THE EFFECT OF TEACHER IMPLICIT CORRECTION THROUGH RECAST VERSUS EXPLICIT SELF-CORRECTION THROUGH ELICITATION ON IRANIAN INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS’ USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN WRITING

Over the last decades, the vital role of corrective feedback has attracted much attention. However, few studies have considered the effects of feedback on the acquisition of specific lexical items such as collocations. To bridge this gap, the current research was conducted to investigate the effect of two types of feedback, recast and elicitation on the use of collocations in writing. The participants of the study were 45 intermediate EFL learners at Kish Air Institute, in Qaemshahr, Iran, which were homogenized by Solutions placement test. Three intact classes were used, which randomly assigned into two experimental and one control groups. Each group consisted of 15 participants. After the pretest, in the treatment phase, one experimental group received implicit feedback through recast, and the other one received explicit feedback through elicitation, and the control group received no feedback on their collocational errors. Then, the posttest was administered. Finally, the collected data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA. The findings of the current study illustrated that the two experimental groups outperformed the control one, which confirmed the effectiveness of providing feedback in the learning process. Moreover, it was revealed that the recast group performed significantly better than the elicitation group.  Article visualizations

Promoter methylation analysis of WNT/β-catenin pathway regulators and its association with expression of DNMT1 enzyme in colorectal cancer

Background: Aberrant DNA methylation as the most important reason making epigenetic silencing of genes is a main mechanism of gene inactivation in patients with colorectal cancer. In this study, we decided to identify promoter methylation status of ten genes encoding WNT negative regulators, and measure the expression of DNMT1 enzyme in colorectal cancer samples. Results: Aberrant methylation of APC gene was statistically significant associated with age over 50 (p = 0.017), DDK3 with male (p < 0.0001), SFRP4, WIF1, and WNT5a with increasing tumor stage (p = 0.004, p = 0.029, and p = 0.004), SFRP4 and WIF1 with tumor differentiation (p = 0.009 and p = 0.031) and SFRP2 and SFRP5 with histological type (p = 0.001 and p = 0.025). The increasing number of methylated genes correlated with the expression levels of the DNMT1 mRNA. Conclusions: The rate of gene promoter methylation of WNT pathway regulators is high in colorectal cancer cells. Hyper-methylation is associated with increased expression of the DNMT1 enzyme. © 2014 Mansour Samaei et al.; licensee BioMed Central

Serum cytokines, a diagnostic tool for herniated lumbar disc type

Inflammatory mediators such as cytokines have been suggested to be important in the pathophysiology of disc herniation. However, few studies have been ever conducted for evaluating the serum levels of these cytokines. This study aimed at assessing the agreement of serum and operation-field cytokines in diagnosis of herniated lumbar disc type. In this study, 43 patients with lumbar disc herniation were recruited in Tabriz Imam Reza Hospital during a 12-month period. According to the type of herniation, the patients were categorized in two groups: with excursion or sequestration (group A) and with bulging (group B) of disc, with 22 and 21 cases, respectively. The level of interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α was determined in nucleus pulposus (NP) and serum of the patients by employing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Agreement rate between the two readings was determined. There was full agreement between the serum and NP readings for all the studied parameters. The optimal cut-off points for serum IL-1α, IL-6 and TNFα were ≤0.25, ≤0.05 and ≤0.7 pg/ml, respectively, for discrimination between the extrusion and bulging discs. Serum levels of IL-1α, IL-6 and TNFα may be applicable for preoperative diagnosis of the type of the herniated lumbar disc, especially TNFα, and IL-6 parameters which have a high sensitivity and specificity for differentiation between bulging and extrusion or sequestration discus.Key words: Intervertebral disk displacement, IL-1α, IL-6, TNFα, serum

A comprehensive screening protocol to identify incidence of lower back pain in military office workers

Military workers experience different types of lower back pain (LBP), but there is little evidence concerning the incidence of LBP in this group, especially in Asian countries. One of the most common forms of LBP is discogenic low back pain (DLBP) which is a consequence of internal disc disruption accounting for approximately 40% of LBP cases. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the incidence of non-specific low back pain (LBP), discogenic LBP, and other forms of LBP in military office workers in Iran. 564 military office workers (303 men and 261 women, age: 20-50 years), who had worked in this setting for at least two years, were randomly selected from one military office. The Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ) was used as the primary screening tool. Participants who reported severe and mild LBP (graded low, mild, and severe) received a detailed physical examination including radiological magnetic resonance imaging. Based on the results of the physical examination, in conjunction with individual history, and medical opinion, mild-to-severe LBP was evident in 39% (n = 220) of the participants. Of these, non-specific LBP accounted for 60%, discogenic LBP accounted for 31%, and other forms of LBP accounted for the remaining 9% of the sample. We found that LBP is highly incident in military office workers, with non-specific LBP being the most incident form. Considering these high incidence rates, a strategy for preventive health screening and exercise intervention should be considered in this population to help reduce absenteeism and increase workforce productivity

