Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Topological Statistics and the LMT Galaxy Redshift Project

The results of numerical simulations are presented which demonstrate that liquid mirror telescope galaxy redshift surveys such as the current UBC-NASA MultiNarrowband Survey and the future LZT Survey have the potential of discriminating between the predictions of different theories of structure formation. Most of the currently studied theories of structure formation predict a scale-invariant spectrum of primordial perturbations. Therefore, to distinguish between the predictions of the various models, we make use of statistics which are sensitive to non-Gaussian phases, such as the counts in cell statistics, N-galaxy probability functions and Minkowski functionals. It is shown that already the current UBC-NASA survey can clearly differentiate between the predictions of some topological defect theories and those of inflationary Universe models with Gaussian phases.
Dendritic Arborizations of the Rat Substantia Nigra Pars Reticulata Neurons: Spatial Organization and Relation to the Lamellar Compartmentation of Striato-Nigral Projections

The cerebral cortex provides a major source of inputs to the basal ganglia. As has been well documented, the topography of corticostriatal projections subdivides the striatum into a mosaic of functionally distinct sectors. How information flow from these striatal sectors remains segregated or not within basal ganglia output nuclei has to be established. Electrophysiologically identified neurons of the rat substantia nigra pars reticulata were labeled by juxtacellular injection of Neurobiotin, and the spatial organization of their dendritic arborizations was analyzed in relation to the projection fields of individual striatal sectors. Thirty-nine nigral neurons located in the projection territory of the distinct striatal sensorimotor sectors were reconstructed. The data show that the dendritic arborizations of nigral neurons conform to the geometry of striato-nigral projections. Like striatal projections, the arborizations formed a series of curved laminas enveloping a dorsolaterally located core. Although dendritic fields of the neurons lying in the laminae were flat, those located in the core were spherical or cylindrical, thereby conforming to the shape of the striatal projection fields. This remarkable alignment between the dendritic arborizations of nigral neurons and the projection fields from individual striatal districts supports the concept of a parallel architecture of the striato-nigral circuits. However, pars reticulata neurons usually extend part of their dendrites within adjacent striatal projection fields, thereby ensuring a continuum between channels. The extension of the dendritic arborizations within the striatal projection fields suggests that nigral neurons integrate the information that is relevant for the completion of the specific motor behavior they control.
Help-seeking intention among college students: Cross-cultural study between East Asian international students and domestic students in the Unites States

Kang, Jiyun. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2016, Help-seeking Intention among College Students: Cross-cultural Study between East Asian International Students and Domestic Students in the United States. Major Professor: Ayşe Ҫiftҫi. The purpose of this study is to understand East Asian international student’s underutilization of counseling services (versus U.S. domestic students) by applying Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior (TRA/PB) and Ludwikowski, Vogel, and Armstrong (2009)’s stigma model to help-seeking. Participants were 146 East Asian international students and 210 domestic college students at Purdue University. AMOS 23.0 for Structural Equation Modeling was used to conduct a Latent Mean Analysis (LMA) and a multigroup analysis. The multigroup analysis results found that helpseeking intention was explained by the same hypothesized model in both groups, which was based on the TRA/PB (Ajzen, 2012) and the stigma model (Ludwikowski et al., 2009). However, no significant group differences were found for most of the hypothesized paths, except a path from personal stigma to self-stigma. The LMA results revealed that East Asian international students reported significantly higher help-seeking intention and lower self-stigma and perceived behavior control. Historically, Asian students are known to have more stigma and negative attitudes (Sue & Sue, 2008), so this
Vocational education qualifications’ roles in pathways to work in liberal market economies

Abstract The links between vocational qualifications and occupational destinations are weak in many Anglophone countries, even though the explicit purpose of vocational qualifications is to prepare individuals for occupations. Using Australia and Canada as case studies, this is explained at three levels of analysis: at the national level by systems of skill formation and student transition; at the meso level by skill ecosystems; and by whether qualifications are used as a signal in regulated occupations or as a screen in unregulated occupations. The paper outlines three roles for qualifications in providing pathways to enter and progress in work, transition to higher level studies, and support social mobility. The paper concludes that improving links between postsecondary qualifications and occupations depends more on the structure of the labour market than on the nature of qualifications: it is mainly an issue of the demand for qualifications rather than their supply.
Teachers’ self-efficacy: progressing qualitative analysis

