Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thinking Outside the Cleft to Understand Synaptic Activity: Contribution of the Cystine-Glutamate Antiporter (System xc−) to Normal and Pathological Glutamatergic Signaling

System xc− represents an intriguing target in attempts to understand the pathological states of the central nervous system. Also called a cystine-glutamate antiporter, system xc− typically functions by exchanging one molecule of extracellular cystine for one molecule of intracellular glutamate. Nonvesicular glutamate released during cystine-glutamate exchange activates extrasynaptic glutamate receptors in a manner that shapes synaptic activity and plasticity. These findings contribute to the intriguing possibility that extracellular glutamate is regulated by a complex network of release and reuptake mechanisms, many of which are unique to glutamate and rarely depicted in models of excitatory signaling. Because system xc− is often expressed on non-neuronal cells, the study of cystine-glutamate exchange may advance the emerging viewpoint that glia are active contributors to information processing in the brain. It is noteworthy that system xc− is at the interface between excitatory signaling and oxidative stress, because the uptake of cystine that results from cystine-glutamate exchange is critical in maintaining the levels of glutathione, a critical antioxidant. As a result of these dual functions, system xc− has been implicated in a wide array of central nervous system diseases ranging from addiction to neurodegenerative disorders to schizophrenia. In the current review, we briefly discuss the major cellular components that regulate glutamate homeostasis, including glutamate release by system xc−. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of system xc− as it relates to glutamate release, cystine transport, and glutathione synthesis. Finally, the role of system xc− is surveyed across a number of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Personality, Prayer, and Church Attendance Among Undergraduate Students

Three samples of 1st-year undergraduate students (Ns = 378, 458, 292) completed the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (S. B. G. Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985) together with indexes of church attendance and personal prayer. The data confirm that psychoticism is fundamental to individual differences in religiosity, whereas both public and private expressions of religion are independent of extraversion and neuroticism.
Using Robots to Moderate Team Conflict: The Case of Repairing Violations

We explore whether robots can positively influence conflict dynamics by repairing interpersonal violations that occur during a team-based problem-solving task. In a 2 (negative trigger: taskdirected vs. personal attack) x 2 (repair: yes vs. no) between subjects experiment (N=57 teams, 114 participants), we studied the effect of a robot intervention on affect, perceptions of conflict, perceptions of team members’ contributions, and team performance during a problem-solving task. Specifically, the robot either intervened by repairing a task-directed or personal attack by a confederate or did not intervene. Contrary to our expectations, we found that the robot’s repair interventions increased the groups’ awareness of conflict after the occurrence of a personal attack thereby acting against the groups’ tendency to suppress the conflict. These findings suggest that repair heightened awareness of a normative violation. Overall, our results provide support for the idea that robots can aid team functioning by regulating core team processes such as conflict. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1. 2; H.5. 3; I.2. 9; J.4; K.4. 3
Evaluation of tool support for architectural evolution

Evolution of software architectures is, different from architectural design, an area that only few tools have covered. We claim this is due to the lack of support for an important concept of architectural evolution: the notion of architectural design decisions. The absence of this concept in architectural evolution leads to several problems. In order to address these problems, we present a set of requirements that tools should support for architectural evolution. We evaluate existing software architecture tools against these architectural requirements. The results are analyzed and an outline for future research directions for architectural evolution tool support is presented.
The Role of Government for Ecotourism Development: Focusing on East Coast Economic Region

Problem statement: This study explored the plans and strategies of go vernment for ecotourism development in Malaysia as well as ECER. Government participation is necessary in developing economies where tourism planning and promotion tend to be controlled directly by governments. The ecotourism activity should have a strong focus on learning through interpretation of local ecosystems and cultural heritage. Malaysia ha s formulated separate plan for sustainable ecotourism development in the country. This plan en sures conservation of Malaysia's natural and cultural heritage. Ecotourism activities can be rem aining vital tool for economic development in the ECER. The objective of this study is to examine the various plans of Malaysia relating to ecotourism development. The study also analyzes the challenges and prospects of ecotourism development in Malaysia as well as in ECER. Approach: The data for analysis was perceived from the secon dary sources. National Ecotourism Plan, Ninth Malaysian Plan and Tenth Malaysian Plan of Malaysia have been thoroughly reviewed in this regard. Results: The study shows that the major activities of Malaysian Government for ecotourism development were strategies, improving ecotourism products, improving accessibility, employment and training, marketing promotion, sustainable tourism development, investment, research and planning, saf ety and security. The initiatives of government for ecotourism development in ECER are guidelines, market segmentation, infrastructure development, cooperation among state authorities, commercial int erest and investment, local entrepreneurship and Bumiputera participation. Conclusion: The study reveals that some activities may be take n for the ecotourism development in Malaysia. These are ecotourism action plan, building institutional capacity; invest in ecotourism projects, creation of protecte d areas, image and branding, linkage to other types ' tourism, advertising and publication, human resourc e development and SME operation. The government must be ensured the local people partici pation in ecotourism development for their social, ecological, economic and cultural benefits.
Asian Students' Voices: An Empirical Study of Asian Students' Learning Experiences at a New Zealand University

