial isolates were found to be Gram-positive (they are coccus and rod under microscope) and were good acid producers. Genomic DNA of bacterial isolates were extracted using Invisorb® Spin DNA Extraction kit. 16S rRNA of bacterial isolates were amplified using the bacteria universal primers (rD1 and fD1). The amplified product was sequenced at Genewiz, USA. Sequence analysis and comparison with the resources at the database were conducted to identify the isolated microbes into species and strain levels. The bacterial isolates were identified as Lactobacillus paracasei, Lactobacillus brevis, Enterococcus durans, Enterococcus hirae, Enterococcus avium, and Enterococcus faecium. All identified lactic acid bacteria were able to produce acid at 12 h time of incubation. This study has confirmed the presence of different bacterial species in the fermenting teff dough and also supports the involvement of various groups of bacterial species in the course of the fermentation.
Analyzing mobile application usage: generating log files from mobile screen recordings

Logging mobile application usage on smartphones is limited to rather general system events unless one has access to the operating system's or applications' source code. In this paper, we present a method for analyzing mobile application usage in detail by generating log files based on mobile screen output. We are combining long-term log file analysis and short-term screen recording analysis by utilizing existing computer vision and machine learning methods. To validate the log results of our approach and implementation we collect 118 sample screen recordings of phone usage sessions and evaluate the resulting log file manually. Besides that, we explore the performance of our approach with different video quality parameters: frame rate and bit rate. We show that our method provides detailed data about application use and can work with low-quality video under certain circumstances.
A Comparison of the Efficacy of Acupuncture and Hypnotherapy in Patients With Migraine

Abstract This study investigated the effect of acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and pharmacotherapy in migraine treatments among 90 patients. They were divided into 3 groups of 30 persons each. Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 were treated with acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and pharmacotherapy, respectively. Changes in the visual analog scale (VAS) and Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) scores from baseline were monitored. Reductions in the percentages of the VAS and MIDAS scores at the end of the third month were significantly higher in the acupuncture and hypnotherapy groups than those of the pharmacotherapy group (p < .01). Acupuncture and hypnotherapy can be developed as treatment options alone as an equivalent to conventional treatment.
Identification of excitatory-inhibitory links and network topology in large-scale neuronal assemblies from multi-electrode recordings

Functional-effective connectivity and network topology are nowadays key issues for studying brain physiological functions and pathologies. Inferring neuronal connectivity from electrophysiological recordings presents open challenges and unsolved problems. In this work, we present a cross-correlation based method for reliably estimating not only excitatory but also inhibitory links, by analyzing multi-unit spike activity from large-scale neuronal networks. The method is validated by means of realistic simulations of large-scale neuronal populations. New results related to functional connectivity estimation and network topology identification obtained by experimental electrophysiological recordings from high-density and large-scale (i.e., 4096 electrodes) microtransducer arrays coupled to in vitro neural populations are presented. Specifically, we show that: (i) functional inhibitory connections are accurately identified in in vitro cortical networks, providing that a reasonable firing rate and recording length are achieved; (ii) small-world topology, with scale-free and rich-club features are reliably obtained, on condition that a minimum number of active recording sites are available. The method and procedure can be directly extended and applied to in vivo multi-units brain activity recordings.
Experimental field tests of Batesian mimicry in the swallowtail butterfly Papilio polytes

Abstract The swallowtail butterfly Papilio polytes is known for its striking resemblance in wing pattern to the toxic butterfly Pachliopta aristolochiae and is a focal system for the study of mimicry evolution. Papilio polytes females are polymorphic in wing pattern, with mimetic and nonmimetic forms, while males are monomorphic and nonmimetic. Past work invokes selection for mimicry as the driving force behind wing pattern evolution in P. polytes. However, the mimetic relationship between P. polytes and P. aristolochiae is not well understood. In order to test the mimicry hypothesis, we constructed paper replicas of mimetic and nonmimetic P. polytes and P. aristolochiae, placed them in their natural habitat, and measured bird predation on replicas. In initial trials with stationary replicas and plasticine bodies, overall predation was low and we found no differences in predation between replica types. In later trials with replicas mounted on springs and with live mealworms standing in for the butterfly's body, we found less predation on mimetic P. polytes replicas compared to nonmimetic P. polytes replicas, consistent with the predator avoidance benefits of mimicry. While our results are mixed, they generally lend support to the mimicry hypothesis as well as the idea that behavioral differences between the sexes contributed to the evolution of sexually dimorphic mimicry.
Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?

