Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Distance Learning in Clinical Laboratory Science

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine if there were any significant differences in academic performance between distance students and on-campus students in clinical laboratory science. DESIGN: A quantitative causal comparative research design was used. SETTING: The research study was conducted at an academic health sciences university in the eastern United States. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Anecdotal graduate data were collected from students that had graduated from the Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) program. INTERVENTIONS: The students had either received their CLS education via distance or through the traditional on-campus methods. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Academic performance was the major outcome measured. This was determined by comparing distance students' final grade point average (GPA) scores and certification scores to their on-campus counterparts. RESULTS: The researchers found no significant difference in gender between distance and on-campus students; however, there was a significant difference in age. On average the distance students were older than their on-campus counterparts. There were no significant differences found for mean overall admission GPA, mean math science admission GPA, mean final GPA score, and mean certification score. There were also no differences found in any of the subcategories of the certification exam except for urinalysis. For the urinalysis subcategory the distance students significantly outperformed their on-campus counterparts. Correlation studies showed that there were significant positive correlations between overall admission GPAs, math science admission GPAs, final GPA scores, and certification scores. CONCLUSIONS: The researchers have shown that distance learning CLS graduates are as academically prepared as their on-campus counterparts. ABBREVIATIONS: ASCP = American Society for Clinical Pathology; CLS = clinical laboratory science; CLT = clinical laboratory technician; GPA = grade point average.
Refined Multiscale Hilbert–Huang Spectral Entropy and Its Application to Central and Peripheral Cardiovascular Data

Objective: Spectral entropy has been applied in variety of fields. Multiscale spectral entropy (MSSE) has also recently been proposed to take into account structures on several scales. However, MSSE has some drawbacks, such as the coarse-graining procedure performed in the time domain. In this study, we propose a new framework to compute MSSE. This framework is also adapted for nonstationary data. Methods: Our work relies on processing steps performed directly in the frequency domain. For nonstationary signals, the evolution of entropy values with scales is observed along time. Our algorithm is herein evaluated both on synthetic time series (stationary and non-stationary signals) and on data from the cardiovascular system (CVS). For this purpose, heart rate variability (from the central CVS), laser Doppler flowmetry, and laser speckle contrast data (both from the peripheral CVS) are analyzed. Results: The results show that our framework has better performances than the existing algorithms to compute MSSE, both in terms of reliability and computational cost. Moreover, it is able to reveal repetitive patterns on central and peripheral CVS signals. These patterns may be linked to physiological activities. Furthermore, from the processing of microvascular data, it is able to distinguish young from elderly subjects. Conclusion: Our framework outperforms other algorithms to compute MSSE. It also has the advantage of revealing physiological information. Significance: By showing better performances than existing algorithms to compute MSSE, our work is a new and promising way to compute an entropy measure from the spectral domain. It also has the advantage of stressing physiologically linked phenomena.
Self-Directed Learning Readiness as an Antecedent of Organizational Commitment: A Korean Study

This study was to test whether employees possessing a higher level of self-directed learning (SDL) readiness have significantly stronger organizational commitment in Korean business settings. Job position and length of service in the workplace, which were previously found as related variables to influence organizational commitment, were included to see how strongly they are associated with organizational commitment. This study found that SDL readiness was a meaningful variable in terms of predicting both affective and continuance commitment. While SDL readiness is negatively related to continuance commitment, it is positively associated with affective commitment. The findings of this study supported the theoretical assumption drawn in a review of the literature.
The ISBT 700 series of low-incidence and 901 series of high-incidence blood group antigens

Abstract The International Society of Blood Transfusion Working Party on Terminology for Red Cell Surface Antigens developed a terminology that brought order to the chaos of antigen names. They classified antigens into three categories: systems, collections, and series. This review summarizes the early decisions of the Working Party with an emphasis on the 700 series of low-incidence antigens and 901 series of high-incidence antigens. Immunohematology2011;27:131–135.
Maternal Gatekeeping

This study examined maternal gatekeeping, its background and psychological antecedents, and its consequences for paternal and maternal involvement in child care. In sum, 209 couples with 6- to 36-month-old children completed extensive questionnaires. Analyses revealed that various dimensions of gatekeeping were differentially associated with the psychological antecedents and consequences of maternal gatekeeping. The standards and responsibilities dimension of gatekeeping was related to the mother's self-esteem, and it predicted the father's involvement in child care. The maternal identity confirmation dimension of gatekeeping was related to the salience of the mother's maternal identity, and it predicted her own involvement in child care. The importance of examining sociopsychological characteristics that account for gatekeeping tendencies is discussed, and the need is stressed to further explore the implications of these tendencies for various forms of involvement in child care.
Relatives and passive object relatives in Italian-speaking children and adults: intervention in production and comprehension