More than 85% of the international students in New Zealand are Asian in origin. The level of satisfaction of Asian international students with their learning experiences in New Zealand has been of enormous concern for the New Zealand export education industry. The results of this current research, based on a qualitative research study conducted at a New Zealand tertiary institution, provide a critical summary of some important and yet challenging issues in teaching Asian students. This study found that Asian students were overall satisfied with their learning experiences at the university in terms of educational quality, program offering, and learning support. Asian students' voices and narratives on which this research was based have challenged some of our taken-for-granted education traditions, norms, and practices. Characterizing these challenges are language difficulties and cultural differences as intercultural communication barriers, unfamiliar patterns of classroom interactions, lack of knowledge of academic norms and conventions, inadequate learning support, difficulties in making friends with domestic students, and lack of sense of belonging, all these combining to affect Asian students' perceptions and levels of satisfaction with their learning experiences at the university. The study suggests that it is important that lecturers and host institutions are professionally responsible to equip Asian students with adequate knowledge of academic discourses and to help them transcend the culturally framed borders and subjectivities. To meet these challenges, it is important to review and adapt our pedagogical practices and to realign them to the needs of both local and international students.
Weed Diversity Affects Soybean and Maize Yield in a Long Term Experiment in Michigan, USA

Managing production environments in ways that promote weed community diversity may enhance both crop production and the development of a more sustainable agriculture. This study analyzed data of productivity of maize (corn) and soybean in plots in the Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE) at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research (KBS-LTER) in Michigan, USA, from 1996 to 2011. We used models derived from population ecology to explore how weed diversity, temperature, and precipitation interact with crop yields. Using three types of models that considered internal and external (climate and weeds) factors, with additive or non-linear variants, we found that changes in weed diversity were associated with changes in rates of crop yield increase over time for both maize and soybeans. The intrinsic capacity for soybean yield increase in response to the environment was greater under more diverse weed communities. Soybean production risks were greatest in the least weed diverse systems, in which each weed species lost was associated with progressively greater crop yield losses. Managing for weed community diversity, while suppressing dominant, highly competitive weeds, may be a helpful strategy for supporting long term increases in soybean productivity. In maize, there was a negative and non-additive response of yields to the interaction between weed diversity and minimum air temperatures. When cold temperatures constrained potential maize productivity through limited resources, negative interactions with weed diversity became more pronounced. We suggest that: (1) maize was less competitive in cold years allowing higher weed diversity and the dominance of some weed species; or (2) that cold years resulted in increased weed richness and prevalence of competitive weeds, thus reducing crop yields. Therefore, we propose to control dominant weed species especially in the years of low yield and extreme minimum temperatures to improve maize yields. Results of our study indicate that through the proactive management of weed diversity, it may be possible to promote both high productivity of crops and environmental sustainability.
Fear of Cancer Recurrence and Its Impacts on Quality of Life in Family Caregivers of Patients With Head and Neck Cancers

Background: Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is a major concern for family caregivers (FCs) caring for patients with head and neck cancers (HNCs). Purpose: This study (a) investigated the FCR experience of HNC FCs, (b) compared the differences in the FCR levels of FCs while taking care of patients with different lengths of time since completing major treatments (posttreatment durations), and (c) examined the correlation between FCR and quality of life (QOL) in these FCs. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the radiation outpatient department of a medical center in northern Taiwan. A set of questionnaires, including the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Caregiver version and the Medical Outcomes Short-Form Health Survey, and a background information form were employed. One-way analysis of variance was used to examine the differences in the FCR and QOL among groups of FCs taking care of patients with different posttreatment durations (typically concurrent chemoradiotherapy). Pearson’s correlation was used to identify the relationship between FCR and QOL. Results: Two hundred fifty FCs were recruited in this study. The FCs used several coping and reassurance strategies to address their FCR experiences. Those FCs who cared for patients with short posttreatment durations (3–6 and 6–12 months) showed significantly higher overall FCR levels and higher FCR severity levels than those who cared for patients with long posttreatment durations (more than 5 years). High FCR was negatively correlated with physical and mental QOL. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The results suggest that FCs caring for patients with a relatively short posttreatment duration experience higher levels of FCR than those caring for patients with a longer posttreatment duration. In clinical settings, healthcare providers should use posttreatment duration as an indicator of risk of FCR in caregivers to address FCR and provide appropriate support. Future research should develop and examine interventions to help HNC FCs cope effectively with their FCR and improve their QOL.
Environmental contamination of normal speech

