Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bringing avoidance and anxiety to the job: Attachment style and instrumental helping behavior among co-workers

While social psychologists have widely explored the link between adult attachment styles and interpersonal relating behaviors such as caregiving in intimate relationships, organizational researchers have yet to examine the generalizability of such findings to employee interrelating behaviors at work. Addressing this gap in the research, we extend attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) to the work context in order to generate and test hypotheses regarding the way in which helping behavior may be explained on the basis of the help provider’s level of attachment anxiety and avoidance. Data collected from 320 call center employees of a large Israeli telecommunications company suggest that while attachment anxiety is inversely associated with instrumental helping, it also attenuates the inverse effects of attachment avoidance on such helping. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Interoperability platform for virtual and remote laboratories

This communication describes the interoperability platform that has been developed at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) to integrate the access to different virtual and remote laboratories. Up to eleven laboratories that belong to the GilabViR group of interest in virtual and remote laboratories in our University have been analyzed to generate a set of specifications and develop the architecture and the applications that would allow its access through the university LMS system. Although the current LMS platform (Atenea) is implemented over Moodle 1.9, the new modules have been developed using Moodle 2.2. 1 given that the migration to this version will be done in the next months. The interoperability platform defines new Moodle modules that allow the interconnection between the LMS system and a set of laboratories and provide the intrinsic LMS features (user identification, activity recording, educational materials repository, .). There are modules that allow the interaction with a web service interface giving access to the laboratory, with Java applet virtual laboratories and others that make possible the link with LabView based remote laboratories, all of them with recording of experiment parameters in SQL databases placed in the experiment servers.
Feature Article - Reporting Computational Experiments with Parallel Algorithms: Issues, Measures, and Experts' Opinions

Accompanying the increasing availability of parallel computing technology is a corresponding growth of research into the development, implementation, and testing of parallel algorithms. This paper examines issues involved in reporting on the empirical testing of parallel mathematical programming algorithms, both optimizing and heuristic. We examine the appropriateness of various performance metrics and explore the effects of testing variability, machine influences, testing biases, and the effects of tuning parameters. Some of these difficulties were explored further in a survey sent to leading computational mathematical programming researchers for their reactions and suggestions. A summary of the survey and proposals for conscientious reporting are presented. INFORMS Journal on Computing , ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.
Raptor and Rheb Negatively Regulate Skeletal Myogenesis through Suppression of Insulin Receptor Substrate 1 (IRS1)*

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is essential for skeletal myogenesis through controlling distinct cellular pathways. The importance of the canonical mTOR complex 1 signaling components, including raptor, S6K1, and Rheb, had been suggested in muscle maintenance, growth, and metabolism. However, the role of those components in myogenic differentiation is not entirely clear. In this study we have investigated the functions of raptor, S6K1, and Rheb in the differentiation of C2C12 mouse myoblasts. We find that although mTOR knockdown severely impairs myogenic differentiation as expected, the knockdown of raptor, as well as Rheb, enhances differentiation. Consistent with a negative role for these proteins in myogenesis, overexpression of raptor or Rheb inhibits C2C12 differentiation. On the other hand, neither knockdown nor overexpression of S6K1 has any effect. Moreover, the enhanced differentiation elicited by raptor or Rheb knockdown is accompanied by increased Akt activation, elevated IRS1 protein levels, and decreased Ser-307 (human Ser-312) phosphorylation on IRS1. Finally, IRS1 knockdown eliminated the enhancement in differentiation elicited by raptor or Rheb knockdown, suggesting that IRS1 is a critical mediator of the myogenic functions of raptor and Rheb. In conclusion, the Rheb-mTOR/raptor pathway negatively regulates myogenic differentiation by suppressing IRS1-PI3K-Akt signaling. These findings underscore the versatility of mTOR signaling in biological regulations and implicate the existence of novel mTOR complexes and/or signaling mechanism in skeletal myogenesis.
Noxa upregulation by oncogenic activation of MEK/ERK through CREB promotes autophagy in human melanoma cells

