Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reading Between the Lines… Reading in Typical and Atypical Development

3 Dissemination of Findings 4 Acknowledgements 5 List of Tables 9 List of Figures 10 Chapter One: General Introduction 12 Thesis Overview 12 What is Reading? 13 Reading Accuracy in Typical Development 15 Dyslexia 23 Models of Skilled Reading 28 Reading Comprehension in Typical Development 34 Home Literacy Environment (HLE) 42 From ‘Learning to Read’ to ‘Learning through Reading’ 45 Language Impairment (LI) 48 Summary 51 Chapter Two: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) 53 Chapter Overview 53 What is ASD? 53 Language Phenotypes in ASD 56 Cognitive Theories of ASD 62 Hyperlexia 69 The Relationship Between Reading Accuracy and Oral Language Skill . 72 Reading Comprehension 80
Gender differences in health education needs and preferences of Saudis attending Riyadh Military Hospital in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Background and Aim: Health reforms that tend to increase the participation of clients in decision-making requires them to be health-literate; hence, the importance of health education. However, not much research has been done to investigate the differences in health education needs according to demographic characteristics of the clients. The aim of this study was to find out any possible gender differences there may be in health education needs and preferences. Subjects and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Riyadh Military Hospital, Saudi Arabia, on a convenience sample of adult Saudis attending its clinics. Data was collected from April 2009 to May 2010 using a self-administered questionnaire covering demographic data, history and needs of health education, methods, and preferred educator. Results: Of the 1300 forms distributed, 977 were returned completed (75.2% response). Most men (74.0%) and women (77.9%) had had health education, but more women reported that it had been helpful (P = 0.014). More men mentioned health education needs relating to primary prevention (P = 0.027), and unhealthy practices (P = 0.003), and considered the different language a barrier (P = 0.002) even after adjustment for age and education. The one-to-one method was the most preferred health education method for men (72.7%) and women (67.9%). More women preferred group health education (P = 0.02) after adjustment for age and education. Significantly more men preferred pharmacists and dietitians as health educators. Conclusion: The results point to a few significant differences between men and women regarding their health education needs, barriers, and preferences. These must be taken into consideration when planning health education programs.
Organiser les inorganisés

Cet article analyse deux tentatives menees par des equipes syndicales de la CGT pour organiser des salaries precaires, l’une dans un site de construction automobile, l’autre dans un centre commercial. Les efforts pour toucher ces salaries, pour adapter les revendications et les modalites d’action a leurs conditions de travail, s’entrecroisent avec les objectifs de syndicalisation, sans les recouvrir completement. Des tensions en decoulent, l’action en direction des precaires relevant d’une temporalite longue pour aboutir eventuellement a des adhesions et posant de nombreuses difficultes aux syndicats. De ce fait, les equipes qui se lancent dans ces experiences de redeploiement se retrouvent peu soutenues par les structures syndicales interprofessionnelles et s’epuisent vite, soit parce que les militants sont aspires par d’autres tâches, soit parce qu’ils sont soumis eux-memes a la precarite. Les deux cas etudies permettent, des lors, de reflechir a la facon dont une organisation comme la CGT envisage l’extension de son champ d’influence et hierarchise, de facon implicite, ses priorites.
Predicting voluntary freshman year persistence/withdrawal behavior in a residential university: A path analytic validation of Tinto's model.

Path analysis was employed to test the validity of Tinto's (1975) explanatory, theoretical model of student persistence/withdrawal behavior on a sample of 763 residential university freshmen. A reduced path model yielded results generally consistent with the model's expectations. When the sample was disaggregated by sex, however, notable differences in the path model were indicated. For women, social integration had a somewhat stronger direct effect on voluntary freshman year persistence/withdrawal decisions than academic integration, whereas the reverse was true for males. Additional analysis suggested significant compensatory interaction between social and academic integration and between institutional and goal commitment. In terms of the magnitude of its positive influence on persistence, academic integration was most important for students with low levels of social integration, and vice versa. A similar relationship existed for the Goal Commitment X Institutional Commitment interaction. Student withdrawal from postsecondary
Validation of Foot Placement Locations from Ankle Data of a Kinect v2 Sensor

The Kinect v2 sensor may be a cheap and easy to use sensor to quantify gait in clinical settings, especially when applied in set-ups integrating multiple Kinect sensors to increase the measurement volume. Reliable estimates of foot placement locations are required to quantify spatial gait parameters. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the effects of distance from the sensor, side and step length on estimates of foot placement locations based on Kinect’s ankle body points. Subjects (n = 12) performed stepping trials at imposed foot placement locations distanced 2 m or 3 m from the Kinect sensor (distance), for left and right foot placement locations (side), and for five imposed step lengths. Body points’ time series of the lower extremities were recorded with a Kinect v2 sensor, placed frontoparallelly on the left side, and a gold-standard motion-registration system. Foot placement locations, step lengths, and stepping accuracies were compared between systems using repeated-measures ANOVAs, agreement statistics and two one-sided t-tests to test equivalence. For the right side at the 2 m distance from the sensor we found significant between-systems differences in foot placement locations and step lengths, and evidence for nonequivalence. This distance by side effect was likely caused by differences in body orientation relative to the Kinect sensor. It can be reduced by using Kinect’s higher-dimensional depth data to estimate foot placement locations directly from the foot’s point cloud and/or by using smaller inter-sensor distances in the case of a multi-Kinect v2 set-up to estimate foot placement locations at greater distances from the sensor.
Multichannel Sampling of Pulse Streams at the Rate of Innovation