Neuroprotective Effect of Coenzyme Q10 in Hippocampal Injury in Balb/c Mouse

Coenzyme Q10 is a promising agent for neuroprotection in neurodegenerative diseases. Neuroprotective effects of Coenzyme Q10 demonstrated in some neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson, Alzheimer and etc. Hippocampus is home of these diseases. We assayed Coenzyme Q10 effects on Hippocampal injury model and our hypothesis is that Coenzyme Q10 has Neuroprotective effects in some neurodegenerative diseases via hippocampus. For this purpose 24 Balb/c mouse took in 4 groups: Control (Without any treatment), Vehicle (Treated with sesame oil as Coenzyme Q10 vehicle), Hyppocampal injury model (Treated with Trimethyltin chlorideneurotoxin, 2.5 mg per kg IP), and test (Treated with Coenzyme Q10 after Trimethyltin chloride injection, 10 mg per kg IP for 2 weeks). After two weeks brain harvested and hippocampus tissue assayed by Nissl and Tunnel staining. Hystological study showed significantly increase of normal cells and decrease of apoptotic cells in test group after Coenzyme Q10 treatment in hippocampus. This study showed Coenzyme Q10 has protective effects in hippocampus after injury and it seems that Neuroprotective effects of Coenzyme Q10 in some neurodegenerative diseases com from that

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTIVATIONS OF USING FACEBOOK AND SELF-ESTEEM OF GIRNE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENTS

In recent years, social media has become popular in the virtual world. There are websites on the Internet where members or participants discuss about specific topics, share recent activities or upload photos or videos. Social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Myspace are Internet based applications, and individuals use them in order to create and share content about their favorite topics. On the other hand, human beings have social needs and they look for different ways to gratify themselves during life time. Social media with a wide range of facilities have provided a sense of self-esteem which is one of the most important elements of human social needs. Since Facebook was ranked first as the most popular social networking sites in past years, and because of researchers personal experiences of observing the popularity of Facebook among Girne American University students, this study aimed at discovering the motivations behind using Facebook among students, finding out whether there is any significant correlation between a specific motivation and self-esteem or not. In order to do that, 120 undergraduate students participated in a survey study. They were selected by using probable sampling method. Data was collected by means of questionnaire and analyzed by Kendall's tau correlation coefficient. The results expanded previous studies which claim social networking sites may improve self-esteem of their users. The results showed that less self-esteem is related to share more activity, uploading photos and making new friends on Facebook, while no significant correlation was found between lack of self-esteem and discussing about personal problems on Facebook

The impact of modified exercise and relaxation therapy on chronic lower back pain in office workers: a randomized clinical trial

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a modified package of exercise therapy combined with relaxation on pain intensity, range of motion (ROM), anxiety, and quality of life (QoL) in office workers with chronic lower back pain. In this clinical trial, 72 office workers aged 20 to 50 years with chronic low back pain were randomized to one of four groups including; group 1, exercise therapy; group 2, psychotherapy (relaxation therapy); group 3, modified protocol (exercise therapy followed by relaxation therapy); group 4, control group (no intervention). Participants exercised 3 times weekly for 6 weeks for 40-45 min of exercise/relaxation. Pain intensity, ROM, anxiety, and QoL were evaluated at baseline, 6 weeks, and 12 weeks after the end of the intervention. Re-sults showed significant decreases in pain intensity and anxiety in the three experimental groups compared to the control group. The three intervention groups indicated a significant decrease in pain intensity and anxiety after 6 and 12 weeks. ROM significantly improved in the exercise therapy and the modified protocol over time (after 6 and 12 weeks). A significant difference in QoL was found between the groups, with the greatest improvement found in the psychotherapy and modified protocol groups. This therapeutic package (including exercise movements and psychological interventions) was found to have a superior effect on pain intensity, ROM, anxiety, and QoL after 6 and 12 weeks compared to other interventions (only exercise and psychotherapy)

Identification of disease-causing genes using microarray data mining and gene ontology

Background: One of the best and most accurate methods for identifying disease-causing genes is monitoring gene expression values in different samples using microarray technology. One of the shortcomings of microarray data is that they provide a small quantity of samples with respect to the number of genes. This problem reduces the classification accuracy of the methods, so gene selection is essential to improve the predictive accuracy and to identify potential marker genes for a disease. Among numerous existing methods for gene selection, support vector machine-based recursive feature elimination (SVMRFE) has become one of the leading methods, but its performance can be reduced because of the small sample size, noisy data and the fact that the method does not remove redundant genes. Methods: We propose a novel framework for gene selection which uses the advantageous features of conventional methods and addresses their weaknesses. In fact, we have combined the Fisher method and SVMRFE to utilize the advantages of a filtering method as well as an embedded method. Furthermore, we have added a redundancy reduction stage to address the weakness of the Fisher method and SVMRFE. In addition to gene expression values, the proposed method uses Gene Ontology which is a reliable source of information on genes. The use of Gene Ontology can compensate, in part, for the limitations of microarrays, such as having a small number of samples and erroneous measurement results. Results: The proposed method has been applied to colon, Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) and prostate cancer datasets. The empirical results show that our method has improved classification performance in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. In addition, the study of the molecular function of selected genes strengthened the hypothesis that these genes are involved in the process of cancer growth. Conclusions: The proposed method addresses the weakness of conventional methods by adding a redundancy reduction stage and utilizing Gene Ontology information. It predicts marker genes for colon, DLBCL and prostate cancer with a high accuracy. The predictions made in this study can serve as a list of candidates for subsequent wet-lab verification and might help in the search for a cure for cancers

