Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of School Climate as a Function of Bullying Involvement

From a social-ecological perspective, bullying exists within the larger context of school climate. In this study, 2,240 middle and high school students participated in a districtwide effort to assess the prevalence and effects of bullying and cyberbullying, as well as perceptions of school climate. Students reported positive school climate perceptions, although bullying was a prevalent occurrence. Types of bullying, effects on students, and coping strategies used varied across sex and school level, with girls reporting more experiences with cyberbullying than boys. Students involved in bullying as perpetrators, victims, or both had more negative perceptions of school climate, although this varied by specific aspect of climate studied. Chronicity of victimization also related to differences in perceptions of all aspects of school climate. Findings highlight the importance of understanding bullying within the larger context of school climate, with implications for prevention and intervention efforts.
AutoComPaste: auto-completing text as an alternative to copy-paste

The copy-paste command is a fundamental and widely used operation in daily computing. It is generally regarded as a simple task but the process can become tedious when frequent window switching is required to copy-paste across different documents. Auto-completion is another popular operation aimed at reducing users' typing effort. It contrasts to copy-paste by allowing for text completion without switching windows. However, the available content for completion is predefined. We introduce AutoComPaste, an enhanced autocompletion technique for cross-document copy-paste. AutoComPaste allows users to copy-paste different granularity of text from all opened documents without window switching. Our theoretical analysis and empirical study show that AutoComPaste nicely complements traditional copy-paste techniques and outperforms the traditional copy-paste techniques when users have knowledge of the content to be copied.
Static and electronic shaping of the radiated electromagnetic fields in radial arrays of substrate integrated leaky-wave antennas

This contribution describes how leaky waves can be malleably modulated in substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) antennas. It is the first time that such flexible and unconventional tapering of the leaky modes is demonstrated in a practical leaky-wave antenna (LWA) structure. The synthesis theory is based on the dispersion engineering of the radiative leaky mode. It is explained how this procedure provides, in a systematic and efficient manner, the requested modulation of the SIW geometry along its length. As a result, unseen shaping of the radiated fields with LWAs is achieved. This is demonstrated by several electrically-large designs at 15 GHz, to obtain highly focused radiation patterns both in near and far field regimes. Also, a radial-array configuration is described, which provides two-dimensional shaping of the radiated fields. Finally, it is anticipated how these antennas can be electronically controlled. In this way, it is foreseen a new type of high-gain, low-cost, single-layer, planar reconfigurable antennas, which are simply fed and directly integrated with the RF front-end.
Low-Energy Selective Cooperative Diversity with ARQ for Wireless Image Sensor Networks

Wireless Image Sensor Network (WISN) is a type of sensor network, which has the ability of capturing, processing and transmitting images from a monitored enviroment. The need to improve the performance of such systems can be attained by using the Selective Cooperative diversity with ARQ (SCA) technique, which is basically a cross-layer design that combines Truncated ARQ at the link layer and cooperative diversity at the physical layer. In addition, the LEACH protocol has the advantage of utilizing randomized rotation of local cluster-heads to evenly distribute the energy load among the sensors in the network. This paper proposes an integrated system, SCA with LEACH, and evaluates its performance with LEACH with Truncated ARQ system. A comparison is obtained based on network lifetime, under varying propagation scenarios, and on the quality of transmitted images in a WISN, using both techniques. Simulation results show an improved performances for the proposed system.
Complement C3 and its polymorphism: biological and clinical consequences

Summary Complement 3 (C3) is a crucial component of the innate immune system, which in association with other complement proteins, forms a major host mechanism for detection and clearance of potential pathogens. The central role of the complement system and its polymorphism has already been studied extensively. Although the identification of C3 in echinoderms and tunicates suggests that this multifunctional protein emerged at least 700 million years ago, the underlying functional difference between C3S and C3F variants have not yet been clearly demonstrated. Focussing on the examined associations between C3F and C3S polymorphisms and disease states, the presence of the C3F allele has generally been linked with a detrimental outcome. In this review the general characteristics and analytical aspects of C3 and the knowledge about the biological and clinical consequences of C3 polymorphism have been summarised.
Physical and functional interactions between Runx2 and HIF‐1α induce vascular endothelial growth factor gene expression

