Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring extracellular dopamine concentration and its regulation on dopamine release by voltammetry

Extracellular dopamine (DA) is critical in regulating DA release as well as interacting with other neurotransmission systems. Microdialysis and voltammetry are the major techniques for extracellular DA measurement in vivo. These two techniques provide distinct results due to their different detection volumes. Carbon fiber microelectrode is 10,000 times smaller than that of a microdialysis probe. With such a small size, carbon fiber microelectrode provides a high spatial resolution and causes unobservable damage to the brain which paints a completely different picture of DA release in the brain as compared to the knowledge obtained by microdialysis. In Chapter I, with the high temporal and spatial resolution provided by carbon fiber microelectrode in conjunction with fast scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV), we are able to detect DA terminal populations with different autoinhibition levels in rat striatum. We revealed a coupling between resting DA and local autoinhibition level. The recording sites with high resting DA concentration (micromolar) exhibit a high autoinhibition on evoked DA release induced by medial forebrain bundle (MFB) stimulation, and vice versa. These different types of DA release will never be observed by microdialysis due to its large dimension. On the contrary, microdialysis result is an average of all the DA release sites (high and low) that the microdialysis probe goes through. This averaging method could contribute to the low measurement of the DA concentration by microdialysis. In Chapter II, we examined the resting DA by a carbon fiber microelectrode at ~200 micron away from a microdialysis probe. We found TTX-insensitive DA was decreased by microdialysis probe implantation. This reduction contributes to the low DA measurement by microdialysis. In Chapter III, we monitored evoked DA induced by MFB stimulation in the tissue near microdialysis probe. We found DA terminals near a microdialysis probe are hyper-sensitive to D2 receptor antagonist and DA transporter inhibitor. This suggests that the DA terminals in the tissue near microdialysis probe are under an altered neurochemical state with a loss of DA homeostasis.
An Examination of Paraprofessional Involvement in Supporting Inclusion of Students with Autism

This study was designed to monitor behaviors of three elementary-age students with autism in inclusionary settings relative to paraprofessional proximity and classroom activity. Results are presented for students' on-task behavior, in-seat behavior, self-stimulatory responses, and inappropriate vocalizations based on paraprofessional proximity and instructional activity. Data are also presented for interactions initiated by paraprofessionals, teachers, and the students. Findings are discussed in relation to the use and training of paraprofessionals who are involved in inclusion programs for students with autism as they pertain to study results.
Space‐time areal mixture model: relabeling algorithm and model selection issues

With the growing popularity of spatial mixture models in cluster analysis, model selection criteria have become an established tool in the search for parsimony. However, the label‐switching problem is often inherent in Bayesian implementation of mixture models, and a variety of relabeling algorithms have been proposed. We use a space‐time mixture of Poisson regression models with homogeneous covariate effects to illustrate that the best model selected by using model selection criteria does not always support the model that is chosen by the optimal relabeling algorithm. The results are illustrated for real and simulated datasets. The objective is to make the reader aware that if the purpose of statistical modeling is to identify clusters, applying a relabeling algorithm to the model with the best fit may not generate the optimal relabeling. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Vlaams Belang: The Rhetoric of Organizational Identity

In this paper we combine work on rhetorical strategies with that of organizational identity theory. We highlight the relationship between organizational identity and the deployment of discursive resources at the societal level by organizations seeking to influence such identities. We analyse the way in which an extreme right political organization, the Vlaams Belang, has used rhetorical framing and strategies to construct a collective identity. This framing is aimed at persuading potential supporters of the organization to identify themselves with it. We argue that these frames derive their characteristic form and power from broader social and political processes that are given insufficient attention in published work on identity in organizations. We discuss the implications of our study for organizational theory, particularly the political and ethical questions raised by the use of potentially manipulative strategies. We conclude with a discussion of the ethical problems that arise when an organization’s managers attempt to direct identity formation by exploiting a persistent desire for stability and continuity in a world where it becomes ever more elusive.
“Mommy Wants to Learn the Computer”

