Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pre-service teachers' interests and dispositions towards involvement in a physical education teacher education programme

Investigating the reasons for pre-service teachers (PSTs) choosing to undertake a PETE programme can inform teacher educators on how best to define teaching tasks, organise knowledge relevant to student learning and shape PSTs’ perceptions about teaching and learning (Calderhead, 1996). In this study Lortie’s (1975) attractors and facilitators to the teaching profession frame the examination of PSTs’ motivation to enrol on a physical education teacher education (PETE) programme. The aim of the research is to examine the interests and dispositions that motivate PSTs to enrol in a PETE programme offered by an Irish university, acknowledging that little is known about candidates who enter teacher education in the Republic of Ireland (Clarke 2009). PSTs’ current conceptions of the physical education field and the changing perceptions attributed to their subsequent experiences and opportunities of the programme are also identified. It is anticipated that the research will enhance the educational experiences of PSTs by investigating the social construction of educational discourse in and around the subject of physical education. The participants in the study were first year PSTs who were enrolled in a PETE programme at the university were the study took place. Data was collected from PSTs through surveys, interviews, a teaching scenario, revisited interviews on the scenario and a timeline. The surveys, teaching scenario and timeline were completed by the PST cohort as they began their first year of the PETE programme. Survey data was collected from 357 PSTs across five cohorts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of ten PSTs at the beginning of the first semester of first year and at the end of their second semester of their first year. Scenario interviews were conducted with the same sub sample of PSTs at the end of the first semester. The same sub sample of PST’s were used for the three interviews. While the initial interview examined attractors to teaching, the scenario interview refocused PSTs on the teaching scenario which PSTs had completed at the start of the year. Scenarios are short descriptions of situations that are usually shown to respondents followed by questions to elicit individual responses to these situations (De Vaus 1996). The scenarios and secnario interviews established any changes in the PSTs’ views towards how they would envisage responding to a particular teaching scenario and encouraged exploration of reasons for such changes occurring. The final interview was structured to address gaps that had arisen between the research findings and the literature and to revisit the reliability of the survey data and the initial interviews. The findings from the initial and final interviews and the timelines found that ‘significant others’ were frequently recorded as influencing PSTs’ choice of
Evaluating weighting schemes for adult image detection using bag of visual words

As a growing number of minors are exposed to pornographic multimedia, the need to prevent inappropriate access to this has increased. Adult image detection i s a n important technology for this purpose, and several algorithms have been proposed. However, the simple methods such as analyzing skin regions or global histogram suffer from low classification accuracy. Recent advances in adult image detection used bag of visual words approach and showed promising result. In this paper, we experiment with several weighting schemes for visual words histogram construction and show that classification accuracy can be increased.
Developing Scientists Into Leaders: The Role of Shared Leadership Development and Engagement in an R&D Organization Undergoing Change

Organizations may face a number of challenges in the current economy. In particular, the environment is rapidly changing and knowledge intensive firms must motivate autonomous professional workers toward organizational goals. This thesis therefore investigates the role of shared leadership as a means to address some of these challenges. However, shifting to a shared model of leadership fundamentally requires the development of knowledge, skills and abilities to effectively share influence. Thus, this study sought to investigate whether a shared Leadership Development Program (LDP) impacts on employee engagement, and whether this affects organizational change efforts. It probed these relationships through the single case of a Research and Development (R&D) organization forced to undergo a change in response to changes in the external environment and an internal organizational crisis. Results showed that in conjunction with conditions for shared leadership, developing a multi-level leader identity was an effective means to develop shared leadership skills that were tied to the organizations goals. However, shared leadership conflicted with existing organization structures and was limited by an effective group size. Nonetheless, the LDP provided antecedents to engagement by; increasing personal resources, establishing meaningful identities, providing valuable job characteristics and was symbolic of organizational support. Job crafting and social exchange theory offered an explanation of how these antecedents contributed to greater levels of work and organizational engagement. Interestingly, engagement appeared to be a process of inter-relating components, with the final state of engagement fluctuating over time and in some cases increasing relative to a baseline level. Once engaged, these individuals went on to spread their engagement to colleagues, encouraging them to support the new direction. Furthermore, the future leaders initiated projects that generated additional revenue and new customer bases, which suggests that the LDP played a role in the organizations financial turnaround – although this was not conclusively proven. This study therefore provides evidence that organizational transformations may be more effective if shared leadership is developed. This can lift engagement in a core group of staff, who can garner the support of their colleagues, and increase overall engagement with the organization. Further research is required to generalize these findings beyond a single case and more accurately quantify the relationship between shared leadership development, engagement and organizational transformation.
Intra-subunit and Inter-subunit Electron Transfer in Neuronal Nitric-oxide Synthase

