Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A postmodernist critique of research interviewing

Since the emergence of qualitative research in education, research interviewing has been naively accepted as a reasonably straightforward method for gathering information. Even Lincoln and Guba's ground‐breaking postpositivist work, Naturalistic Inquiry (1985), largely treated interviewing in this manner. More recently, other postpositivists, such as Mishler (1986), have criticized the traditional approach to interviewing and suggested new ways to conduct and understand the research interview. But these latter postpositivists still retain thoroughly modernist assumptions that they embed in their reconstructions of research interviewing. This paper presents, in contrast, a postmodernist perspective that critiques both positivist and postpositivist characterizations of interviewing. This paper also shows how one aspect of interviewing – the power relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee — might be reconceptualized within a postmodernist perspective. The paper ends with a call for appreciatio.
Timely immunization completion among children in Vietnam from 2000 to 2011: a multilevel analysis of individual and contextual factors

Background Since the beginning of 2014, there have been nearly 6,000 confirmed measles cases in northern Vietnam. Of these, more than 86% had neither been immunized nor was their vaccination status confirmed. Objective To establish the likelihood that children under five in Vietnam had ‘timely immunization completion’ (2000–2011) and identify factors that account for variations in timely immunization completion. Design Secondary data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), which sampled women aged 15–49 from the 1999 Vietnamese Population and Housing Census frame, were analyzed. Multilevel analysis using Poisson regression was undertaken. Results Proportions of children under five who had timely immunization completion were low, especially for HBV dose 2 and HBV dose 3, which decreased between 2000 and 2011. Among seven vaccines used in the National Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) in 2000, 2006, and 2011, measles dose 1 had the highest timely immunization completion at 65.3%, 66.7%, and 73.6%, respectively, and hepatitis B dose 1 had the lowest at 17.5%, 19.3%, and 45.5%, respectively. Timely immunization completion was less common among children whose mothers had relatively less household wealth, were from ethnic minorities, lived in rural areas, and had less education. At the community level, the child's region of residence was the main predictor of timely immunization completion, and the availability of hospital delivery and community prenatal care in the local community were also determinants. Conclusion The EPI should include ‘timely immunization completion’ as a quality indicator. There should also be greater focus and targeting in rural areas, and among women who have relatively low education, belong to minority groups, and have less household wealth. Further research on this topic using multilevel analysis is needed to better understand how these factors interact.
The Effect of Goal-Line Presentation and Goal Selection on First-Grader Subtraction Fluency

Math proficiency is related to math calculation fluency. Explicit timing provides repeated practice for math fluency. It is enhanced through goal setting, graphic feedback, and rewards. Self-selected goals have potential to increase performance for math fluency. This study compared the effect of goal lines, and researcher goals versus self-selected goals. The authors compared three groups: (a) researcher-selected goals only, (b) researcher-selected goals with goal lines, and (c) self-selected goals with goal lines. First-grade students completed subtraction probes and colored in a bar graph with their performance. When participants met or exceeded their goals, participants received rewards twice per week. Results indicated that the researcher-selected goals with goal lines procedures with explicit timing had the greatest effect on subtraction fluency for first-grade students. The researcher-selected goals with goal lines and self-selected goals with goal lines groups outperformed the researcher-selected goals-only group.
College students' conceptions of learning management: the difference between traditional (face-to-face) instruction and Web-based learning environments

This study investigates the differences between students' conceptions of learning management via traditional instruction and Web-based learning environments. The Conceptions of Learning Management Inventory (COLM) was administered to 259 Taiwanese college students majoring in Business Administration. The COLM has six factors (categories), namely, learning management as memorizing, testing, applying, gaining higher status, understanding, and seeing in a new way. These categories are considered as being in a hierarchical order, from lower-level to higher-level. The results suggest that the students agree more with the ‘seeing in a new way’ category when learning management in a Web-based environment, while they show stronger acknowledgement of the conceptions of the ‘memorizing’, ‘testing’, ‘gaining higher status’, and ‘applying’ categories when learning management via traditional instruction. It is suggested that Web-based instruction can promote students' higher-level conceptions of learning management.
Teachers college students' conceptions about evaporation, condensation, and boiling

