Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lentiviral vectors containing an enhancer-less ubiquitously acting chromatin opening element (UCOE) provide highly reproducible and stable transgene expression in hematopoietic cells

Ubiquitously acting chromatin opening elements (UCOEs) consist of methylation-free CpG islands encompassing dual divergently transcribed promoters of housekeeping genes that have been shown to confer resistance to transcriptional silencing and to produce consistent and stable transgene expression in tissue culture systems. To develop improved strategies for hematopoietic cell gene therapy, we have assessed the potential of the novel human HNRPA2B1-CBX3 UCOE (A2UCOE) within the context of a self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vector. Unlike viral promoters, the enhancer-less A2UCOE gave rise to populations of cells that expressed a reporter transgene at a highly reproducible level. The efficiency of expression per vector genome was also markedly increased in vivo compared with vectors incorporating either spleen focus-forming virus (SFFV) or cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoters, suggesting a relative resistance to silencing. Furthermore, an A2UCOE-IL2RG vector fully restored the IL-2 signaling pathway within IL2RG-deficient human cells in vitro and successfully rescued the X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1) phenotype in a mouse model of this disease. These data indicate that the A2UCOE displays highly reliable transcriptional activity within a lentiviral vector, largely overcoming insertion-site position effects and giving rise to therapeutically relevant levels of gene expression. These properties are achieved in the absence of classic enhancer activity and therefore may confer a high safety profile.
Sex differences in the functional neuroanatomy of working memory in adults with ADHD.

OBJECTIVE Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults is associated with significant morbidity and dysfunction and afflicts both sexes, relatively few imaging studies have examined female subjects and none have had sufficient power to adequately examine sex differences. The authors examined sex differences in the neural functioning of adults with ADHD during performance of a verbal working memory task. METHOD The participants were 44 adults with ADHD matched on age, sex, and estimated IQ to 49 comparison subjects. Accuracy and reaction time on an N-back task were measured to assess working memory. The blood-oxygen-level-dependent functional MRI response was used as a measure of neural activity. RESULTS A group-by-sex analysis of variance showed no between-group differences in either reaction time or percent correct for the working memory task. For both sexes combined, the adults with ADHD showed less activity than comparison subjects in prefrontal regions. However, sex-by-group analyses revealed an interaction, such that male ADHD subjects showed significantly less activity in right frontal, temporal, and subcortical regions and left occipital and cerebellar regions relative to male comparison subjects, whereas female ADHD subjects showed no differences from female comparison subjects. Exploratory correlation analyses revealed negative associations between working-memory-related activation and number of hyperactive symptoms for men and number of inattentive symptoms for women. CONCLUSIONS Male but not female adults with ADHD showed significantly altered patterns of neural activity during a verbal working memory task. Men and women showed different associations between neural activity and ADHD symptoms.
Reducing the Literacy Demands of Training Materials as One Means of Increasing Learning in Low-Ability Personnel.

The study was performed to determine if modifying a correspondence course through the simplification of materials, the inclusion of more illustrations, and the addition of audio supplementation could improve it as a training device to teach basic job information, especially to students possessing low verbal skills. High, middle, and low aptitude personnel studied three versions of the correspondence course. In brief, the versions included a conventional course, a less verbal course with more illustrations, and the less verbal illustrated course accompanied by a tape recording of information complementary to that contained in the written version of the course. Analyses revealed that the modified course with audio supplementation did produce significantly increased learning scores, with the greatest gains experienced by the low-ability students.
Korean immigrants’ viewing patterns of Korean satellite television and its role in their lives

This research is based on in-depth interviews with 10 Korean immigrants who watch Korean satellite television. The paper analyzed their program preferences, viewing time, and the extent of satisfaction in relation to their demographic characteristics. It also examined the role of satellite television in Korean immigrants’ lives. The results showed that Korean satellite television contributed much to the reinforcement of the viewers’ ethnic identity. In addition, satellite television replaced other Korean ethnic media due to its real time news delivery.
Exploiting locality of demand to improve the performance of wireless data broadcasting