In neuronal nitric-oxide synthase (nNOS), calmodulin (CaM) binding is thought to trigger electron transfer from the reductase domain to the heme domain, which is essential for O2 activation and NO formation. To elucidate the electron-transfer mechanism, we characterized a series of heterodimers consisting of one full-length nNOS subunit and one oxygenase-domain subunit. The results support an inter-subunit electron-transfer mechanism for the wild type nNOS, in that electrons for catalysis transfer in a Ca2+/CaM-dependent way from the reductase domain of one subunit to the heme of the other subunit, as proposed for inducible NOS. This suggests that the two different isoforms form similar dimeric complexes. In a series of heterodimers containing a Ca2+/CaM-insensitive mutant (delta40), electrons transferred from the reductase domain to both hemes in a Ca2+/CaM-independent way. Thus, in the delta40 mutant electron transfer from the reductase domains to the heme domains can occur via both inter-subunit and intra-subunit mechanisms. However, NO formation activity was exclusively linked to inter-subunit electron transfer and was observed only in the presence of Ca2+/CaM. This suggests that the mechanism of activation of nNOS by CaM is not solely dependent on the activation of electron transfer to the nNOS hemes but may involve additional structural factors linked to the catalytic action of the heme domain.
Pregnancy outcomes among active and sedentary primiparous women.

OBJECTIVE To describe the relationship between exercise during the last trimester of pregnancy and physiologic outcomes of mothers and newborns to determine whether differences exist between active and sedentary exercise patterns on these variables. DESIGN Nonexperimental, descriptive. SETTING Physicians' offices, Lamaze classes, and hospitals. PARTICIPANTS One hundred one primiparous women (48 sedentary and 53 active), 20-30 years of age, with no medical complications, whose length of gestation was at least 32 weeks. OUTCOME MEASURES Weight gain, weeks of gestation, length of labor, common discomforts of pregnancy, occurrence of cesarean section, birth weight, and Apgar scores. RESULTS Brisk walking was the preferred physical activity among 47% of the participants. Regular, active exercise had no significant effect on maternal weight gain or neonate birth weight. Twenty-five percent of the women in the active exercise group reported five or fewer discomforts compared with 6% of the women in the sedentary group (X2 = 7.45, p < 0.01). For the discomforts of swelling, leg cramps, fatigue, and shortness of breath, 44% of the women in the active group reported having only one or two of them, compared with 21% of the women in the sedentary group (X2 = 6.15, p = 0.01). CONCLUSION Women who engaged in active exercise during the last trimester of pregnancy had fewer of the common discomforts associated with pregnancy.
Target Apps Selection: Towards a Unified Search Framework for Mobile Devices

With the recent growth of conversational systems and intelligent assistants such as Apple Siri and Google Assistant, mobile devices are becoming even more pervasive in our lives. As a consequence, users are getting engaged with the mobile apps and frequently search for an information need in their apps. However, users cannot search within their apps through their intelligent assistants. This requires a unified mobile search framework that identifies the target app(s) for the user's query, submits the query to the app(s), and presents the results to the user. In this paper, we take the first step forward towards developing unified mobile search. In more detail, we introduce and study the task of target apps selection, which has various potential real-world applications. To this aim, we analyze attributes of search queries as well as user behaviors, while searching with different mobile apps. The analyses are done based on thousands of queries that we collected through crowdsourcing. We finally study the performance of state-of-the-art retrieval models for this task and propose two simple yet effective neural models that significantly outperform the baselines. Our neural approaches are based on learning high-dimensional representations for mobile apps. Our analyses and experiments suggest specific future directions in this research area.
Presynaptic glutamate levels in tonic and phasic motor axons correlate with properties of synaptic release