ABSTRACT Teacher self-efficacy has predominantly been explored using quantitative instruments such as Likert scales-based questionnaires. Several researchers have questioned these methods, suggesting they offer only a limited view of the concept. This paper considers their claim by exploring the self-efficacy of UK secondary science teachers participating in a two-year professional development programme using both traditional quantitative scales and qualitative methods, including interviews and lesson observations. The findings support the suggestion that traditional quantitative scales do not fully capture teacher self-efficacy and highlight inconsistencies between self-efficacy assessments through the different research approaches. We argue that to achieve a more complete and comprehensive picture of teacher self-efficacy, it is essential that traditional quantitative approaches are better triangulated and integrated with other sources of data, in particular lesson observations. We offer an emerging approach of how qualitative data sources might be used to develop this comprehensive picture.
Message involvement and attitude towards green advertisements

Purpose Previous green research shows conflicting results regarding the relationship between environmental concern and persuasion. It has also largely overlooked the role of situational involvement. The purpose of this paper is to aim to show that message involvement influences attitude towards green advertisements. Design/methodology/approach To test the proposed model, an experimental study based on a sample of young adults in an emerging economy was used to investigate if situational involvement can produce favourable attitudes towards green advertisements. Findings Using PLS, it was found that fear and response efficacy increased message involvement which in turn was a significant predictor of attitude towards the advertisement. The findings show that advertisers can use these variables to increase message involvement. Originality/value This research extends previous studies on message involvement and expands current knowledge by showing that situational involvement predicts attitude towards green advertising.
Legal Responses to Nonconsensual Pornography: Current Policy in the United States and Future Directions for Research

Technological advances have created new avenues for the perpetration of sexual violence. The widespread availability of cameras has made it easier to take covert recordings of an individual’s intimate body parts, and whether sexually explicit images are recorded with or without an individual’s consent, growing access to the Internet has facilitated the nonconsensual dissemination of those images. Yet criminal laws have not kept pace with technology in most jurisdictions across the United States, and victims of nonconsensual pornography typically have no avenue by which to seek justice. There have been efforts to reform laws in a variety of jurisdictions, some successful but others not. The present study examines the extent to which laws across the United States address nonconsensual pornography. Results reveal that current laws are plagued with a variety of caveats that make prosecution of nonconsensual pornography difficult, suggesting that legal reform addressing this problem has been insufficient. This research calls for increased attention to the links between policy and criminal justice management of the issue. In particular, theories from feminist criminology and psychology are used to explore how policy development related to nonconsensual pornography could be influenced by broader structural features of society. Further empirical study is needed to both advance the social science literature related to violence against women and guide policymakers as they navigate this rapidly changing area of law.
Oral contraception and risk of a cerebral thromboembolic attack: results of a case-control study.

OBJECTIVE--To assess the risk of cerebral thromboembolism in women using low dose oral contraceptives. DESIGN--A retrospective case-control study. SETTING--All Danish medical, neurological, neurosurgical, and gynaecological departments. SUBJECTS--All 794 women in Denmark aged 15-44 who had suffered a cerebral thromboembolic attack during 1985-9 and 1588 age matched randomly selected controls. RESULTS--Of 692/1584 case/control questionnaires sent out, 590/1396 (85.3%/88.1%) were returned. Among the cases, 15 refused to participate, 69 had a revised or unreliable diagnosis, 40 had had thromboembolic disease previously, 13 were pregnant, and 152 had a disease predisposing to a cerebral thromboembolic attack. Of the 323 cases without a known predisposition, 320 reported use or non-use of oral contraception. Among the 1396 controls, eight refused to participate, were mentally retarded, or lived abroad; 18 returned an uncompleted questionnaire; 17 had had thromboembolic disease previously; 31 were pregnant; and 130 had a disease predisposing to a cerebral thromboembolic attack. Thus 1198 non-predisposed controls were available, among whom 1197 reported use or non-use of oral contraception. Among the 320 cases, 116 (36.3%) were oral contraceptive users at the time of the cerebral thromboembolic attack. By comparison there were 191 users (16.0%) among the 1197 controls, giving a crude odds ratio of 3.0. After multivariate analysis, including confounder control for age, smoking, years of schooling, and trend in use of different types of oral contraceptives during 1985-90, pills containing 50 micrograms oestrogen were associated with an odds ratio for cerebral thromboembolic attack of 2.9 (95% confidence interval 1.6 to 5.4), those containing 30-40 micrograms oestrogen an odds ratio of 1.8 (1.1 to 2.9), those containing progestogen only an odds ratio of 0.9 (0.4 to 2.4). The odds ratio did not change with increasing age or with duration of oral contraceptive use. A 50% increased risk of a cerebral thromboembolic attacks among cigarette smokers (after confounder control) was independent of oral contraception status and age. CONCLUSION--Low dose oral contraceptives are associated with an increased risk of cerebral thromboembolic attack. Combined or sequential pills containing 30-40 micrograms oestrogen are associated with a one third reduced risk compared with preparations containing 50 micrograms oestrogen. Progestogen only pills did not increase the risk of a cerebral thromboembolic attack.
Competing Species near a Degenerate Limit

