Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing attitudes to inclusion in preservice teacher education: a systematic review

ABSTRACT Background: A positive attitude towards inclusion has been considered as one of the most influential success factors for inclusive education in school. Thus, improving attitudes to inclusion in preservice teachers has gained interest in research and teacher education practice. Purpose: In this study, we systematically reviewed intervention studies that aimed to improve preservice teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion within the university context. We aimed to investigate whether, in the reviewed studies, preservice teacher-training interventions led to a more positive attitude towards inclusion and also determine what kinds of preservice teacher-training interventions might lead to a more positive attitude change towards inclusion. Design and methods: The review of literature sought to identify and describe intervention studies that focused on changing attitudes towards inclusion in preservice teachers. The search focused on studies that assessed preservice teachers’ attitudes quantitatively, at least twice, with a planned and structured intervention in between. Original research published in English in international peer-review journals was included. Results: In total, 23 studies were identified. Within these, it was evident from the findings that studies of different type indicated positive change: both information-based cognitive interventions (n = 10) as well as interventions with a combination of information and practical field experience (n = 11) were reported to lead to more positive attitudes towards inclusion. Conclusions: The research draws attention to the importance of understanding, in greater depth, the attitudes that are conducive to the implementation of inclusive education. For theoretical and methodological reasons, results must be interpreted with caution and cannot be taken to imply a causal relationship between various approaches and attitudes towards inclusion. Implications for future research are given in terms of theoretical as well as methodological considerations.
Detection and differentiation of picornaviruses in clinical samples following genomic amplification.

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was used to detect and differentiate picornaviruses (PVs), using primers homologous to the 5' non-coding and VP2 regions of the PV genome. The PCR resulted in a 530 bp PCR product for human rhinoviruses (HRVs) and a 650 bp product for polioviruses, coxsackieviruses (CV) or echoviruses. The PCR assay could detect as little as 1 p.f. u. of virus in either cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or stool, using ethidium bromide-stained gels. Standard strains of poliovirus, CV, echovirus and HRV were detected, with the exception of echovirus type 22. In contrast, heterologous viruses, such as herpes simplex virus, human cytomegalovirus, adenovirus, influenza virus and rotavirus, as well as human and monkey cell DNA, were not amplified. In nasal swabs taken from patients with respiratory infections, the PCR detected 27 of 28 HRV isolation-positive specimens. All specimens from which viruses other than HRVs were isolated were negative by PCR. The PCR definitively identified poliovirus and CVs from the CSF or stool of patients with aseptic meningitis, as well as CV in the pericardial fluid of a patient who had suffered a myocardial infarction. Specimens taken from patients with similar pathologies, and from which heterologous viruses were isolated, were uniformly negative by PCR.
Advances in carotenoid increments in storage parts of African staple crops

The importance of vitamin A and other carotenoids in controlling micronutrient based deficiencies in particular VAD has been emphasized in recent years. This has resulted into demands for availing these nutrients in forms that are easily accessible for most of the populations in micronutrient deficient areas. Specifically in Africa, various programs have been instituted to bio-fortify crops with nutrients with more emphasis being put on Vitamin A fortification. Much as advances have been made in this area, a number of programs have registered little success while others have not taken off. In this review, advances in breeding for vitamin A increments are discussed. Countries where successes have been achieved are also highlighted while efforts in a number of areas for the different staple crops have been given due emphasis. In particular, breeding strategies have been discussed, and examples of successful breeding strategies highlighted to inform future efforts. In addition, the effect of processing on retention of vitamin A in processed products has been discussed with specific recommendations on identification of crop specific processing procedures. Such procedures should be optimized before adoption to allow for minimal losses in vitamin A and other related nutrients. We conclude that much as advances have been made, specific efforts are still needed in certain staples in order to provide benefits to the African consumers. Key Words: African staples, Carotenoids, Malnutrition, Biofortification, Retention
Chapter 6: Design and Design Frameworks: Investment in KBC and Economic Performance

This chapter addresses the nature and the economic impact of design by looking at design-related intellectual property and how businesses protect their knowledge based capital. The chapter reviews the nature and various definitions of design and how design-related IP, specifically registered designs, relates to other formal IP mechanisms such as patents, trademarks, and copyright. It looks at the primary areas of design activity in a subset of OECD countries and investigates the similarities and differences of the constituent design IP regimes as well as the various treaties governing international design IP regulation. The review continues with an examination of how design-related IP functions in comparison to and in conjunction with other formal and informal IP protection mechanisms and what factors motivate firms to choose and appropriate combinations of protection mechanisms. By examining historical patterns of design registrations in a variety of ways, this chapter identifies trends, at the national level, of how firms perceive the importance of design-related IP. Analysis of national origins of registrations in both the European Community and the United States provides an indicator of the activity of those countries’ businesses relative to their proximities to the markets. It explores the existence of possible alternative indicators for design activity and of industry-specific variations across the sample set. The chapter concludes with a review of input and output measures as stated in the limited set of studies that have endeavoured to establish or quantify the value and/or benefit of design and design-related IP. The studies, while clearly suggesting that design does have economic benefits, both at the firm and overall economic levels, largely use qualitative or subjective indicators because the data necessary for large-scale econometric analysis are generally not available. This chapter is intended to be exploratory rather than comprehensive or conclusive. It should be considered as an initial step towards the possibility of a broader and deeper analysis of design-related issues.
Distinct Sets of Adjacent Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) A1/A2 Binding Sites Control 5′ Splice Site Selection in the hnRNP A1 mRNA Precursor*