ABSTRACT Environmentally contaminated speech errors occur when material derived from the speaker's environment but irrelevant to the speaker's intended utterance is erroneously incorporated into speech. Such material may include the names of objects at which speakers are looking, words that speakers are concurrently reading, segments of speech that speakers overhear, or properties of objects in the environment. It was found that although environmental contaminations display less phonological facilitation than other speech error types, they display some semantic facilitation. If the target item and interfering item are from the same syntactic category, a word substitution is more likely to result than a word blend, whereas if the items are from different categories, a blend is more likely. It is hypothesized that environmental contamination occurs at a high level of processing, but with a relatively late insertion point.
Unilateral deafness in adults: effects on communication and social interaction.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to explore the self-reported consequences of profound unilateral deafness regarding communication and social interaction and to compare subjects' speech perception scores to those of normal-hearing individuals who were rendered temporarily unilaterally deaf. METHODS Cross-sectional data from 30 individuals with unilateral deafness and 30 individuals with normal hearing (age, 14 to 75 years) were obtained through structured interviews and tests of audiovisual, auditory-only, and visual-only speech perception. RESULTS In individuals with permanent unilateral deafness, 93% reported that hearing loss affected communication. Eighty-seven percent reported problems with speech perception in noisy settings. Other consequences were feelings of exclusion, reduced well-being, and extensive use of speech perception strategies. Inducing temporary unilateral deafness (through short-term blocking of one ear) in normal-hearing subjects produced similar effects on speech perception (27% score) as those experienced by unilaterally deaf subjects (25% score). CONCLUSIONS Individuals with unilateral deafness experienced a significant disability in auditory function that affected their communication and social interaction. The major challenges were communicating in situations with background noise, in poor acoustic surroundings, and with limited access to speech-reading or direct listening. Under certain listening conditions, long-standing unilateral deafness seemed to yield no advantage over temporary deafness on one side.
A new look at similarity and attraction in marriage: Similarities in social‐cognitive and communication skills as predictors of attraction and satisfaction

Most research on the relationship between similarity and attraction has been informed by Byrne's (1971) effectance‐arousal model. This model maintains that similarities promote attraction because the discovery of similarities, particularly attitudinal similarities, is reinforcing. The current paper offers an alternative account of the similarity/attraction relationship distinct from the effectance‐arousal model both in the similarities it views as important and in the mechanism by which similarities influence attraction. Specifically, we propose that similarities in social‐cognitive and communication skills promote attraction by fostering enjoyable interactions. Aspects of this model are tested in a study comparing similarities in the social skills of married couples. Sixty couples completed a task yielding measures of three communication skills; the participants also completed questionnaires providing assessments of interpersonal cognitive complexity, marital adjustment, and liking for one's spouse. The .
Berufliche Gratifikationskrisen, Job Strain und Burnout bei chirurgisch tätigen Krankenhausärzten

The aim of the study is to analyse the association between psychosocial stress at work and burnout among clinicians in surgery in Germany. For the conceptualisation of work stress the demand-control model (job strain) and the effort-reward imbalance model (ERI) were used. Based on a stratified probability sample a mail survey of 1 311 clinicians from 489 hospitals was conducted. Burnout was measured by the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. Results of logistic regressions show that both models are significantly associated with burnout (odds ratio job strain: 6.53 (95% confidence interval 4.50-9.46), odds ratio ERI: 5.39 (95% confidence interval 3.94-7.36). Clinicians who are exposed to both, job strain and ERI, have an additionally increased risk. The demand-control model and the effort-reward imbalance model suggest theory-driven interventions for job related health promotion measures which aim for improved working conditions and a decrease of health risks among clinicians in surgery.
Determinants of colonic barrier function in inflammatory bowel disease and potential therapeutics

