Predicting occurrence of and responses to psychological difficulties: the interplay between achievement goals, perceived ability and motivational climates among Korean athletes

The present study investigated the interrelationship of goal orientations, perceived ability, and perceived motivational climate to the experience of stress, perceived controllability, and choice of coping strategies. A total of 404 Korean intercollegiate athletes participated in the study. The results from moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that the experience of psychological difficulties was positively predicted by a perceived ego-involving climate and negatively predicted by perceived ability. The perceived controllability over stress was highest among athletes who had higher levels of task and ego orientation in a more taskinvolving atmosphere. Athletes used more approach coping as they perceived a higher level of task orientation regardless the level of perceived ability, and when they indicated higher task orientation scores in a low ego-involving environment. The avoidance/withdrawal coping strategies were positively related to an ego-involving climate. The findings implied that an examination of cultural variations in motivational factors and coping process among sport participants in a different culture may further extend theoretical applicability across diverse populations

Portrayal of Women Characters in Selected Contemporary Yoruba Novels in Nigeria

Contemporary Yoruba novelists and critics have done tremendous works inportraying female characters in their literary production. For example,Okediji (1981) in Atoto Arere portrays female characters as mother, wife,sister, prostitute, harsh and malicious, who always keep malice againstothers. Some other novelists and critics like Olabimtan (1993), OrilaweAdigun, Sobande (1959) Rigimo Obinrin o se tu and Adeyemi (2005) OgaNiya Mi among others celebrate womanhood in their novels. They portraywomen as loving, hardworking, serious-minded and people of dignity andcharacter. This paper is a continuation of the discourse. It examines threenovels namely Fila lobinrin, Igba Oro and Eru o bodo and evaluates howfemale characters in the novels are portrayed. The feminist approach hasbeen adopted as our theoretical framework

Reply: ZD6474 reverses multidrug resistance by directly inhibiting the function of P-glycoprotein

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) pumps multiple types of drugs out of the cell, using energy generated from ATP, and confers multidrug resistance (MDR) on cancer cells. ZD6474 is an orally active, selective inhibitor of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, epidermal growth factor receptor, and rearranged during transfection tyrosine kinases. This study was designed to examine whether ZD6474 reverses P-gp-mediated MDR in cancer cells. Here, we show that clinically achievable levels of ZD6474 reverse P-gp-mediated MDR of the P-gp-overexpressing cell lines derived from breast cancer, MCF-7/adriamycin (ADR), and human oral epidermoid carcinoma, KBV200 to ADR, docetaxel, and vinorelbine. This ability to reverse the P-gp-mediated resistance is comparable to that of another frequently used reversal agent known as verapamil. ZD6474 itself moderately inhibits the proliferation of both MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells with almost equal activity, but its inhibitory effect is not altered by co-incubation with verapamil, suggesting that ZD6474 may not be a substrate of P-gp. In addition, ZD6474 increases the intracellular accumulation of the P-gp substrate, rhodamine-123, and ADR, by enhancing the uptake and/or decreasing the efflux of these compounds in resistant cells. Further studies show that ZD6474 stimulates ATPase activity in a dose-dependent manner, which is required for the proper function of P-gp. In contrast, ZD6474 does not inhibit the expression level of P-gp. Our results suggest that ZD6474 is capable of reversing MDR in cancer cells by directly inhibiting the function of P-gp, a finding that may have clinical implications for ZD6474

Single-particle chemical force microscopy to characterize virus surface chemistry

Two important viral surface characteristics are the hydrophobicity and surface charge, which determine the viral colloidal behavior and mobility. Chemical force microscopy allows the detection of viral surface chemistry in liquid samples with small amounts of virus sample. This single-particle method requires the functionalization of an atomic force microscope (AFM) probe and covalent bonding of viruses to a surface. A hydrophobic methyl-modified AFM probe was used to study the viral surface hydrophobicity, and an AFM probe terminated with either negatively charged carboxyl acid or positively charged quaternary amine was used to study the viral surface charge. With an understanding of viral surface properties, the way in which viruses interact with the environment can be better predicted

