bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Overcoming Barriers to Heterogeneous-Group Learning in the Political Science Classroom
Authors: Moore Ryan T. 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACTDespite positive findings, small-group activities continue to lag behind lectures in political science classrooms. This article argues that one barrier to wider adoption of more innovative activities is uncertainty about how to efficiently and fairly create teams that each are heterogeneous and as a set are balanced across relevant characteristics. We first describe recent findings and strategies for creating teams; we then detail our concrete, general approach for incorporating several student characteristics into team creation. We then describe implementations of this approach using freely available software in two undergraduate political science courses—one in American politics and one in political methodology. In these applications and in a variety of simulated data, we demonstrate that teams created using our method are better balanced than those created by randomly allocating students to teams.
Teaching Theory, Writing Policy: Integrating Lessons from Foggy Bottom into the Classroom
Authors: Biswas Bidisha , Paczynska Agnieszka 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACTThis article describes guidelines for assignments designed to build and improve policy-oriented writing skills of college students. Based on our experiences as Franklin Fellows at the United States Department of State, we developed strategies for teaching writing skills that are transferable to the workplace. The pedagogical approaches highlighted in this article will equip students with the analytical and writing abilities needed in a variety of employment situations. First, we offer insights into the qualities that we believe are important for success in a policy-oriented work environment. Second, we link those skills to the challenges and gaps that students face. Third, we propose assignments that can address those gaps.
Where’s the Diplomacy in Diplomacy? Using a Classic Board Game in “Introduction to International Relations”
Authors: Arnold Richard 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACTOne of the challenges of teaching American undergraduates in an “Introduction to International Relations” course is finding a way to make topics and themes seem relevant to students. This article recounts the author’s experiences using the board game “Diplomacy” in his course. The game places students in the role of decision makers in the international arena and simulates the international politics of pre-World War I Europe. In addition to being a powerful simulation of the difficulties of international relations, the game teaches students about one of the most debated wars in the history of the discipline.
The Democratic Syllabus
Authors: McWilliams Susan 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACTThe ideal of the “democratic classroom” has been discussed in educational circles for several years. This article answers the question of whether there are specific advantages to be derived from a democratization of the political science classroom, especially one in which democracy itself is a focus of study. Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process? The author approached these questions by adding several “democratizing” elements to a seminar course, most notably a “democratic syllabus” in which students determined discussion topics, led class sessions, and submitted work of their own choosing. Student surveys and the author’s reflection suggest that the democratic syllabus was a success in terms of the classroom dynamics that it engendered and the thinking about democratic politics and citizenship that it encouraged. Both students and professor agreed that the democratic syllabus presented challenges that should be considered by anyone thinking about creating or modifying a course on this model. Yet this article argues that many political science courses would benefit from similar endeavors in classroom democratization.
Using Tablet Devices and Social Media in a Course about the 2012 US Election Campaign
Authors: Brewer Paul R. , Begleiter Ralph J. , Anderson Katherine , Isaacs Meredith 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACTThe use of both tablet devices and social media is increasingly popular among the American public. With this in mind, this article discusses our use of the technologies in a course about the 2012 US election campaign. We provided all students in our course with an iPad, created a private Facebook group, and devised a variety of approaches for integrating the technologies into the course. Surveys at the beginning and the end of the course showed that students frequently used their iPad for political and instructional purposes and that their self-confidence in using tablet devices, apps, and social media for political purposes increased during the semester. Open-ended responses and our own observations also suggest that use of the technologies fostered active online conversations about course material. In particular, use of the iPad and the Facebook group in combination during in-class video screenings, guest speakers, and debates facilitated lively, creative interactions among students and between students and instructors.
G protein-coupled odorant receptors underlie mechanosensitivity in mammalian olfactory sensory neurons
Authors: Connelly Timothy , Yu Yiqun , Grosmaitre Xavier , Wang Jue , Santarelli Lindsey C. , Savigner Agnes , Qiao Xin , Wang Zhenshan , Storm Daniel R. , Ma Minghong 
Published: December 2014

Significance
Mechanical stimuli (pressure, shear stress, membrane stretch, etc.) are a basic form of stimulation that can induce physiological responses in many body organs (skin, muscle, ear, lung, airway, kidney, blood vessels, etc.). The current dogma in sensory systems is that mechanical stimuli are mainly transduced by force-gated ion channels. Our study reveals a previously unidentified cascade for mechanotransduction in neurons and suggests that G protein-coupled receptors may have an overlooked function as mechanical sensors. This finding establishes a molecular mechanism through which the nose sends an afferent signal of breathing to the brain to facilitate integration of orofacial sensation and synchronize delta/theta-band activity in certain brain regions with respiration.
Parasitism alters three power laws of scaling in a metazoan community: Taylor’s law, density-mass allometry, and variance-mass allometry
Authors: Lagrue Clément , Poulin Robert , Cohen Joel E. 
Published: December 2014