Angiogenesis and bone formation are intimately related processes. Hypoxia during early bone development stabilizes hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1α (HIF‐1α) and increases angiogenic signals including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Furthermore, stabilization of HIF‐1α by genetic or chemical means stimulates bone formation. On the other hand, deficiency of Runx2, a key osteogenic transcription factor, prevents vascular invasion of bone and VEGF expression. This study explores the possibility that HIF‐1α and Runx2 interact to activate angiogenic signals. Runx2 over‐expression in mesenchymal cells increased VEGF mRNA and protein under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions. In normoxia, Runx2 also dramatically increased HIF‐1α protein. In all cases, the Runx2 response was inhibited by siRNA‐mediated suppression of HIF‐1α and completely blocked by the HIF‐1α inhibitor, echinomycin. Similarly, treatment of preosteoblast cells with Runx2 siRNA reduced VEGF mRNA in normoxia or hypoxia. However, Runx2 is not essential for the HIF‐1α response since VEGF is induced by hypoxia even in Runx2‐null cells. Endogenous Runx2 and HIF‐1α were colocalized to the nuclei of MC3T3‐E1 preosteoblast cells. Moreover, HIF‐1α and Runx2 physically interact using sites within the Runx2 RUNT domain. Chromatin immunoprecipitation also provided evidence for colocalization of Runx2 and HIF‐1α on the VEGF promoter. In addition, Runx2 stimulated HIF‐1α‐dependent activation of an HRE‐luciferase reporter gene without requiring a separate Runx2‐binding enhancer. These studies indicate that Runx2 functions together with HIF‐1α to stimulate angiogenic gene expression in bone cells and may in part explain the known requirement for Runx2 in bone vascularization. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 3582–3593, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Target-Dependent Control of Synaptic Inhibition by Endocannabinoids in the Thalamus

Inhibitory neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) play a critical role in controlling information transfer between thalamus and neocortex. GABAergic synapses formed by TRN neurons contact both thalamic relay cells and neurons within TRN. These two types of synapses are thought to have distinct roles for the generation of thalamic network activity, but their selective regulation is poorly understood. In many areas throughout the brain, retrograde signaling mediated by endocannabinoids acts to dynamically regulate synaptic strength over both short and long time scales. However, retrograde signaling has never been demonstrated in the thalamus. Here, we show that depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition (DSI) is prominent at inhibitory synapses interconnecting TRN neurons. DSI is completely abolished in the presence of a cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) antagonist and in mice lacking CB1Rs. DSI is prevented by DAG lipase inhibitors and prolonged by blocking the 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) degradation enzyme monoacylglycerol lipase, indicating that it is mediated by the release of 2-AG from TRN neurons. By contrast, DSI is not observed at TRN synapses targeting thalamic relay neurons. A combination of pharmacological and immunohistochemical data indicate that the differences in endocannabinoid signaling at the two synapses are mediated by a synapse-specific targeting of CB1Rs, as well as differences in endocannabinoid release between the two target neurons. Together, our results show that endocannabinoids control transmitter release at specific thalamic synapses, and could dynamically regulate sensory information processing and thalamus-mediated synchronous oscillations.
Linear and Nonlinear Modeling of Cerebral Flow Autoregulation Using Principal Dynamic Modes

Cerebral Flow Autoregulation (CFA) is the dynamic process by which cerebral blood flow is maintained within physiologically acceptable bounds during fluctuations of cerebral perfusion pressure. The distinction is made with “static” flow autoregulation under steady-state conditions of perfusion pressure, described by the celebrated “autoregulatory curve” with a homeostatic plateau. This paper studies the dynamic CFA during changes in perfusion pressure, which attains critical clinical importance in patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disease with a cerebrovascular component. Mathematical and computational models have been used to advance our quantitative understanding of dynamic CFA and to elucidate the underlying physiological mechanisms by analyzing the relation between beat-to-beat data of mean arterial blood pressure (viewed as input) and mean cerebral blood flow velocity(viewed as output) of a putative CFA system. Although previous studies have shown that the dynamic CFA process is nonlinear, most modeling studies to date have been linear. It has also been shown that blood CO2 tension affects the CFA process. This paper presents a nonlinear modeling methodology that includes the dynamic effects of CO2 tension (or its surrogate, end-tidal CO2) as a second input and quantifies CFA from short data-records of healthy human subjects by use of the modeling concept of Principal Dynamic Modes (PDMs). The PDMs improve the robustness of the obtained nonlinear models and facilitate their physiological interpretation. The results demonstrate the importance of including the CO2 input in the dynamic CFA study and the utility of nonlinear models under hypercapnic or hypocapnic conditions.
Lithium in LP 944-20

