Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Xeroderma pigmentosum group D polymorphisms and esophageal cancer susceptibility: a meta-analysis based on case-control studies.

AIM To clarify the effects of the xeroderma pigmentosum group D (XPD) Asp312Asn and Lys751Gln gene polymorphisms on the risk of esophageal cancer (EC). METHODS A computerised literature search was conducted to identify the relevant studies from the PUBMED and EMBASE databases, reviews, and reference lists of relevant articles. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the associations between the XPD Asp312Asn and/or Lys751Gln polymorphisms and EC susceptibility. Statistical analyses were performed using the software Stata 12.0. A fixed or random effects model was selected based on a heterogeneity test. Publication bias was estimated using funnel plots and Egger's linear regression method. Subgroup analyses were performed based on histological type and ethnicity. RESULTS Thirteen case-control studies with a total of 10 comparisons for the Asp312Asn polymorphism, including 2373 cases and 3175 controls, and 15 comparisons for the Lys751Gln polymorphism, including 3226 cases and 5237 controls, were recruited for the meta-analysis. In terms of the XPD Asp312Asn polymorphism, significantly increased EC risks were identified in the Asp/Asn vs Asp/Asp comparison (OR = 1.17, 95%CI: 1.02-1.33, P = 0.03) and in the dominant-model comparison (Asn/Asn+Asp/Asn vs Asp/Asp: OR = 1.18, 95%CI: 1.04-1.34, P = 0.01). However, no significant associations were found in the Asn/Asn vs Asp/Asp comparison (OR = 1.30, 95%CI: 1.00-1.70, P = 0.05) or in the recessive-model comparison (Asn/Asn vs Asp/Asn + Asp/Asp: OR = 1.17, 95%CI: 0.91-1.50, P = 0.22). In terms of the XPD Lys751Gln polymorphism, a significant association with EC susceptibility was found under the recessive model (Gln/Gln vs Lys/Gln+Lys/Lys: OR = 1.21, 95%CI: 1.02-1.43, P = 0.03). However, no associations were identified in the other comparisons (co-dominant model: Lys/Gln vs Lys/Lys: OR = 1.11, 95%CI: 0.94-1.31, P = 0.20; Gln/Gln vs Lys/Lys: OR = 1.31, 95%CI: 0.98-1.75, P = 0.07; dominant model: OR = 1.14, 95%CI: 0.96-1.35, P = 0.14). CONCLUSION The results of this meta-analysis suggest that the XPD Asp312Asn and Lys751Gln gene polymorphisms are associated with a significantly increased risk for EC.
The impact of electronic media on faculty evaluation

With the proliferation of computer networks and the increased use of Internet‐based applications, many forms of social interactions now take place in an on‐line context through Computer‐Mediated Communication (CMC). Many universities are now reaping the benefits of using CMC applications to collect data on student evaluations of faculty, rather than using paper‐based surveys in Face‐To‐Face (FTF) classroom settings. While the relative merits of CMC versus FTF student evaluations have been researched extensively, there is limited research published about the ways students respond to the questions from either mode of data collection. This paper reports on a research study to analyse the communication differences between student scores from FTF student evaluations and CMC evaluation questions from end of semester evaluations from a university in the Middle East region. In addition to the questions about communication mode differences between two evaluation questions, several demographic variables were measured to determine any interaction effects. The results of our study suggest that the type of communication channel mitigates the responses that students make on CMC evaluations vis‐à‐vis FTF evaluations of faculty. In particular, even though there were significant differences found at the aggregate level between CMC and FTF evaluations, when the course and instructor are controlled for, there were no significant differences reported. In addition, several differences were noted depending on the type and level of the course being studied. Also, we found that students are more likely to express more extreme responses to scale questions in CMC than FTF evaluations. Administrators should consider these potential differences when implementing on‐line evaluation systems.
Social support in later life: a study of three areas

The research reported in this article examines elderly people's family and community networks in three urban areas of England: Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Wood ford. These were the locations for a number of major studies in the 1940s and 1950s. Four decades on from the original studies, a social network approach was used to explore changes in the social relationships in these three areas. The research sought to assess whom older people identified as 'important' in their lives, and the role such people played in the provision and receipt of support. The study found that respond ents do not mobilize the whole of their social network when looking for support. Instead, a section of the social network is drawn upon (mainly immediate family) to provide specific kinds of assistance. In addition, locally available friends offer comple mentary or alternative sources of help. This is a change from the earlier Wolver hampton and Bethnal Green studies, although it is consistent with the significance of friendship highlighted in the original study of Woodford. The paper also reports clear evidence of older people being active in reciprocal exchanges across their networks, particularly in respect of confiding in and talking to people about health issues but much less so in relation to instrumental support, such as help with household chores, transport and financial advice.
The relationship between mortality and mental disorder: Evidence from the Liverpool longitudinal study