This study administered an open-ended, written test to 364 students in a teachers college who were divided into four groups, according to their scientific learning background. After evaluation, some representative students were interviewed in a semistructured manner to obtain their conceptions. The test results showed that, although the science major students performed better than the nonscience majors, their understanding of the condensation and boiling concepts still needed to be enhanced. Most of the students did not hold the concept of saturated vapor, even in the science major (group A) students; that is, only 28.8% held this idea, and the percentages in the remaining groups (groups B–D) were less than 10%. The performances in each group on the tasks regarding the concept of boiling were not impressive; the answers from group A students about the bubbles within boiling water centered on air and water vapor, and the corresponding percentage was close; however, for the other groups, the percentage differences became larger and most believed what was inside the bubbles was air. Quite a few students knew the white “smoke” rising from the water kettle was tiny water droplets, and the highest percentage was only around 20%. It was also found that most students had only an ambiguous comprehension of the existence of water vapor in air, especially groups B and C, who were nonscience major students. In the interviews, some students still thought water evaporated once combined or contacted with air, and the idea of “condensation when cooled” was deeply rooted in the students' minds; although students knew that “water vapor is invisible,” most still believed the white smoke was water vapor. Examining the students' ideas carefully, the researchers found out that learning difficulties regarding the aforementioned concepts could be a result of poor understanding of what water vapor is. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed83:511–526, 1999.
Increased Body Mass Index Is Associated With a Global and Distributed Decrease in White Matter Microstructural Integrity

Objective Obesity and decreased physical health are linked to deficits in several cognitive domains. The broad range of cognitive problems linked to obesity suggests a global mechanism that may interfere with multiple neural systems. We examined how variation in body mass index (BMI) is associated with the microstructural integrity of fiber connections in the human brain. Methods White matter structure was measured using diffusion tensor imaging in 28 participants (mean age = 30 years) with BMI scores ranging from normal weight to obese (19.5–45.7 kg/m2) based on standard BMI criteria. Results Using a whole-brain voxelwise analysis, we found that, across participants, the fractional anisotropy of white matter voxels parametrically decreased with increasing BMI (63% of white matter voxels). Midbrain and brainstem tracts were among the pathways most strongly associated with obesity (r = −0.18 to −0.33, df = 27, all p values < .05). We also observed a weaker overall diffusion signal in individuals with higher BMI than controls with normal weight (r = −0.14 to −0.71, df = 27, for 67% of fiber pathways tested, all p values < .05). After controlling for this decrease in general diffusivity, we found that decreases in fractional anisotropy stemmed from both a decrease in axial diffusivity (p < .05) and an increase in radial diffusivity (p < .05). Conclusions Our results show that increased BMI is globally associated with a reduction in white matter integrity throughout the brain, elucidating a potential mechanism by which changes in physical health may influence cognitive health.
XCP vs. CUBIC with Quick-Start: Observations on Implicit vs. Explicit Feedback for Congestion Control

Congestion control in transport protocols can be performed implicit when packets are lost, or explicit with feedback from the network. In this paper we compare some aspects of implicit and explicit congestion control using a variant of CUBIC with Quick-Start, called CUBIQ. We compare CUBIQ with regular TCP, XCP and CUBIC, and find that CUBIQ performs as well as XCP in most cases, and much better than XCP when XCP is hampered by small buffers in large BDP-networks. These results indicate that the feedback provided by Quick-Start may be enough for a sender when it needs to find the right transmission rate, also in the initial phase of a communication.
Clinical and genetic predictors of prognosis in myelodysplastic syndromes

Myelodysplastic syndromes are a collection of clonal hematopoietic disorders with a wide range of clinical manifestations and eventual outcomes. Accurate prediction of a patient’s prognosis is useful to define the risk posed by the disease and which treatment options are most appropriate. Several models have been created to help predict the prognosis for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes. The International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) has been the standard tool used to risk stratify MDS patients since its publication in 1997. Other models have since been created to improve upon the IPSS, including the recent Revised International Prognostic Scoring System. Most models include the presence or severity of peripheral blood cytopenias, the proportion of bone marrow blasts, and specific karyotype abnormalities. Other factors including age, performance status, co-morbidities, transfusion dependence, and molecular biomarkers can further refine the prediction of prognosis in some models. Novel, disease specific biomarkers with prognostic value in myelodysplastic syndromes including cell surface markers, gene expression profiles, and high resolution copy number analyses have been proposed but not yet adopted clinically. Somatic abnormalities in recurrently mutated genes are the most informative prognostic biomarkers not currently considered by clinical risk models. Mutations in specific genes have independent prognostic significance and, unlike cytogenetic abnormalities, are present in the majority of myelodysplastic syndrome cases. However, mutational information can be complex and there are challenges to its clinical implementation. Despite these limitations, DNA sequencing can refine the prediction of prognosis for myelodysplastic syndrome patients and has become increasingly available in the clinic where it will help improve the care of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.
Exercise, heat shock proteins and insulin resistance

