Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cold and hunger induce diurnality in a nocturnal mammal

Significance The circadian system drives daily rhythms in physiology and behavior. Mammals in nature can change their daily activity rhythms, but causes and consequences of this behavioral plasticity are unknown. Here we show that nocturnal mice become diurnal when challenged by cold or hunger. Negative energy balance changes hormonal, physiological and behavioral rhythms without modifying the rhythm of the circadian pacemaker in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This response is adaptive because activity during daytime warmth and resting in a buffered environment during the cold nighttime generally reduces energy expenditure. This mechanism may explain why nighttime activity in humans generally evokes higher energy uptake and subsequent obesity and metabolic syndrome, as seen in late chronotypes and night shift workers. The mammalian circadian system synchronizes daily timing of activity and rest with the environmental light–dark cycle. Although the underlying molecular oscillatory mechanism is well studied, factors that influence phenotypic plasticity in daily activity patterns (temporal niche switching, chronotype) are presently unknown. Molecular evidence suggests that metabolism may influence the circadian molecular clock, but evidence at the level of the organism is lacking. Here we show that a metabolic challenge by cold and hunger induces diurnality in otherwise nocturnal mice. Lowering ambient temperature changes the phase of circadian light–dark entrainment in mice by increasing daytime and decreasing nighttime activity. This effect is further enhanced by simulated food shortage, which identifies metabolic balance as the underlying common factor influencing circadian organization. Clock gene expression analysis shows that the underlying neuronal mechanism is downstream from or parallel to the main circadian pacemaker (the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus) and that the behavioral phenotype is accompanied by phase adjustment of peripheral tissues. These findings indicate that nocturnal mammals can display considerable plasticity in circadian organization and may adopt a diurnal phenotype when energetically challenged. Our previously defined circadian thermoenergetics hypothesis proposes that such circadian plasticity, which naturally occurs in nocturnal mammals, reflects adaptive maintenance of energy balance. Quantification of energy expenditure shows that diurnality under natural conditions reduces thermoregulatory costs in small burrowing mammals like mice. Metabolic feedback on circadian organization thus provides functional benefits by reducing energy expenditure. Our findings may help to clarify relationships between sleep–wake patterns and metabolic phenotypes in humans.
The Effect of Empathy Training on the Empathic Skills of Nurses

Background The profound impact of empathy training on quality nursing care has been recognized. Studies have shown that there has been little improvement in nurses’ communication skills, and that they should work to enhance this area. Relevant training will lead to an improvement in nurses’ empathic skills, which in turn, will enable them to understand their patients better, establish positive interpersonal relationships with them, and boost their professional satisfaction. Objectives To reveal the effect of empathy training on the empathic skills of nurses. Patients and Methods This study was conducted as an experimental design. The research sample consisted of 48 nurses working at the pediatric clinics of Farabi hospital of Karadeniz Technical University in Turkey (N = 83). Two groups, an experimental group (group 1) and a control group (group 2) were determined after questionnaires were supplied to all nurses in the study sample. At first, it was intended to select these groups using a random method. However, since this may have meant that the experimental and control groups were formed from nurses working in the same service, the two groups were selected from different services to avoid possible interaction between them. The nurses in the Group 1 were provided with empathy training through group and creative drama techniques. Pre-tests and post-tests were conducted on both groups. Data was collected via a questionnaire designed around the topic “empathic skill scale-ESS”, developed by Dokmen. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test was employed to assess whether the measurable data was suitable for normal distribution. Data was presented as numbers and percentage distributions, as mean ± standard deviation and Chi-square, and as student t tests and paired t tests. The level of significance was accepted as P < 0.05. Results The nurses in the experimental group had a mean score of 146.7 ± 38.8 and 169.5 ± 22.1 in the ESS pre-test and post-test, respectively. Although the nurses in the control group had a pre-test mean score of 133.7 ± 37.1, which increased to 135.1 ± 51.7 after the training, no statistically significant difference was found (P = 0.886). A comparison of the groups indicated that they scored similarly in the pre-test. However, the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group in the post-test (P = 0.270 and P = 0.015, respectively). Conclusions In the light of these findings, it is recommended that communication skills should be widely included in in-service training programs; similar studies should be conducted on broader control groups formed through randomization; and a comparison should be made between the findings.
Conflict & collusion in Sierra Leone

Introduction - Historical background: uneven development - Rebellion (1): political or economic? Rebellion (2): grievances & shame - The APC & the 'failure' of counter-insurgency - Military coup & military abuses - 'Sell-game': a strangely co-operative conflict - Sobels & civil defence: some case-studies - Aid & violence - Emergency aid as welfare intervention: some deficiencies - From Abidjan to the May 1997 junta: collaboration comes to town - The ARFC/RUF junta: rise & fall - The rebels return to Freetown - Peace & its discontents- A more peaceable RUF highlights problems elsewhere (June 2000 to present) - Conclusion
Robert Capa : a biography