We investigate the production of relative clauses in Italian children aged 3 years, 4 months to 8 years, 10 months and in adults, focusing on object relatives (ORs). For both adults and older children, we test the production of passive ORs (PORs) as an alternative to the production of active ORs. We also test the comprehension of active ORs and PORs in older children, showing that the comprehension of the latter is significantly more accurate than the former. The persistent difficulty that children experience with ORs is interpreted as due to intervention, following Friedmann, Belletti, and Rizzi (2009). We assume Collins' (2005) approach to passive and account for the increasing use and more accurate comprehension of PORs as a consequence of lack of intervention, as in Belletti (2009a).
Motivaciones para la práctica deportiva en escolares federados y no federados (Motivations for practicing sports in federate and non-federate students)

This paper analyzes the motivational profile in physical exercise among students from various schools with the Deci & Ryan' self- determination theory. The results were divided according to sex, mode of sport (federated vs non-federated) and the sport modality, as well as know the influence of the implantation of an initiation unit in the school in the practice of this sport in extracurricular schedule. A total of 306 male / female students from Elementary 5th to 4o ESO, with ages between 9 and 16, who belonged to schools in which there had been teaching a didactical unit of initiation to canoeing, completed the Spanish version of the BREQ-2. The results showed only a 57.2% of the students did federate sport, most of them being men. Students had high scores in intrinsic motivation, moderate scores in identified regulation and introjected regulation, low scores in external regulation, and very low scores in demotivation. Federated sport practitioners showed higher levels of intrinsic motivation and identified regulation than those who did not do federated sport. Men showed greater intrinsic motivation than women. No differences were found depending on the sport modality practiced. Fooball is the most popular sport, followed by canoeing and basketball.
Induction of neuron-specific tropomyosin mRNAs by nerve growth factor is dependent on morphological differentiation

We have examined the expression of brain-specific tropomyosins during neuronal differentiation. Both TmBr-1 and TmBr-3 were shown to be neuron specific. TmBr-1 and TmBr-3 mRNA levels increased during the most active phase of neurite outgrowth in the developing rat cerebellum. In PC12 cells stimulated by nerve growth factor (NGF) to differentiate to the neuronal phenotype, TmBr-1 and TmBr-3 levels increased with an increasing degree of morphological differentiation. Induction of TmBr-1 and TmBr-3 expression only occurred under conditions where PC12 cells were permitted to extend neurites. NGF was unable to maintain levels of TmBr-1 and TmBr-3 with the loss of neuronal phenotype by resuspension of differentiated PC12 cells. The unique cellular expression and regulation in vivo and in vitro of TmBr- 1 and TmBr-3 strongly suggests a critical role of these tropomyosins in neuronal microfilament function. The findings reveal that the induction and maintenance of the neuronal tropomyosins is dependent on morphological differentiation and the maintenance of the neuronal phenotype.
Being a teacher educator: professional identities and conceptions of professional education

Background: This study consists of an analysis of the conceptions that teacher educators have of their work, identifying the relationship between their professional identities and their views of the professional qualities of the future teachers. Method and design: Semi-directive interviews with 19 teacher educators of a primary education teachers course were held, and qualitative analysis was undertaken. It was important to listen to the teacher educators in terms of meanings that were indicative of their identities, of their conceptions of teaching in primary education and of the corresponding professional teachers. Findings: The findings are grouped into four categories of professional identities of teacher educators: academic, cooperative, dual and supervisor (the latter two being mediating identities), and those different conceptions about school education and teacher professional work. The conceptions show similarities and divergences in terms of the knowledge that they think is important, their beliefs and personal values, the matters that they problematise and their performances as professional trainers and educators of future teachers. Conclusions: These findings enable us to understand that the identity of teacher educators, in the case studied, is largely built on a foundation of past and present experience gained in the field of school education. The exception is of the academic sort of teacher educators, whose identity appears to be based on the restricted area of initial teacher education.
A History-Based Diagnosis Technique for Static and Dynamic Faults in SRAMs