We present a new estimate of the lithium abundance in the atmosphere of the brown dwarf LP944 20. Our analysis is based on a self-consistent analysis of low, intermediate and high resolution optical and near-infrared spectra. We obtain log N(Li) = 3.25 ± 0.25 using fits of our synthetic spectra to the Li I resonance line doublet profiles observed with VLT/UVES and AAT/SPIRAL. This lithium abundance is over two orders of magnitude larger than previous estimates in the literature. In order to obtain good fits of the resonance lines of K I and Rb I and better fits to the TiO molecular absorption around the Li I resonance line, we invoke a semi-empirical model atmosphere with the dusty clouds located above the photosphere. The lithium abundance, however, is not changed by the effects of the dusty clouds. We discuss the implications of our estimate of the lithium abundance in LP944 20 for the understanding of the properties of this benchmark brown dwarf.
AMOR: A proposed cooperative effort to improve outcomes of childhood cancer in Central America

The dramatic reduction of pediatric cancer mortality rates has been one of the greatest accomplishments of contemporary medicine. About 80% of children with cancer are now expected to be cured by current therapies. However, most of the world's children have no access to cancer treatment. The translation of effective pediatric cancer therapies to impoverished regions of the world presents an enormous challenge to the health care profession. Over the past 20 years, efforts have been under way to extend adequate cancer treatment to an increasing number of children in developing countries. These initiatives, collectively designated “twinning programs,” consist essentially of a partnership between a pediatric cancer unit in a developing country and a group of health care providers in the developed world. Here we review the twinning programs that have been implemented in Central America, discuss their impact on the development of local resources and the outcome of childhood cancer, and propose a collaborative research initiative aimed at improving the international dissemination of progress in pediatric hematology‐oncology. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Some Results on Greedy Embeddings in Metric Spaces

Geographic Routing is a family of routing algorithms that uses geographic point locations as addresses for the purposes of routing. Such routing algorithms have proven to be both simple to implement and heuristically effective when applied to wireless sensor networks. Greedy Routing is a natural abstraction of this model in which nodes are assigned virtual coordinates in a metric space, and these coordinates are used to perform point-to-point routing.Here we resolve a conjecture of Papadimitriou and Ratajczak that every 3-connected planar graph admits a greedy embedding into the Euclidean plane. This immediately implies that all 3-connected graphs that exclude K3,3 as a minor admit a greedy embedding into the Euclidean plane. We also prove a combinatorial condition that guarantees nonembeddability. We use this result to construct graphs that can be greedily embedded into the Euclidean plane, but for which no spanning tree admits such an embedding.
Revisiting Ferguson's defining cases of diglossia

Abstract While the defining cases of diglossia offered in Charles Ferguson's 1959 article have long been useful as vehicles for introducing this important form of societal multilingualism, they are also problematic in that they differ from each other in a number of significant ways. This article proposes a modified and more precise framework in which a distinction is made between three sub-categories of diglossia. The first, ‘traditional diglossia’ consists of diglossia in pre-modern societies where a sacred language serves as H for an entire civilisation, and it is proposed that Classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Latin and Classical Arabic be viewed as prototypes of this category. This category is closer to Ferguson's original description, and should be viewed as the most typical manifestation of diglossia. A second category, ‘revived diglossia’, includes cases in which ancient languages were revived by communities in colonial contexts for the purpose of buttressing incipient nationalism. A third and much smaller category, ‘modern diglossia’ is made up of cases of speech communities in modern societies where a modern standard language functions as the H variety. Distinguishing between these sub-categories will allow scholars to make stronger and more precise generalisations about diglossia.
I/O-efficient dynamic planar point location (extended abstract)

We present an I/O-efficient dynamic data structure for point location in a general planar subdivision. Our structure uses O(N/B) disk blocks of size B to store a subdivision of size N. Queries can be answered in O(log B 2N) I/Os in the worst-case, and insertions and deletions can be performed in O(log B 2N) and O(log B N) I/Os amortized, respectively. Part of our data structure is based on an external version of the so-called logarithmic method that allows for efficient dynamization of static external-memory data structures with certain characteristics. Another important part of our structure is an external data structure for vertical ray-shooting among line segments in the plane with endpoints on √B + 1 vertical lines, developed using an external version of dynamic fractional cascading. We believe that these methods could prove helpful in the development of other dynamic external memory data structures.
A Simulation Study Investigating the Impact of Dendritic Morphology and Synaptic Topology on Neuronal Firing Patterns

