Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphorylation of tau protein at sites Ser396–404 is one of the earliest events in Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome

Phosphorylation, conformational changes and cleavage of tau protein have been widely suggested to contribute to abnormal tau processing in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, as well as in other tauopathies. Consistently, many phosphorylated sites, such as Ser199–202–Thr205 and Ser396–404, have been associated with this pathological processing. The present study examined the chronological appearance of phosphorylation during the neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) evolution in Alzheimer disease (AD) and Down syndrome.
Beliefs about bilingualism, bilingual education, and dual language development of early childhood preservice teachers raised in a Prop 227 environment

ABSTRACT Despite the well-documented benefits of bilingualism, current educational practices in the United States reflect the deeply held belief that because the United States is an English speaking country, English should be the language of instruction. This belief was codified into law in California via the1998 passage of Proposition 227, which banned bilingual education. The number of young dual language learners has continued to grow, however, and the need to work with these children is a reality that preservice teachers will face despite restrictive language policy mandates. Given the well-established relationship between teacher beliefs and practices, the purpose of this exploratory study was to use survey techniques to explore the beliefs about bilingualism, bilingual education, and dual language development of university students who attended public school in a Proposition 227 context. Findings indicate that despite favorable views on bilingualism and bilingual education and knowledge of dual language development, beliefs about the role of the native language in the school environment continue to reflect the hegemony and deficit-thinking embodied by Proposition 227. Reflecting the research in K-12 settings, Latino students and those who spoke more than one language had more favorable views about bilingualism and bilingual education.
Organizational Alienation: A Comparative Analysis

The relationship between two types of alienation-alienation from work and alienation from expressive relations-and two structural properties of organizations-centralization and formalization-are examined in a comparative study of sixteen welfare organizations. Both alienation from work and alienation from expressive relations are found to be more prominent in highly centralized and highly formalized organizations. Multivariate analysis is introduced to determine the relative importance of the relationships between measures of centralization and formalization and alienation.
Negotiations of cultural identities by Indian women engineering students in US engineering programmes

Abstract The paper analyses the identities of Indian women engineers in the gendered organizational context of US engineering programmes. Participant narratives discuss the ways in which women are subjected to identity struggles in India due to gendered patrifocal norms that impose structural, societal, and familial pressures on women. Subsequently, when these women enter US engineering programmes, they encounter a highly masculine organizational and cultural space. Participants discuss identity dislocations, transformations, and assimilation as they seek to meld into the existing structures and find a career trajectory. I draw upon liminality theory to explore the cultural transitions, identity restructuring, and negotiations of Indian women engineers, navigating the intersections of competing and intersecting cultural norms of gender and engineering in India and the US, work, and family. The findings indicate the layers of gendered ideology that constitute engineering education in India and the US, the societal pressures of marriage and family rooted in patrifocal Indian norms, the barriers to finding an engineering job, the resources within the structures that support women, and the identification of patriarchy as the enactment of agency and as a site for change.
N-Alpha-Acetyltransferases and Regulation of CFTR Expression

The majority of cystic fibrosis (CF)-causing mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) lead to the misfolding, mistrafficking, and degradation of the mutant protein. Inhibition of degradation does not effectively increase the amount of trafficking competent CFTR, but typically leads to increased ER retention of misfolded forms. Thus, the initial off pathway steps occur early in the processing of the protein. To identify proteins that interact with these early forms of CFTR, in vitro crosslink experiments identified cotranslational partners of the nascent chain of the severe misfolded mutant, G85E CFTR. The mutant preferentially interacts with a subunit of an N-alpha-acetyltransferase A. Based on recent reports that acetylation of the N-termini of some N-end rule substrates control their ubiquitination and subsequent degradation, a potential role for this modification in regulation of CFTR expression was assessed. Knockdown experiments identified two complexes, which affect G85E CFTR proteins levels, NatA and NatB. Effects of the knockdowns on mRNA levels, translation rates, and degradation rates established that the two complexes regulate G85E CFTR through two separate mechanisms. NatA acts indirectly by regulating transcription levels and NatB acts through a previously identified, but incompletely understood posttranslational mechanism. This regulation did not effect trafficking of G85E CFTR, which remains retained in the ER, nor did it alter the degradation rate of CFTR. A mutation predicted to inhibit N-terminal acetylation of CFTR, Q2P, was without effect, suggesting neither system acts directly on CFTR. These results contradict the prediction that N-terminal acetylation of CFTR determines its fitness as a proteasome substrate, but rather NatB plays a role in the conformational maturation of CFTR in the ER through actions on an unidentified protein.
Vygotsky’s idea of Gestalt and its origins