In the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) A1 pre-mRNA, different regions in the introns flanking alternative exon 7B have been implicated in the production of the A1 and A1B mRNA splice isoforms. Among these, the CE1a and CE4 elements, located downstream of common exon 7 and alternative exon 7B, respectively, are bound by hnRNP A1 to promote skipping of exon 7Bin vivo and distal 5′ splice site selection in vitro. Here, we report that CE1a is flanked by an additional high affinity A1 binding site (CE1d). In a manner similar to CE1a, CE1d affects 5′ splice site selection in vitro. Consistent with a role for hnRNP A1 in the activity of CE1d, a mutation that abrogates A1 binding abolishes distal 5′ splice site activation. Moreover, the ability of CE1d to stimulate distal 5′ splice site usage is lost in an HeLa extract depleted of hnRNP A/B proteins, and the addition of recombinant A1 restores the activity of CE1d. Notably, distal 5′ splice site selection mediated by A1 binding sites is not compromised in an extract prepared from mouse cells that are severely deficient in hnRNP A1 proteins. In this case, we show that hnRNP A2 compensates for the A1 deficiency. Further studies with the CE4 element reveal that it also consists of two distinct portions (CE4m and CE4p), each one capable of promoting distal 5′ splice site use in an hnRNP A1-dependent manner. The presence of multiple A1/A2 binding sites downstream of common exon 7 and alternative exon 7B probably plays an important role in maximizing the activity of hnRNP A1/A2 proteins.
Ratio Estimation In Accounting Populations With Probabilities Of Sample Selection Proportional To Size Of Book Values

It is generally recognized that accounting populations possess statistical characteristics which render inappropriate the routine application of sample survey techniques to auditing problems. Kaplan [1973] points out that inferences about accounting populations are probably best made using auxiliary information, such as recorded book values. However, since typical accounting populations are highly skewed and contain relatively few accounts in error, the standard distributional assumptions1 underlying auxiliary information estimators (e.g., ratio or regression estimators) are likely to be violated. This leads Kaplan to conclude that "entirely new approaches may be required for statistical sampling in auditing. " In this paper we study a modification of a standard unbiased ratio estimator2 based on a population sample selected with probability pro-
Ultrastructural characterization of synaptic terminals formed on newly generated neurons in a song control nucleus of the adult canary forebrain

The fine structure of synaptic terminals contacting neurons generated in the forebrain of adult male canaries was investigated by autoradiography and electron microscopy. The procedure for labeling the new neurons included pretreating adult canaries with 3H‐thymidine and sacrificing them 23–45 days later. Neurons were identified as newly generated by the presence of 3H‐thymidine in the cell nucleus. The new neurons in the nucleus hyperstriatum ventralis, pars caudalis (HVc) were identified by autoradiography and light microscopy and examined with electron microscopy.
Broken expectations in the digital home

As part of an ongoing effort to understand ease of use of digital home technologies, we undertook an exploratory study of people who use their home networks for more than just broadband Internet access. In particular, we wanted to understand the overhead, or problem-time, people spent with their home network devices. As expected, we saw issues of broken hardware and broken software. We also found that problems are often caused by broken expectations, a mismatch between what a person expects to be able to do and specific device capabilities. In this paper we explore broken expectations in the digital home with examples from our study. These observations suggest further research into the ways user expectations and activities shape the digital home experience.
A framework for the distributed management of charging operations

This paper proposes a solution for the distributed dynamic assignment of a set of electric vehicles to a network of charging stations. Drivers of the electric vehicles and charging stations exchange messages using a communication protocol. Drivers of the vehicles send requests for the charging of their own vehicle in prefixed timeslots; charging stations perform a series of distributed optimizations in order to reach a common assignment of the vehicles needing to recharge and communicate the reached assignment to the drivers. The optimization problem is solved using some distributed multi-agent assignment algorithms: the stations reach a consensus solving some local integer linear programming problems.
Compact self-grounded Bow-Tie antenna design for an UWB phased-array hyperthermia applicator