"[Whelan] tries to put the 'real' Capa in sharp focus for the first time. Capa once said, 'If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough. ' Whelan shows that this position came naturally to a man who hungered for - and attracted - close-up contact throughout his life. " - "Newsweek". The legendary war photographer Robert Capa carried into his personal life the same remarkable vitality that characterizes his pictures. Driven from his native Hungary by political oppression, he was first recognized for photographing the Spanish Civil War. In 1938 he was in China recording the Japanese invasion. During World War II he was in London, North Africa, and Italy, and then in France covering D-Day on Omaha Beach, the liberation of Paris, and the Battle of the Bulge. When the new nation of Israel was founded in 1948 he was there. In 1954 he was in Vietnam, taking photographs until the moment he was killed. Away from battle, Capa gather about him such famous people as Ernest Hemingwa and his wife (the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn), Gary Cooper, Irwin Shaw, and Gene Kelly. Whelan shows Capa photographing the street life of Paris, crisscrossing America on assignment from Life, in Russia with John Steinbeck, in Italy with John Huston, on the Riviera with Picasso, and with Ingrid Bergman. Richard Whelan edited with Cornell Capa Robert Capa Photographs. Whelan studied art history at Yale University and has written extensively about art and photography. His books include "Drawing the Line: Volume 1: The Korean War, 1950-1953".
Relationship Between Soil Exchangeable Sodium Percentage and Soil Sodium Adsorption Ratio in Marvdasht Plain, Iran

Objective: Soil salinity is one of the major worldwide environmental constraints affecting agricultural production in arid and semiarid regions. Lack of proper management of water and soil resources lead to increase soil salinity and reduce soil fertility. On the other hand, it seems simple and cheap method of measuring soil salinity is necessary. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) in some salt-affected soils of Marvdasht plain, Fars, Iran. Methods: To this purpose, fifty soil samples were randomly taken from surface (0-10 cm) and subsurface (10-20) cm from different fields of experimental site. Results: The statistical results of the study indicated that to predict soil ESP based on soil SAR the linear regression model ESP=0.941+1.119SAR with R2 =0.806 can be recommended.
Taking Justice into Custody: the Legal Needs of Prisoners

All prisoners have criminal law issues. Civil and family law issues also emerge when people are imprisoned and removed from their daily lives. They add to legal problems which occurred before custody, and those particular to the prison environment (e.g. prison disciplinary matters and parole). Taking justice into custody: the legal needs of prisoners reports on in-depth qualitative research into the legal needs of prisoners and their capacity to access the law and legal help. This research includes interviews with prisoners, ex-prisoners, prison staff, lawyers and others, and a review of available literature and statistics. It also identifies opportunities for prisoners to obtain legal assistance and to participate in legal processes. However, through a combination of the prison environment, legal environment, prisoners’ personal capacity, (often) convoluted pathways to legal help, and the pre-dominant prison culture, such opportunities may be missed or compromised.
Empirical Channel Model for 2 . 4 GHz IEEE 802 . 11 WLAN *

In order to design robust systems for security and forensics of Wireless LANs (WLANs), real-time channel measurements are imperative. We introduce a WLAN Forensics (WiFo) system that uses a grid of WiFi sensors to generate a real-time channel model as well as locate each user within one of the grid areas surrounded by four sensors (or two sensors and the access point). With the help of measurements spread over an extended period of time, we show that these real channel profiles do not follow any recommended model. We conclude that only real-time, empirical channel models can benefit a WiFo system, where users are required to be identified with respect to their location and the signal needs to be contained for environments such as classified ones.
1 Smoothing splines as locally weighted averages

A smoothing spline is a non parametric estimate that is defined as the solution to a minimization problem. Because of the form of this definition it is most convenient to represent a spline estimate relative to an orthonormal set of basis functions. One problem with this representation is that it obscures the fact that a smoothing spline, like most other nonparametric estimates, is a local, weighted average of the observed data. This property has been used extensively to study the limiting properties of kernel estimates and it is advantageous to apply similar techniques to spline estimates. Although equivalent kernels have been identified for a sdi.oothing spline these functions are either not accurate enough for asymptotic approximations or are restricted to equally spaced points. Rather than improve these approximations, this work concentrates on bounding the size of the kernel function. It is shown that the absolute value of the equivalent kernel decreases exponentially away from its center. This bound is used to derive the asymptotic form for the pointwise bias of a first order smoothing spline estimate. The pointwise bias has the usual form that would be expected for a second order kernel estimate with a variable bandwidth. Another potential application of this bound is in establishing the consistency of a spline estimate uniformly with respect to the smoothing parameter. Such results are important for studying data-based methods for selecting the smoothing parameter.
So what difference does it make? Assessing the outcomes and impacts of farmer participatory research