Reduction in the expression of the anti-survival BH3-only proteins PUMA and Bim is associated with the pathogenesis of melanoma. However, we have found that the expression of the other BH3-only protein Noxa is commonly upregulated in melanoma cells, and that this is driven by oncogenic activation of MEK/ERK. Immunohistochemistry studies showed that Noxa was expressed at higher levels in melanomas than nevi. Moreover, the expression of Noxa was increased in metastatic compared to primary melanomas, and in thick primaries compared to thin primaries. Inhibition of oncogenic BRAFV600E or MEK downregulated Noxa, whereas activation of MEK/ERK caused its upregulation. In addition, introduction of BRAFV600E increased Noxa expression in melanocytes. Upregulation of Noxa was due to a transcriptional increase mediated by cAMP responsive element binding protein, activation of which was also increased by MEK/ERK signaling in melanoma cells. Significantly, Noxa appeared necessary for constitutive activation of autophagy, albeit at low levels, by MEK/ERK in melanoma cells. Furthermore, it was required for autophagy activation that delayed apoptosis in melanoma cells undergoing nutrient deprivation. These results reveal that oncogenic activation of MEK/ERK drives Noxa expression to promote autophagy, and suggest that Noxa has an indirect anti-apoptosis role in melanoma cells under nutrient starvation conditions.
Rapid cooling preserves the ischaemic myocardium against mitochondrial damage and left ventricular dysfunction.

AIMS We investigated whether rapid cooling instituted by total liquid ventilation (TLV) improves cardiac and mitochondrial function in rabbits submitted to ischaemia-reperfusion. METHODS AND RESULTS Rabbits were chronically instrumented with a coronary artery occluder and myocardial ultrasonic crystals for assessment of segment length-shortening. Two weeks later they were re-anaesthetized and underwent either a normothermic 30-min coronary artery occlusion (CAO) (Control group, n = 7) or a comparable CAO with cooling initiated by a 10-min hypothermic TLV and maintained by a cold blanket placed on the skin. Cooling was initiated after 5 or 15 min of CAO (Hypo-TLV and Hypo-TLV(15') groups, n = 6 and 5, respectively). A last group underwent normothermic TLV during CAO (Normo-TLV group, n = 6). Wall motion was measured in the conscious state over three days of reperfusion before infarct size evaluation and histology. Additional experiments were done for myocardial sampling in anaesthetized rabbits for mitochondrial studies. The Hypo-TLV procedure induced a rapid decrease in myocardial temperature to 32-34 degrees C. Throughout reperfusion, segment length-shortening was significantly increased in Hypo-TLV and Hypo-TLV(15') vs. Control and Normo-TLV (15.1 +/- 3.3%, 16.4 +/- 2.3%, 1.8 +/- 0.6%, and 1.1 +/- 0.8% at 72 h, respectively). Infarct sizes were also considerably attenuated in Hypo-TLV and Hypo-TLV(15') vs. Control and Normo-TLV (4 +/- 1%, 11 +/- 5%, 39 +/- 2%, and 42 +/- 5% infarction of risk zones, respectively). Mitochondrial function in myocardial samples obtained at the end of ischaemia or after 10 min of reperfusion was improved by Hypo-TLV with respect to ADP-stimulated respiration and calcium-induced opening of mitochondrial permeability transition pores (mPTP). Calcium concentration opening mPTP was, e.g., increased at the end of ischaemia in the risk zone in Hypo-TLV vs. Control (157 +/- 12 vs. 86 +/- 12 microM). Histology and electron microscopy also revealed better preservation of lungs and of cardiomyocyte ultrastructure in Hypo-TLV when compared with Control. CONCLUSION Institution of rapid cooling by TLV during ischaemia reduces infarct size as well as other sequelae of ischaemia, such as post-ischaemic contractile and mitochondrial dysfunction.
The Child Sexual Abuse Experience and the Child Sexual Abuse Medical Examination: Knowing What Correlations Exist