Abstract Using UWB hyperthermia systems has the potential to improve the heat delivery to deep seated tumours. In this paper, we present a novel self-grounded Bow–Tie antenna design which is to serve as the basis element in a phased-array applicator. The UWB operation in the frequency range of 0.43–1 GHz is achieved by immersing the antenna in a water bolus. The radiation characteristics are improved by appropriate shaping the water bolus and by inclusion of dielectric layers on the top of the radiating arms of the antenna. In order to find the most appropriate design, we use a combination of performance indicators representing the most important attributes of the antenna. These are the UWB impedance matching, the transmission capability and the effective field size. The antenna was constructed and experimentally validated on muscle-like phantom. The measured reflection and transmission coefficients as well as radiation characteristics are in excellent agreement with the simulated results. MR image acquisitions with antenna located inside MR bore indicate a negligible distortion of the images by the antenna itself, which indicates MR compatibility.
Coordinated reduction of genes of oxidative metabolism in humans with insulin resistance and diabetes: Potential role of PGC1 and NRF1

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by insulin resistance and pancreatic β cell dysfunction. In high-risk subjects, the earliest detectable abnormality is insulin resistance in skeletal muscle. Impaired insulin-mediated signaling, gene expression, glycogen synthesis, and accumulation of intramyocellular triglycerides have all been linked with insulin resistance, but no specific defect responsible for insulin resistance and DM has been identified in humans. To identify genes potentially important in the pathogenesis of DM, we analyzed gene expression in skeletal muscle from healthy metabolically characterized nondiabetic (family history negative and positive for DM) and diabetic Mexican–American subjects. We demonstrate that insulin resistance and DM associate with reduced expression of multiple nuclear respiratory factor-1 (NRF-1)-dependent genes encoding key enzymes in oxidative metabolism and mitochondrial function. Although NRF-1 expression is decreased only in diabetic subjects, expression of both PPARγ coactivator 1-α and-β (PGC1-α/PPARGC1 and PGC1-β/PERC), coactivators of NRF-1 and PPARγ-dependent transcription, is decreased in both diabetic subjects and family history-positive nondiabetic subjects. Decreased PGC1 expression may be responsible for decreased expression of NRF-dependent genes, leading to the metabolic disturbances characteristic of insulin resistance and DM.
Occupational variation in incidence of bladder cancer: a comparison of population-representative cohorts from Nordic countries and Canada

Objectives The objective of this study was to compare occupational variation of the risk of bladder cancer in the Nordic countries and Canada. Methods In the Nordic Occupational Cancer study (NOCCA), 73 653 bladder cancer cases were observed during follow-up of 141.6 million person-years. In the Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort (CanCHEC), 8170 cases were observed during the follow-up of 36.7 million person-years. Standardised incidence ratios with 95% CI were estimated for 53 occupations in the NOCCA cohort and HR with 95% CIs were estimated for 42 occupations in the CanCHEC. Results Elevated risks of bladder cancer were observed among hairdressers, printers, sales workers, plumbers, painters, miners and laundry workers. Teachers and agricultural workers had reduced risk of bladder cancer in both cohorts. Chimney-sweeps, tobacco workers and waiters had about 1.5-fold risk in the Nordic countries; no risk estimates for these categories were given from the CanCHEC cohort. Conclusion We observed different occupational patterns in risk of bladder cancer in Nordic countries and Canada. The only occupation with similarly increased risk was observed among sales workers. Differences in smoking across occupational groups may explain some, but not all, of this variation.
Ligand Prediction from Protein Sequence and Small Molecule Information Using Support Vector Machines and Fingerprint Descriptors

Support vector machine (SVM) database search strategies are presented that aim at the identification of small molecule ligands for targets for which no ligand information is currently available. In pharmaceutical research and chemical biology, this situation is faced, for example, when studying orphan targets or newly identified members of protein families. To investigate methods for de novo ligand identification in the absence of known three-dimensional target structures or active molecules, we have focused on combining sequence and ligand information for closely and distantly related proteins. To provide a basis for these investigations, a set of 11 protease targets from different families was assembled together with more than 2000 inhibitors directed against individual proteases. We have compared SVM approaches that combine protein sequence and ligand information in different ways and utilize 2D fingerprints as ligand descriptors. These methodologies were applied to search for inhibitors of individual proteases not taken into account during learning. A target sequence-ligand kernel and, in particular, a linear combination of multiple target-directed SVMs consistently identified inhibitors with high accuracy including test cases where homology-based similarity searching using data fusion and conventional SVM ranking nearly or completely failed. The SVM linear combination and target-ligand kernel methods described herein are intuitive and straightforward to adopt for ligand prediction against other targets.
Predictive Control of AC–AC Modular Multilevel Converters