The group of middle-aged and elderly women represents the lowest usage rate of information and communication technology (ICT) in Taiwan. This article reports how a social intervention program, the Taiwan Women Up (TWU) program, has helped such group to successfully learn ICT skills with the support of members of nonprofit organizations. The study adopted qualitative research methods and accomplished in-depth interviews with 28 TWU participants to reveal the ICT learning experiences of women learners. The findings show that TWU program enabled middle-aged and elderly women to achieve the goals of supporting their organizations and empowering themselves as more capable ICT users. Learning and sharing ICT experiences with fellow members helped them overcome their frustration; whereas empathetic understanding and support among members provided the main source of encouragement in the learning process. This study showed that NPOs played a critical role in identifying potential learners and sustaining the ICT project successfully.
Group Discussion and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Face-to-face discussion has been shown to increase cooperative behavior in social dilemmas. Two general explanations of this effect were tested: group identity (concern for fellow group members' outcomes) and perception of consensus (degree of agreement perceived among group members on how to respond to the dilemma). Undergraduate students participated in four person groups in one of four experimental conditions. The four conditions differed in common fate (interdependent outcome in a lottery), face-to-face discussion of the dilemma, discussion of an important (irrelevant) issue, and no discussion (control). Results indicate that (a) the common fate manipulation neither aroused group identity nor enhanced cooperation, (b) group identity may not be sufficient to elicit cooperation in a social dilemma, and (c) the most plausible explanation of group discussion effects is members' perceived consensus to cooperate.
An exploratory study of existential guilt appeals in charitable advertisements

Abstract This study investigates the persuasive nature of existential guilt appeals in charitable advertisements. A television advertisement was used to test the direct and indirect relationships between existential guilt, attitude towards the charitable organisation, inferences of manipulative intent (IMIs) and charitable donation intentions. The findings show that attitude towards the charitable organisation has a direct and indirect impact on charitable donation intentions. However, IMI did not moderate the relationship between existential guilt and charitable donation intentions. The study suggests that future non-profit researchers should explore the role of emotional intensity and brand credibility on the effectiveness of each specific type of guilt appeal.
Autoubiquitination of the 26S Proteasome on Rpn13 Regulates Breakdown of Ubiquitin Conjugates

Degradation rates of most proteins in eukaryotic cells are determined by their rates of ubiquitination. However, possible regulation of the proteasome's capacity to degrade ubiquitinated proteins has received little attention, although proteasome inhibitors are widely used in research and cancer treatment. We show here that mammalian 26S proteasomes have five associated ubiquitin ligases and that multiple proteasome subunits are ubiquitinated in cells, especially the ubiquitin receptor subunit, Rpn13. When proteolysis is even partially inhibited in cells or purified 26S proteasomes with various inhibitors, Rpn13 becomes extensively and selectively poly‐ubiquitinated by the proteasome‐associated ubiquitin ligase, Ube3c/Hul5. This modification also occurs in cells during heat‐shock or arsenite treatment, when poly‐ubiquitinated proteins accumulate. Rpn13 ubiquitination strongly decreases the proteasome's ability to bind and degrade ubiquitin‐conjugated proteins, but not its activity against peptide substrates. This autoinhibitory mechanism presumably evolved to prevent binding of ubiquitin conjugates to defective or stalled proteasomes, but this modification may also be useful as a biomarker indicating the presence of proteotoxic stress and reduced proteasomal capacity in cells or patients.
Conceptual Navigation Analysis: a device and platform independent navigation specification

Most conceptual modeling approaches for existing Web applications are based on a design concept, the page, on which the navigational specification of the system is usually built. However, their increasing personalization and mobility demands, together with the high pace at which new devices and technologies are appearing, are causing such applications and their related models to become increasingly complex and less reusable. This problem would be lessened by integrating a navigation analysis model exclusively based on the different user requirements. Supporting this idea, in this article we introduce two constructs that increase the level of abstraction at which navigational aspects are captured, namely the Navigation Semantic Unit (NSU) and the Navigation Semantic Link (NSL), and which are in the core of a navigational model independent from users, platforms and access devices. Also, we outline how this model can be integrated in a range of user-oriented hypermedia modeling approaches, and influence the way their navigation design models are constructed.
Subjectively perceived quality of life after coronary artery bypass surgery.

BACKGROUND Judgment of quality of life after coronary artery bypass surgery is usually based on objective measures of cardiovascular status. Quality of life cannot be determined solely objectively because such indicators do not explain how persons perceive and experience their lives. OBJECTIVES To assess the quality of life and mood state over time in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting and to improve understanding of subjective perceptions of well-being and how these perceptions change over time. METHODS Three questionnaires, the Quality of Life Index, the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey, and the Profile of Mood States, were administered at 3 different times (before surgery, 6 weeks after surgery, and 3 months after surgery) to a convenience sample of hospitalized adults undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery for treatment of coronary artery disease. RESULTS For all 3 questionnaires, responses differed significantly over time. Mean scores were significantly different over time for total mood disturbance (P = .03), the socioeconomic domain of the Quality of Life Index (P = .02), and the physical functioning (P = .004), vitality (P = .007), and social functioning (P = .002) dimensions of the 36-item short-form survey. CONCLUSIONS Subjective perceptions of physical and psychological well-being changed significantly from before surgery to 3 months after surgery. Measures of mood state, physical functioning, vitality, and social functioning improved significantly over time. However, satisfaction with the socioeconomic domain decreased significantly from before surgery to 3 months after surgery.
Associations between overtime and psychological health in high and low reward jobs