In the brain, complex information interactions among neurons span several spatial and temporal scales, making it extremely difficult to identify the principles governing neural information processing. In this study, we used computational models to investigate the impact of dendritic morphology and synaptic topology on patterns of neuronal firing. We first constructed Hodgkin-Huxley-type neuron models that possessed dendrites with different morphological features. We then simulated the responses of these neurons to a number of spatiotemporal input patterns. The similarity between neuronal responses to different patterned inputs was effectively evaluated by a novel combination of metric space analysis and multidimensional scaling analyses. The results showed that neurons with different morphological or anatomical features exhibit differences in stimulus-specific temporal encoding and firing reliability. These findings support the idea that in addition to biophysical membrane properties, the dendritic morphology and the synaptic topology of a neuron can play a significant role in neuronal information processing and may directly contribute to various brain functions.
I KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW: ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT OTHERS' KNOWLEDGE AND THEIR EFFECTS ON MESSAGE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract Current models of interpersonal communication assume that estimation of listener's knowledge is a basis for message formulation. By introducing methodological modifications to the Fussell and Krauss (1992) paradigm, the present study provided more definitive evidence for the use of knowledge estimation in message productions. In the first experiment, participants indicated whether they knew each of 30 landmarks (thus providing the actual distribution of knowledge) and estimated the proportion of students who would know them. Participants' estimation of the relative distribution of knowledge corresponded impressively with the actual distribution. In the second experiment, a different group of participants described each of the landmarks to an intended audience. The length of the descriptions and the frequency of naming a landmark were predicted by the estimated identifiability from Experiment 1. These results replicated previous findings in a different culture and addressed unresolved issues relat.
‘People Who Talk Together Vote Together’: An Exploration of Contextual Effects in Great Britain

Many students of British voting patterns have tested for the existence of contextual effects, which postulate that voters are influenced by events and people in their local milieux. One of those contextual effects is the neighborhood effect, whereby individuals are influenced by the nature of the politically relevant information circulating within their social networks, many of which are spatially constrained to their local area. Although ecological analyses have identified patterns consistent with this hypothesis, there have been virtually no direct investigations of the effect, largely because of the absence of relevant data. Using information from a large, clustered survey of voters at the time of the 1992 general election, this paper uncovers clear evidence of such effects: people are much more likely to change their votes in a particular direction if those with whom they discuss political issues support that direction, especially if they are members of the respondent's family and are the individuals with whom they discuss politics most.
Effects of a Goal-Setting Training Program on Basketball Free-Throw Self-Efficacy and Performance

Though improved performance as a result of goal setting has been reported in organizational psychology studies, little research in sport settings has demonstrated these effects. This study was designed to examine the effects of a goalsetting training program on basketball free-throw performance, perceptions of success, and self-efficacy. Eighteen undergraduate students were matched by free-throw shooting ability, then randomly assigned to either goal-training (GT) or no-goal-training (NT) groups for a period of 5 weeks. Although the GT group reported significantly higher perceptions of success and self-efficacy than did the NT group, no significant differences between groups were revealed for free-throw accuracy. Correlational data suggested a stronger relationship between self-efficacy and free-throw performance for the GT group than for the NT group. Discussed are factors that contribute to the discrepancies between results found in sport related investigations of goal setting and those obtained from st.
Litter Breakdown and Streams

The watershed of Big Hurricane Branch, Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, North Carolina, USA, was logged in 1976. We measured breakdown rates of experimental leaf packs in this second-order stream prior to logging, during logging, soon after logging, and 3 additional tunes since then. Leaf breakdown was slow just after logging, apparently due to leaf burial by sediments. Thereafter, leaf breakdown rates have been consistently faster than before logging and faster than in a reference stream. These differences may be related to 3 factors. First, the post-logging nitrate concentration has been about 3-10 times higher than pre-logging values in Big Hurricane Branch and 5 times higher than in a reference stream. The high nutrient concentration may be stimulating microbial decomposition processes in leaf packs. Second, dominance of litterfall by "medium" and "fast" processing leaves from the recovering forest coupled with relatively high sediment loads during storms may hasten breakdown through physical abrasion. Third, the interaction of high nutrients and high quality leaves may be attractive to leaf-shredding invertebrates whose feeding activities may also hasten the breakdown rates.
The Role of Social Media Network Participants in Extreme Events

How does the use of social media platforms like Twitter impact the network role of an emergency management agency (EMA) like the Berlin police and its relationships with other network roles in an extreme event such as the 1 st of May Labour Day? How do properties of the social media communication network determine EMA and other network role relations and the overall network configuration? We argue that trust (-worthiness) is a central non-relational attribute of an EMA role which is based on perceptions of EMA integrity and which influences role relationships within the social network. As EMAs are also responsible for taking action to protect the community in times of such an extreme event, we also argue that “swift trust” is built within EMA roles. EMA roles are also reinforced by the non-relational role attribute of communication quality that reflects message authenticity, in this case “transparent and understandable” communications that are expected of an EMA.