Best known as chaperones, heat shock proteins (HSPs) also have roles in cell signalling and regulation of metabolism. Rodent studies demonstrate that heat treatment, transgenic overexpression and pharmacological induction of HSP72 prevent high-fat diet-induced glucose intolerance and skeletal muscle insulin resistance. Overexpression of skeletal muscle HSP72 in mice has been shown to increase endurance running capacity nearly twofold and increase mitochondrial content by 50%. A positive correlation between HSP72 mRNA expression and mitochondrial enzyme activity has been observed in human skeletal muscle, and HSP72 expression is markedly decreased in skeletal muscle of insulin resistant and type 2 diabetic patients. In addition, decreased levels of HSP72 correlate with insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progression in livers from obese patients. These data suggest the targeted induction of HSPs could be a therapeutic approach for preventing metabolic disease by maintaining the body's natural stress response. Exercise elicits a number of metabolic adaptations and is a powerful tool in the prevention and treatment of insulin resistance. Exercise training is also a stimulus for increased HSP expression. Although the underlying mechanism(s) for exercise-induced HSP expression are currently unknown, the HSP response may be critical for the beneficial metabolic effects of exercise. Exercise-induced extracellular HSP release may also contribute to metabolic homeostasis by actively restoring HSP72 content in insulin resistant tissues containing low endogenous levels of HSPs. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Heat shock proteins as modulators and therapeutic targets of chronic disease: an integrated perspective’.
Temperature Reduction in the Clamping Bolt Zone of Shunt Reactors: Design Enhancements

This paper presents design improvements to lower the temperature in the clamping bolt (CB), in a single-phase extra-high-voltage (EHV) shunt reactor. Laboratory temperature measurements, under overload and nominal load conditions, were performed in the middle of the two top main air gaps inside one of the slots drilled in the CB using commercial fiber-optic temperature sensors. 3-D finite-element (FE) simulations were performed to calculate fringing losses in the CB. Subsequently, the fringing losses were employed as a heat source for static-steady thermal analysis using 3-D FE simulations. Convective heat-transfer coefficients were selected with a methodology that leads to a close match between measured and simulated temperatures. Two practical design enhancements to diminish temperatures in the CB are analyzed using measured and simulated data. These alternatives improve design and reduce potential failures and, hence, increase the EHV shunt reactor lifetime.
The Acquisition of Past Participle Agreement in Québec French L1

Much developmental work has been devoted to the acquisition of object clitics in French. There is a consensus that in early grammar, children omit object clitics in contexts where an adult would not. Several analyses have been put forth, among which, one proposing a close link between the omission of object clitics and the presence of past participle agreement. In this short article we address this hypothesis by examining the acquisition of past participle agreement through two sentence-preference tasks administered to children (3- to 5-year-olds divided into three age groups) and adults from the Montréal area. The results of the experiments show that past participle agreement is a marginal feature in early grammar and therefore too weak to be considered as controlling the realization of the direct object clitics in child production. Children and adults display different behavior with respect to past participle agreement (weak and optional) versus subject-verb agreement (consistently strong and obligatory). This result points toward an analysis of past participle agreement in terms of language-specific optional verb movement.
Effects of Latino Acculturation and Ethnic Identity on Mental Health Outcomes

The relationships among client-therapist ethnic match, client age group, client acculturation, ethnic identity, and generation level and their effect on client global assessment of function (GAF), total mental health visits, and costs were examined with a sample of 204 Latino adult and child community mental health clients. Acculturation was measured using the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II), and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) served as the measure ofethnic identity. The adjusted findings indicated that GAF outcomes declined for Anglo-oriented Latino clients who reported low ethnic identity. These results are discussed in light ofa Multicultural Assessment Intervention Process Model (MAIP) that helps guide service delivery to community mental health consumers.
The Influence of Selection for Protein Stability on dN/dS Estimations