Korenaga and coworkers presented evidence to suggest that the Earth’s mantle was dry and water filled the ocean to twice its present volume 4.3 billion years ago. Carbon dioxide was constantly exhaled during the mafic to ultramafic volcanic activity associated with magmatic plumes that produced the thick, dense, and relatively stable oceanic crust. In that setting, two distinct and major types of sub-marine hydrothermal vents were active: ~400 °C acidic springs, whose effluents bore vast quantities of iron into the ocean, and ~120 °C, highly alkaline, and reduced vents exhaling from the cooler, serpentinizing crust some distance from the heads of the plumes. When encountering the alkaline effluents, the iron from the plume head vents precipitated out, forming mounds likely surrounded by voluminous exhalative deposits similar to the banded iron formations known from the Archean. These mounds and the surrounding sediments, comprised micro or nano-crysts of the variable valence FeII/FeIII oxyhydroxide known as green rust. The precipitation of green rust, along with subsidiary iron sulfides and minor concentrations of nickel, cobalt, and molybdenum in the environment at the alkaline springs, may have established both the key bio-syntonic disequilibria and the means to properly make use of them—the elements needed to effect the essential inanimate-to-animate transitions that launched life. Specifically, in the submarine alkaline vent model for the emergence of life, it is first suggested that the redox-flexible green rust micro- and nano-crysts spontaneously precipitated to form barriers to the complete mixing of carbonic ocean and alkaline hydrothermal fluids. These barriers created and maintained steep ionic disequilibria. Second, the hydrous interlayers of green rust acted as engines that were powered by those ionic disequilibria and drove essential endergonic reactions. There, aided by sulfides and trace elements acting as catalytic promoters and electron transfer agents, nitrate could be reduced to ammonia and carbon dioxide to formate, while methane may have been oxidized to methyl and formyl groups. Acetate and higher carboxylic acids could then have been produced from these C1 molecules and aminated to amino acids, and thence oligomerized to offer peptide nests to phosphate and iron sulfides, and secreted to form primitive amyloid-bounded structures, leading conceivably to protocells.
New insights into leaf and fine‐root trait relationships: implications of resource acquisition among 23 xerophytic woody species

Abstract Functional traits of leaves and fine root vary broadly among different species, but little is known about how these interspecific variations are coordinated between the two organs. This study aims to determine the interspecific relationships between corresponding leaf and fine‐root traits to better understand plant strategies of resource acquisition. SLA (Specific leaf area), SRL (specific root length), mass‐based N (nitrogen) and P (phosphorus) concentrations of leaves and fine roots, root system, and plant sizes were measured in 23 woody species grown together in a common garden setting. SLA and SRL exhibited a strong negative relationship. There were no significant relationships between corresponding leaf and fine‐root nutrient concentrations. The interspecific variations in plant height and biomass were tightly correlated with root system size characteristics, including root depth and total root length. These results demonstrate a coordinated plant size‐dependent variation between shoots and roots, but for efficiency, plant resource acquisition appears to be uncoupled between the leaves and fine roots. The different patterns of leaf and fine‐root traits suggest different strategies for resource acquisition between the two organs. This provides insights into the linkage between above‐ and belowground subsystems in carbon and nutrient economy.
Exploring the Role of Fallopian Ciliated Cells in the Pathogenesis of High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer

High-grade serous epithelial ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women and the first among gynecological malignancies. Despite an initial response to standard chemotherapy, most HGSOC patients relapse. To improve treatment options, we must continue investigating tumor biology. Tumor characteristics (e.g., risk factors and epidemiology) are valuable clues to accomplish this task. The two most frequent risk factors for HGSOC are the lifetime number of ovulations, which is associated with increased oxidative stress in the pelvic area caused by ovulation fluid, and a positive family history due to genetic factors. In the attempt to identify novel genetic factors (i.e., genes) associated with HGSOC, we observed that several genes in linkage with HGSOC are expressed in the ciliated cells of the fallopian tube. This finding made us hypothesize that ciliated cells, despite not being the cell of origin for HGSOC, may take part in HGSOC tumor initiation. Specifically, malfunction of the ciliary beat impairs the laminar fluid flow above the fallopian tube epithelia, thus likely reducing the clearance of oxidative stress caused by follicular fluid. Herein, we review the up-to-date findings dealing with HGSOC predisposition with the hypothesis that fallopian ciliated cells take part in HGSOC onset. Finally, we review the up-to-date literature concerning genes that are located in genomic loci associated with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) predisposition that are expressed by the fallopian ciliated cells.
Evolution and biogeography of the endemic Roucela complex (Campanulaceae: Campanula) in the Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract At the intersection of geological activity, climatic fluctuations, and human pressure, the Mediterranean Basin – a hotspot of biodiversity – provides an ideal setting for studying endemism, evolution, and biogeography. Here, we focus on the Roucela complex (Campanula subgenus Roucela), a group of 13 bellflower species found primarily in the eastern Mediterranean Basin. Plastid and low‐copy nuclear markers were employed to reconstruct evolutionary relationships and estimate divergence times within the Roucela complex using both concatenation and species tree analyses. Niche modeling, ancestral range estimation, and diversification analyses were conducted to provide further insights into patterns of endemism and diversification through time. Diversification of the Roucela clade appears to have been primarily the result of vicariance driven by the breakup of an ancient landmass. We found geologic events such as the formation of the mid‐Aegean trench and the Messinian Salinity Crisis to be historically important in the evolutionary history of this group. Contrary to numerous past studies, the onset of the Mediterranean climate has not promoted diversification in the Roucela complex and, in fact, may be negatively affecting these species. This study highlights the diversity and complexity of historical processes driving plant evolution in the Mediterranean Basin.
Web portal design guidelines as identified by children through the processes of design and evaluation

The Web is an important source of information for school projects, but young users do not always find it easy to locate relevant material. A critical factor in success is the portal through which they search or browse web content. Traditionally web portals have been designed by adults with young users in mind, but there is very little evidence that the latter make use of them. In this paper design guidelines are elaborated for such portals that are based upon focus group and operational evaluations by elementary school students of two prototype web portals designed by two intergenerational teams, each comprising elementary school students and adult designers. The evaluations offer strong support for involving children throughout the design process for portals that both in presentation and functionality reflect the cognitive and affective needs of young users rather than adults.
Assessing the Quality of the Management of Tonsillitis among Australian Children: A Population-Based Sample Survey

Objective The aims of this study were twofold: (1) to design and validate a set of clinical indicators of appropriate care for tonsillitis and (2) to measure the level of tonsillitis care that is in line with guideline recommendations in a sample of Australian children. Study Design A set of tonsillitis care indicators was developed from available national and international guidelines and validated in 4 stages. This research used the same design as the CareTrack Kids study, which was described in detail elsewhere. Setting Samples of patient records from general practices, emergency departments, and hospital admissions were assessed. Subjects and Methods Patient records of children aged 0 to 15 years were assessed for the presence of, and adherence to, the indicators for care delivered in 2012 and 2013. Results Eleven indicators were developed. The records of 821 children (mean age, 5.0 years; SD, 4.0) with tonsillitis were screened. The reviewers conducted 2354 eligible indicator assessments across 1127 visits. Adherence to 6 indicators could be assessed and ranged from 14.3% to 73.2% (interquartile range 31.5% to 72.2%). Conclusion Our main findings are consistent with the international literature: the treatment of many children who present with confirmed or suspected tonsillitis is inconsistent with current guidelines. Future research should consider how the indicators could be applied in a structured and automated manner to increase the reliability and efficiency of record reviews and help raise clinicians’ awareness of appropriate tonsillitis management.