The origins of Vygotsky’s conception of Gestalt in Goethe, Hegel, and Marx is traced, demonstrating how this concept not only forms a methodological foundation for Vygotsky, but also is the key concept through which this series of thinkers has overcome various forms of dualism. Vygotsky’s use of the concept in his unfinished work on child development is reviewed and it is shown how this conception of Gestalt sheds new light on the concept of the zone of proximal development.
Magnetic Flux Leakage and Acoustic Emission Testing Technique for Atmospheric Storage tanks

In china, atmospheric storage tanks are not included in the management of special equipment, and therefore they are not required to be inspected compul sorily. There is larger difference between China and developed countries on atmospheric storage ank inspection technique than the other techniques on the inspection of pressure vessels. It is widely believed that the strength worsening and perforation of the tank is mainly caused by t he serious corrosion at the bottom surface of tank floor. The present development of nondes tructive testing on atmospheric storage tank was analyzed systematically in this paper, in which th e principle, present status, the usage of inspection equipments and the application of the magnet ic flux leakage testing and acoustic emission testing techniques on atmospheric storage tanks were mainly introduced. The problems existing in the inspection equipments usage were discussed. A practice for inspecting and evaluating atmosphere storage tanks using these testing met hods was proposed.
Thymidylate Synthase Protein and p53 mRNA Form an In Vivo Ribonucleoprotein Complex

ABSTRACT A thymidylate synthase (TS)-ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex composed of TS protein and the mRNA of the tumor suppressor gene p53 was isolated from cultured human colon cancer cells. RNA gel shift assays confirmed a specific interaction between TS protein and the protein-coding region of p53 mRNA, and in vitro translation studies demonstrated that this interaction resulted in the specific repression of p53 mRNA translation. To demonstrate the potential biological role of the TS protein-p53 mRNA interaction, Western immunoblot analysis revealed nearly undetectable levels of p53 protein in TS-overexpressing human colon cancer H630-R10 and rat hepatoma H35(F/F) cell lines compared to the levels in their respective parent H630 and H35 cell lines. Polysome analysis revealed that the p53 mRNA was associated with higher-molecular-weight polysomes in H35 cells compared to H35(F/F) cells. While the level of p53 mRNA expression was identical in parent and TS-overexpressing cell lines, the level of p53 RNA bound to TS in the form of RNP complexes was significantly higher in TS-overexpressing cells. The effect of TS on p53 expression was also investigated with human colon cancer RKO cells by use of a tetracycline-inducible system. Treatment of RKO cells with a tetracycline derivative, doxycycline, resulted in 15-fold-induced expression of TS protein and nearly complete suppression of p53 protein expression. However, p53 mRNA levels were identical in transfected RKO cells in the absence and presence of doxycycline. Taken together, these findings suggest that TS regulates the expression of p53 at the translational level. This study identifies a novel pathway for regulating p53 gene expression and expands current understanding of the potential role of TS as a regulator of cellular gene expression.
Learning to Teach: ‘Assessment for Learning' in Higher Education

When you start teaching at a university, there is no handbook on what to do (Mueller, 2003). It is assumed that prior experience as a teacher provides you with suitable skills to teach adult learners. The needs of adult learners, however, can be very different. This self-study explores my initial entry into teacher education and the changes that I have had to create pedagogy with adult learners. I have focused particularly on assessment. The self-study acted as a form of professional learning and provided me with new ways to position my teaching using assessment. Findings suggest my new approach for feedback to assessment helped improve student learning and outcomes. It also allowed me to see my own efficacy in being able to change my teaching approach.
Exploratory novelty identification in human activity data streams

Heterogeneous human-generated data streams are the measurands which provide opportunities to identify patterns, detect novelties and explore evolution of complex social systems. Communication technologies with their very high penetration into society can serve as particularly rich sources of information. However, for a variety of observable communication channels one has little or no access to the content of human-to-human communications, while the data streams on the intensities of such events are more common. The paper presents a framework of methods useful for exploratory analysis and visualization of such data streams. Particularly, we demonstrate how untypical activity levels can be identified by fitting a non-homogeneous Markov-modulated Poisson process and spatialising the component corresponding to unusual bursts/lulls of activity via heat maps. This approach is illustrated with a case study devoted to the analysis of geo-referenced data streams of instant messaging activity on the internet.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 1-1-2009 Panel : IS PhD research in the 21 st century : A tale of candidates and their supervisors