With the increasing popularity of wireless networks and mobile computing, data broadcasting has emerged as an efficient way of delivering data to mobile clients having a high degree of commonality in their demand patterns. In many applications, clients are grouped into several groups, each one located in a different region, with the members of each group having similar demands. In fixed-bit-rate wireless broadcast systems, transmission power is set at such a level that guarantees the necessary level of received energy per bit for all clients in the service area so that they can operate under a predefined bit error rate level. However, as in wireless cellular environments, the path loss of wireless signals is typically inverse to the fourth power of the transmitter/receiver distance, there exists an increasing redundancy in the level of received energy per bit for decreasing distances from the server's antenna. This paper proposes a mechanism that exploits locality of demand in order to increase the performance of wireless data dissemination systems. Specifically, it trades the received energy per bit redundancy at distances smaller than the radius of the service area for an increased bit rate for transmission of items demanded by clients at such distances. This results in an increased transmission speed for many items. The bit rate for an item transmission is dynamically determined from the distance between the server's antenna to the group of clients that demand this item. Knowledge of clients' positions is conveyed to the server via a simple feedback from the clients. Simulation results that reveal significant performance improvement over fixed-bit-rate broadcasting in environments characterized by locality of client demands are presented
Increasing Older Adults’ Use of Positive Reappraisal Coping for Chronic Physical Illness

Positive reappraisal, a cognitive emotion regulation strategy of identifying personally relevant positive meaning following a stressor, has been demonstrated to be particularly relevant for older adults. However, research has not examined whether this strategy can be taught to older adults to facilitate coping. We examined whether we could increase chronically ill older adults’ use of positive reappraisal and whether it was associated with increased positive emotion and reduced distress. Twenty-six community-dwelling older adults with a current medically diagnosed chronic physical illness perceived to be at least moderately stressful were taught to use positive reappraisal. Participants reported increased positive reappraisal use and emotional well-being, indicating that positive reappraisal can be taught to chronically ill older adults to facilitate coping.
The Status of American Rural Education Research: An Integrated Review and Commentary

The history of American education has been primarily an urban history. School reform movements of the mid-19th century were targeted at the particular problems brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Early 20th-century school administrators, and later progressive educators, defined the majority of America’s educational problems in terms of school-based occupational and community living skills that city dwellers needed in modern America. Finally, school reforms of the 1950s–80s have been targeted primarily at such concerns as the plight of minorities in inner cities, national defense needs, and now occupational skills necessary to compete internationally. Such reforms have had the net effect of continuing the century-long bias of much educational policy, scholarship, and research toward urban-based issues and concerns. On the other hand, a variety of research and policy initiatives have emerged in rural America, typically sponsored by state departments of education in primarily rural regions of the country and by numerous grass-roots organizations. Similarly, there has begun to emerge an interesting yet diverse literature on issues and problems in rural education. Themes such as education for economic development, problems with achieving educational equity in rural America, issues in appropriate school size, the role of the school in community life, problems with the training and rewarding of professional staff in rural schools, and so forth have begun to draw serious attention from a new wave of rural education researchers. The purpose of the following literature review is to elaborate on historical and contemporary reasons why scholarship on rural education has been relatively underdeveloped in this country, to briefly survey current initiatives in emerging rural education scholarship, and to speculate on the possibilities and dilemmas this field faces in its future evolution.
The Impact Of Using Music On Teaching English Poetry In Jordanian Universities

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of using music on teaching English Poetry in Jordanian universities on students’ performance. The researchers followed the equivalent pre/post T test two group designs. To achieve the aim of the study, a pre/post-test was constructed to measure students' performance in English poetry. The sample of this study consisted of 120 students (56 males and 64 females) from the third year students in Al Zaytoonah University during the first semester of the academic year 2011/2012. The subjects of the study were distributed into two groups (experimental group and control group). The experimental group was taught poetry accompanied with music while the control group was taught poetry using the traditional way of teaching. The subjects were 30 male students for the experimental group and 26 male students for the control group, while the female students for the experimental and control group were 31 and 33 respectively. Those subjects were distributed into two purposefully selected sections in Al Zaytoonah University in Amman. Descriptive statistical analyses were used (means and standard deviation) for the pre and post- tests of students' poetry test to experimental and control groups. Comparison statistical methods were used (Two Way ANOVA) analysis of variance to make a comparison between the control and the experimental groups and gender variable (male and female). The findings of the study indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the post- test between the control and the experimental groups in favor of the experimental group, and there was no statistically significant difference in the students' achievement due to gender. There was no statistically significant difference due to the interaction between gender and group. The researchers proposed some recommendations to enhance the effect of using music in teaching poetry on students' performance such as conducting further studies in other universities.
An Improved Lifting Morphological Wavelet Method and Its Application in Power Quality Disturbances Detection