In 1982/83 a random community sample of 1070 people aged 65 years and over resident in Liverpool was identified. GMS data from this sample were analysed using the AGECAT computer diagnostic program and reliable and valid rates for the different mental illnesses were determined. One hundred and seventy‐nine subjects have died during the first three years of follow‐up in the longitudinal study and form the basis of the mortality data presented here. The results demonstrate a significant relationship between mortality rates and mental disorder and we discuss these findings for different diagnostic categories as well as using the ability of the AGECAT system to look at case levels.
The Nexus Between Direct Reading Instruction, Reading Theoretical Perspectives, and Pedagogical Practices of University of Swaziland Bachelor of Education Students

The present study investigated the influence direct reading instruction had on university student teachers’ reading cognition and the influence their theoretical perspectives had on their pedagogical practices. The study was conducted on all the seven year 2 (2008) Bachelor of Education (primary) students at the University of Swaziland. Questionnaire items were used to determine the student teachers’ reading cognition before and after their study of a course ‘Teaching Reading’ which the researcher taught. Document analysis in the form of detailed lesson plan analyses and lesson observations during the students’ teaching practice were the basis for the determination of the student teachers’ pedagogical practices. Follow-up interviews were conducted with the student teachers to establish the explanations for the consistencies and inconsistencies between the students’ theoretical perspectives and pedagogical practices. The study’s findings point to a causal relationship between direct instruction and reading theoretical orientation (on account of the shifts in reading orientation in the post-reading course questionnaire responses), which does not always hold for reading theoretical perspectives and pedagogical practices (where prevailing environmental factors often compel teachers to implement reading perspectives different from those they theoretically subscribe to most). The study recommends a paradigm shift from predominantly text-based reading conceptions to an infusion of other conceptions in classroom teaching, textbook writing and examination setting.
Genetic overlap between bipolar illness and event-related potentials

Background. Electrophysiological endophenotypes are far less explored in bipolar disorder as compared to schizophrenia. No previous twin study of event-related potentials (ERPs) in bipolar illness has been reported. This study uses a twin design and advanced genetic model fitting analyses aiming to (1) assess and quantify the relationship of a range of ERP components with bipolar disorder with psychotic features, and (2) examine the source of the relationship (due to genetic or environmental factors). Method. P300, P50 suppression and mismatch negativity (MMN) were recorded in 10 discordant monozygotic (MZ) bipolar twin pairs, six concordant MZ bipolar twin pairs and 78 control twin pairs. Statistical analyses were based on structural equation modelling. Results. Bipolar disorder was significantly associated with smaller P300 amplitude and decreased P50 suppression. Genetic correlations were the main source of the associations, estimated to be −0·33 for P300 amplitude and 0·46 for P50 ratio. Individual-specific environmental influences were not significant. MMN and P300 latency were not associated with the illness. Conclusions. The results provide supporting evidence that P300 amplitude and P50 suppression ratio are ERP endophenotypes for bipolar disorder.
Mitral valve repair results in better right ventricular remodelling than valve replacement for degenerative mitral regurgitation: a three-dimensional echocardiographic study.

INTRODUCTION Right ventricular (RV) remodelling may be an important determinant of clinical outcome in patients undergoing mitral valve surgery for mitral regurgitation. In the present study we hypothesised that, compared to valve replacement, mitral valve repair for degenerative mitral regurgitation may result in better RV remodelling, as assessed by real-time, three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE). METHODS Forty unselected patients with degenerative mitral valve regurgitation were recruited prospectively. Two-dimensional (2DE) and RT3DE studies were performed prior to surgery and 6 months postoperatively. RV volumes, stroke volume, ejection fraction and mass, as well as RV pressures were calculated. Regression analysis was used to demonstrate the effect of surgical mitral repair and replacement on reverse RV remodelling. RESULTS Twenty-one patients underwent mitral valve repair and 19 valve replacement. Mean age was 59.5 ± 15.4 years. Five patients who underwent repair (23.8%) developed recurrent MR within 6 months postoperatively. RV systolic pressure was reduced from 39.3 ± 11.9 mmHg, to 25.4 ± 8.3 mmHg after surgery (p=0.027). Compared to preoperative volumes, 6 months after surgery there was a significant reduction in RV diastolic volume and stroke volume (from 106.4 ± 16.3 ml to 80.4 ± 12.1 ml and from 69.2 ± 15.4 ml to 52.2 ± 14.1 ml, respectively, p<0.001), and an increase in RV ejection fraction (from 54.5 ± 9.2% to 67.3 ± 8.5%, p<0.001). Over a 6-month follow-up period there were no deaths. Overall, the functional class was significantly improved in 39/40 patients (97.5%) but there was no difference between the repair and replacement groups. Using a multivariate regression analysis model including all parameters composing RV remodelling postoperatively, mitral valve repair was the strongest predictor of reverse RV remodelling (reduction of RV end-diastolic volume, p<0.01; reduction of RV mass, p<0.01; reduction of tricuspid regurgitant velocity, p=0.019). CONCLUSIONS Mitral valve repair leads to more favourable reverse RV remodelling, assessed by RT3DE, compared to valve replacement. This may have important clinical implications.
Designing Organizations that Design Environments: Lessons from Entrepreneurial Expertise