Multilevel converters can reach medium-voltage operation increasing the efficiency of high-power applications. Among the existing multilevel converter topologies, the modular multilevel converter (MMC) provides the advantages of high modularity, availability, and high power quality. Moreover, the main advantage compared to cascaded multilevel converters is the lack of an input transformer which results in a reduction of cooling requirements, size, and cost. One of the drawbacks of this topology when used as an ac-ac converter is the input and output frequency components in the control loop, resulting in a more complex controller design. In this paper, a single-phase ac-ac MMC predictive control approach is proposed. The controller minimizes the input, output, and circulating current errors and balances the dc voltages. Experimental results show the performance of the proposed predictive control scheme.
Prediction of Protein Coarse Contact Maps

Prediction of topological representations of proteins that are geometrically invariants can contribute towards the solution of fundamental open problems in structural genomics like folding. In this paper we focus on coarse grained protein contact maps, a representation that describes the spatial neighborhood relation between secondary structure elements such as helices, beta sheets, and random coils. Our methodology is based on searching the graph space. The search algorithm is guided by an adaptive evaluation function computed by a specialized noncausal recursive connectionist architecture. The neural network is trained using candidate graphs generated during examples of successful searches. Our results demonstrate the viability of the approach for predicting coarse contact maps.
Isolation of Somatic Na+ Currents by Selective Inactivation of Axonal Channels with a Voltage Prepulse

We present a simple and effective method for isolating the somatic Na+ current recorded under voltage clamp from neurons in brain slices. The principle is to convert the axon from an active compartment capable of generating uncontrolled axonal spikes into a passive structure by selectively inactivating axonal Na+ channels. Typically, whole-cell currents from intact neurons under somatic voltage clamp contain a mixture of Na+ current and axial current caused by escaped axonal spikes. We found that a brief prepulse to voltages near spike threshold evokes the axonal spike, which inactivates axonal but not somatic channels. A subsequent voltage step then evokes only somatic Na+ current from electrotonically proximal sodium channels under good voltage-clamp control. Simulations using a neuron compartmental model support the idea that the prepulse effectively inactivates currents from the axon and isolates well controlled somatic currents. Na+ currents recorded from cortical pyramidal neurons in slices, using the prepulse, were found to have voltage dependence nearly identical to that of currents recorded from acutely dissociated pyramidal neurons. In addition, studies in dissociated neurons show that the prepulse has no visible effect on the voltage dependence and kinetics of Na+ currents elicited by the subsequent voltage step, only decreasing the amplitude of the currents by 10–20%. The technique was effective in several neuronal types in brain slices from male and female neonatal rats and mice, including raphé neurons, cortical pyramidal neurons, inferior olivary neurons, and hypoglossal motoneurons.
Influence of Maturation Status on Eccentric Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage and the Repeated Bout Effect in Females

This study compared changes in indirect muscle damage markers, proprioception and arterial stiffness after elbow flexor eccentric exercise between pre-pubescent (9–10 y), pubescent (14–15 y), and post-pubescent (20–24 y) healthy, untrained females (n = 13/group). The maturation of the participants was confirmed by the hand bone age. All participants performed two bouts of 30 sub-maximal eccentric contractions (EC1, EC2) using a dumbbell set at 60% of pre-exercise maximal voluntary isometric elbow flexion strength at 90°. Changes in maximal voluntary concentric contraction (MVC) torque, muscle soreness (SOR), plasma creatine kinase activity, proprioception (position sense, joint reaction angle) and arterial stiffness (carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity: cfPWV) before to 5 days after EC1 and EC2 were compared among groups by a mixed-design two-way ANOVA. Pre-exercise MVC torque and cfPWV were smaller (P < 0.05) for the pre-pubescent (MVC: 10.0 ± 0.9 Nm, cfPWV: 903 ± 60 cm/s) and the pubescent (14.3 ± 1.1 Nm, 967 ± 61 cm/s) than the post-pubescent (19.1 ± 1.4 Nm, 1,103 ± 73 cm/s). Changes in all variables after EC1 were smaller (P < 0.05) for the pre-pubescent (e.g., MVC at 1 d post-exercise: −10 ± 6%, peak SOR: 5 ± 2 mm) than the pubescent (−15 ± 9%, 12 ± 6 mm) and the post-pubescent (−25 ± 7%, 19 ± 13 mm). After EC2, changes in all variables were smaller (P < 0.05) than those after EC1 for all groups (e.g., MVC at 1 d post-exercise, pre-pubescent: −4 ± 6%, pubescent: −9 ± 4%, post-pubescent: −14 ± 5%; peak SOR: 3 ± 2, 7 ± 3, 11 ± 6 mm), but the magnitude of the repeated bout effect was not different (P > 0.05) among the groups. These results show that the extents of muscle damage, and proprioception and arterial stiffness changes after eccentric exercise are greater at later stages of maturation, but the repeated bout effect is not affected by maturation.