We consider a competitive reaction-diffusion model of two species in a bounded domain which are identical in all aspects except for their birth rates, which differ by a function g. Under a fairly weak hypothesis, the semitrivial solutions always exist. Our analysis provides a description of the stability of these solutions as a function of the diffusion rate $\mu$ and the difference between the birth rates g. In the case in which the magnitude of g is small we provide a fairly complete characterization of the stability in terms of the zeros of a single function. In particular, we are able to show that for any fixed number n, one can choose the difference function g from an open set of possibilities in such a way that the stability of the semitrivial solutions changes at least n times as the diffusion $\mu$ is varied over $(0,\infty)$. This result allows us to make conclusions concerning the existence of coexistence states. Furthermore, we show that under these hypotheses, coexistence states are unique if .
Analyzing patterns of economic growth: a production frontier approach

The growth experience of virtually all but the very rich countries is best explained as a combination of high and low growth episodes. Therefore, there is a need to under- stand the sources of growth during high and low growth regimes and in particular the influences as growth regimes change. This paper approaches the issue by combining the derivation of structural breaks in economic growth with nonparametric growth accounting that enables the decomposition of productivity changes into technological and efficiency changes. The results show that even in the medium run growth rate changes are mainly the result of productivity changes whereas factor accumulation plays only a minor role. Except for high income countries productivity changes usually represent e±ciency changes. A comparison of growth take-offs and growth collapses reveals that factor accumulation is even less important in periods of accelerating growth.
Rational Risk Perception: Utopia or Dystopia?

Societal conflicts with regard to risk management are common. The public has different beliefs than many experts and administrators with regard to such issues as the citing of a repository for spent nuclear fuel or whether genetically modified organisms should be allowed to enter the human food chain. As a result, political tensions arise and there may be a skew allocation of resources for risk mitigation. The question raised in the article is if a consensus society is possible and desirable. If views converge on high risk beliefs, the cost would be very high as well. If views converge on low risks, some hazards could be neglected and environmental damage considerable, as used to be the case in the Former Soviet Union and other socialist countries which lacked a free press. A consensus society is neither possible nor desirable. No party has access to the final truth with regard to risks and hazards; diversity is an asset.
The Party of the People Versus the Cultural Elite: Populism and Nationalism in Flemish Radical Right Rhetoric about Artists

This article discusses the interplay between nationalism and populism in the Flemish (North-Belgian), Vlaams Bloc/Vlaams Belang’s (VB), populist radical right rhetoric about expressive culture. Building on a discourse theoretical analysis of three extensive case studies (concerts against the VB, the opposition between the VB and the Flemish theatres, and the VB’s criticism of the Flemish National Songfest), and a number of other controversial moments the article shows that nationalist and populist discourse play different roles in VB rhetoric about expressive culture. Radical and exclusionary nationalism is the ideological core of the VB’s views on culture and of its relationships with artists. Populism is a strategy the party uses to position itself as the political representative of the people, to present its nationalist demands as the will of the people, and to dismiss opposition to the party and its radical and exclusionary nationalist ideology as elitist. The VB’s ‘positive’ populist strategy of associating with popular Flemish artists and genres, the article shows, has only had limited success. By contrast, the party’s ‘negative’ populist strategy of criticising artists as an elite has been instrumental in delegitimising the strong, mainly anti-racist, resistance from the part of artists against the VB. It has reduced artistic resistance to the VB and its ideology to support of the political elite. And it has presented artists themselves as an elite that is completely out of touch with the ordinary people who suffer from multicultural society. The VB’s nationalist-populist rhetoric about expressive culture has thus contributed to the construction of the antagonism that is central to its populist radical right politics: the antagonism between on the one hand the anti-Flemish and multiculturalist political, cultural, media, and intellectual elite and on the other hand the people and the radical and exclusionary Flemish nationalist VB as the party of the people.
Development of a One-Step Probe Based Molecular Assay for Rapid Immunodiagnosis of Infection with M. tuberculosis Using Dried Blood Spots