In the recent times, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become one of the most dynamic topics of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), both in the academia and the market. This popularity is indeed a result of the promising features offered by CRM. All the studies to date have highlighted elements associated with CRM success by studying its adoption and implementation in the organizations, with a focus on developed countries. Despite the usefulness of these contributions, today, very limited information is available, where implementation of CRM systems has actually been evaluated in a developing country like Pakistan, employing an interpretive approach. Hence, this current research aims to address this gap in literature, not only by taking a non-traditional approach of success evaluation; using system’s stakeholders’ expectations as an evaluation criteria but also focusing a case study from Pakistan, where ICT industry and specifically CRM is in the initial stages of adoption. This research effort has not only revealed the social aspects of CRM implementation but also unfolded some cultural aspects associated with the CRM in Pakistan. In order to guide the research, theory of stakeholders’ expectation failures turned out to be the most suitable
Agency and Structure

The status of the individual or of the accountable human agent today is rather precarious: not only in the political arena (in the face of technocratic and totalitarian dangers), but also in the context of social and sociological theory. Several factors have contributed to this condition. At least since the turn of the century, strong positivist trends in sociology have tended to deemphasize if not efface the individual in favour of larger collectivities or of quasi-organic, functional imperatives. During subsequent decades, philosophically more ambitious efforts-predicated on non-positivst premisses-were undertaken, seeking to explore the ontological underpinnings and the historical genesis of individual consciousness and autonomy. No doubt, efforts of this kind provided a valuable antidote to the modern infatuation with ‘subjectivity’ and egotentrism. an infatuation permeating in large measure both rationalist and empiricist perspectives in recent centuries. Nevertheless, if rashly or thoughtlessly pursued, the endeavour to ‘decentre the subject’ and to dislodge modem ‘egological’ metaphysics is prone to entail detrimental or noxious effects: practically/politically by lending implicit support to collectivist designs, and theoretically by obfuscating important themes of social analysis. For clearly, as long as the modem aspiration of human autonomy is still alive, ‘social action’-no matter how closely interwoven with non-intentional forces-is bound to remain a crucial sociological topic. Contemporary social theory offers few if any guideposts for tackling the topic in a manner congruent with its intrinsic complexity. Against this background, Anthony Giddens’ study must be seen as a rare exception and indeed as a major contribution to the task of formulating a post-metaphysical theory of human agency. Giddens, known as the author of a series of important and justly acclaimed texts on sociological theory,’ places his new study squarely in the context of the malaise or ‘state of disarray’ characterizing the social sciences today (pp. 2343 7 t t h e disarray resulting from the disintegration of the ‘orthodox consensus’ which prevailed in English-speaking countries during the post-war period and which was marked by the widespread endorsement of the ‘theory of industrial society’ (a society devoid of class conflicts and ideological fervour) and by the intellectual commitment t o various brands of positivism, especially ‘functionalism’ (associated with ‘the idea that biology provides the proximate model for sociology’) and ‘naturalism’ (understood to refer to ‘the thesis that the logical frameworks of natural and social science are in essential respects the same’). Surveying the ‘Babel of theoretical voices’ that ‘clamour for attention’ following the collapse of this consensus, Giddens (pp. 238-40) distinguishes
On Genuine Connectivity Relations Based on Logical Predicates

This paper introduces a framework for the generation of genuine connectivity relations whose equivalent classes (called connected components) define unique partitions of the definition domain of a given grey tone image. This framework exploits the total ordering relation between the alpha-connected components of a pixel (two pixels are alpha-connected if there exists at least one path joining them such that the intensity differences between successive pixels of this path does not exceed a threshold value equal to alpha). Genuine connectivity relations are then obtained by considering the largest alpha-connected components satisfying one or more logical predicates such as the variance of the intensity values of the alpha-connected components not exceeding a given threshold value. Fine to coarse hierarchy partitions are generated by carefully varying the input threshold values. The proposed framework has the striking property of uniqueness. That is, the results do not depend on pixel processing order and are fully defined by the values of the threshold values, in contrast to most region growing procedures.
The coming of age of the transgenic era.