Human artifacts lie on the interface between their inner environments and their outer environments. Organizations, therefore, are apt subjects to be studied through a science of the artificial. Furthermore, organizational design happens at two interfaces: first, at the interface between organizational founder(s) and the firms they design, and second, between the firms and the environments in which they operate. We use recent developments in the study of entrepreneurial expertise to show why an effectual logic of design is necessary at the first interface, and what its consequences are for designing at the second. In particular, we use the exemplar case of Starbucks to codify three key characteristics of the design problem at the first interface — namely, Knightian uncertainty, goal ambiguity and environmental isotropy. We then use an `alternate histories' method to trace four strategic options — namely, planning, adaptation, vision and transformation — for designing at the second interface. In the final analysis, organizational design is important because effectuators using transformational approaches not only design organizations, but concurrently end up designing the environments we live in.
EmoBank: Studying the Impact of Annotation Perspective and Representation Format on Dimensional Emotion Analysis

We describe EmoBank, a corpus of 10k English sentences balancing multiple genres, which we annotated with dimensional emotion metadata in the Valence-Arousal-Dominance (VAD) representation format. EmoBank excels with a bi-perspectival and bi-representational design. On the one hand, we distinguish between writer’s and reader’s emotions, on the other hand, a subset of the corpus complements dimensional VAD annotations with categorical ones based on Basic Emotions. We find evidence for the supremacy of the reader’s perspective in terms of IAA and rating intensity, and achieve close-to-human performance when mapping between dimensional and categorical formats.
Near Nozzle High-Speed Measurements of the Intact Core for Diesel Spray

The optical connectivity method is applied for the first time for near nozzle measurements of the intact core length of stock high pressure diesel injectors up to 220 MPa (2200 bar) with high speed imaging. The method is based on an approach by Roosen (1991) and the so called optical connectivity method of Charalampous et al. (2009) for the measurement of the intact core length of sprays. To achieve this, the light is guided through an optical access into the nozzle tip to illuminate the liquid jet along its intact core length from inside. So far, this approach has been applied to rather low pressure injectors or specially designed nozzles. For the application on modern common-rail diesel injectors with injection pressures above 200 MPa (2000 bar), two approaches are being evaluated now. In the first approach, an optical fiber is coupled into one of the nozzle holes of a standard heavy duty diesel injector. Doing so, it was possible to determine the intact core length for the hole on the opposed side. First high speed measurements of the unsteady spray behaviour with up to 25 kHz resolution were feasible. In the second approach the light is guided into the sac hole volume through an additionally drilled access on the center of the nozzle tip. Here, the lengths of all spray cores could be measured simultaneously. A stable operation was possible up to injection pressures of 220 MPa (2200 bar). Results with transient high speed imaging measurements are then shown. Additionally, a simultaneous application with high speed Mie scattering imaging of the spray shape is presented within this work.
Culture, Power and the Social Construction of Morality: moral voices of Chinese students

Abstract This study challenges Carol Gilligan's gendered interpretation of moral voice by examining the ways in which moral problems and responses were socially constructed in the contexts of power relations based not on gender, but culture. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 30 mainland Chinese men and women studying in the United States regarding their lived experiences of moral conflict and choice. Out of these interviews, the problem of power emerged as a central moral concern in Chinese students’ relationships with Americans. These relationships were characterised by a dilemma of voice: the tension between an ethical imperative to keep silent to preserve vital yet hurtful power relations, and the moral need to speak out in defence of one's dignity and integrity. Students’ responses to this dilemma varied with the nature of the power relationship itself: enjoining students to endure silently those abusive relationships which they felt powerless to change or exit, to abandon those which they could.
The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging: Life Course and Personal Destiny in Niger