This study focused on the relationship between overtime and psychological health in high and low reward jobs, and in jobs with high and low external pressure to work overtime. Data were collected for 535 full-time employees of the Dutch Postal Service. In general, overtime was associated with negative work-home interference and negative home-work interference. Split-sample logistic regression analyses showed that employees reporting low rewards had elevated risks of burnout, negative work-home interference and slow recovery. In addition, the combination of overtime and low rewards was associated with negative home-work interference. A second analysis was conducted separately for employees who reported overtime in order to study the effects of external pressure to work overtime. In this subgroup, low rewards were associated with elevated risks of health complaints, emotional exhaustion and negative home-work interference. Moreover, employees who reported overtime and a high pressure to work overtime in combination with low rewards had elevated risks of poor recovery, cynicism, and negative work-home interference. The results suggest that even a limited number of hours of involuntary overtime is associated with adverse mental health, but only in low reward situations.
CEO Tenure and Board-of-Director Monitoring

We examine the relation between CEO tenure and board-of director monitoring. When the CEO has more tenure, the board meets less frequently. Boards monitor new CEOs from outside the firm more than new CEOs promoted from within. CEOs that leave for positions in new firms are subject to greater scrutiny in previous years than are CEOs matched by tenure, industry, firm size, and performance. Boards are less likely to fire CEOs with longer tenures and base their retention decision on a longer performance history for long-tenured CEOs. Markets react positively to forced CEO turnover when the CEO is more tenured, and negatively when the CEO is less tenured. Boards meet more frequently when firms perform poorly, but neither longtenured nor short-tenured managers improve performance following abnormally high meeting frequency. Improvements in operating performance precede abnormally low meeting frequency. Following abnormally low meeting frequency, long-tenured CEOs continue to improve performance while short-tenured CEOs do not. Our results suggest that learning and negotiation influence the equilibrium level of monitoring by boards of directors. JEL classification: G30; G34; G38
An analysis of supervision skills in youth probation

This article examines the content of supervision sessions between probation officers and their clients and the extent to which supervisors make use of effective practice skills. It summarises the literature which suggests that when probation officers use particular skills, those under their supervision are likely to have lower recidivism rates than the clients of probation officers who do not use these skills. It discusses the few studies which have directly considered the extent to which probation officers make use of effective practice skills. It then outlines a research project which involved personal observation of 119 interviews between youth probation officers and their clients in Juvenile Justice in NSW with a view to identifying the content of interviews and the extent to which probation officers used effective practice skills. The findings suggest that probation officers are strong on relationship and pro-social modelling skills but make less use of role clarification, problem solving and cognitive behavioural skills. The implications of this are discussed.
Evoking emotions and unpacking layered histories through young children’s illustrations of racial bus segregation

Drawing on theories of multi-modality and critical visual literacy, this article focuses on images that five-and six year-olds painted in a class-made book, Voice on the Bus, about racial segregation. The article discusses how children used illustrations to convey their understandings of Rosa Parks’ bus arrest in Alabama. A post-structural view focusing on images that five- and six year-olds painted in a class-made book, Voices on the Bus, about racial segregation, the article discusses how children used illustrations to convey their understanding of Rosa Parks’ bus arrest in Alabama. A post-structural (Kind, 2010) idea of art as an encounter, not as a fixed representation, shaped how the images were experienced for analysis. Using the notion of synaesthesia (the joining of senses), paintings were analysed for evoked emotions and blended sensations (Berman, 1999; Boston, 2001). Additional analysis focused on sedimented meanings (Rowsell and Pahl, 2007), looking for traces from curricular conversations and local/global D/discourses about segregation, schooling experiences and religious undertones (Gee, 1996). The following analytical questions are discussed: In what ways does this illustration evoke a synaesthetic response? How is this image agentic? What are the sedimented meanings from the images? Insights gained are that children can create synaesthetic images to evoke emotions; educators can find traces of sedimented histories in student-made artefacts; and perhaps social action is embodied and expressed through art. Researchers are encouraged to continue using a hybrid of literacy theories and tools for multi-modal analysis.
A New Blind SLM Scheme With Low Decoding Complexity for OFDM Systems

