Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Making students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness effective: The critical issues of validity, bias, and utility.

This article reviews research indicating that, under appropriate conditions, students' evaluations of teaching (SETs) are (a) multidimensional; (b) reliable and stable; (c) primarily a function of the instructor who teaches a course rather than the course that is taught; (d) relatively valid against a variety of indicators of effective teaching; (e) relatively unaffected by a variety of variables hypothesized as potential biases (e.g., grading leniency, class size, workload, prior subject interest); and (f) useful in improving teaching effectiveness when SETS are coupled with appropriate consultation. The authors recommend rejecting a narrow criterion-related approach to validity and adopting a broad construct-validation approach, recognizing that effective teaching and SETs that reflect teaching effectiveness are multidimensional; no single criterion of effective teaching is sufficient; and tentative interpretations of relations with validity criteria and potential biases should be evaluated critically in different contexts, in relation to multiple criteria of effective teaching, theory, and existing knowledge.
Inhibition of phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase synergizes with gemcitabine in low-passage tumor cell lines correlating with Bax translocation to the mitochondria

Apoptotic pathways, including the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT survival pathway, are altered in most cancer cells in relation to their normal counterparts and these differences may present an excellent therapeutic window. To gain insight into the relevance of the PI3K pathway as a target for drug discovery we generated tumor cell lines from different tumor samples that we maintained at low passage. The characterization of these cell lines indicates that all of them have constitutively activated the PI3K pathway through different mechanisms. All cell lines were differentially sensitive to the PI3K inhibitor LY294002. Our data also support previous work indicating that PI3K inhibition might help classical chemotherapeutic treatments such as gemcitabine and strengthen suboptimal doses that might be effective for these purposes in decreasing the risk of side-effects. Finally, the analysis of the molecular markers that might be implicated in the synergism between LY294002 and gemcitabine suggests that PI3K inhibition might aid chemotherapeutic treatment, leading to changes in the balance between anti- and pro-apoptotic molecules of the Bcl-2 family, Bcl-XL and Bax. These results facilitate the exploration of potential synergism between chemotherapeutic treatment and the search for others that can account for similar molecular mechanisms of cooperation.
Long-Term Effects of Malnutrition During Lactation on the Thyroid Function of Offspring

Some studies have shown that the mother's nutritional condition may influence offspring's endocrine function through metabolic imprinting. Recently, we showed that the kind of maternal malnutrition during lactation affects adult body weight of the offspring and it is related to milk composition. We studied lactating rats fed an 8 % protein-restricted diet (PR), a control 23 % protein diet (C), and an energy-restricted diet group (ER). After weaning, all animals received a normal diet until they were 180 days of age. At this time, the animals received a single i. p. injection of (131)I and were sacrificed 2 h after the injection. Total triiodothyronine (TT3) and total thyroxin (TT4) serum concentrations were measured by enzyme immunoassay. The PR group had significantly a higher thyroid (131)I uptake, TT3 serum concentration and in TT4 serum concentration, compared to the controls. The ER group had only significantly higher TT3 serum concentration. These results showed that thyroid function regulation in adulthood may depend on maternal nutritional condition during lactation. Probably, PR group had a high thyroid function, whereas the ER group only had an increase in the deiodination of T4. The hyperthyroidism in the PR group could explain the low body weight observed in those animals.
Clinical impact of somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in the management of patients with neuroendocrine gastroenteropancreatic tumors.

UNLABELLED Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (SRS) has been used for the detection of gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) tumors. This study evaluates the clinical impact of SRS in GEP tumor detection and its therapeutic implications on patient management. METHODS We prospectively studied 160 patients with biologically and/or histologically proven GEP tumors. Before SRS, patients were classified into three groups: gastrointestinal (Group 1; n = 90) patients without known metastases; (Group 2; n = 59) patients with metastases limited to the liver; (Group 3; n = 11) patients with known extrahepatic metastases. The scintigraphic data were compared to the radiological findings. RESULTS In Group 1, without known metastases, conventional imaging detected 53 primary sites in 44 patients: SRS was positive in 68% of these sites and discovered 4 additional primary tumors in 3 patients and 16 metastases in 14 patients. Conventional imaging was negative in 46 patients: SRS discovered 47 new sites in 36 patients. In Group 2, SRS confirmed liver metastases in 95% of patients and discovered 45 new sites in 36 of these patients. In Group 3, SRS disclosed 11 new sites in 7 patients. These results modified patient classification in 38 cases (24%). Surgical therapeutic strategy was changed in 40 patients (25%). CONCLUSION Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy improves tumor detection, has major clinical significance and should be performed systematically for staging and therapeutic decision making in patients with GEP tumors.
Développement et caractérisation de deux modèles murins présentant un phénotype hypermusclé