Synaptic glutamate release involves the accumulation of cytoplasmic glutamate in synaptic vesicles, whereafter it is released by triggered exocytosis. As glutamatergic terminals are known to be functionally diverse it was of interest to examine whether the presynaptic glutamate supply differs between individual axon terminals with distinct release properties. The glutamatergic terminals in the crustacean neuromuscular system system comprise a “phasic” type which shows fatigue of release during repetitive stimulation, and a “tonic” type which can maintain transmission for long periods. Quantitative immunogold analysis showed that the axons in a tonic nerve innervating slow muscles in the abdomen contained two times higher levels of glutamate labeling over axoplasmic matrix and over mitochondria, as compared to the corresponding elements in a phasic nerve. Similar results were obtained when adjacent phasic and tonic axons in a mixed nerve innervating leg muscles were compared. In the terminal regions of tonic and phasic axons the glutamate labeling differed correspondingly over axoplasmic matrix and mitochondria, while the synaptic vesicles showed a similar strong accumulation of labeling in both types of terminal. The level of labeling for glutamine, a glutamate precursor, was closely similar in phasic and tonic axons. The axoplasmic glutamate concentration was estimated to be in the low millimolar range, through comparison with coprocessed conjugates with known glutamate concentration. These results show that fatigue-resistant tonic axons and terminals contain higher levels of glutamate than fatiguable phasic axons, presumably representing an adaptation to the markedly different impulse activities in the two types of neuron. The axonal glutamate concentrations are in the range of the Km value for vesicular glutamate transport. Thus in tonic axons the high glutamate level appears to promote an efficient refilling of synaptic vesicles during sustained release, while in phasic axons the refilling should be slower which is compatible with an infrequent release.
Farmer‐buyer relationships in China: the effects of contracts, trust and market environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is first, to develop constructs to measure three important concepts in the supply chain literature: contracts, trust and market environment, in the Chinese context and to further investigate the relationships amongst these three concepts based on the formulated hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology has strictly followed the recommended scale development procedures, which include specifying each constructs, item generation, data collection, reliability and validity test, and finally test hypothesis. The primary data were collected in October 2008 in Hubei Province, China. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are applied to assess the reliability and validity of the three constructs. Findings – In total, 22 items were retained to measure six dimensions for the three core concepts: contract (marketing and production), trust (reliability and benevolence), and market environments (diversity and volatility). Second, the finding supported this argument that contracts and trust functions as complements. Furthermore, a positive relationship between environmental uncertainty and the use of contractual governance was found. Research limitations/implications – The measurement model for environmental volatility is less satisfied. More research should be carried out on the measurement of market environment in the future. Originality/value – This paper identifies and validates key constructs underlying supply chain management research: contract, trust and market environment, in a Chinese context. These measurable concepts could be applied in similar settings to further investigate small-scale farmer's position along the supply chain.
A Genetic Algorithms Approach to Non-coding RNA Gene Searches

A genetic algorithm is proposed as an alternative to the traditional linear programming method for scoring covariance models in non-coding RNA (ncRNA) gene searches. The standard method is guaranteed to find the best score, but it is too slow for general use. The observation that most of the search space investigated by the linear programming method does not even remotely resemble any observed sequence in real sequence data can be used to motivate the use of genetic algorithms (GAs) to quickly reject regions of the search space. A search space with many local minima makes gradient decent an unattractive alternative. It is shown that a fixed-length representation for alignment of two sequences taken from the protein threading literature can be adapted for use with covariance models
Land cover classification at a regional scale in Iberia: separability in a multi-temporal and multi-spectral data set of satellite images

Earth observation at regional scales, such as of the Iberian Peninsula or Mediterranean Basin, is an important tool to understand the relationships between climate and surface properties. Among the different layers of information that can be derived from satellite imagery, land cover maps are important by themselves and as an aid to infer other variables. Land cover legends at regional scales require finer categories than those used at a global scale, which implies processing multi-spectral imagery acquired by Earth observing systems with daily acquisition rates. In this article we discuss several alternatives to analyse satellite image datasets that are both multi-temporal and multi-spectral, with spatial resolution of 1 km2. In order to facilitate the interpretation of our results, we restrict our analysis to pixels that correspond to cells with a uniform and known cover on the ground, as described by a detailed vegetation map, in Catalonia (NE Spain). Our results indicate that canonical redundancy analysis is efficient at reducing the multi-spectral and multi-temporal space while keeping high statistical separability among habitat types. The small fraction of uniform pixels (∼2%) suggests that, at least for the Mediterranean Region, data fusion techniques would be convenient to increase spatial resolution in the dataset, and that instruments keeping daily acquisition rates but with higher spatial resolution (∼1 ha) should be considered.
Isolation of Genetically Indistinguishable Carbapenem-Resistant and -Susceptible Acinetobacter baumannii Isolates from a Single Patient

The efficacy of carbapenems has been threatened by the increasing frequency of carbapenem-resistant bacteria. Acinetobacter baumannii carrying the bla OXA-23 carbapenemase gene has spread worldwide ([1][1]). We isolated carbapenem-resistant and then -susceptible A. baumannii from the sputum of a 74-
Labour Force Participation and Earnings of Women University Graduates in Greece: a Two‐step Analysis

Labour force participation and earnings functions of married and single women graduates of economics and business administration in Greece were fitted using probit and OLS analysis respectively. The probability to participate in the labour force for married women was found to be affected positively by the magnitude of their work experience and training and negatively by age, husband′s earnings, number of children and their own non‐wage income. In the case of single women, the factors that were found to exercise a significant impact on their participation were their work experience and non‐wage income. Regarding the earnings function, the main factors that were significant for both single and married women were the amount of training, the work experience and the years of residence in the same town. On the basis of the results of the study certain conclusions are drawn regarding policy issues.
Illness characteristics and their association with prescription patterns for bipolar I disorder.