Population and fertility by age and sex for 195 countries and territories, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: Population estimates underpin demographic and epidemiological research and are used to track progress on numerous international indicators of health and development. To date, internationally available estimates of population and fertility, although useful, have not been produced with transparent and replicable methods and do not use standardised estimates of mortality. We present single-calendar year and single-year of age estimates of fertility and population by sex with standardised and replicable methods. Methods: We estimated population in 195 locations by single year of age and single calendar year from 1950 to 2017 with standardised and replicable methods. We based the estimates on the demographic balancing equation, with inputs of fertility, mortality, population, and migration data. Fertility data came from 7817 location-years of vital registration data, 429 surveys reporting complete birth histories, and 977 surveys and censuses reporting summary birth histories. We estimated age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs; the annual number of livebirths to women of a specified age group per 1000 women in that age group) by use of spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression and used the ASFRs to estimate total fertility rates (TFRs; the average number of children a woman would bear if she survived through the end of the reproductive age span [age 10–54 years] and experienced at each age a particular set of ASFRs observed in the year of interest). Because of sparse data, fertility at ages 10–14 years and 50–54 years was estimated from data on fertility in women aged 15–19 years and 45–49 years, through use of linear regression. Age-specific mortality data came from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 estimates. Data on population came from 1257 censuses and 761 population registry location-years and were adjusted for underenumeration and age misreporting with standard demographic methods. Migration was estimated with the GBD Bayesian demographic balancing model, after incorporating information about refugee migration into the model prior. Final population estimates used the cohort-component method of population projection, with inputs of fertility, mortality, and migration data. Population uncertainty was estimated by use of out-of-sample predictive validity testing. With these data, we estimated the trends in population by age and sex and in fertility by age between 1950 and 2017 in 195 countries and territories. Findings: From 1950 to 2017, TFRs decreased by 49·4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 46·4–52·0). The TFR decreased from 4·7 livebirths (4·5–4·9) to 2·4 livebirths (2·2–2·5), and the ASFR of mothers aged 10–19 years decreased from 37 livebirths (34–40) to 22 livebirths (19–24) per 1000 women. Despite reductions in the TFR, the global population has been increasing by an average of 83·8 million people per year since 1985. The global population increased by 197·2% (193·3–200·8) since 1950, from 2·6 billion (2·5–2·6) to 7·6 billion (7·4–7·9) people in 2017; much of this increase was in the proportion of the global population in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The global annual rate of population growth increased between 1950 and 1964, when it peaked at 2·0%; this rate then remained nearly constant until 1970 and then decreased to 1·1% in 2017. Population growth rates in the southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania GBD super-region decreased from 2·5% in 1963 to 0·7% in 2017, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth rates were almost at the highest reported levels ever in 2017, when they were at 2·7%. The global average age increased from 26·6 years in 1950 to 32·1 years in 2017, and the proportion of the population that is of working age (age 15–64 years) increased from 59·9% to 65·3%. At the national level, the TFR decreased in all countries and territories between 1950 and 2017; in 2017, TFRs ranged from a low of 1·0 livebirths (95% UI 0·9–1·2) in Cyprus to a high of 7·1 livebirths (6·8–7·4) in Niger. The TFR under age 25 years (TFU25; number of livebirths expected by age 25 years for a hypothetical woman who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) in 2017 ranged from 0·08 livebirths (0·07–0·09) in South Korea to 2·4 livebirths (2·2–2·6) in Niger, and the TFR over age 30 years (TFO30; number of livebirths expected for a hypothetical woman ageing from 30 to 54 years who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) ranged from a low of 0·3 livebirths (0·3–0·4) in Puerto Rico to a high of 3·1 livebirths (3·0–3·2) in Niger. TFO30 was higher than TFU25 in 145 countries and territories in 2017. 33 countries had a negative population growth rate from 2010 to 2017, most of which were located in central, eastern, and western Europe, whereas population growth rates of more than 2·0% were seen in 33 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, less than 65% of the national population was of working age in 12 of 34 high-income countries, and less than 50% of the national population was of working age in Mali, Chad, and Niger. Interpretation: Population trends create demographic dividends and headwinds (ie, economic benefits and detriments) that affect national economies and determine national planning needs. Although TFRs are decreasing, the global population continues to grow as mortality declines, with diverse patterns at the national level and across age groups. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide transparent and replicable estimates of population and fertility, which can be used to inform decision making and to monitor progress