Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design Principles for Integrating Gamification into Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education: A Mixed Method Study

This study aims to address the issue of low completion and high dropout rates in online and distance learning through play and gamification. The general aim of this study is to provide a set of gamification design principles for researchers and practitioners on how gamification can be used in online and distance learning programs in higher education. More specifically, the study intended to seek the answers whether student participation in the online and distance learning programs can be increased by the use of gamification, how the gamification influences the students’ academic performances in the online and distance learning programs and what learners think about integrating gamification into the open and distance learning programs in higher education. The study was designed as a sequential exploratory research, which is one of the mixed research methods. Findings indicate that integrating gamification into the online and distance learning programs has a significant impact on increasing students' visits to the learning environment. In addition, when the pre-gamification and post-gamification scenarios were compared in terms of students accessing to the content in the online and distance learning environment, it was discovered that there was a statistically significant increase. It can be also said that there is significant difference regarding to academic performances for gamified situations. Lastly, gamification is said to be fun by students and to contribute positively to their motivation. According to this, gamification has a positive effect on learners' e-learning behaviors and should be used more in online and distance learning programs.
Targeting the Subventricular Zone to Promote Myelin Repair in the Aging Brain

The subventricular zone (SVZ) is the largest and most active germinal zone in the adult forebrain. Neural stem cells (NSCs) of the SVZ generate olfactory interneurons throughout life and retain the intrinsic ability to generate oligodendrocytes (OLs), the myelinating cells of the central nervous system. OLs and myelin are targets in demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Remyelination is dependent on the ability of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) to proliferate, migrate, and terminally differentiate into myelinating OLs. During aging, there is a gradual decrease in the regenerative capacity of OPCs, and the consequent loss of OLs and myelin is a contributing factor in cognitive decline and the failure of remyelination in MS and other pathologies with aging contexts, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and stroke. The age-related decrease in oligodendrogenesis has not been fully characterised but is known to reflect changes in intrinsic and environmental factors affecting the ability of OPCs to respond to pro-differentiation stimuli. Notably, SVZ-derived OPCs are an important source of remyelinating OLs in addition to parenchymal OPCs. In this mini-review, we briefly discuss differences between SVZ-derived and parenchymal OPCs in their responses to demyelination and highlight challenges associated with their study in vivo and how they can be targeted for regenerative therapies in the aged brain.
Sex Identification of Feather Color in Geese and the Expression of Melanin in Embryonic Dorsal Skin Feather Follicles

Simple Summary Plumage color is one of the economic characteristics of poultry. The most common plumage colors in adult geese are white and grey, so research on goose plumage color is relatively scarce compared with the molecular basis of research on chicken plumage color inheritance. Nevertheless, whether the formation of a black phenotype on the Holdobaggy geese newborn dorsal plumage color is associated with gender needs further profound study. Our study researched the gender identification of the newborn Holdobaggy geese based on plumage color and the expression levels of relative genes for melanin, which offers a theoretical basis for gender identification. Abstract In production practice, we have found that the gray and black down on the backs of the Holdobaggy goslings is usually darker in females than in males. Melanin is the key pigment affecting the color of poultry plumage. Therefore, to determine whether the darkness of the dorsal plumage of the Holdobaggy goslings is related to sex, we study the melanin in the feather follicles of the dorsal skin during the embryonic period. The feather follicle structure and melanin distribution on the dorsal surface of the goose embryo is observed by HE staining and melanin-specific staining. The melanin content in the feather follicles of the dorsal skin of goslings is determined by ELISA. The results showed that the melanin content is higher in female geese than in males (p < 0.05). In addition, we also analyze the mRNA and protein expression levels of melanin-related genes (TYRP1 and ASIP) by quantitative real-time PCR and Western blotting analysis. The results show that the mRNA expression level of TYRP1 is significantly higher in the females’ dorsal skin feather follicles (p < 0.05), while the mRNA expression level of ASIP is significantly higher in the dorsal skin feather follicles of male geese (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the difference between males and females in the color of the black feathers on the dorsal track of the Holdobaggy goslings is verified, and it is feasible to identify the sex by the initial plumage color.
Process Evaluation of “The Hygienic Family” Intervention: A Community-Based Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Project in Rural Malawi