The usual techniques for memory diagnosis are mainly based on signature analysis. They consist in creating a fault dictionary that is used to determine the correspondence between the signature and the fault models affecting the memory. The effectiveness of such diagnosis methods is therefore strictly related to the fault dictionary accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, most of existing signature-based diagnosis approaches targets static faults only. In this paper, we present a new diagnosis approach that represents an alternative to signature-based approaches. This new diagnosis technique, named history-based diagnosis, makes use of the effect-cause paradigm already developed for logic design diagnosis. It consists in creating a database containing the history of operations (read and write) performed on a faulty memory core-cell. This information is crucial to track the root cause of the observed faulty behavior and it can be used to generate the set of possible fault primitives representing the set of suspected fault models. This new diagnosis method is able to identify static as well as dynamic faults. Although applied to SRAMs in this paper, it can be effective also for other memory types such as DRAMs. Experimental results are provided to prove the efficiency of the proposed methodology in generating a list of suspected faults as well as the location of the faulty components in the memory.
Trauma-Hemorrhagic Shock Induces a CD36-Dependent RBC Endothelial-Adhesive Phenotype

Objective:Microvascular dysfunction is a key element in the development of the multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Although the mechanisms for this response are unclear, RBC adhesion to endothelium may initiate intravascular occlusion leading to ischemic tissue injury. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that trauma-hemorrhage induces RBC-endothelial cell adhesion. Design:Prospective in vivo and in vitro animal study and analysis of patient blood samples. Setting:University research laboratory and hospital emergency and trauma units. Intervention:We initially assayed RBC adhesion to endothelial cells in vitro using RBCs obtained from rats subjected to trauma-hemorrhagic shock or sham shock as well as from severely injured trauma patients. Subsequently, we measured the role of putative RBCs and endothelial cell receptors in the increased RBC-endothelial cell adhesive response. Main Results:In both rats and humans, trauma-hemorrhagic shock increased RBC adhesion to endothelium as well as increasing several putative RBC surface adhesion molecules including CD36. The critical factor leading to RBC-endothelial cell adhesion was increased surface RBC CD36 expression. Adhesion of trauma-hemorrhagic shock RBCs was mediated, at least in part, by the binding of RBC CD36 to its cognate endothelial receptors (&agr;V&bgr;3 and VCAM-1). Gut-derived factors carried in the intestinal lymphatics triggered these trauma-hemorrhagic shock-induced RBC changes because 1) preventing trauma-hemorrhagic shock intestinal lymph from reaching the systemic circulation abrogated the RBC effects, 2) in vitro incubation of naïve whole blood with trauma-hemorrhagic shock lymph replicated the in vivo trauma-hemorrhagic shock-induced RBC changes while 3) injection of trauma-hemorrhagic shock lymph into naïve animals recreated the RBC changes observed after actual trauma-hemorrhagic shock. Conclusions:1) Trauma-hemorrhagic shock induces rapid RBC adhesion to endothelial cells in patients and animals. 2) Increased RBC CD36 expression characterizes the RBC-adhesive phenotype. 3) The RBC phenotypic and functional changes were induced by gut-derived humoral factors. These novel findings may explain the microvascular dysfunction occurring after trauma-hemorrhagic shock, sepsis, and other stress states.
pH responsive N-succinyl chitosan/Poly (acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) hydrogels and in vitro release of 5-fluorouracil

There has been significant progress in the last few decades in addressing the biomedical applications of polymer hydrogels. Particularly, stimuli responsive hydrogels have been inspected as elegant drug delivery systems capable to deliver at the appropriate site of action within the specific time. The present work describes the synthesis of pH responsive semi-interpenetrating network (semi-IPN) hydrogels of N-succinyl-chitosan (NSC) via Schiff base mechanism using glutaraldehyde as a crosslinking agent and Poly (acrylamide-co-acrylic acid)(Poly (AAm-co-AA)) was embedded within the N-succinyl chitosan network. The physico-chemical interactions were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The synthesized hydrogels constitute porous structure. The swelling ability was analyzed in physiological mediums of pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 at 37°C. Swelling properties of formulations with various amounts of NSC/ Poly (AAm-co-AA) and crosslinking agent at pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 were investigated. Hydrogels showed higher swelling ratios at pH 7.4 while lower at pH 1.2. Swelling kinetics and diffusion parameters were also determined. Drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, and in vitro release of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) from the synthesized hydrogels were observed. In vitro release profile revealed the significant influence of pH, amount of NSC, Poly (AAm-co-AA), and crosslinking agent on the release of 5-FU. Accordingly, rapid and large release of drug was observed at pH 7.4 than at pH 1.2. The maximum encapsulation efficiency and release of 5-FU from SP2 were found to be 72.45% and 85.99%, respectively. Kinetics of drug release suggested controlled release mechanism of 5-FU is according to trend of non-Fickian. From the above results, it can be concluded that the synthesized hydrogels have capability to adapt their potential exploitation as targeted oral drug delivery carriers.
An investigation of patterns of self-brand personality alignment