Le developpement et la croissance du muscle squelettique sont conditionnes par des processus complexes impliquant de nombreux facteurs moleculaires dans les differentes etapes de proliferation, de differenciation, et de fusion cellulaire. La comprehension de la regulation de la masse musculaire represente de reels enjeux aussi bien dans le domaine de la sante que d’un point de vue agronomique. Ainsi, l’identification des mecanismes moleculaires participant a l’hypertrophie musculaire a un interet particulier pour l'amelioration des therapies lors d’atrophies musculaires ou pour des applications liees a la production de viande. Dans ce contexte, mes travaux de cette these ont porte sur le developpement et la caracterisation de deux lignees murines presentant un phenotype hypermuscle. Le premier modele, denomme surGasp1, m’a permis de demontrer que la surexpression ubiquitaire du gene Gasp1, codant pour un inhibiteur de la myostatine, entraine une augmentation generalisee de la masse musculaire due a une hypertrophie des fibres de types I, IIa et IIb sans qu’aucune alteration du tissu adipeux ne soit observee. Ce modele constitue un excellent outil pour apprehender le role de GASP1 lors du developpement musculaire, en particulier ses relations avec la myostatine (GDF8) qui est un element cle dans la regulation de la croissance du muscle. Par ailleurs, j’ai entrepris une etude de la proteine GASP1 au cours de l’evolution. L’analyse du taux de substitutions des proteines GASP de l’ancetre de Ciona aux tetrapodes a permis de montrer que les domaines importants dans l’interaction avec la myostatine etaient les plus conserves. L’ensemble des resultats obtenus m’a conduit a proposer un modele en trois dimensions qui permet de decrire l’action de la proteine GASP. La deuxieme lignee murine analysee, GMA06, issue d’un crible de mutagenese chimique sensibilise, presente un phenotype hypermuscle qui differe de celui observe chez des souris knockout pour la myostatine. L’identification de la mutation responsable de ce phenotype permettra de mieux comprendre les eventuelles interactions et regulations qui peuvent exister entre cette derniere et la myostatine et constitue par consequent un modele interessant pour l’etude fonctionnelle de genes modificateurs du phenotype Gdf8-/-.
Fast and accurate PET preclinical data analysis: Segmentation and Partial Volume Effect correction with no anatomical priors

The Partial Volume Effect hampers the quantification of rodent dynamic PET images. The work proposes a whole process for TAC extraction from the PET images without anatomical information requirement. The PET images were segmented using the Local Means Analysis segmentation method, and the resulting regions were used as spatial domains for a Geometric Transfer Matrix based method. The TAC estimation was assessed on phantom simulations and experimental datasets with ex-vivo measurements, and compared to reference methods: the mean TAC computation method the original Geometric Transfer Matrix method. Our GTM based TAC estimation method performed better than the GTM method and the mean TAC computation in terms of correlation of the estimated TACs with the true ones, of contrast recovery and error.
Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activities of Banana (Musa, AAA cv. Cavendish) Fruits Peel

The fresh green and yellow banana peel of, (Musa, cv. Cavendish) fruits were treated with 70% acetone, which were partitioned with chloroform (CHCl3) and ethyl acetate (EtOAc), sequentially. The antioxidant activities of the extracts were evaluated by using the thiocyanate method, β-carotene bleaching method and 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical elimination. While, antimicrobial activities of the extracts and isolated components were evaluated using paper disc methods and Minimum Inhibition Concentration (MIC). The EtOAc and water soluble fractions of green peel displayed high antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, respectively. Antioxidant activity of water extracts was comparable to those of synthetic antioxidants such as butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene. Among all isolated components β-sitosterol, malic acid, succinic acid, palmatic acid, 12-hydroxystrearic acid, glycoside, the d-malic and 12-hydroxystrearic acid were the most active against all the Gram-negative and positive bacterial species tested. The MIC of d-malic and succinic acid was varying between 140-750 ppm, respectively.
Betere financiële prognoses in business cases door de toepassing van big data

Investeringsbeslissingen worden vaak gebaseerd op een business case waarin investeringsalternatieven met elkaar worden vergeleken. Prognoses van de financiële impact van de investeringsalternatieven spelen hierin een belangrijke rol. De gebruikte historische data op basis waarvan financiële prognoses tot stand komen en de wijze waarop deze data worden gebruikt bij het bepalen van verwachte inkomsten en uitgaven bepalen in hoge mate de betrouwbaarheid van de prognoses. Big data en moderne analysetechnieken hebben de potentie om de betrouwbaarheid van financiële prognoses te vergroten. Het empirische bewijs van de werkelijke toegevoegde waarde van big data op dit vlak is echter schaars. In dit artikel wordt beschreven welke big data-toepassingen kunnen bijdragen aan betere financiële prognoses in business cases. Daarnaast wordt een casestudie gepresenteerd waarin big data-toepassingen daadwerkelijk tot betere financiële prognoses in business cases zouden hebben geleid.
Costing of a hospital-based outbreak of poultry-borne salmonellosis