0214-6282/98/$10.00 © UBC Press Printed in Spain *Address for reprints: Department of Genetics and Development, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, 701 W. 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA. FAX: 212 305-5484. e-mail: vep1@columbia.edu Those were heady days. For those of us entering the fields of genetics and mammalian embryology in the 60s and 70s, the excitement was palpable. As graduate students and post-docs, we saw that long-standing barriers were tumbling down before an onslaught of technological advances. And not only that, the scientists breaking those barriers were all around us as mentors and colleagues. The rapid pace of progress and the seemingly boundless possibilities hooked us into the field and we gradually became aware that we, too, were part of a revolution that was on the way to opening the mammalian genome to experimental alteration. Who could forget the thrill of seeing mice born of a foster mother, knowing that as embryos, they had spent a large part of their preimplantation life in a petri dish? (Fig. 1) (McLaren and Biggers, 1958). Or seeing a variegated mouse that was actually the product of two separate embryos, combined to make a single animal? (Fig. 2) (Tarkowski, 1961; Mintz, 1964; Gardner, 1968). Or later, seeing transgenic mice with visible and profound indications of the activity of an introduced, foreign, mammalian gene functioning within its genome? (Fig. 3) (Palmiter et al., 1982,1983). As we stood on the shoulders of giants, we could peer into a new age of genetic engineering, where alteration of the genome would become a predictable and precise science. Ralph Brinster was undoubtedly one of those giants and continues to this day on an unswerving course aimed at understanding the complexities of the control of gene expression and, ultimately, of manipulating the information transmitted from one generation to VIRGINIA E. PAPAIOANNOU*
Sparse Discriminative Multimanifold Grassmannian Analysis for Face Recognition With Image Sets

We propose an efficient and robust solution, called sparse discriminative multimanifold Grassmannian analysis (SDMMGA), for face recognition based on image set (FRIS), where each set contains face images belonging to the same subject and typically covering large variations. In our work, linearity constrained hierarchical agglomerative clustering (LC-HAC) method is first employed to partition each image set into several local linear models (LLMs), each depicted as a point on the Grassmannian manifold using positive definite Gaussian kernel function. In contrast to the standard discriminative learning algorithms that assume that all data are sampled from one single manifold and only one projection is derived for feature extraction, we model all the LLMs of each person as a manifold and present SDMMGA model to seek multiple projection matrices, which can uncover the geometrical information of different manifolds. Aiming to better separate manifold margins in the low-dimensional feature space, we introduce the ℓ1 and ℓ2 norms penalty in the SDMMGA objective function. An efficient regression method is presented for finding the most discriminative features. Comprehensive experiments on three standard data sets show that our method consistently outperforms the state of the art.
Abatacept: a costimulatory inhibitor for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

T cell costimulation is believed to be crucial in orchestrating immune responses that lead to inflammation and destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Abatacept is a novel recombinant CTLA4Ig fusion protein that selectively modulates costimulation via interrupting the CD28:CD80/86 pathway, resulting in downregulation of T cell activation and multiple ensuing effector mechanisms. Abatacept has been shown to be efficacious, either when given alone or in combination with methotrexate, in patients with active RA, including anti-TNF failures. Improvements in clinical signs and symptoms, slowing of radiological progression, and enhancement in patient function and pain have been reported in clinical trials. Infusions were well-tolerated with a favourable safety profile similar to placebo and no appreciable immunogenicity. Abatacept is the first in a new class of biological response modifiers called costimulatory blockers.
The Cloud Streaming Service Migration in Cloud Video Storage System

Video surveillance is used to solve the problems of public security and preservation of evidence. So far, many researchers have offered their secure systems. However, storage and streaming migration issues must be discussed in more detail. In the paper, a method for streaming service migration in a cloud video storage system and the system using the same are provided, and the cloud storage video system includes a directory host, stream processing apparatuses and detection apparatuses. The method includes: assigning a first stream processing apparatus to establish a first stream connection with a first detection apparatus among the detection apparatuses, and assigning at least a second stream processing apparatus to establish a second stream connection with the first detection apparatus but not to receive the video stream data from the first detection apparatus, and assigning the first processing apparatus to receive and store the video stream data from the first detection apparatus, and the second stream processing apparatus receives and stores the video stream data from the first detection apparatus when the directory host determines that the first stream connection is abnormal, and disconnects the first stream connection.
Modelling performance in a Balanced Scorecard: findings from a case study

This paper discusses the implementation of Balanced Scorecards. A specific approach is suggested to emphasize organizational learning in the model building process. This approach is well suited for the middle management level as illustrated by a detailed case study. At that level mutual understanding reinforces co-ordination while mutual observability reinforces individual incentives. As such this paper provides an interesting counterpart to the more traditional top down vertical approach of BSC in which model building is viewed as a way to link global and local objectives.
Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach

Estimating the impact of economic conditions on the likelihood of civil conflict is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. We use rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth in 41 African countries during 1981–99. Growth is strongly negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of five percentage points increases the likelihood of conflict by one‐half the following year. We attempt to rule out other channels through which rainfall may affect conflict. Surprisingly, the impact of growth shocks on conflict is not significantly different in richer, more democratic, or more ethnically diverse countries.