This paper provides a brief overview of what constitutes valid evidence for the efficacy and impact of participatory research drawing on the participatory research impact assessment literature and the author‟s experience of advising, reviewing and evaluating projects and programmes which have participatory research components, or are undertaking research within multistakeholder participatory processes. There has been important progress in demonstrating the different outcomes made by participatory approaches, but there remain differences in how the contribution of participatory research is judged, what evidence is considered valid and by whom.
Skew orthogonal polynomials and the partly symmetric real Ginibre ensemble

The partly symmetric real Ginibre ensemble consists of matrices formed as linear combinations of real symmetric and real anti-symmetric Gaussian random matrices. Such matrices typically have both real and complex eigenvalues. For a fixed number of real eigenvalues, an earlier work has given the explicit form of the joint eigenvalue probability density function. We use this to derive a Pfaffian formula for the corresponding summed up generalized partition function. This Pfaffian formula allows the probability that there are exactly k eigenvalues to be written as a determinant with explicit entries. It can be used too to give the explicit form of the correlation functions, provided certain skew orthogonal polynomials are computed. This task is accomplished in terms of Hermite polynomials, and allows us to proceed to analyze various scaling limits of the correlations, including that in which the matrices are only weakly non-symmetric.
Speech modelling using phoneme segmentation and modified weighted levenshtein distance

A method of choosing a word hypothesis from a dictionary of a speech recognition system is presented. The method applies a modified weighted Levenshtein distance for better accuracy. The distance is counted between phonetic transcriptions of a string of phonemes received from a classifier and of a dictionary. It allows efficient conducting of speech classifying task.
Collaborative Leadership Practices Among Ohio's Early College High School Prinicpals and Their Post-Secondary Partners

Patrick D. Pauken, Advisor This constructivist multiple-case study examined the collaborative leadership practices of seven secondary and seven post-secondary leaders who participate in Ohio’s Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI). The 14 educational leaders in this study partnered in an effort to respond to the access and success of traditionally underrepresented (i.e., ethnic/racial minorities, low-income, and first-generation students, and/or non-native English speaking) students in higher education. Therefore, it was proposed that relationships are essential to fulfilling the ECHSI mission, and seeks to: (a) explicate the leaders’ understanding of their school-university partnership and (b) explain the relationship between Early College leaders and the Relational Leadership Theory and its components (purpose, ethics, empowerment, inclusion, and process). Collaborative leadership is a complex and dynamic process for which strong evidentiary support is required. Therefore, this dissertation applied an exploratory multiple-case study approach to analyzing seven within-case and cross-case comparisons. The foundation of this study was based on qualitative interviews, supported by a web-based survey which yielded a 100% return rate. Additionally, document analysis was used to gain a better understanding of how relationships across secondary and post-secondary educational sectors create comprehensive, seamless systems of learning. The participants explained the interplay between individual and organizational backgrounds, experiences, leadership styles, values, and goals that promoted the development of their inter-organizational relationship. In this study, three major findings uncovered that cross-
Sticky Information vs. Sticky Prices: A Horse Race in a DSGE Framework

How can we explain the observed behavior of aggregate inflation in response to e.g. monetary policy changes? Mankiw and Reis (2002) have proposed sticky information as an alternative to Calvo sticky prices in order to model the conventional view that i) inflation reacts with delay and gradually to a monetary policy shock, ii) announced and credible disinflations are contractionary and iii) inflation accelerates with vigorous economic activity. I use a fully-fledged DSGE model with sticky information and compare it to Calvo sticky prices, allowing also for dynamic inflation indexation as in Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (2005). I find that sticky information and sticky prices with dynamic inflation indexation do equally well in my DSGE model in delivering the conventional view.
Conservative Accounting and Finite Firm Life: Why Residual Income Valuation Estimates Understate Stock Price

Residual income (RI) valuation involves discounting estimated future RI over the entire life of the firm. Because accounting is conservative, price is higher than book value for the average firm, creating a large accounting gain (terminal income) at delisting for most firms. However, this terminal income is hidden from researchers because it is not included in archival databases such as Compustat. Although most valuation models posit infinite firm life, the median firm survives approximately ten years. Terminal income is omitted from recent archival valuation research and this omission creates biased valuation estimates. This explains why studies that use the residual income valuation model to estimate stock price understate stock price on average. The results suggest that the estimation of future price/book premiums is an important component of RI valuation and present a limitation of using accounting numbers to estimate firm value without reference to price.
Uniform and Non-Uniform Zoning for Load Balancing in Virtual Environments