Significance
Power laws of scaling are major achievements of ecology. Such empirical laws say that one quantity varies as some power of another quantity. For example, Taylor’s law says that the variance of population density changes as a power of the mean population density. Density-mass allometry says that the mean population density is a power-law function of the mean body mass. We show, to our knowledge for the first time in any animal community, that the variance of population density is a power-law function of mean body mass, and that the parameters of all three power laws just mentioned are influenced by whether the animals are parasites, free-living parasitized species, or free-living unparasitized species. Lifestyle matters in ecology.
Intracellular osteopontin regulates homeostasis and function of natural killer cells
Authors: Leavenworth Jianmei W. , Verbinnen Bert , Wang Qin , Shen Erxia , Cantor Harvey 
Published: December 2014

Significance
Maintenance of a pool of natural killer (NK) cells with optimal immune function is crucial for host defense against pathogens or cancerous tumor formation. Here we identify intracellular osteopontin (OPN-i) as an essential molecular component responsible for maintenance of functional NK cell expansion. Absence of OPN-i results in failure to maintain normal NK cellularity and increased cell death following stimulation by cytokine interleukin-15. OPN-deficient NK cells fail to successfully navigate the contraction phase of the immune response, resulting in impaired expansion of long-lived NK cells and defective responses to viral infection and tumor cells. Insight into the contribution of OPN-i to NK cell responses may provide the basis for improved approaches to immunotherapy for infectious disease and cancer.
Extinction learning, which consists of the inhibition of retrieval, can be learned without retrieval
Authors: de Carvalho Myskiw Jociane , Furini Cristiane Regina Guerino , Schmidt Bianca , Ferreira Flávia , Izquierdo Ivan 
Published: December 2014

Significance
Blockade of the retrieval of contextual fear conditioning by intrahippocampal muscimol administration does not impede extinction of the task measured up to 1 wk later, its eventual spontaneous recovery at 14 d, or its inhibition by two different protein synthesis inhibitors given into the hippocampus. These results show that extinction and retrieval are separate processes and strongly suggest that extinction is triggered or gated by the conditioned stimulus even in the absence of retrieval.
Examining Potential Substance use Disorders among Former Interscholastic Athletes
Authors: Veliz Philip , McCabe Sean Esteban 
Published: December 2014

Background Despite numerous studies examining the association between competitive sports participation and substance use behaviors among adolescents and young adults, the use of standardized measures to assess potential substance use disorders has been largely neglected. The objective of this study was to examine if past involvement in interscholastic sports (competitive school-sponsored sports) was associated with potential substance use disorders in young adulthood. Methods Data for this study were taken from the Student Life Survey (SLS). A total of 3442 young adults participated in the SLS during the spring semester in 2013, with 74% of males and 71% of females indicating participation in interscholastic sport during high school. Results Respondents who participated in interscholastic sports during high school had higher odds of positive screens for potential alcohol use disorders when compared with their peers who did not participate in interscholastic sports. No association was detected between interscholastic sports participation and potential drug abuse disorders. Moreover, previous involvement in certain types of sports was found to be associated with positive screens for potential alcohol use disorders (i.e., crew and football) and positive screens for potential drug abuse disorders (i.e., lacrosse) among the sample of young adults. Conclusions School and community sport organizations should be aware of the potential link between sports participation and potential substance use disorders, and may consider brief substance use screeners during yearly physicals to monitor potential substance use problems among athletes.
Motivational Interviewing with and without Normative Feedback for Adolescents with Substance Use Problems: A Preliminary Study
Authors: Smith Douglas C. , Ureche Daniel J. , Davis Jordan P. , Walters Scott T. 
Published: December 2014

Background Many adolescents in need of substance use disorder treatments never engage in treatment. Further, the most promising interventions that could be adapted to target treatment engagement often use normative feedback (NF) despite concerns about its appropriateness for adolescents. This preliminary study will inform a larger trial designed to isolate whether NF is an inert, helpful, or harmful active ingredient within pretreatment motivational interviewing (MI) interventions designed to increase treatment engagement. Methods Adolescents ( N = 48) presenting for treatment intake assessments were randomized to receive MI ( n = 22) or MI+NF ( n = 26) immediately following their assessments. Three-month outcomes included the percentage of youth engaged in treatment, the percentage of youth reporting past-month binge drinking, and the percentage of days of abstinence. Results Treatments were delivered with high fidelity, and a high proportion of eligible participants were recruited and retained in this study. Participants significantly increased their percentage of days of abstinence by approximately 10% at follow-up ( d = .32, P =.03), with no significant differences between groups. Fifty-five percent of youth in MI and 41.7% of youth in MI+NF engaged in treatment (odds ratio [OR] = .60, nonsignificant; 95% confidence interval, CI [0.136–2.68]). Conclusions Larger trials should test whether NF is an active ingredient in adolescent MI interventions, and should also determine the mechanisms through which MI+NF may produce effects.
PRSice: Polygenic Risk Score software
Authors: Euesden Jack , Lewis Cathryn M. , O’Reilly Paul F. 
Published: December 2014