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Process Description language Level 1

Standard graphical representations have played a crucial role in science and engineering throughout the last century. Without electrical symbolism, it is very likely that our industrial society would not have evolved at the same pace. Similarly, specialised notations such as the Feynmann notation or the process flow diagrams did a lot for the adoption of concepts in their own fields. With the advent of Systems Biology, and more recently of Synthetic Biology, the need for precise and unambiguous descriptions of biochemical interactions has become more pressing. While some ideas have been advanced over the last decade, with a few detailed proposals, no actual community standard has emerged. The Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) is a graphical representation crafted over several years by a community of biochemists, modellers and computer scientists. Three orthogonal and complementary languages have been created, the Process Diagrams, the Entity Relationship Diagrams and the Activity Flow Diagrams. Using these three idioms a scientist can represent any network of biochemical interactions, which can then be interpreted in an unambiguous way. The set of symbols used is limited, and the grammar quite simple, to allow its usage in textbooks and its teaching directly in high schools. The first level of the SBGN Process Diagram has been publicly released. Software support for SBGN Process Diagram was developed concurrently with its specification in order to speed-up public adoption. Shared by the communities of biochemists, genomicians, theoreticians and computational biologists, SBGN languages will foster efficient storage, exchange and reuse of information on signalling pathways, metabolic networks and gene regulatory maps

Enumeration 1-Genericity in the Local Enumeration Degrees.

We discuss a notion of forcing that characterizes enumeration 1-genericity, and we investigate the immunity, lowness, and quasiminimality properties of enumeration 1-generic sets and their degrees. We construct an enumeration operator Δ such that, for any A, the set ΔA is enumeration 1-generic and has the same jump complexity as A. We deduce from this and other recent results from the literature that not only does every degree a bound an enumeration 1-generic degree b such that a'=b', but also that, if a is nonzero, then we can find such b satisfying 0e<b<a. We conclude by proving the existence of both a nonzero low and a properly Σ02 nonsplittable enumeration 1-generic degree, hence proving that the class of 1-generic degrees is properly subsumed by the class of enumeration 1-generic degrees

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Process Description language Level 1

Standard graphical representations have played a crucial role in science and engineering throughout the last century. Without electrical symbolism, it is very likely that our industrial society would not have evolved at the same pace. Similarly, specialised notations such as the Feynmann notation or the process flow diagrams did a lot for the adoption of concepts in their own fields. With the advent of Systems Biology, and more recently of Synthetic Biology, the need for precise and unambiguous descriptions of biochemical interactions has become more pressing. While some ideas have been advanced over the last decade, with a few detailed proposals, no actual community standard has emerged. The Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) is a graphical representation crafted over several years by a community of biochemists, modellers and computer scientists. Three orthogonal and complementary languages have been created, the Process Diagrams, the Entity Relationship Diagrams and the Activity Flow Diagrams. Using these three idioms a scientist can represent any network of biochemical interactions, which can then be interpreted in an unambiguous way. The set of symbols used is limited, and the grammar quite simple, to allow its usage in textbooks and its teaching directly in high schools. The first level of the SBGN Process Diagram has been publicly released. Software support for SBGN Process Diagram was developed concurrently with its specification in order to speed-up public adoption. Shared by the communities of biochemists, genomicians, theoreticians and computational biologists, SBGN languages will foster efficient storage, exchange and reuse of information on signalling pathways, metabolic networks and gene regulatory maps

Strategic Asset Seeking and Innovation Performance: The Role of Innovation Capabilities and Host Country Institutions

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Functional kernel estimators of conditional extreme quantiles

We address the estimation of "extreme" conditional quantiles i.e. when their order converges to one as the sample size increases. Conditions on the rate of convergence of their order to one are provided to obtain asymptotically Gaussian distributed kernel estimators. A Weissman-type estimator and kernel estimators of the conditional tail-index are derived, permitting to estimate extreme conditional quantiles of arbitrary order.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1107.226