Maintaining a stable system for thousands of users is a difficult task. Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) dealing thousands of players preserves consistency by sharing relevant game states among the interacting parties. The lag of state sharing becomes excessive when the system is overloaded. Current practices supporting a massive number of users generally divide the game world into zones which are managed by servers. However, such zoning restricts cross-zonal interactions and exposes division of the game space. To address these problems, we present load-balancing algorithms for both uniform and non-uniform zonal Peer-to-Peer (P2P) MMOGs. The proposed load-balancing schemes identify a loaded server in terms of either the number of players or packets processed per unit time, and then move the load to other servers considering communication overhead and P2P overlay restructuring. The non-uniform load balancing, named adaptive scheme, uses a bisection procedure that does not adhere to any predefined zone size - zone sizes are flexible and can be determined dynamically. The outlined Multilevel Multiphase Load Balancing (MMLB) method designed for uniform zones reduces load in a step-by-step manner, and avoids problems associated with current load balancing schemes. Our results show that reducing load at any magnitude not necessarily improves performance. By comparison, MMLB performs better than adaptive scheme especially for a series of hotspots.
Effector Memory Th1 CD4 T Cells Are Maintained in a Mouse Model of Chronic Malaria

Protection against malaria often decays in the absence of infection, suggesting that protective immunological memory depends on stimulation. Here we have used CD4+ T cells from a transgenic mouse carrying a T cell receptor specific for a malaria protein, Merozoite Surface Protein-1, to investigate memory in a Plasmodium chabaudi infection. CD4+ memory T cells (CD44hiIL-7Rα+) developed during the chronic infection, and were readily distinguishable from effector (CD62LloIL-7Rα−) cells in acute infection. On the basis of cell surface phenotype, we classified memory CD4+ T cells into three subsets: central memory, and early and late effector memory cells, and found that early effector memory cells (CD62LloCD27+) dominated the chronic infection. We demonstrate a linear pathway of differentiation from central memory to early and then late effector memory cells. In adoptive transfer, CD44hi memory cells from chronically infected mice were more effective at delaying and reducing parasitemia and pathology than memory cells from drug-treated mice without chronic infection, and contained a greater proportion of effector cells producing IFN-γ and TNFα, which may have contributed to the enhanced protection. These findings may explain the observation that in humans with chronic malaria, activated effector memory cells are best maintained in conditions of repeated exposure.
Can Feeling Too Good Be Bad?

Positive emotions are vital to attaining important goals, nurturing social bonds, and promoting cognitive flexibility. However, one question remains relatively unaddressed: Can positive emotions also be a source of dysfunction and negative outcomes? An ideal point of entry to understand how positive emotion can go awry is bipolar disorder, a psychiatric disorder marked by abnormally elevated positive emotion. In this review I provide an overview of recent experimental evidence from individuals at risk for, and diagnosed with, bipolar disorder. I present a novel account of positive-emotion disturbance, referred to as positive emotion persistence (PEP), and consider potential mechanisms. The central thesis guiding PEP is that persistent activation of positive emotion across contexts and not solely in response to positive or rewarding stimuli is a marker of emotion dysfunction in bipolar disorder. I discuss implications for the study of bipolar disorder and positive emotion generally.
The Influence of a Sudden Increase in Playing Time on Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Complaints in High-Level Amateur Musicians in a Longitudinal Cohort Study

Background Several studies in the domain of professional musicians describe the relation between playing time and the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints in professional musicians. To date, no longitudinal cohort study into this relationship has been performed and no amateur musicians were studied. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the causal relationship between a sudden increase in playing time among amateur musicians on the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints in a prospective cohort study. Methods All members of two national Dutch Students Orchestras were asked to participate in the study. These project-based orchestras, consisting of high-level amateurs, followed a nine-hour rehearsing schedule for ten consecutive days. On the first day (t0) and after one week (t1) the subjects were asked to complete a paper-based questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics, music-related questions, questions regarding playing-related musculoskeletal complaints and the music module of the disabilities of arm, shoulder and hand questionnaire. Results The NSO consisted of 85 and the NESKO of 41 members during the study period. 59 subjects completed the questionnaire at both timepoints (response rate 47%). 9 subjects were excluded for being a music academy student, leaving 50 subjects (mean age 22.1, 72% female) suitable for analysis. During the rehearsal week, the prevalence of at least one playing-related musculoskeletal complaint increased from 28% to 80%. The most frequently affected areas were the neck, upper and lower back, hand/and or wrists and shoulders. The DASH music module score increased from 14 at t0 to 23 at t1. Conclusion A point prevalence of 28% at the start of the study that increased remarkably to 80% within a one-week period. Future research should evaluate other risk factors for musculoskeletal complaints in amateur musicians. These risk factors should be the base for the development of preventive measures.