Process evaluations of environmental health interventions are often under-reported and under-utilized in the development of future programs. The “Hygienic Family” intervention targeted improvements in hygiene behaviors of caregivers with under five-year-old children in rural Malawi. Delivered through a combination of open days, cluster meetings, household visits, and prompts, data were collected from two intervention areas for ten months. A process evaluation framework provided indicators that were measured through intervention implementation and expenditure reports, focus groups discussions, interviews, and household surveys. The collected data assessed the intervention fidelity, dose, reach, acceptability, impact, and cost. Results indicated that all planned hygiene promotion messages were delivered, and study participants were better reached primarily through household visits (78% attended over 75% of the intervention) than cluster meetings (57% attended over 75% of the intervention). However, regression found that the number of household visits or cluster meetings had no discernible effect on the presence of some household hygiene proxy indicators. Intervention implementation cost per household was USD 31.00. The intervention delivery model provided good fidelity, dose, and reach and could be used to strengthen the scope of child health and wellbeing content. The intensive face-to-face method has proven to be effective but would need to be adequately resourced through financial support for community coordinator remuneration.
Do big plant closures lead to big local job losses

This paper analyses the impact of big manufacturing plant closures on local employment. Using data on international plant relocations, we combine matching techniques with a difference-indifference regression to evaluate the employment effects of plant closures in the manufacturing sector. We identify the 45 biggest closures in Spain over the period 2001-2006 and find their counterfactuals using a matching procedure based on employment size and its industry mix. Our results show that, when a plant closes, for each job lost due to the closure, only 0.62 jobs are lost in the affected local industry. This implies that almost 40% of jobs are relocated in firms within the same industry and local area. We also find that these job relocations happen in firms that were in the area before the closure as opposed to new entrants. These results show the ability of the local economy to absorb part of the employment loss. Additionally, we do not find any employment effect of the closures on other manufacturing industries or on services.
Role of Photodynamic Therapy in Non-Surgical Periodontal Treatment

Iran Abstract Background and Aim: This study aimed to provide an overview about the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP) versus SRP alone in non-surgical periodontal therapy. Materials and Methods: Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with a minimum duration of 3 months, evaluating PDT+SRP versus SRP alone in non-surgical periodontal treatment of patients diagnosed with aggressive or chronic periodontitis who had at least 2 teeth with probing depth (PD) ≥4 mm, and in vitro studies evaluating the effect of adjunctive PDT on proliferation or viability of human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) were included. An electronic search of the literature was carried out mainly through PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google scholar for relevant English articles published from January 2011 to January 2021 using the following therapy" “periodontitis" diseases”. Results: Twelve articles were reviewed in this study. Analysis of the clinical attachment level (CAL), PD, gingival index (GI), plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BOP) and microbiological counts of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (A. actinomycetemcomitans) and Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) demonstrated variable outcomes. Five articles revealed significant improvement of clinical parameters in the PDT groups compared with the control group (P<0.05); five studies reported significant improvement of CAL (P<0.05). However, three studies found no significant difference between PDT and control groups in terms of CAL (P>0.05). Conclusion: PDT+SRP could help improve the periodontal parameters, compared with SRP alone. Further studies are required to reach a stronger conclusion regarding the superiority of one over the
Monitoring the Invasive Plant Spartina alterniflora in Jiangsu Coastal Wetland Using MRCNN and Long-Time Series Landsat Data

Jiangsu coastal wetland has the largest area of the invasive plant, Spartina alterniflora (S. alterniflora), in China. S. alterniflora has been present in the wetland for nearly 40 years and poses a substantial threat to the safety of coastal wetland ecosystems. There is an urgent need to control the distribution of S. alterniflora. The biological characteristics of the invasion process of S. alterniflora contribute to its multi-scale distribution. However, the current classification methods do not deal successfully with multi-scale problems, and it is also difficult to perform high-precision land cover classification on multi-temporal remote sensing images. In this study, based on Landsat data from 1990 to 2020, a new deep learning multi-scale residual convolutional neural network (MRCNN) model was developed to identify S. alterniflora. In this method, features at different scales are extracted and concatenated to obtain multi-scale information, and residual connections are introduced to ensure gradient propagation. A multi-year data unified training method was adopted to improve the temporal scalability of the MRCNN. The MRCNN model was able to identify the annual S. alterniflora distribution more accurately, overcame the disadvantage that traditional CNNs can only extract feature information at a single scale, and offered significant advantages in spatial characterization. A thematic map of S. alterniflora distribution was obtained. Since it was introduced in 1982, the distribution of S. alterniflora has expanded to approximately 17,400 ha. In Jiangsu, the expansion process of S. alterniflora over time was divided into three stages: the growth period (1982–1994), the outbreak period (1995–2004), and the plateau period (2005–2020). The spatial expansion direction was mainly parallel and perpendicular to the coastline. The hydrodynamic conditions and tidal flat environment on the coast of Jiangsu Province are suitable for the growth of S. alterniflora. Reclamation of tidal flats is the main factor affecting the expansion of S. alterniflora.
The Perceptions of Students About The Concept of Function / Öğrencilerin Fonksiyon Kavramına İlişkin Algıları