Abstract
Summary: A polygenic risk score (PRS) is a sum of trait-associated alleles across many genetic loci, typically weighted by effect sizes estimated from a genome-wide association study. The application of PRS has grown in recent years as their utility for detecting shared genetic aetiology among traits has become appreciated; PRS can also be used to establish the presence of a genetic signal in underpowered studies, to infer the genetic architecture of a trait, for screening in clinical trials, and can act as a biomarker for a phenotype. Here we present the first dedicated PRS software, PRSice (‘precise'), for calculating, applying, evaluating and plotting the results of PRS. PRSice can calculate PRS at a large number of thresholds (“high resolution”) to provide the best-fit PRS, as well as provide results calculated at broad P-value thresholds, can thin Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) according to linkage disequilibrium and P-value or use all SNPs, handles genotyped and imputed data, can calculate and incorporate ancestry-informative variables, and can apply PRS across multiple traits in a single run. We exemplify the use of PRSice via application to data on schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and smoking, illustrate the importance of identifying the best-fit PRS and estimate a P-value significance threshold for high-resolution PRS studies.
Availability and implementation: PRSice is written in R, including wrappers for bash data management scripts and PLINK-1.9 to minimize computational time. PRSice runs as a command-line program with a variety of user-options, and is freely available for download from http://PRSice.info
Contact: jack.euesden@kcl.ac.uk or paul.oreilly@kcl.ac.uk
Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Practice of Cardiac Auscultation: Clinical perspectives and its implications on computer aided diagnosis
Authors: Mandal Subhamoy , Martis Roshan J , Mandana K M , Rajendra Acharya U , Chatterjee Jyotirmoy , Mahadevappa Manjunatha , Ray Ajoy K 
Published: December 2014

AbstractStudy of the disease demographics in human population indicates that cardiac ailments are the primary cause of premature death, and a need for emergent technologies is felt to address the rising trend. However, development of automated heart sound analysis system and its usage at the grassroot levels for cardiac pre-screening have been hindered by the lack proper understanding of the intrinsic characteristics of cardiac auscultation. In this article we present an investigatory report based on a nationwide survey conducted on the practice of cardiac auscultation for determination of its effectiveness in diagnosis. The aims are to achieve better validation of heart sound acquisition methods and use the clinical feedback from cardiologists for improvements in the classification of the cardiac abnormalities. Results obtained from six different classifiers used in the study are illustrated, which show a remarkable specificity using an improvised classification hierarchy, derived based on clinical recommendations. The study addresses the needs for better understanding of the relevancy of heart sound signal parameters, recording transducers, recording location and the inherent complexity associated in interpretation of heart sounds, specially in noisy environments of out-patient departments and primary healthcare centers. Further, the inter-relationship between heart sound and other advance medical imaging modalities, and the need for more focused training in cardiac auscultation among the medical and paramedical staff is investigated.
Soybean miR172c Targets the Repressive AP2 Transcription Factor NNC1 to Activate ENOD40 Expression and Regulate Nodule Initiation
Authors: Wang Youning , Wang Lixiang , Zou Yanmin , Chen Liang , Cai Zhaoming , Zhang Senlei , Zhao Fang , Tian Yinping , Jiang Qiong , Ferguson Brett J. , Gresshoff Peter M. , Li Xia 
Published: December 2014

Abstract
MicroRNAs are noncoding RNAs that act as master regulators to modulate various biological processes by posttranscriptionally repressing their target genes. Repression of their target mRNA(s) can modulate signaling cascades and subsequent cellular events. Recently, a role for miR172 in soybean (Glycine max) nodulation has been described; however, the molecular mechanism through which miR172 acts to regulate nodulation has yet to be explored. Here, we demonstrate that soybean miR172c modulates both rhizobium infection and nodule organogenesis. miR172c was induced in soybean roots inoculated with either compatible Bradyrhizobium japonicum or lipooligosaccharide Nod factor and was highly upregulated during nodule development. Reduced activity and overexpression of miR172c caused dramatic changes in nodule initiation and nodule number. We show that soybean miR172c regulates nodule formation by repressing its target gene, Nodule Number Control1, which encodes a protein that directly targets the promoter of the early nodulin gene, ENOD40. Interestingly, transcriptional levels of miR172c were regulated by both Nod Factor Receptor1α/5α-mediated activation and by autoregulation of nodulation-mediated inhibition. Thus, we established a direct link between miR172c and the Nod factor signaling pathway in addition to adding a new layer to the precise nodulation regulation mechanism of soybean.
Nonword repetition errors of children with and without specific language impairments (SLI)
Authors: Burke Heidi L. , Coady Jeffry A. 
Published: December 2014