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess what children experience when they are sexually abused and determine if these experiences correlate with emotional distress and anogenital findings identified during medical examinations for sexual abuse. There were 269 children examined medically for sexual abuse and for whom the adult bringing the child to the medical examination reported that the child had made a statement alleging sexual abuse. Differences in what these children reportedly had stated about their sexual abuse was quantified on a questionnaire by the adults who brought the children. After the examination, children rated how distressed they felt having their bodies examined. The physician or nurse practitioner evaluating the child provided the second measure of emotional distress using the Genital Examination Distress Scale (GEDS) to rate behaviors observed during the anogenital component of the medical examination. The anogenital findings were classified as negative, inconclusive, or positive for abnormal anogenital findings consistent with sexual abuse. More frequent abuse, more perpetrators, physical injury and more severe sexual acts reportedly described by the children prior to the medical examination were variables significantly correlated with increased emotional distress. Reported threats of physical harm during the sexual abuse and a belief by mothers that sexual abuse occurred both correlated significantly with anogenital abnormalities consistent with sexual abuse. These results indicate that if children are more emotionally distressed during the medical examination and have abnormal anogenital findings consistent with sexual abuse, then they possibly have experienced more extensive and aggravated events during the sexual abuse. These results may help determine which children need more preparation for a medical assessment and which children are more likely to have sexual abuse related anogenital findings.
Detection of Linkages Between Extreme Flow Measures and Climate Indices

— Large scale climate signals and their teleconnections can influence hydro-meteorological variables on a local scale. Several extreme flow and timing measures, including high flow and low flow measures, from 62 hydrometric stations in Canada are investigated to detect possible linkages with several large scale climate indices. The streamflow data used in this study are derived from the Canadian Reference Hydrometric Basin Network and are characterized by relatively pristine and stable land-use conditions with a minimum of 40 years of record. A composite analysis approach was used to identify linkages between extreme flow and timing measures and climate indices. The approach involves determining the 10 highest and 10 lowest values of various climate indices from the data record. Extreme flow and timing measures for each station were examined for the years associated with the 10 largest values and the years associated with the 10 smallest values. In each case, a re-sampling approach was applied to determine if the 10 values of extreme flow measures differed significantly from the series mean. Results indicate that several stations are impacted by the large scale climate indices considered in this study. The results allow the determination of any relationship between stations that exhibit a statistically significant trend and stations for which the extreme measures exhibit a linkage with the climate indices.
Gastric Bypass Surgery Enhances Glucagon-Like Peptide 1–Stimulated Postprandial Insulin Secretion in Humans

OBJECTIVE Gastric bypass (GB) surgery is associated with postprandial hyperinsulinemia, and this effect is accentuated in postsurgical patients who develop recurrent hypoglycemia. Plasma levels of the incretin glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) are dramatically increased after GB, suggesting that its action contributes to alteration in postprandial glucose regulation. The aim of this study was to establish the role of GLP-1 on insulin secretion in patients with GB. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Twelve asymptomatic individuals with previous GB (Asym-GB), 10 matched healthy nonoperated control subjects, and 12 patients with recurrent hypoglycemia after GB (Hypo-GB) had pre- and postprandial hormone levels and insulin secretion rates (ISR) measured during a hyperglycemic clamp with either GLP-1 receptor blockade with exendin-(9–39) or saline. RESULTS Blocking the action of GLP-1 suppressed postprandial ISR to a larger extent in Asym-GB individuals versus control subjects (33 ± 4 vs.16 ± 5%; P = 0.04). In Hypo-GB patients, GLP-1 accounted for 43 ± 4% of postprandial ISR, which was not significantly higher than that in Asym-GB subjects (P = 0.20). Glucagon was suppressed similarly by hyperglycemia in all groups but rose significantly after the meal in surgical individuals but remained suppressed in nonsurgical subjects. GLP-1 receptor blockade increased postprandial glucagon in both surgical groups. CONCLUSIONS Increased GLP-1–stimulated insulin secretion contributes significantly to hyperinsulinism in GB subjects. However, the exaggerated effect of GLP-1 on postprandial insulin secretion in surgical subjects is not significantly different in those with and without recurrent hypoglycemia.
Isoprenoid geranylgeranylacetone inhibits human colon cancer cells through induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest

Geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), an isoprenoid compound, is a widely used antiulcer drug developed in Japan. GGA is structurally similar to plaunotol and geranylgeraniol, another isoprenoid reported to exert strong anticancer effects. In an earlier study, GGA was shown to inhibit ovarian cancer invasion by attenuating not only Rho activation, but also Ras–MAPK activation. In this study, we aimed to test whether GGA could have a therapeutic effect on colon cancer cells. As a result, we found that GGA induced a dose-dependent decrease in the proliferative activity through induction of cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in the G1 phase. The induction of apoptosis was mediated by the activation of both caspase-8 and caspase-9 pathways. The induction of G1 arrest was mediated by the increase of p21 and p27, and also the decrease of phosphorylated retinoblastoma protein levels. This study showed the potential anticancer activity of GGA. As this drug is already available in Japan for clinical use as an antiulcer/antigastritis agent, clinical trials will be designed to confirm its potential usefulness for cancer patients.
Family interaction: A process model of deviancy training

A model was presented describing the reciprocal influence of disruptions in parent discipline practices on irritable exchanges between the target child and other family members. Disrupted parent discipline and irritable microsocial exchanges within the family were hypothesized to provide a basic training for aggression that generalizes to other settings such that the child is identified by peers, teachers, and parents as physically aggressive. Physical fighting was thought to lead to rejection by the normal peer group, which was hypothesized to feed back to further exacerbate fighting. Multilevel assessment including interview, questionnaires, laboratory studies, and home observations were carried out with the families of 91 preadolescent and adolescent boys. Nine indicators from the assessment battery were used to define the constructs Inept Parental Discipline, Negative Microsocial Exchanges, Physical Fighting, and Poor Peer Relations. Structural equations (LISREL VI) were used to describe the relations among the constructs. The t values for the path coefficients were significant. A chi-square analysis showed an acceptable fit between the model and the empirical findings. The findings were interpreted as being consistent with the hypothesis that under certain circumstances, family interaction may serve as basic training for aggression. In the present study, interactions with siblings in the home seemed to serve a pivotal role.
Purinergic signaling in inflammatory renal disease

Extracellular purines have a role in renal physiology and adaption to inflammation. However, inflammatory renal disease may be mediated by extracellular purines, resulting in renal injury. The role of purinergic signaling is dependent on the concentrations of extracellular purines. Low basal levels of purines are important in normal homeostasis and growth. Concentrations of extracellular purines are significantly elevated during inflammation and mediate either an adaptive role or propagate local inflammation. Adenosine signaling mediates alterations in regional renal blood flow by regulation of the renal microcirculation, tubulo-glomerular feedback, and tubular transport of sodium and water. Increased extracellular ATP and renal P2 receptor-mediated inflammation are associated with various renal diseases, including hypertension, diabetic nephropathy, and glomerulonephritis. Experimental data suggests P2 receptor deficiency or receptor antagonism is associated with amelioration of antibody-mediated nephritis, suggesting a pathogenic (rather than adaptive) role of purinergic signaling. We discuss the role of extracellular nucleotides in adaptation to ischemic renal injury and in the pathogenesis of inflammatory renal disease.
Gossip-based broadcast protocols

Gossip, or epidemic, protocols have emerged as a powerful strategy to implement highly scalable and resilient reliable broadcast primitives. Due to scalability reasons, each participant in a gossip protocol maintains only a partial view of the system, from which they select peers to perform gossip exchanges. On the other hand the natural redundancy of gossip protocols makes them less efficient than other approaches that rely in some sort of structured overlay network. The thesis addresses gossip protocols and the problem of building partial views to support their operation. For that purpose, the thesis presents and evaluates a new scalable membership protocol, which is called HyParView, that provides a number of properties, such as degree distribution, accuracy and clustering coefficient, that are highly useful to the construction of efficient gossip protocols. The thesis also introduce two new gossip protocols, based on HyParView, that provide high reliability with small message redundancy. One is an eager push gossip protocol while the other is a tree based gossip broadcast protocol. Simulations results show that, in comparison with other existing protocols, HyParView-based gossip protocols not only provide better reliability but also support higher percentages of node failures, and are able to recover faster from these failures.
Molecular characterization, physicochemical properties, known and potential applications of phytases: An overview

