Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does NGO Origin Influence Moral Judgment? A Study of the Attitudes of Algerian Participants Toward Foreign NGOs

Building on previous literature on corporate behavior, we examine the impact of an nongovernmental organization’s (NGO) foreign status on the moral judgment of its actions in a host country. Individuals in Algeria (N = 450) rated the ethicality of analogous ethical and unethical actions of domestic (Algerian) and foreign NGOs (European). For ethical actions, a foreign NGO was considered less positively than a local NGO for two scenarios out of three. For unethical actions, a foreign NGO was judged more severely in one scenario only. These results suggest that foreign status can influence moral judgment in a way that is consistent with liability-of-foreignness effect predictions. A foreign-sounding denomination can put an NGO at a relative disadvantage compared with its domestic counterpart. Consequently, the denomination choice should be carefully examined.
The Injuries of Competitive Irish Dancers

Objectives The purpose of this study was to determine the rate and types of injury in competitive dancers of Irish Dance, establish the injury prevention measures used by dancers, and investigate any relationships between prevention measures and incidence of injury. There are no in depth published studies on injury rates or injury prevention strategies for Irish dance. Methods One hundred and fifty nine Irish dancers who were participants at the North American Irish Dance Championships (July 2-7, 2004) took part in this descriptive epidemiology study. Each participant completed a self administered questionnaire. The subjects were aged from 15 to 24 years (mean: 17.8; SD: 2.9). The number of years dancing ranged from 1 to 20 years (mean: 10.8; SD: 3.8). Results The results showed 79% (n = 125) of dancers had one or more injuries. The ankle (31%, n = 60) and foot (25%, n = 48) were the most frequently injured. Sixty-three percent (n = 121) of the dancers took over 21 days to recover from their injuries. Use of shock absorbent dance shoes significantly reduced the incidence of ankle injury (p < 0.0001). In addition warm up and cool down were associated with a decreased incidence of ankle injury (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.0001 respectively). Conclusions A variety of lower limb and in particular ankle injuries was reported by the competitive Irish dancers in this study. Injury prevention methods for ankle injury such as warm up, cool down, and use of shock absorbing dance shoes were associated with a decreased incidence of injury and warrant further investigation.
The Temporal Focus of Mind-Wandering and Chinese Adolescents’ Well-Being

The relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering (i.e., past-oriented and future-oriented mind-wandering) and well-being are important issues for adolescents, which may have significant implications on their well-being and self-identity development. However, few studies tested the temporal focus of mind-wandering and its emotional consequences in adolescents. In the present study, we conducted two studies using self-reported questionnaires from large sample sets to examine the relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering and hedonic (pleasure attainment) and eudaimonic (meaning pursuing) well-being among Chinese adolescents. Study 1 preliminarily tested the relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering and hedonic well-being among adolescents (n = 1273) suggesting that both past-oriented mind-wandering (PMW) and future-oriented mind-wandering (FMW) were positively correlated with hedonic well-being. Study 2 used a new sample (n = 986) and included another aspect of well-being (i.e., eudaimonic well-being), showing that PMW and FMW were both positively correlated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Moreover, self-reflection mediated the relationships between FMW and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, whereas self-reflection did not act as a mediator in the relationships between PMW and well-being. The present findings indicated that both PMW and FMW are beneficial for Chinese adolescents’ well-being, and emphasized the mediating role of self-reflection in the relationships between FMW and well-being.
Transient transverse stimulated Brillouin scattering with a broad-band pump

The threshold for stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), which can damage optical components and be an energy loss mechanism in high-power pulsed laser systems, can be increased by using a broadband laser or by segmenting the aperture in order to limit the interaction length. A theoretical model of transient broadband SBS is developed. The authors start by considering the case of transient SBS with a monochromatic pump and find the effective interaction length for a pump pulse of a given duration. Using this interaction length, they derive expressions for the threshold intensity and for the window size required to avoid SBS with a pulse of given power and duration. They compute the steady-state gain and threshold intensity as a function of bandwidth for a multimode laser with large mode spacing. >
Stress Fractures in Ballet