This paper proposes an improved detection method for power quality disturbances based on lifting morphological wavelet transform, which restrains the noise in the process of sampling, and accurately locates the disturbances of the power quality. Firstly, morphological extreme-value operator is chosen to construct the prediction operator and update operator, which aims to highlight the features of disturbances and restrain the noise. Secondly, the disturbing signals are dealt with the max-lifting and min-lifting morphological wavelet transform, and the detail coefficients can be obtained, which have kept the feature of disturbances of the signals. Finally, the transient disturbances of the power quality can be located through the maxima method. Simulation and on-site signal analysis show that this algorithm owns the trait of veracity, efficiency and simplicity.
Upshifted decision criteria in attentional blink and repetition blindness

A large number of “unawareness” phenomena have been explained and quantified in terms of sensitivity (d′) fluctuations, with very few attempts at addressing an alternative putative cause, i.e., fluctuations of subjects’ response criteria (c). Response criteria fluctuations are particularly likely under dual-task paradigms with unbalanced sensitivities (Gorea & Sagi, 2000) such as those used in evidencing attentional blink (AB) and repetition blindness (RB) phenomena. The present study inquires into whether AB and RB are indeed prone to a deviant decisional behaviour. AB and RB were studied with a yes/no task allowing the assessment of d′ and c for the detection (presence/absence) of a target letter T2 as a function of its temporal lag relative to the presentation of another (AB) or of the same (RB) letter, T1 (Experiment 1). A significant criterion increase was observed in both cases. Additional experiments demonstrate that this criterion effect is typical of these dual-task AB and RB paradigms as it is not observed in a standard contrast detection task with mixed contrasts (Experiment 2), in a “control” AB design stripped off its first task T1 (Experiment 3), or in a metacontrast experiment (Experiment 4). We propose that the observed criterion shifts are the consequence of the inherent dual-task AB and RB designs (where observers have to judge two events of unequal saliencies) and that they entail an enhancement of the AB and RB effects as long as these effects are assessed via subjective (yes/no or matching) procedures.
Revised Upstream Power Back-Off For VDSL

Accurate upstream power back-off (PBO) parameters are needed by operators deploying very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) modems. Although a standardized PBO method for VDSL exist, the standard gives little or no guidance to an operator how to establish these optimized PBO parameters for its particular network and customers. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm based on the Nelder-Mead simplex search which calculates optimized upstream PBO parameters. To make the PBO parameter calculation independent of the network scenario we present a new method for establishing worst-case far-end crosstalk (FEXT) noise, which is based on virtual modems
Dear Santa, do you have my brand? A study of the brand requests, awareness and request styles at Christmas time

This study examines brand awareness (preferences) and request styles (communication approaches) at Christmas of Australian children and adults. The study is founded in the growing Santa Claus literature that has examined various issues related to gift giving and request behaviour at Christmas time. The study is based on the content analysis of 422 letters written by children to Santa Claus. The results indicate that children are brand-orientated in their request behaviour, adopt fairly meaningful request strategies and use visual imagery ie graphics in their communication strategies in their attempts to secure their requested gifts and specific brands. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.
e‐Learning and the Science of Instruction

Practice is a necessary but not sufficient condition to reach high levels of competence. Deliberate practice, which includes five basic elements, is needed to build expertise. Those elements include: 1. Effortful exertion to improve performance 2. Intrinsic motivation to engage in the task 3. Carefully tailored practice tasks that focus on areas of weakness 4. Feedback that provides knowledge of results, and 5. Continued repetition over a number of years (p. 256)
Self-direction, place and community — re-discovering the emotional depths: a conversation with social workers in a London borough

Self-Directed Support claims that it makes the social work task ‘more personal’ in its engagement with people's real needs and wants. This paper explores this claim through the record of a piece of group work with 11 social work practitioners in a London borough. A brief description of the roots of Self-Directed Support, the Independent Living movement, provides the context for the subsequent examination of themes arising from the group discussion, and the implications of the participants' experiences for practice, the profession and employing organisations. We find that despite system and resource issues, Self-Directed Support has enabled people to do ‘real social work’, re-connecting with values and practice which were obscured by care management. It requires letting go of power and control, without abandoning engagement: and it is essential that the change is underpinned by learning from and working with staff who work directly with people seeking support.
Arabidopsis Mutants Deleted in the Light-Harvesting Protein Lhcb4 Have a Disrupted Photosystem II Macrostructure and Are Defective in Photoprotection[C][W]