Bu calismanin amaci, dokuzuncu sinif fonksiyon kavramina iliskin algilarini incelemektedir. Kuramsal cerceve olarak ogrencilerin fonksiyon kavramiyla ilgili kavramsal ve islemsel ogrenmeleri temel alinmistir. Calismanin katilimcilari dokuzuncu sinifa devam etmekte olan dort ogrencidir. Bu dort ogrenci, 416 dokuzuncu sinif ogrencisine uygulanan basari testi sonuclarina gore kritik ornekleme yontemi ile secilmistir. Arastirma, nitel arastirma desenlerinden biri olan fenomenolojik bir calismadir. Gorusme sonuclarina gore, bazi ogrencilerin fonksiyon sorularini cozerken, tanim kumesine deger verip deger kumesini bulmak yerine tam tersi bir kavramsal algiya sahip olduklari; ogrencilerin x’in, y’nin fonksiyonu mu y’nin, x’in fonksiyonu mu oldugu ile ilgili kavram karmasasi yasadiklari; verilen baginti grafiklerinin fonksiyon olup olmadiginin incelenmesinde tum ogrencilerin ogretilen ezbere kurala gore sonuca gittikleri; fonksiyon tanimini yaparken, tanim kumesi, deger kumesi ve goruntu kumesi gibi kavramlara deginmedikleri belirlenmistir. Ayrica, fonksiyon kavrami ile ilgili verilen gunluk hayat orneklerinin islevsel gunluk hayat ornekleri ve birebir eslemeye dayali ornekler oldugu, cebirsel gunluk hayat orneklerine ve ezbere/kitap gunluk hayat orneklerine rastlanmadigi belirlenmistir. Anahtar sozcukler: Fonksiyon kavrami, kavramsal ogrenme, islemsel ogrenme.
School engagement in students from a Mapuche intercultural high school: a qualitative study Compromiso escolar en estudiantes de un liceo intercultural mapuche: un estudio cualitativo Engajamento escolar em alunos de uma escola intercultural mapuche: um estudo qualitativo

Several international studies show math learning difficulties for indigenous students. These difficulties have also been seen in the context of Chilean Mapuche intercultural education. This could be related to a lack of school engagement. This study seeks to describe school engagement in Mapuche students. A qualitative study based on phenomenology and ethnography was carried out, which included interviews and class observations of two school subjects: beyentun (Mapuche worldview and spirituality), and mathematics. 10 students from a public school located in the Biobío Region, in Chile, took part in the study. They were in the first two years of high school. The resulting data was analyzed using content analysis. The results show high levels of engagement. However, there are differences between the subjects: students have higher levels of emotional engagement in the beyentun class and higher levels of cognitive engagement in mathematics. Additionally, the results suggest that beyentun classes strongly promote belonging and autonomy needs, while mathematics focuses on competence. These findings are discussed regarding school engagement and intercultural education.
The effect of strength training on estimates of mitochondrial density and distribution throughout muscle ®bres

The purpose of this study was to investigate the eect of strength training (12 weeks, 3 days/week, four lower-body exercises) of young individuals (mean age 23.6 years) on estimates of mitochondrial distribution throughout muscle ®bres. A control group (mean age 21.7 years) was followed simultaneously. Skeletal muscle biopsy samples were obtained from the vastus lateralis, preand post-training. The regional distribution of subsarcolemmal and intermyo®brillar mitochondrial populations was determined using quantitative histochemical staining of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) in type I and II muscle ®bres. Strength training resulted in signi®cant increases of 26% and 28% in the cross-sectional area of type I and II ®bres, respectively (P < 0.05). Overall SDH activity decreased by 13% with strength training (P < 0.05). The decrease in SDH activity with strength training between ®bre types and between subsarcolemmal and intermyo®brillar regions of muscle ®bres was not dierent. Fibre area and SDH activity was unchanged in the control group. We conclude that the muscle hypertrophy associated with strength training results in reduced density of regionally distributed mitochondria, as indicated by the reduction in the activity of SDH.
b-hydroxy-b-methylbutyrate ingestion, Part II: effects on hematology, hepatic and renal function