Stress fractures are common in young ballet dancers, however the roles of the individual contributing factors are unclear. The goal of this study was to review the etiopathophysiology of stress fractures (affected sites, predisposing factors, clinical identification, and diagnostic tests) with a consideration of lower kinetic chain biomechanics in a population of young females involved in intensive ballet training. A retrospective review of 1,023 medical charts from students enrolled at the National Ballet School, Toronto, Canada over the past 25 years was performed to identify the site, mechanism, and incidence of stress fracture. Stress fractures were reported in 31 (3%) cases. The second metatarsal, fibula, tibia, and lumbar spine were identified as areas vulnerable to stress fracture in this population, each associated with a characteristic biomechanical pattern of activity. In addition, 52% of all stress fractures documented were associated with other orthopaedic conditions such as hallux valgus, pronated feet, a longer second metatarsal, genu valgum, hyper-extension of the knees, and scoliosis. Young, skeletally immature females involved in intensive ballet training are especially susceptible to stress fracture development. A combination of repetitive loading and stressful lower kinetic chain activities, in addition to the influence of co-existing predisposing factors in this population, such as amenorrhea and decreased nutritional intake, all contribute to this condition. Evaluation of the unique repetitive movements inherent to this population will serve to direct preventative measures and provide appropriate rehabilitative strategies for stress fracture management.
Do Volunteers Intend to Become Social Entrepreneurs? The Influence of Pro-Social Behavior on Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

This article examines the influence of pro-social behavior on social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI). Drawing on theory of planned behavior, entrepreneurship, and behavioral psychology literatures, we examine the influence of volunteers’ traits and behavior on SEI. Our research adds two unexplored antecedents to previous studies, volunteers’ altruism, and religion. From a sample of 423 volunteers, our model shows that self-efficacy, perceived social support, opportunity recognition, and altruism, influence volunteers’ SEI, while moral obligation, religion, and empathy were not significant. Thus, without entrepreneurial characteristics such as self-efficacy and opportunity recognition, volunteers are unlikely to engage in social entrepreneurship. Given that altruism can be triggered by contrasting drivers (e.g., self-interest or selflessness), these differences open up a new venue for further studies on volunteers’ traits and SEI. We also suggest that it will be critical to further address the effect of contextual factors on the role of empathy and moral obligation.
The Physiological Development of the Adolescent Dancer

D uring childhood the develop ment of body proportions and size is gradual, with a relatively constant relationship between bone, muscle, and subcutaneous tissue growth. Childhood is a time for improving motor functioning and coordination and perfecting basic movement patterns that were established in early childhood. The start of the adolescent growth spurt generally begins around the age of 12. It is a time of rapid growth and development and, because of this, it is also the time when the movements of a once graceful dancer may seem awkward and uncoordinated. Through an appreciation of the basic physiologic changes that are taking place in the young dancer’s body, dance educators can design a program that accommodates the dancer’s development, a course of instruction that not only helps them improve their technique but also one that may help prevent injury.
Anthropometric Measurements of Young Ballet Dancers

Previous studies have examined the physical characteristics of adolescent and adult ballet dancers, but there is little information in the literature about the child dancer. The purpose of this case control study was to compare body composition, sexual maturity, flexibility, and joint range of motion measurements between child ballet dancers and age-matched, non-dancer controls. Subjects included 43 female dance students from a school affiliated with a nationally known ballet company and 43 female age-matched students from local public schools, ranging in age from eight to thirteen years. Height, weight, and Tanner stages were recorded. Body fat (by bioelectrical impedance analysis), flexibility, and joint range of motion were measured. There were no significant differences between the dancers (D) and non-dancers (ND) in height. Significant differences were found in mass: 30.4 ± 5.5 kg (D) versus 41.6 ± 13.3 kg (ND), p < 0.01; percentage body fat: 13.2% ± 4.8% (D) compared to 20.7% ± 6.7% (ND), p < 0.001; and Tanner stage: 1.442 ± 0.502 (D) versus 1.953 ± 0.754 (ND), p < 0.0004. The dancer group scored significantly higher in four of the six Nicholas” flexibility tests (p < 0.0001) and in 20 out of 24 joint range of motion measurements (p < 0.05). In conclusion, child dancers were significantly leaner, more flexible, and sexually immature when compared to age-matched, non-dancer controls.
A new species of Lethrinops (Cichliformes: Cichlidae) from a Lake Malawi satellite lake, believed to be extinct in the wild

A new species of cichlid fish, Lethrinops chilingali is described from specimens collected from Lake Chilingali, near Nkhotakota, Malawi. It is assigned to the genus Lethrinops based on the form of the lower jaw dental arcade and by the absence of traits diagnostic of the phenotypically similar Ctenopharynx, Taeniolethrinops and Tramitichromis. It also lacks the enlarged cephalic lateral line canal pores found in species of Alticorpus and Aulonocara. The presence of a broken horizontal stripe on the flanks of females and immature/non-territorial males of Lethrinops chilingali distinguishes them from all congeners, including Lethrinops lethrinus, in which the stripe is typically continuous. Lethrinops chilingali also has a relatively shorter snout, shorter lachrymal bone and less ventrally positioned mouth than Lethrinops lethrinus. It appears likely that Lethrinops chilingali is now extinct in the wild, as this narrow endemic species has not been positively recorded in the natural environment since 2009. Breeding populations remain in captivity.
How total mRNA influences cell growth