INTRODUCTION The present study explores the relationships among psychotropic medications, illness-related parameters, patient demography, suicidality, and levels of functioning in a voluntary bipolar case registry. METHODS Four hundred and fifty-seven subjects with bipolar I disorder were selected from a voluntary registry for subjects with bipolar illness. Demographic characteristics, psychotropic medications, age at onset of illness, duration of illness, number of hospitalizations, the ability to live independently, employment and driving status as well as the history of suicidal attempts were obtained through a structured phone interview. RESULTS Subjects treated with antidepressants had a shorter duration of illness, while patients treated with antipsychotic drugs had an earlier onset of illness. The number of hospitalizations for mania was fewer among patients taking a combination of lithium and carbamazepine as compared to patients not receiving them, while subjects taking neuroleptics had more hospitalizations as compared to subjects not receiving them. The number of psychotropic agents prescribed correlated positively with the number of hospitalizations for depressive episodes. Curiously, no correlations were found between the types of psychotropic agents prescribed and the levels of functioning or a history of suicidal attempts. Interestingly, our results suggest that more than half of the subjects were unable to live independently or to work due to their illness. Also, more than 50% of the subjects had at least one suicidal attempt, the majority occurred during depressive episodes. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that subjects with bipolar I disorder have high rate of suicidal attempts and may have serious functional impairments.
Clinically Relevant microRNAs in Ovarian Cancer

microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) belong to a class of small noncoding RNAs that can negatively regulate messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of target genes. miRNAs are involved in multiple aspects of ovarian cancer cell dysfunction and the phenotype of ovarian cancer cells can be modified by targeting miRNA expression. miRNA profiling has detected a number of candidate miRNAs with the potential to regulate many important biologic functions in ovarian cancer, but their role still needs to be clarified, given the remarkable heterogeneity among ovarian cancers and the context-dependent role of miRNAs. This review summarizes the data collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and several other genome-wide projects to identify dysregulated miRNAs in ovarian cancers. Copy number variations (CNVs), epigenetic alterations, and oncogenic mutations are also discussed that affect miRNA levels in ovarian disease. Emphasis is given to the role of particular miRNAs in altering expression of genes in human ovarian cancers with the potential to provide diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic targets. Particular attention has been given to TP53, BRCA1/2, CA125 (MUC16), HE4 (WFDC2), and imprinted genes such as ARHI (DIRAS3). A better understanding of the abnormalities in miRNA expression and downstream transcriptional and biologic consequences will provide leads for more effective biomarkers and translational approaches in the management of ovarian cancer. Mol Cancer Res; 13(3); 393–401. ©2014 AACR.
Gene Expression Patterns in Mismatch Repair-Deficient Colorectal Cancers Highlight the Potential Therapeutic Role of Inhibitors of the Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase-AKT-Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Pathway

Purpose: High-frequency microsatellite-instable (MSI-H) tumors account for ∼15% of colorectal cancers. Therapeutic decisions for colorectal cancer are empirically based and currently do not emphasize molecular subclassification despite an increasing collection of gene expression information. Our objective was to identify low molecular weight compounds with preferential activity against MSI colorectal cancers using combined gene expression data sets. Experimental Design: Three expression/query signatures (discovery data set) characterizing MSI-H colorectal cancer were matched with information derived from changes induced in cell lines by 164 compounds using the systems biology tool “Connectivity Map. ” A series of sequential filtering and ranking algorithms were used to select the candidate compounds. Compounds were validated using two additional expression/query signatures (validation data set). Cytotoxic, cell cycle, and apoptosis effects of validated compounds were evaluated in a panel of cell lines. Results: Fourteen of the 164 compounds were validated as targeting MSI-H cell lines using the bioinformatics approach; rapamycin, LY-294002, 17-(allylamino)-17-demethoxygeldanamycin, and trichostatin A were the most robust candidate compounds. In vitro results showed that MSI-H cell lines due to hypermethylation of MLH1 are preferentially targeted by rapamycin (18.3 versus 4.4 μmol/L; P = 0.0824) and LY-294002 (15.02 versus 10.37 μmol/L; P = 0.0385) when compared with microsatellite-stable cells. Preferential activity was also observed in MSH2 and MSH6 mutant cells. Conclusion: Our study shows that the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-AKT-mammalian target of rapamycin pathway is of special relevance in mismatch repair-deficient colorectal cancer. In addition, we show that amalgamation of gene expression information across studies provides a robust approach for selection of potential therapies corresponding to specific groups of patients.