Background Antigen specific release of IP-10 is the most promising alternative marker to IFN-γ for infection with M. tuberculosis. Compared to Interferon-γ release assays (IGRA), IP-10 is released in high levels enabling novel approaches such as field friendly dried blood spots (DBS) and molecular detection. Aim To develop a robust IP-10 based molecular assay for the diagnosis of infection with M. tubercuolsis from whole blood and DBS. Method We developed a one-step probe based multiplex RT-qPCR assay for detecting IP-10 and IFN-γ mRNA expression from whole blood and DBS samples. The assay was validated and applied for the diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infection in DBS samples from 43 patients with confirmed TB, 13 patients with latent TB and 96 presumed uninfected controls. In parallel, IP-10 and INF-γ levels were measured in Quantiferon (QFT-TB) plasma supernatants. Results IP-10 mRNA upregulation was detectable at 4 hours after stimulation (6 fold upregulation) peaking at 8 hours (108 fold upregulation). IFN-γ expression occurred in concert but levels were lower (peak 6.7 fold upregulation). IP-10 gene expression level was significantly higher in patients with tuberculosis (median 31.2, IQR 10.7–67.0) and persons with latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) (41.2, IQR 9.8–64.9) compared to healthy controls (1.6, IQR 1.1–2.4; p<0.0001). The IP-10 mRNA and protein based tests had comparable diagnostic accuracy to QFT-TB, sensitivity (85% and 88% vs 85%) and specificity (96% and 96% vs 97%, p = ns.). Conclusion We developed a rapid, robust and accurate molecular immunodiagnostic test for M. tuberculosis infection. By combining DBS based sample acquisition, mail or currier based sample transport with centralized molecular detection, this immunodiagnostic test concept can reduce the local technological requirements everywhere and make it possible to offer highly accurate immunodiagnostic tests in low resource settings.
Ethanol Activation of Protein Kinase A Regulates GABAA Receptor Subunit Expression in the Cerebral Cortex and Contributes to Ethanol-Induced Hypnosis

Protein kinases are implicated in neuronal cell functions such as modulation of ion channel function, trafficking, and synaptic excitability. Both protein kinase C (PKC) and A (PKA) are involved in regulation of γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptors through phosphorylation. However, the role of PKA in regulating GABAA receptors (GABAA-R) following acute ethanol exposure is not known. The present study investigated the role of PKA in the effects of ethanol on GABAA-R α1 subunit expression in rat cerebral cortical P2 synaptosomal fractions. Additionally, GABA-related behaviors were examined. Rats were administered ethanol (2.0–3.5 g/kg) or saline and PKC, PKA, and GABAA-R α1 subunit levels were measured by western blot analysis. Ethanol (3.5 g/kg) transiently increased GABAA-R α1 subunit expression and PKA RIIβ subunit expression at similar time points whereas PKA RIIα was increased at later time points. In contrast, PKC isoform expression remained unchanged. Notably, lower ethanol doses (2.0 g/kg) had no effect on GABAA-R α1 subunit levels, although PKA type II regulatory subunits RIIα and RIIβ were increased at 10 and 60 min when PKC isozymes are also known to be elevated. To determine if PKA activation was responsible for the ethanol-induced elevation of GABAA-R α1 subunits, the PKA antagonist H89 was administered to rats prior to ethanol exposure. H89 administration prevented ethanol-induced increases in GABAA-R α1 subunit expression. Moreover, increasing PKA activity intracerebroventricularly with Sp-cAMP prior to a hypnotic dose of ethanol increased ethanol-induced loss of righting reflex (LORR) duration. This effect appears to be mediated in part by GABAA-R as increasing PKA activity also increased the duration of muscimol-induced LORR. Overall, these data suggest that PKA mediates ethanol-induced GABAA-R expression and contributes to behavioral effects of ethanol involving GABAA-R.
Assessing follower perceptions of leader behaviour: The psychometric assessment and comparative analysis of a Positive Supervisor Behaviour Scale

i DEDICATION . ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iii TABLE OF CONTENTS . vi LIST OF TABLES . x LIST OF FIGURES . xiii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 Leadership . 3 Leadership Versus Management Debate . 5 Defining Supervisors . 7 Defining Followers . 8 Overview of Leader Behaviour and Effectiveness Research . 9 Theoretical Framework . 11 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . 16 Positive Leader Behaviour . 16 Background Theory . 16 Functional Paradigm . 16 Social Paradigm . 17 Implicit leadership theories . 18 Social identity theory of leadership . 19 Social contagion model . 19 Reputational effectiveness . 20 Individual reputation . 22 Positive Leadership Behaviour Research . 23 Hierarchical Behaviour Taxonomy . 26 Task-oriented behaviour . 29 Relations-oriented behaviour . 30 Change-oriented behaviour . 32 External-oriented behaviour . 34 Rationale for the selection of the hierarchical behaviour taxonomy . 36 Comparison of the HBT with other Taxonomies of Leader Behaviour . 37 Taxonomy of Managerial Performance Requirements . 38