Experimental observations tracing back to the 1960s imply that ribosome quantities play a prominent role in determining a cell’s growth. Nevertheless, in biologically relevant scenarios, growth can also be influenced by the levels of mRNA and RNA polymerase. Here, we construct a quantitative model of biosynthesis providing testable scenarios for these situations. The model explores a theoretically-motivated regime where RNA polymerases compete for genes and ribosomes for transcripts, and gives general expressions relating growth rate, mRNA concentrations, ribosome and RNA polymerase levels. On general grounds, the model predicts how the fraction of ribosomes in the proteome depends on total mRNA concentration, and inspects an underexplored regime in which the trade-off between transcript levels and ribosome abundances sets the cellular growth rate. In particular, we show that the model predicts and clarifies three important experimental observations, in budding yeast and E. coli bacteria: (i) that the growth-rate cost of unneeded protein expression can be affected by mRNA levels, (ii) that resource optimization leads to decreasing trends in mRNA levels at slow growth, and (iii) that ribosome allocation may increase, stay constant, or decrease, in response to transcription-inhibiting antibiotics. Since the data indicate that a regime of joint limitation may apply in physiological conditions and not only to perturbations, we speculate that this regime is likely self-imposed.
The vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) supports the conduction of vasodilator signals and NO-induced arteriolar dilations in murine arterioles in vivo

VASP is a member of the Enabled/VASP protein family that is involved in cortical actin dynamics and may also contribute to the formation of gap junctions. In vessels, gap junctional coupling allows the transfer of signals along the vessel wall and coordinates vascular behavior. Moreover, VASP is reportedly a mediator of NO-induced inhibition of platelet aggregation. Therefore, we hypothesized that VASP exerts also important physiologic functions in arterioles. We examined the spread of vasodilations enabled by gap junctional coupling in endothelial cells as well as NO-induced arteriolar dilations in VASP-deficient mice by intravital microscopy of the microcirculation in a skeletal muscle in anesthetized mice. Conducted dilations were initiated by brief, locally confined stimulation of the arterioles with acetylcholine. The maximal diameters of the arterioles under study ranged from 30 to 40 μm. Brief stimulation with acetylcholine induced a short dilation at the local site that was also observed at remote, upstream sites without an attenuation of the amplitude up to a distance of 1.2 mm in control animals (wild-type). In contrast, remote dilations were reduced in VASP-deficient mice despite a similar local dilation indicating an impairment of conducted dilations. Superfusion of NOdonors induced a concentration-dependent dilation in wild-type mice. However, these dilations were slightly reduced in VASP-deficient animals. In contrast, dilations induced by the endothelial stimulator acetylcholine were fully preserved in VASP-deficient mice. In summary, this study suggests that VASP exerts critical functions in arteriolar diameter control. It is crucial for the conduction of dilator signals along the endothelial cell layer. The impairment possibly reflects a perturbed formation of gap junctions in the endothelial cell membrane. VASP also participates in the full dilatory potential of NOdonors although the effect of its deficiency is only subtle. In contrast, VASP is not required for dilations initiated by endothelial stimulation which are mediated in the murine microcirculation by an EDH-mechanism.
Age and diet modulate the insulin-sensitizing effects of exercise: a tracer-based oral glucose tolerance test

Diet modulates the development of insulin resistance during aging. This includes tissue-specific alterations in insulin signaling and mitochondrial function, which ultimately affect glucose homeostasis. Exercise stimulates glucose clearance, mitochondrial lipid oxidation and enhances insulin sensitivity. It is not well known how exercise interacts with age and diet in the development of insulin resistance. To investigate this, oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT) with a tracer were conducted in mice ranging from 4 to 21 months of age, fed a low- (LFD) or high-fat diet (HFD), with or without life-long voluntary access to a running wheel (RW). We developed a computational model to derive glucose fluxes, which were commensurate with independent values from steady-state tracer infusions. Both insulin sensitivity indices derived for peripheral tissues and liver (IS-P and IS-L, respectively) were steeply decreased by aging and a HFD. This preceded the age-dependent decline in the mitochondrial capacity to oxidize lipids. In LFD young animals, RW access enhanced the IS-P concomitantly with the muscle β-oxidation capacity. Surprisingly, RW access completely prevented the age-dependent IS-L decrease, but only in LFD animals. This study indicates, therefore, that endurance exercise can improve the age-dependent decline in organ-specific IS mostly in the context of a healthy diet.
Reproductive tactics, birth timing and the trade-off between risk avoidance and foraging in an income breeder