Analysis of a series of mutants lacking each of the three isoforms of the Lhcb4 light-harvesting complex in Arabidopsis showed that this complex plays an important role in the macro-organization and photoprotection of photosystem II. The role of the light-harvesting complex Lhcb4 (CP29) in photosynthesis was investigated in Arabidopsis thaliana by characterizing knockout lines for each of the three Lhcb4 isoforms (Lhcb4.1/4.2/4.3). Plants lacking all isoforms (koLhcb4) showed a compensatory increase of Lhcb1 and a slightly reduced photosystem II/I ratio with respect to the wild type. The absence of Lhcb4 did not result in alteration in electron transport rates. However, the kinetic of state transition was faster in the mutant, and nonphotochemical quenching activity was lower in koLhcb4 plants with respect to either wild type or mutants retaining a single Lhcb4 isoform. KoLhcb4 plants were more sensitive to photoinhibition, while this effect was not observed in knockout lines for any other photosystem II antenna subunit. Ultrastructural analysis of thylakoid grana membranes showed a lower density of photosystem II complexes in koLhcb4. Moreover, analysis of isolated supercomplexes showed a different overall shape of the C2S2 particles due to a different binding mode of the S-trimer to the core complex. An empty space was observed within the photosystem II supercomplex at the Lhcb4 position, implying that the missing Lhcb4 was not replaced by other Lhc subunits. This suggests that Lhcb4 is unique among photosystem II antenna proteins and determinant for photosystem II macro-organization and photoprotection.
Design Kernel Exploration Using QBF-Based Boolean Matching

The synthesis and mapping of user designs to configurable hardware is typically performed by heuristics. These approaches analyze the decomposability of the combinational user functions as a starting point and derive appropriate mappings to LUT structures or pull them in from pre-computed implementation libraries. In everyday use, this generally achieves a very competitive trade-off between the time spent for the synthesis and the quality of the produced implementations. A higher pressure on the optimality of an implementation exists when implementation libraries are generated or when critical kernels that are extensively duplicated in a massively parallel design are implemented. In these cases, a formal statement that an implementation within fewer LUTs or a smaller combinational depth is strictly impossible is very valuable. We present a tool that formulates the task of mapping a user design to a configurable hardware structure as a quantified boolean formula (QBF). It then uses a QBF solver to either compute an implementing configuration or to know for sure that the desired functionality cannot be implemented within the provided hardware. In the context of this tool, we also describe different approaches to model configurable interconnects and present the impact of these modelling approaches on the time needed to solve the mapping tasks.
The Beginnings of Tool Use by Infants and Toddlers

Children (aged 9, 14, 19, and 24 months) were encouraged to use tools to achieve a demonstrated goal. Each tool was most efficiently applied when held by the handle with the thumb toward the head of the tool in a radial grip. The tools were presented at midline and oriented to the left and right on alternating trials, so the children who managed to grasp a tool in both orientations with the radial grip demonstrated planning of actions in advance. The tools included a spoon, hairbrush, toy hammer, and magnet; the goals were to feed one's self, feed another, brush one's hair, brush another's hair, hit pegs, and retrieve metal objects. Children were found to use more radial grips with the self-directed tools (i.e., hairbrush-to-self and spoon-to-self), indicating that they could plan their actions better when directed toward the self than toward an external goal.
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing in children with cystic fibrosis: one centre's experience

Background While exercise testing is increasingly used as a prognostic indicator in cystic fibrosis (CF), it is reported to be underused in UK CF centres, particularly in children. Here, we evaluated the cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) results in children and young people with CF at CF annual review and its possible clinical value. Method An observational study comparing CPET results using a cycle ergometer ramp test (peak oxygen uptake (Vo2peak)) and pulmonary function (forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)) was performed with body mass index (BMI) used as a disease severity marker. Data were identified from clinical case notes and our CF database. Results Thirty-eight children and young people (mean age 11±2.4, range 7–14 years; 17 males and 21 females) completed at least one CPET with 95% achieving technically satisfactory tests allowing measurement of Vo2peak. Mean Vo2peak was 107 ±17.6% predicted, range 74%–150% predicted, with 8% having a reduced Vo2peak of <85% of predicted. Mean FEV1 z-score was −0.77±1.24, range −4.42 to 2.24. We did not demonstrate a significant correlation between Vo2peak % predicted and FEV1 z-score (r=0.25, p=0.13), or between Vo2peak % predicted and BMI z-score (r=−0.05, p=0.77). Twenty-eight of 38 completed a second CPET the following year with 71% showing a decline in Vo2peak (mean decline of 8% of predicted value, equivalent to 3.8 mL/kg/min). Conclusion CPET is feasible with 95% of children and young people achieving technically satisfactory assessments starting from age 7. In this group with relatively mild CF, mean Vo2peak was normal with no significant correlation between Vo2peak and FEV1 or BMI, as markers of disease severity. The majority demonstrated a normal Vo2peak. However, 71% showed a downward trend on repeat testing 12–18 months later.