In this paper, a new blind selected mapping (BSLM) scheme is proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems. The proposed BSLM scheme embeds the side information identifying a phase sequence into itself by giving the optimal phase offset to the elements of each phase sequence, which are determined by the biorthogonal vectors for the partitioned subblocks. When U phase sequences and maximum likelihood decoder are used, the proposed BSLM scheme reduces the decoding complexity by (U-2)/U compared with the conventional BSLM scheme. Also, pairwise error probability (PEP) analysis for the proposed BSLM scheme is performed over the fading channel. Based on the PEP analysis, the bit error rate (BER) performance of the proposed BSLM scheme is shown to be determined by the subblock partitioning and phase offset. Finally, it is shown that for QPSK and 16-QAM, the detection failure probability and the BER of the proposed BSLM scheme are almost the same as those of the conventional BSLM scheme through numerical analysis.
The Word Associates Format: Validation evidence

Although the Word Associates Format (WAF) is becoming more frequently used as a depth-of-knowledge measure, relatively little validation has been carried out on it. This report of two validation studies tackles various important WAF issues yet to be satisfactorily resolved. Study 1 conducted introspective interviews regarding students’ WAF test-taking behavior along with interviews on featured target words to determine how accurately the most common scoring system for the WAF reflects the examinees’ actual knowledge of the words. Analysis is provided concerning WAF accuracy and item answering strategies and patterns. Study 2 repeated the interview procedures from Study 1 with several modifications, including the addition of a receptive dimension in the word knowledge interview. The various WAF-scoring methods were compared, and the format types (6 and 8 option), distractor types, and distribution of answers were examined in depth. Both studies indicate that the WAF reflects true lexical knowledge fairly well at the extremes of the scoring scale while scores in the middle do not lead to any reliable interpretation. Furthermore, there is the likelihood that the WAF may both underestimate and overestimate vocabulary knowledge. Suggestions regarding item construction and use of the WAF are given to improve its accuracy and reliability.
Submaximal adenosine‐induced coronary hyperaemia with 12 h caffeine abstinence: implications for clinical adenosine perfusion imaging tests

Adenosine is widely used as a vasodilator agent in myocardial perfusion imaging. Caffeine inhibits the effect, but the time of caffeine abstinence needed is under discussion and varies from 12 to 24 h. Therefore, our aim was to examine whether the time of caffeine abstinence affects the hyperaemic response using quantification of coronary sinus flow (CSF) with cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) during adenosine infusion.
In defence of utopian urbanism: imagining cities after the ‘end of utopia’

What is the role of utopian visions of the city today? What is their use at a time when, for many people, the very concept of utopia has come to an end? Taking a wide perspective on contemporary debates, this paper addresses the general retreat from utopian urbanism in recent years. It connects it with the so–called crisis of modernist urbanism in the capitalist West as well as forms of ‘utopic degeneration’, and assesses some of its implications. Arguing against the abandonment of utopian perspectives, it advocates a rethinking of utopianism through considering its potential function in developing critical approaches to urban questions. The authoritarianism of much utopian urbanism certainly needs acknowledging and criticising, but this need not entail a retreat from imagining alternatives and dreaming of better worlds. Instead, it is necessary to reconceptualise utopia, and to open up the field of utopian urbanism that for too long has been understood in an overly narrow way. The paper suggests the potential value of developing, in particular, modes of critical and transformative utopianism that are open, dynamic and that, far from being compensatory, aim to estrange the taken–for–granted, to interrupt space and time, and to open up perspectives on what might be.
Detection of gas leakage from landfills using infrared thermography - applicability and limitations

Although landfill gas emission can be greatly reduced by extraction and converting gas to energy, in practice not all gas can be collected and some leaks can still occur. Management of landfill gas can be improved if leaks can be detected and rectified effectively. This paper provides a brief review of methods available for detecting landfill leakage, with a focus on infrared thermography. It then describes a study which was conducted to test if an infrared camera can be used to detect gas leaks accurately by identifying them as anomalies. It examined the applicability and limitations of the technique by investigating fundamental factors such as weather conditions, ground conditions and distance of sensor from source. The paper also describes a test case conducted to reinforce the findings. It concluded that unless all the fundamental factors are clearly understood and addressed, the technique currently can only be used as a screening tool rather than as a precise tool to detect landfill gas leakages. For this reason, it would be difficult to use the technique as a basis for modelling gas emission from landfills.