GALLAGHER, P. M, J. A. CARRITHERS, M. P. GODARD, K. E. SCHULZE, and S. W. TRAPPE. b-hydroxyl-b-methylbutyrate ingestion, Part II: effects on hematology, hepatic and renal function. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. , Vol. 32, No. 12, 2000, pp. 2116–2119. Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of differing amounts of b-hydroxy-b-methylbutyrate (HMB), 0, 36, and 76 mg·kg ·d, on hematology, hepatic and renal function during 8 wk of resistance training. Methods: Thirty-seven, untrained collegiate males and were randomly assigned to one of the three groups, 0, 38, or 76 mg·kg ·d. Resistance training consisted of 10 exercises, performed 3 d·wk -1 for 8 wk at 80% of their 1-repetition maximum. Blood and urine was obtained before training, 48 h after the initial session, 1 wk, 2 wk, 4 wk, and at 8 wk of resistance training. Blood was analyzed for glucose, blood urea nitrogen, hemoglobin, hepatic enzymes, lipid profile, total leukocytes, and individual leukocytes. Urine was analyzed for pH, glucose, and protein excretion.Results:The 38 mg·kg·d group had a greater increase in basophils compared with 0 or 76 mg·kg ·d roups ( P , 0.05). No difference occurred in any other blood and urine measurements. Conclusion: These data indicate that 8 wk of HMB supplementation (#76 mg·kg·d) during resistance training had no adverse affects on hepatic enzyme function, lipid profile, renal function, or the immune system.
Robotic milking of dairy cows: a review Ordenha robotizada de vacas leiteiras: uma revisão

Automatic milking systems (AMS) have aroused worldwide interest recently. The first installation was by the company Lely in a project in the Netherlands (its homeland) in 1992. But nowadays, AMS represents a growing reality due to lobby for labor issues, rising costs, difficulty finding well-trained workers, and/ or difficulty keeping people on farms. This work aimed to present a review of the literature on AMS, beginning with a brief history of the evolution of the technology, showing advantages and limitations of its use, and ultimately giving some suggestions. The understanding of the technical functioning and operational running can help farmers and technicians in decision making on the adoption of the new technology. Besides workforce reduction and labor quality promotion, AMS has potential to improve feed conversion to milk, milk quality (with lower SCC), and cow productivity, as well as providing useful data and parameters for better farm management. Potential limitations include high investment costs, changes in milk composition (solids, free fatty acids), and increased risk of ketosis in cows.
Plasma Leptin and Exercise Recent Findings

The cloning of murine and human obese genes in 1994, and the subsequent identification that the product of the obese gene, leptin, is secreted from adipose tissue, stimulated a tremendous amount of interdisciplinary interest in adipose tissue endocrinology and the potential role of this tissue in the regulation of energy balance. Exercise, with concomitant changes in fuel flux, systemic hormone levels and energy expenditure, may contribute to the regulation of plasma leptin levels and presumably, leptin action. The initial work characterising the leptin-exercise relationship was equivocal. Cross-sectional studies provided some mixed evidence regarding the relationship between aerobic capacity or habitual physical activity and plasma leptin. In contrast, studies on acute bouts of exercise and exercise training interventions have, with few exceptions, suggested that exercise does not alter systemic leptin independent of changes in fat mass. In general, these studies did not carefully control for energy balance, and sampled only a single fasting plasma leptin level. Two recent studies utilising experimental designs in which energy balance was controlled and 24-hour profiles of plasma leptin were determined have provided the most compelling evidence to date of the interaction between exercise, energy balance and systemic leptin in humans. These studies provide a clear explanation for the apparent lack of an acute effect of exercise on systemic leptin and underscore the importance of clearly defining the balance between energy intake and energy expenditure when studying the physiology of leptin. The aim of this brief review is to provide an overview of the interaction between energy expenditure during physical activity and systemic leptin level. Special emphasis will be placed on those studies in which energy intake/balance was carefully controlled. LEADING ARTICLE Sports Med 2001; 31 (8): 583-589 0112-1642/01/0008-0583/$22.00/0 © Adis International Limited. All rights reserved.
Immunohistochemical localization of 3 \ g = b \-hydroxysteroid / \ g = D \ 5-\ g = D \-isomerase , tyrosine hydroxylase and phenylethanolamine N-methyl transferase in adrenal glands of sheep fetuses throughout gestation and in neonates

1 Medical Research Council Group in Fetal and Neonatal Health and Development, Departments of Physiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Western Ontario, Lawson Research Institute, St Joseph's Hospital, 268 Grosvenor St, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department of Anatomy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; and3 Medical Research Council Group in Molecular Endocrinology, CHUL Research Centre, Laval University, Quebec, G1V4G2, Canada