In this unique ethnographical study of the people of the Kel Ewey confederation of Tuareg, Rasmussen explores concepts of age and aging in an African culture. A seminomadic community in northern Niger, the Tuareg understand aging in a way that is distinctly nonlinear - a dimension of life they measure outside of a chronological time frame. Instead, rituals related to marriage, childbirth, and death mark the process of aging. In this way the life course of an individual is more important to the notion of age than the literal age. A sense of private power and transformation of self over time are thus achieved through ritual. Rasmussen draws on field experience conducted between 1974 and 1995. The longevity of her ethnological study provided the opportunity for extended interaction with local residents, who eventually took an active role in studying the researcher. She explores the mutual exchange of knowledge about aging and life course - an interaction that itself sheds light on the need to deconstruct standard age-related categories for studying other cultures. The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging lays a foundation for deeper understanding of topics related to gender, social stratum, and kinship throughout the life course as well as aging. It will be an important resource for anthropologists and will offer a point of departure for all who are interested in alternative concepts of aging.
Third-Space Practitioners: Women Educating for Justice in the Global South

This article builds on qualitative research with 13 women (9 from Canada and 4 from Asia and Africa) doing international adult education in the Global South. The author examines the cases in light of the postcolonial literature of Bhabha, Spivak, and Khan, giving special attention to their theory of third space. The 13 participants are third-space practitioners who challenge the binaries of North/South, religion/development, and local/global. As development workers and educators, these women trouble existing categories of identity to practice progressive politics in the public sphere through third-space strategies of ritual, listening, negotiation, and subversion. This article’s main contribution is to show how these adult educators use and practice this radical position within the shifting (postfoundational) sands that are so often denounced as apolitical, noncommittal, or lost in linguistics.
Human Neuroscience

available and peek into the exciting dynamics of brain activity on a moment-to-moment basis. In order to make the case, we present an example from event-related EEG where a combination of data decomposition with independent component analysis (ICA), multiple regression and deconvolution is used to derive a heretofore unknown electrophysiological precursor of behavioral errors. Since the observation of the medial frontal negativity in the response-locked event-related potential associated with error commission (Falkenstein et al., 1991; Gehring et al., 1993), brain activity patterns and behavioral changes that are caused by errors have received a great deal of attention and helped in understanding how the brain responds to errors, and shapes subsequent behavioral adaptation. A neural system located mainly within the rostral cin-gulate zone (RCZ), the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and the anterior insular cortex has been identified to support this function by signaling the need for increased control, whenever the action goal is not achieved or the risk to fail is high (Ridderinkhof et al., 2004; Debener et al., 2005; Klein et al., 2007). In contradistinction, changes in brain activity and behavior preceding errors have received much less attention, although these antecedent conditions may help to understand how brain states affect behavioral accuracy, and activity patterns preceding errors might lend themselves to prediction of upcoming performance, which would possibly have a number of interesting real-world applications. To date, only a limited amount of studies have investigated EEG activity immediately preceding errors; these have employed different EEG features for analysis and the evidence points to
Local Government Chief Executives’ Everyday Hauntings: Towards a Theory of Organizational Ghosts

This paper develops a theory of organizational ghosts, a concept that describes the haunted and burdensome aspects of organizational life and in particular of leadership action. The concept of organizational ghosts is not offered as yet another metaphor, a lens through which to analyse particular organizations. Rather, I offer my discussion of ghosts as a theoretical concept that explains how inheritances of the past haunt the relations and struggles of the present. I tell a ghostly tale of the everyday leadership and learning practices of UK local government chief executives, and provide an exploration of organizational ghosts as a contribution to the growing interest in the action in the shadows, atmospheres, margins and boundaries of organizations. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of UK local councils, and embracing the multiplicity and heterogeneity of organizational ghosts, the paper considers the theoretical, political and ethical stakes involved in taking ghosts seriously. Its contribution is to show how ghosts are insinuated in organizations and to highlight leaders as figures who are both willing agents and uneasy hosts of hauntings, and to point to the mediating role of leaders in handling confrontations between the past, the present and the future.
Impact of family type on involvement of adolescents in pre-marital sex

This study examined the impact of home type on involvement of in-school adolescents in premarital sex in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. This study adopted a survey research design. Three hundred and sixty-eight students from four secondary schools were randomly selected, 128 (47.8%) were males and 148 (53%) were females. Their ages range from 16 to 19 years with the mean of 18.24 years. Only 186 (69%) have had sexual intercourse and 94 of them had only one sex partner while 92 had more than one sex partner. Two research instruments were developed for this study-attitude towards pre marital sex scale (ATPSS) and parent involvement questionnaire (PIQ). The findings revealed a significant effect of home type in prediction of adolescents’ involvement in premarital sex at r=0.569, r2 =0.347, f (1,218) = 56.47 and <0.05 significant level. There was a significant difference in involvement in premarital sex between adolescents from single parent and intact homes at X2-observed=22.46, 1 degree of freedom and p<0.05. It was concluded that parental involvement is paramount in adolescents’ premarital sexual behavior. It was recommended that government, religious bodies and individuals should uphold the sacred institution of marriage for wellbeing of our children. Key words: Premarital sex, adolescents, parental involvement.