Abstract Intestinal barrier dysfunction is a main feature of the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Leak flux diarrhoea and a facilitated uptake of noxious antigens are the two consequences resulting from an impaired epithelial barrier. Barrier perturbations in IBD comprise alterations in epithelial tight junctions (TJ), i.e. a reduced number of horizontal TJ strands and an altered TJ protein expression and subcellular distribution. Moreover, increased incidence of apoptotic events as well as erosions and ulcerations can add to that leakiness. These barrier defects are attributed to enhanced activity of pro‐inflammatory cytokines like TNFα, INFγ, IL‐1β and IL‐13, which are highly expressed in the chronically inflamed intestine. Although the aetiology of IBD is far from being clear, chronic inflammation is believed to result from an inadequate immune response as a consequence of genetic predisposition as well as changes in, and altered responses to, the intestinal microbiota. On the other hand, an insufficient mucosal response to bacterial stimuli results in an insufficient immune response towards intestinal pathogens. However, detailed characterization of barrier defects offers the opportunity to consider and test therapeutic interventions. Beside cytokine antagonists, different plant compounds and probiotics have been shown to stabilize the barrier function by affecting TJ protein expression and distribution.
MatBall: Matrix-Based File Allocation Method for Hybrid File System

One way of improving I/O performance is to provide a hybrid file system where the entire address space is provided by combining a small portion of SSD (Solid-State Device) partition with a much larger HDD storage capacity. Since the address space to be offered by SSD partition is very small, utilizing SSD storage resources is the critical aspect in improving I/O performance of the hybrid file system. We present a matrix-based file allocation scheme, called Mat Ball (Matrix-Based file allocation), whose objective is to increase space utilization of SSD partition in the hybrid file system by reducing fragmentation overhead. In Mat Ball, to consume the remaining spaces as much as possible posterior to file allocations, I/O units (extents) of the hybrid file system are recursively partitioned into segments in the subsequent level and further file allocations are performed in units of the partitioned segments. Since Mat Ball defines easy-to-compute segment sizes and block positions in I/O units, allocating more files in the remaining spaces can be performed with a little overhead. The performance measurement with IOzone shows that the hybrid file system using Mat Ball enables to produce higher bandwidth over ext2 installed on HDD and SSD.
Changes in [3H]muscimol binding in substantia nigra, entopeduncular nucleus, globus pallidus, and thalamus after striatal lesions as demonstrated by quantitative receptor autoradiography

A quantitative autoradiographic technique for measuring the binding of [3H]muscimol to central nervous system GABA receptors is described using tritium-sensitive film. [3H]Muscimol binding was studied in primary and secondary striatal projection areas of rat brain following kainic acid lesions of the striatum. Seven days after the lesion, binding affinities in the striatum and its projection areas were not altered significantly. There was a loss of [3H]muscimol receptors in the striatum. Receptors increased in numbers in the ipsilateral globus pallidus (19%), entopeduncular nucleus (22%), and substantia nigra pars reticulata (38%). [3H]Muscimol binding was decreased in the ipsilateral anteroventrolateral and ventromedial (8%) thalamic nuclei. [3H]Muscimol binding in other brain areas (layer IV of the cerebral cortex, central gray, superior colliculus, and stratum moleculare of hippocampus) was not affected. The findings suggest that a loss of striatal innervation resulted in increased numbers of GABA receptors in striatal projection sites. It is further suggested that loss of inhibitory striatal inputs to neurons in the entopeduncular nucleus and substantia nigra pars reticulata may activate GABAergic projections to thalamus and thus result in decreased numbers of thalamic GABA receptors.
Canonical Formulation of Gravitational Teleparallelism in 2+1 Dimensions in Schwinger's Time Gauge

We consider the most general class of teleparallel gravitational theories quadratic in the torsion tensor, in three space-time dimensions, and carry out a detailed investigation of its Hamiltonian formulation in Schwinger’s time gauge. This general class is given by a family of three-parameter theories. A consistent implementation of the Legendre transform reduces the original theory to a one-parameter family of theories. By calculating the Poisson brackets, we show explicitly that the constraints of the theory constitute a first-class set. Therefore, the resulting theory is well defined with regard to time evolution. The structure of the Hamiltonian theory rules out the existence of the Newtonian limit.
A fast binary pair-based video descriptor for action recognition

Inspired by the binary-based descriptors (e.g. LBP, ALOHA, FREAK, BRISK), we propose the 3D Binary Pair Differences (3DBPD) video descriptor for action recognition. By comparing several spatio-temporal sub-regions around interests points, our descriptor is a feature vector with a dimensionality of up to 30% smaller than that of existing state-of-the-art descriptors. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the 3DBPD descriptor for action recognition with a SVM classifier and a simple Bag Of Video Words (BOV) generated using k-means. The proposed descriptor has very competitive recognition rates compared to other state-of-the-art descriptors, with an outstanding performance in terms of speed. Additionally, the 3DBPD descriptor requires a small codebook compared to those required by existing BOV-based descriptors.