Phytases (myo-inositol hexakisphosphate phosphohydrolases) hydrolyze the phosphate ester bonds of phytate-releasing phosphate and lower myo-inositol phosphates and/or myo-inositol. Phytases, in general, are known to enhance phosphate and mineral uptake in monogastric animals such as poultry, swine, and fish, which cannot metabolize phytate besides reducing environmental pollution significantly. In this study, the molecular, biophysical, and biochemical properties of phytases are reviewed in detail. Alterations in the molecular and catalytic properties of phytases, upon expression in heterologous hosts, are discussed. Diverse applications of phytases as feed additives, as soil amendment, in aquaculture, development of transgenic organisms, and as nutraceuticals in the human diet also are dealt with. Furthermore, phytases are envisaged to serve as potential enzymes that can produce versatile lower myo-inositol phosphates of pharmaceutical importance. Development of phytases with improved attributes is an important area being explored through genetic and protein engineering approaches, as no known phytase can fulfill all the properties of an ideal feed additive.
Smoothing Algorithm for N-Gram Model Using Agglutinative Characteristic of Korean

Smoothing for an n-gram language model is an algorithm that can assign a non-zero probability to an unseen n-gram. Smoothing is an essential technique for an n-gram language model due to the data sparseness problem. However, in some circumstances it assigns an improper amount of probability to unseen n-grams. In this paper, we present a novel method that adjusts the improperly assigned probabilities of unseen n-grams by taking advantage of the agglutinative characteristics of Korean language. In Korean, the grammatically proper class of a morpheme can be predicted by knowing the previous morpheme. By using this characteristic, we try to prevent grammatically improper n-grams from achieving relatively higher probability and to assign more probability mass to proper n-grams. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve 8.6% - 12.5% perplexity reductions for Katz backoff algorithm and 4.9% - 7.0% perplexity reductions for Kneser-Ney Smoothing.
AoD and AoA tracking with directional sounding beam design for millimeter wave MIMO systems

Millimeter wave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems equipped with large-sized array antennas have a great potential to boost the achievable data rates by leveraging large bandwidth available at the spectrum. In this paper, we focus on the angle of departure (AoD) and angle of arrival (AoA) tracking problem for temporally correlated sparse millimeter wave MIMO channels. With the beam space MIMO channel modeling, a low complexity two-sided channel sounding scheme for the AoD and AoA tracking is investigated. The adoption of the sparse beam space MIMO channel representation eventually converts the AoD and AoA estimation problem to the support recovery problem. For the support recovery, we employ an iterative soft thresholding algorithm which is broadly referred to as the approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. The support recovery performance of the AMP, however, suffers from serious deterioration especially at the low SNR regime. To remedy, several directional sounding beam design schemes are proposed to ameliorate the performance of the channel tracking at the low SNR. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed AoD and AoA tracking outperforms other benchmark schemes when compared in a low SNR setting.
The effect of target's physical attractiveness and dominance on STD-risk perceptions

Utilizing a 2 x 2 design, the present study examined the effect of a female's physical attractiveness and dominance on men's sexual motivation and sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk perceptions in a sample of 72 heterosexual male college students. As predicted, participants a ere more motivated to have sex with more physically attractive women. Nonetheless, they also believed that the more physically attractive women had been more promiscuous in the past, and believed that unprotected sex with a physically attractive woman implied a relatively somewhat higher risk of contracting an STD. In contrast, the more socially dominant women were perceived as having practiced safer sex more regularly and as having had less risky sexual partners in the past. Practical implications of this study are discussed.