SUMMARY Poultry-borne salmonellosis is the most common form of foodborne infection in Scotland for which the vehicle can be identified, yet little is known about the costs imposed on society by this disease, or the costs of preventing it. The present study identifies and values the costs of a hospital based outbreak of poultry-borne salmonellosis. Account is taken of costs falling on individuals, the health services and society as a whole. Depending on assumptions made about the value of ‘intangibles’, the cost of the outbreak is estimated to be between £200000 and £900000.
Responding to secondary traumatic stress: a pilot study of torture treatment programs in the United States.

Providers who care for torture survivors may be at risk for secondary traumatic stress, yet there has been little documentation of the effects of repeated exposure to traumatic issues on their emotional health or exploration of the support systems and resources available to address their emotional needs. This study assessed the secondary stress experiences of service providers (N = 43) within the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs in the United States and examined the supports offered by their organizations. The study found a significant correlation between rates of anxiety and depression among providers, r(34) = . 49, p = . 003. Although these participants reported that their work with survivors of torture was stressful, 91% indicated that their organizations offered a variety of stress-reduction activities. Overall, participants reported that their own personal activities were the most-effective stress reducers. The results are discussed in light of challenges that professionals who work with this population face and the effectiveness of support systems available to support their work.
Segmentation of financial clients by attitudes and behavior

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate segmentations by finance-related attitudes and behavior of financial consumers in Switzerland and Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The authors replicated the questionnaire measuring attitudes toward financial affairs as used in the study of Fünfgeld and Wang (2009). In order to extract factors and identify profiles of financial customers, the authors applied the same techniques including factor analysis and a two-step cluster analysis (Ward and K-means) to both samples. Linear regressions were used to examine the impact of socio-demographic variables. Findings Factor analysis reveals surprisingly similar underlying dimensions of financial attitudes and behavior for participants in both countries. The five clusters based on these dimensions exhibit strikingly similar characteristics. The authors also find that socio-demographic variables such as gender, age and education significantly vary across groups. Research limitations/implications There are small differences in the composition of the revealed dimensions between the two countries, mainly a mixture of intuitive decisions and free-spending aspects. Future research may investigate more countries with comparable samples to further test the reliabilities and validities of the scales. Practical implications The findings suggest that the instruments as developed by Fünfgeld and Wang (2009) can be used not only in highly developed Western markets but also in non-Western and emerging markets. Such instruments can be very useful for offering financial advice based on market segmentation in a global market. Originality/value The study provides empirical evidence on universal segmentation variables that reflect financial consumers’ psychological traits and attitudes toward saving and spending. Furthermore, the study stresses the need for a broad use of those variables when studying consumer decision-making in international financial markets.
How Important Are Local Community Banks to Small Business Lending? Evidence from Mergers and Acquisitions

We investigate the shrinking community banking sector and the impact on local small business lending (SBL) in the context of mergers and acquisitions. From all mergers that involved community banks, we examine the varying impact on SBL depending on the local presence of the acquirers’ and the targets’ operations prior to acquisitions. Our results indicate that, relative to counties where the acquirer had operations before the merger, local SBL declined significantly more in counties where only the target had operations before the merger. This result holds even after controlling for the general local SBL market or local economic trends. These findings are consistent with an argument that SBL funding has been directed (after the mergers) toward the acquirers’ counties. We find even stronger evidence during and after the financial crisis. Overall, we find evidence that local community banks have continued to play an important role in providing funding to local small businesses. The absence of local community banks that became a target of a merger or acquisition by nonlocal acquirers has, on average, led to local SBL credit gaps that were not filled by the rest of the banking sector.
Towards computer-assisted language learning with robots, wikipedia and CogInfoCom

Computer-Assisted Language Learning is being transformed by the use of humanoid robots combined with Wikipedia-based information access and CogInfoCom systems. The learner's engagement in language-learning dialogues is strengthened by the robot's non-verbal behaviour such as nodding, gesturing and face-tracking, and the learner's level of interest can be estimated by monitoring the learner's non-verbal signals through gaze-tracking and proximity measurement. In this paper we discuss new approaches in which robotassisted language learning is further enhanced by the use of CogInfoCom channels to extend the learner's engagement and interest. We focus on the robot's use of Wikipedia-based information access to greatly extend the range of topics that the robot can talk about during language-learning spoken dialogues, and describe natural language processing techniques to generate questions from Wikipedia information, so the robot can ask new questions about the learner's preferred topics. We predict that the learner's interest level is increased when the learner can navigate in Wikipedia to dialogue topics of personal interest rather than being restricted to topics chosen by the teacher.
A Novel Link between Integrins, Transmembrane-4 Superfamily Proteins (CD63 and CD81), and Phosphatidylinositol 4-Kinase*