The behavioural trade-off between foraging and risk avoidance is expected to be particularly acute during gestation and lactation, when the energetic demands of reproduction peak. We investigated how female roe deer, an income breeding ungulate, adjust their management of this trade-off during the birth period in terms of foraging activity and habitat use. We showed that activity levels of reproductive females more than doubled immediately following parturition, when energy demand is highest. Moreover, reproductive females increased their use of open habitat during daytime and ranged closer to roads, but slightly further from refuge woodland, compared to non-reproductive females. However, these post-partum modifications in behaviour were particularly pronounced in late-parturient females who adopted a more risk prone tactic, presumably to compensate for the fitness handicap of their late-born offspring. In income breeders, individuals that give birth late may be forced to trade risk avoidance for resource acquisition during peak allocation to reproduction, likely with significant fitness consequences.
The unique neural signature of your trip: Functional connectome fingerprints of subjective psilocybin experience

The emerging neuroscientific frontier of brain fingerprinting has recently established that human functional connectomes (FCs) exhibit fingerprint-like idiosyncratic features, which map onto heterogeneously distributed behavioural traits. Here, we harness brain-fingerprinting tools to extract FC features that predict subjective drug experience induced by the psychedelic psilocybin. Specifically, in neuroimaging data of healthy volunteers under the acute influence of psilocybin or a placebo, we show that, post psilocybin administration, FCs become more idiosyncratic due to greater inter-subject dissimilarity. Moreover, whereas in placebo subjects idiosyncratic features are primarily found in the frontoparietal network, in psilocybin subjects they concentrate in the default-mode network (DMN). Crucially, isolating the latter revealed an FC pattern that predicts subjective psilocybin experience and is characterised by reduced within-DMN and DMN-limbic connectivity, as well as increased connectivity between the DMN and attentional systems. Overall, these results contribute to bridging the gap between psilocybin-mediated effects on brain and behaviour, while demonstrating the value of a brain-fingerprinting approach to pharmacological neuroimaging. Author summary The trending field of brain fingerprinting focuses on characterising fingerprint-like idiosyncratic features of human functional connectomes (FCs), which have been shown to predict heterogeneously distributed behavioural traits. Here, we apply brain-fingerprinting methods to fMRI data from subjects who were administered the psychedelic psilocybin or a placebo. We find that, compared to the placebo condition, subjects under acute psilocybin effects exhibited more idiosyncratic FCs, with idiosyncratic features being largely concentrated in the default-mode network (DMN). Furthermore, we isolated an idiosyncratic FC pattern that predicted reports of subjective psilocybin experiences. This pattern was characterised by altered DMN connectivity, specifically by reduced within-DMN and DMN-limbic connectivity, and increased connectivity between the DMN and attentional systems. This work paves the way for exciting new research harnessing pharmacological brain fingerprinting.
Neural correlates of object-extracted relative clause processing across English and Chinese

Are the brain bases of language comprehension the same across all human languages, or do these bases vary in a way that corresponds to differences in linguistic typology? English and Mandarin Chinese attest such a typological difference in the domain of relative clauses. Using fMRI with English and Chinese participants, who listened to the same translation-equivalent story, we analyzed neuroimages time-aligned to object-extracted relative clauses in both languages. In a GLM analysis of these naturalistic data, comprehension was selectively associated with increased hemodynamic activity in left posterior temporal lobe, angular gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex in both languages. This result suggests the processing of object-extracted relative clauses is subserved by a common collection of brain regions, regardless of typology. However, there were also regions that were activated uniquely in our Chinese participants albeit not to a significantly greater degree. These were in the temporal lobe. These Chinese-specific results could reflect structural ambiguity-resolution work that must be done in Chinese but not English ORCs.
Metacognition in the audiovisual McGurk illusion: perceptual and causal confidence

Almost all decisions in everyday life rely on multiple sensory inputs that can come from common or independent causes. These situations invoke perceptual uncertainty about environmental properties and the signals’ causal structure. Using the audiovisual McGurk illusion this study investigated how observers formed perceptual and causal confidence judgments in multisensory integration tasks under causal uncertainty. Observers were presented with spoken syllables, their corresponding articulatory lip movements, or their congruent and McGurk combinations (e.g. auditory ‘B/P’ with visual ‘G/K’). Observers reported their perceived auditory syllable, the causal structure and confidence for each judgement. Observers were more accurate and confident on congruent than unisensory trials. Their perceptual and causal confidence were tightly related over trials as predicted by the interactive nature of perceptual and causal inference. Further, observers assigned comparable perceptual and causal confidence to veridical ‘G/K’ percepts on audiovisual congruent trials and their causal and perceptual metamers on McGurk trials (i.e. illusory ‘G/K’ percepts). Thus, observers metacognitively evaluate the integrated audiovisual percept with limited access to the conflicting unisensory stimulus components on McGurk trials. Collectively, our results suggest that observers form meaningful perceptual and causal confidence judgments about multisensory scenes that are qualitatively consistent with principles of Bayesian causal inference.