In their continuous search for improved explanations of why consumers engage with certain brands more than with others, academics and managers have placed significant importance on self-brand congruence theory, which suggests that consumers are drawn to brands with characteristics that align with their own characteristics. Although this theory has been extensively investigated and supported by previous research, it has hitherto been assumed that the alignment of characteristics exhibits a similarity configuration, that is, consumers are drawn to brands with traits that mirror their own traits. By adopting a relational view of consumer-brand interactions and drawing from the literature on interpersonal relationships, specifically from theories of interpersonal attraction, the thesis explores the possibility that besides similarity, self-brand personality alignment may also exhibit a complementarity configuration, whereby consumers are drawn to brands with traits that complement their own. Using a two-phase empirical study of mixed methods [in-depth interviews and online survey (n=206)], the thesis first explores the structure of consumers’ perceptions of their own personalities and those of their favourite brands using Exploratory Factor Analysis. Results reveal that although brand personality has the same five factor structure as human personality, the composition of dimensions is distinct. The patterns of alignment between the two sets of traits are then examined through Canonical Correlation Analysis, which reveals the existence of both similarity and complementarity configurations in self-brand personality alignment. A new method for measuring the magnitude of self-brand personality alignment is then devised, which captures both configurations. The predictive power of this new measure is then compared against existing, similarity-based measures for a range of desirable brand behaviours, using Discriminant Analysis and Linear Regression. Results indicate the new measure performs well, especially for emotionally-related brand behaviours.
Data center networking with multipath TCP

Recently new data center topologies have been proposed that offer higher aggregate bandwidth and location independence by creating multiple paths in the core of the network. To effectively use this bandwidth requires ensuring different flows take different paths, which poses a challenge. Plainly put, there is a mismatch between single-path transport and the multitude of available network paths. We propose a natural evolution of data center transport from TCP to multipath TCP. We show that multipath TCP can effectively and seamlessly use available bandwidth, providing improved throughput and better fairness in these new topologies when compared to single path TCP and randomized flow-level load balancing. We also show that multipath TCP outperforms laggy centralized flow scheduling without needing centralized control or additional infrastructure.
Topographic signatures and a general transport law for deep‐seated landslides in a landscape evolution model

A fundamental goal of studying earth surface processes is to disentangle the complex web of interactions among baselevel, tectonics, climate, and rock properties that generate characteristic landforms. Mechanistic geomorphic transport laws can quantitatively address this goal, but no widely accepted law for landslides exists. Here we propose a transport law for deep‐seated landslides in weathered bedrock and demonstrate its utility using a two‐dimensional numerical landscape evolution model informed by study areas in the Waipaoa catchment, New Zealand, and the Eel River catchment, California. We define a non‐dimensional landslide number, which is the ratio of the horizontal landslide flux to the vertical tectonic flux, that characterizes three distinct landscape types. One is dominated by stochastic landsliding, whereby discrete landslide events episodically erode material at rates exceeding the long‐term uplift rate. Another is characterized by steady landsliding, in which the landslide flux at any location remains constant through time and is greatest at the steepest locations in the catchment. The third is not significantly affected by landsliding. In both the “stochastic landsliding” and “steady landsliding” regimes, increases in the non‐dimensional landslide number systematically reduce catchment relief and widen valley spacing, producing long, low angle hillslopes despite high uplift rates. The stochastic landsliding regime captures the frequent observation that deep‐seated landslides produce large sediment fluxes from small areal extents while being active only a fraction of the time. We suggest that this model is adaptable to a wide range of geologic settings and is useful for interpreting climate‐driven changes in landslide behavior.
Representation, Referentiality, and Processing in Agrammatic Comprehension : Two Case Studies

A number of investigators have argued that agrammatic comprehension, the pattern of sentence comprehension often associated with Broca's aphasia, can be characterized in terms of a representational disruption in one or another module of the normal grammar. In this study, these proposals are reviewed and their adequacy is examined in light of two case studies of agrammatic comprehension. In particular, we present data from sentences that have composed the core of the agrammatic comprehension pattern, as well as data from three different classes of sentences including comprehension of the matrix clause of center-embedded relative constructions, pronoun and anaphor dependencies, and Wh-questions. Our conclusion is that none of the existing representational models provides a fully adequate account of the data, and we propose some alternative approaches that distinguish between referential and nonreferential elements and potential processing differences between the two.