Enzymatic and immunochemical assays show a phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase in novel and specific complexes with proteins (CD63 and CD81) of the transmembrane 4 superfamily (TM4SF) and an integrin (α3β1). The size (55 kDa) and other properties of the phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase (PI 4-K) (stimulated by nonionic detergent, inhibited by adenosine, inhibited by monoclonal antibody 4CG5) are consistent with PI 4-K type II. Not only was PI 4-K associated with α3β1-CD63 complexes in α3-transfected K562 cells, but also it could be co-purified from CD63 in untransfected K562 cells lacking α3β1. Thus, TM4SF proteins may link PI 4-K activity to the α3β1 integrin. The α5β1 integrin, which does not associate with TM4SF proteins, was not associated with PI 4-K. Notably, α3β1-CD63-CD81-PI 4-K complexes are located in focal complexes at the cell periphery rather than in focal adhesions. The novel linkage between integrins, transmembrane 4 proteins, and phosphoinositide signaling at the cell periphery may play a key role in cell motility and provides a signaling pathway distinct from conventional integrin signaling through focal adhesion kinase.
Enabling Practice-driven Innovation in the Animal Production Sector

Using the laying hen sector as a case study, the EU-H2020-funded Hennovation project has been testing mechanisms to enable practice-driven innovation through the establishment of innovation networks of farmers and within the laying-hen-processing industry that are facilitated to proactively search for, share and use new ideas to improve hen welfare, efficiency and sustainability. Networks are variably supported by scientists, veterinarians, advisors and others. Nineteen multi-actor networks have been mobilised on local and regional levels across the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain and Czech-Republic. Practice-driven innovation processes were network specific and evolved as the actors within the network came together to share common problems, experiment with possible solutions and learn. Their success was also affected by the institutional context, the structure of the poultry sector, current market forces and wider Agricultural Innovation Systems in each country. This paper explores the circumstances considered necessary by the facilitators to enable practice-driven innovation, providing examples of conditions affecting the innovation process. Further influences included conditions for innovation to happen (e.g. shared opportunity, motivation and knowledge), conditions to work effectively as a network (e.g. trust, collective purpose and contacts) and conditions for successful application in practice (e.g. capacity within the production system and market and legislative ability).
Restriction glycosylases: involvement of endonuclease activities in the restriction process

Abstract All restriction enzymes examined are phosphodiesterases generating 3΄-OH and 5΄-P ends, but one restriction enzyme (restriction glycosylase) excises unmethylated bases from its recognition sequence. Whether its restriction activity involves endonucleolytic cleavage remains unclear. One report on this enzyme, R.PabI from a hyperthermophile, ascribed the breakage to high temperature while another showed its weak AP lyase activity generates atypical ends. Here, we addressed this issue in mesophiles. We purified R.PabI homologs from Campylobacter coli (R.CcoLI) and Helicobacter pylori (R.HpyAXII) and demonstrated their DNA cleavage, DNA glycosylase and AP lyase activities in vitro at 37°C. The AP lyase activity is more coupled with glycosylase activity in R.CcoLI than in R.PabI. R.CcoLI/R.PabI expression caused restriction of incoming bacteriophage/plasmid DNA and endogenous chromosomal DNA within Escherichia coli at 37°C. The R.PabI-mediated restriction was promoted by AP endonuclease action in vivo or in vitro. These results reveal the role of endonucleolytic DNA cleavage in restriction and yet point to diversity among the endonucleases. The cleaved ends are difficult to repair in vivo, which may indicate their biological significance. These results support generalization of the concept of restriction–modification system to the concept of self-recognizing epigenetic system, which combines any epigenetic labeling and any DNA damaging.
Time-frequency analysis of surface myoelectric signals during athletic movement

Considers muscle activation and fatigue during propulsion of a racing wheelchair. The authors discuss a single case study on the modality of muscle activation during the propulsion of a racing wheelchair. To investigate muscle coordination, muscle fatigue, and the strategies that the subject exploits to counteract the effects of muscle fatigue and keep a high level of performance, the authors first studied the activation intervals of seven trunk and upper limb muscles and then studied the evolution in time of their spectral content by means of two different approaches, according to the statistical properties of their myoelectric signals. Angle, angular velocity, and angular acceleration of the elbow joint have also been considered. This combined approach allowed the authors to obtain different results important to gaining a deeper insight in the differences among the observed muscles in this specific exercise.