Understanding the relative contributions of various evolutionary processes—purifying selection, neutral drift, and adaptation—is fundamental to evolutionary biology. A common metric to distinguish these processes is the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions (i.e., dN/dS) interpreted from the neutral theory as a null model. However, from biophysical considerations, mutations have non-negligible effects on the biophysical properties of proteins such as folding stability. In this work, we investigated how stability affects the rate of protein evolution in phylogenetic trees by using simulations that combine explicit protein sequences with associated stability changes. We first simulated myoglobin evolution in phylogenetic trees with a biophysically realistic approach that accounts for 3D structural information and estimates of changes in stability upon mutation. We then compared evolutionary rates inferred directly from simulation to those estimated using maximum-likelihood (ML) methods. We found that the dN/dS estimated by ML methods (ωML) is highly predictive of the per gene dN/dS inferred from the simulated phylogenetic trees. This agreement is strong in the regime of high stability where protein evolution is neutral. At low folding stabilities and under mutation-selection balance, we observe deviations from neutrality (per gene dN/dS > 1 and dN/dS < 1). We showed that although per gene dN/dS is robust to these deviations, ML tests for positive selection detect statistically significant per site dN/dS > 1. Altogether, we show how protein biophysics affects the dN/dS estimations and its subsequent interpretation. These results are important for improving the current approaches for detecting positive selection.
On Approximate Horn Minimization

The minimization problem for Horn formulas is to find a Horn formula equivalent to a given formula, using a minimal number of clauses. This problem is important for applications such as the automated development of large knowledge bases. A 2 1−ǫ(n)-inapproximability result is proven, which is the first inapproximability result for the problem. We also consider several other versions of Horn minimization. An n log log n/(log n)-approximation algorithm is given for definite Horn formulas for the Steiner-minimization version, where one can introduce new variables in a restricted manner. This is the first algorithm with a o(n) performance guarantee. The algorithm is based on a new result in algorithmic extremal graph theory, on partitioning bipartite graphs into complete bipartite graphs, which may be of independent interest. Inapproximability results and approximation algorithms are also given for restricted versions where only clauses present in the original formula may be used.
Parenting and Early Adolescent Internalizing

This community-based study examined differences in parenting quality and parent symptoms for youth in four categories: anxious (elevated anxiety symptoms), depressed (elevated depressive symptoms), comorbid (elevated anxiety and depressive symptoms), and nonelevated (elevations of neither type). Respondents were 976 young adolescents (mean age = 11.3) and their parents (912 mothers, 647 fathers) randomly selected from 28 rural/small town communities. Results indicated that depressed and comorbid groups were associated with significantly lower parenting quality and higher parent psychopathology compared to the nonelevated and anxious groups. This pattern was generally consistent across reporters (youth, mother, and father) and four domains of or related to parenting (support/warmth, conflict/anger, general child management (GCM), and parent psychopathology). Results highlight the importance of accounting for comorbidity when examining relationships between psychopathology symptoms and related variables such as parenting. Implications include the need to address relationships with parents when intervening with youth at risk for or experiencing elevated depressive symptoms.
Mercury in Hair Is Inversely Related to Disease Associated Damage in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease, and environmental factors are proposed to exacerbate existing symptoms. One such environmental factor is mercury. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between exposure to mercury (Hg) and disease activity and disease associated damage in Total Hg concentrations in hair and urine were measured in 52 SLE patients. Dental amalgams were quantified. Disease activity was assessed using three indexes including the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group Index (BILAG). Disease associated damage was measured using the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology SLICC/ACR Damage Index. Pearson’s correlation identified a significant negative correlation between hair Hg and BILAG (r = −0.323, p = 0.029) and SLICC/ACR (r = −0.377, p = 0.038). Multiple regression analysis identified hair Hg as a significant predictor of disease associated damage as determined by SLICC/ACR (β = −0.366, 95% confidence interval (CI): −1.769, −0.155 p = 0.019). Urinary Hg was not related to disease activity or damage. Fish consumption is the primary route of MeHg exposure in humans and the inverse association of hair Hg with disease activity observed here might be explained by the anti-inflammatory effects of n-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids also found in fish.
A Linguistically Informed Autosomal STR Survey of Human Populations Residing in the Greater Himalayan Region

The greater Himalayan region demarcates two of the most prominent linguistic phyla in Asia: Tibeto-Burman and Indo-European. Previous genetic surveys, mainly using Y-chromosome polymorphisms and/or mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms suggested a substantially reduced geneflow between populations belonging to these two phyla. These studies, however, have mainly focussed on populations residing far to the north and/or south of this mountain range, and have not been able to study geneflow patterns within the greater Himalayan region itself. We now report a detailed, linguistically informed, genetic survey of Tibeto-Burman and Indo-European speakers from the Himalayan countries Nepal and Bhutan based on autosomal microsatellite markers and compare these populations with surrounding regions. The genetic differentiation between populations within the Himalayas seems to be much higher than between populations in the neighbouring countries. We also observe a remarkable genetic differentiation between the Tibeto-Burman speaking populations on the one hand and Indo-European speaking populations on the other, suggesting that language and geography have played an equally large role in defining the genetic composition of present-day populations within the Himalayas.