AbstractBackgroundTwo ubiquitous findings from the literature are that (1) children with specific language impairments (SLI) repeat nonwords less accurately than peers with typical language development (TLD), and (2) all children repeat nonwords with frequent phonotactic patterns more accurately than low‐probability nonwords. Many studies have examined repetition accuracy, but little work has examined children's errors.AimsTo examine nonword repetition errors from a previously published study in terms of phonotactic probability.Methods & ProceduresEighteen children with SLI (mean age = 9;2) and 18 age‐matched controls (mean age = 8;11) repeated three‐ and four‐syllable nonwords. Substitutions were analysed in terms of phoneme frequency and phonotactic probability of the syllable containing the substitution.Outcomes & ResultsResults for all children show that phoneme substitutions generally involved replacement with more frequently occurring phonemes. Also, the resulting phonotactic probability within syllables containing substitutions was greater than the probability of the targets. This trend did not differ by group.Conclusions & ImplicationsThese results suggest that both children with SLI and children with TLD substitute less frequent phonemes with more frequent ones, and less probabilistic syllables with higher probability ones.
Early language impairments and developmental pathways of emotional problems across childhood
Authors: Goh Kok Yew Shaun , O'Kearney Richard 
Published: December 2014

AbstractBackgroundLanguage impairments are associated with an increased likelihood of emotional difficulties later in childhood or adolescence, but little is known about the impact of LI on the growth of emotional problems.AimsTo examine the link between early language status (language impaired (LI), typical language (TL)) and the pattern and predictors of growth in emotional difficulties from school entry to the start of high school in a large cohort of Australian children.Methods & ProceduresUnconditional latent growth curves of emotional difficulties were modelled across four waves (ages 4–5, 6–7, 8–9 and 10–11) using data from 1627 boys (280 LI, 1347 TL) and 1609 girls (159 LI, 1450 TL). Conditional latent growth curves estimated the main effects of LI on the severity and slope of growth in emotional problems. Simultaneous multiple regression tested the interaction between language status and the other predictors of the development of emotional symptoms.Outcomes & ResultsLI predicted a significant persistent elevation in severity of emotional difficulties across childhood among boys (d = 0.33–0.57) and girls (d = 0.25–0.39) but was not associated with their growth. LI moderated the association between hostile parenting and the severity of emotional symptoms for boys and the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) and temperamental sociability on the linear and quadratic growth of emotional problems for girls but had no impact on the influence of other predictors.Conclusions & ImplicationsThere is no effect of LI on the characteristic rate and shape of growth in emotional symptoms across childhood although LI children maintain elevated severities of emotional difficulties. The associations between child reactivity, peer problems, prosocial behaviours, maternal distress and parental warmth and the development of emotional difficulties were the same for LI and TL children. LI enhanced the influence of hostile parenting on a higher severity of emotional symptoms for boys and of lower SES on a faster rate of development of emotional symptoms for girls. LI offset the usual protective effect of higher sociability and the usual vulnerability of higher social avoidance to a faster increase in emotional symptoms with age.
Association of eNOS gene polymorphisms and systemic lupus erythematosus in southeast Iran
Authors: Sandoughi Mahnaz , Salimi Saeedeh , Zakeri Zahra , Darbandi Ebrahim Jahani , Jahantigh Mehdi , Moudi Bita 
Published: December 2014

AbstractBackground and objectivesSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease with unknown etiology. Genetic and environmental factors play important roles in the pathogenesis of SLE. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the possible association of eNOS gene intron 4b/a, Glu298Asp and T‐786C polymorphisms with SLE in southeast Iran populations.Patients and methodsThis was a case‐control study comparing eNOS polymorphisms in 106 SLE patients and 196 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy controls. The 4b/a, Glu298Asp and T‐786C polymorphisms were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism.ResultsOur findings indicated that the 4b/a polymorphism was associated with SLE, and the risk of SLE was 3.5‐ and 1.75‐fold higher in patients with aa and ba genotypes than in patients with bb genotype. No association was observed between Glu298Asp and T‐786C polymorphisms and SLE. There were no differences in eNOS gene polymorphisms between the Balouch and Fars population.ConclusionStatistically significant differences were observed in genotypes and allele frequencies of 4b/a polymorphism between patients with SLE and healthy controls in southeast Iran.