We consider minimal-rate sampling schemes for infinite streams of delayed and weighted versions of a known pulse shape. The minimal sampling rate for these parametric signals is referred to as the rate of innovation and is equal to the number of degrees of freedom per unit time. Although sampling of infinite pulse streams was treated in previous works, either the rate of innovation was not achieved, or the pulse shape was limited to Diracs. In this paper we propose a multichannel architecture for sampling pulse streams with arbitrary shape, operating at the rate of innovation. Our approach is based on modulating the input signal with a set of properly chosen waveforms, followed by a bank of integrators. This architecture is motivated by recent work on sub-Nyquist sampling of multiband signals. We show that the pulse stream can be recovered from the proposed minimal-rate samples using standard tools taken from spectral estimation in a stable way even at high rates of innovation. In addition, we address practical implementation issues, such as reduction of hardware complexity and immunity to failure in the sampling channels. The resulting scheme is flexible and exhibits better noise robustness than previous approaches.
A Case Study of the Common Difficulties Experienced by High School Students in Chemistry Classroom in Gilgit-Baltistan (Pakistan)

This article reports a research study conducted with four chemistry teachers in three high schools (two government schools and one private school) in Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The study investigated questions concerning common difficulties high school (Grades 9 and 10) students experience in chemistry classroom, the possible reasons for these difficulties, and the ways in which teachers help students overcome these difficulties. A qualitative case study method was used to investigate the questions, which used in-depth interviews with teachers, classroom observation, and postobservation discussion with the teachers, as main data collection tools. The key findings of the study allude to a huge gap between what is intended in the National Curriculum in terms of students’ learning in chemistry and what actually happens in the classroom where students learn chemistry. Promoting in-depth learning appeared to be an uphill task for the teachers. The main hurdle lies in students’ inability to demonstrate a good understanding of very basic concepts of the subject. Despite faced with such a challenge, the teachers appear to be committed to teaching their subject. The implications of the results of the study are explained in the context of schools, teachers, and other educational stakeholders by emphasizing the need for synchronization and integration of efforts on the part of schools.
Generation of Breast Cancer Stem Cells by Steroid Hormones in Irradiated Human Mammary Cell Lines

Exposure to ionizing radiation was shown to result in an increased risk of breast cancer. There is strong evidence that steroid hormones influence radiosensitivity and breast cancer risk. Tumors may be initiated by a small subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs). In order to assess whether the modulation of radiation-induced breast cancer risk by steroid hormones could involve CSCs, we measured by flow cytometry the proportion of CSCs in irradiated breast cancer cell lines after progesterone and estrogen treatment. Progesterone stimulated the expansion of the CSC compartment both in progesterone receptor (PR)-positive breast cancer cells and in PR-negative normal cells. In MCF10A normal epithelial PR-negative cells, progesterone-treatment and irradiation triggered cancer and stemness-associated microRNA regulations (such as the downregulation of miR-22 and miR-29c expression), which resulted in increased proportions of radiation-resistant tumor-initiating CSCs.
The epistemological framing of a discipline: Writing science in university oceanography

The purpose of this paper is to examine how instruction in scientific writing in a university oceanography course communicated epistemological positions of this discipline. Drawing from sociological and anthropological studies of scientific communities, this study uses an ethnographic perspective to explore how teachers and students came to define particular views of disciplinary knowledge through the everyday practices associated with teaching and learning oceanography. Writing in a scientific genre was supported by interactive CD-ROM which allowed students to access data representations from geological databases. In our analysis of the spoken and written discourse of the members of this course, we identified epistemological issues such as uses of evidence, role of expertise, relevance of point of view, and limits to the authority of disciplinary inquiry. Implications for college science teaching are drawn.fl 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 691 - 718, 2000 In the ethnographic study we describe in this paper, we entered as participant-observers; we began by asking ''what's happening here? '' and found that the writing of science by students and the talking about writing by instructors (course professor and teaching assistants) led to a fertile ground for examining how questions of knowledge construction, use, and representation are interactionally communicated in teaching and learning situations. Through an iterative ethnographic research cycle of posing questions; collecting, constructing, and analyzing data; and writing an ethnography; we focused on how the writing of a scientific genre in ''Geology 4: Oceanography'' (an introductory university course) foregrounded questions concerning disciplinary knowledge, thus making visible an epistemology of science. Our treatment of these epistemological issues began by identifying their importance to the participants and continued through the examination of the instructional practices associated with learning to
Roles of peripheral B 1 cells in the individualized treatment of adult idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura

We aimed to explore the changes of peripheral B1 cells before and after treatment of adult idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and to investigate the association of these changes with the disease condition and prognosis. Ninety-seven ITP patients were divided into the effective or ineffective groups, based on their response to hormone therapy. Forty healthy volunteers were enrolled into the control group (HC). The percentages of CD19+ cells, B1 cells, and platelet-associated immunoglobulin (PAIg) in peripheral blood from healthy volunteers and ITP patients before and after treatment were evaluated, and blood platelet (PLT) counts were determined. The percentages of CD19+ cells [(21 ± 10.0) vs (11.2 ± 7.1)%], B1 cells [(8.85 ± 5.23) vs (2.2 ± 1.3)%], and PAIg [(28 ± 19) vs (11.7 ± 8)%] in whole blood from ITP patients before treatment were significantly higher than those in whole blood from healthy controls (P < 0.05). Before treatment, the percentage of B1 cells and PAIg in ITP patients was negatively correlated with the PLT level (r = -0.89, P < 0.05 and r = -0.814, P < 0.05, respectively). Further, the B1 cell percentage was positively associated with the PAIg percentage in ITP patients before treatment. In the effective group,
Modulation of bacterial ghosts – induced nitric oxide production in macrophages by bacterial ghost‐delivered resveratrol

The present study aimed to investigate the capacity of resveratrol (RV) delivered into macrophages by bacterial ghosts (BGs), representing intact empty nonliving envelopes of Gram‐negative bacteria, to modulate nitric oxide (NO) production related to the presence of the pathogen‐associated molecular patterns on the surface of BGs. Incubation of the murine macrophage cell line RAW 264.7 with BGs leads to a dose‐dependent activation of inducible NO synthase. To modify BG‐induced NO formation in RAW 264.7 cells by RV; BGs were loaded with RV (RV‐BGs) and incubated with murine macrophages in a dose‐dependent manner. RV‐BGs delivering RV to the target macrophages significantly reduced BG‐induced NO production with concentration of RV more than one order of magnitude lower than the amount of RV capable of reducing NO formation when applied directly. Moreover, no cytotoxic impact of BGs on the viability of RAW 264.7 cells added to macrophages alone or loaded with RV was detected after a mutual 24 h incubation, whereas cell viability slightly decreased (~ 10%) when RV concentrations of 30 μm alone were applied. The results obtained in the present study clearly indicate that the intracellular delivery of RV by BGs significantly enhances the total RV effect.
Permeability and route of entry for lipid‐insoluble molecules across brain barriers in developing Monodelphis domestica

1 We have studied the permeability of blood‐brain barriers to small molecules such as [14C]sucrose, [3H]inulin, [14C]l‐glucose and [3H]glycerol from early stages of development (postnatal day 6, P6) in South American opossums (Monodelphis domestica), using a litter‐based method for estimating steady‐state cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)/plasma and brain/plasma ratios of markers that were injected i.p. 2 Steady‐state ratios for l‐glucose, sucrose and inulin all showed progressive decreases during development. The rate of uptake of l‐glucose into the brain and CSF, in short time course experiments (7–24 min) when age‐related differences in CSF production can be considered negligible also decreased during development. These results indicate that there is a significant decrease in the permeability of brain barriers to small lipid‐insoluble molecules during brain development. 3 The steady‐state blood/CSF ratio for 3000 Da lysine‐fixable biotin‐dextran following i.p. injection was shown to be consistent with diffusion from blood to CSF. It was therefore used to visualise the route of penetration for small lipid‐insoluble molecules across brain barriers at P 0–30. The proportion of biotin‐dextran‐positive cells in the choroid plexuses declined in parallel with the age‐related decline in permeability to the small‐molecular‐weight markers; the paracellular (tight junction) pathway for biotin‐dextran appeared to be blocked, but biotin‐dextran was easily detectable in the CSF. A transcellular route from blood to CSF was suggested by the finding that some choroid plexus epithelial cells contained biotin‐dextran. 4 Biotin‐dextran was also taken up by cerebral endothelial cells in the youngest brains studied (P0), but in contrast to the CSF, could not be detected in the brain extracellular space (i.e. a significant blood‐brain barrier to small‐sized lipid‐insoluble compounds was already present). However, in immature brains (P0–13) biotin‐dextran was taken up by some cells in the brain. These cells generally had contact with the CSF, suggesting that it is likely to have been the 2source of their biotin‐dextran. Since the quantitative permeability data suggest that biotin‐dextran behaves similarly to the radiolabelled markers used in this study, it is suggested that these markers in the more immature brains were also present intracellularly. Thus, brain/plasma ratios may be a misleading indicator of blood‐brain barrier permeability in very immature animals. 5 The immunocytochemical staining for biotin‐dextran in the CSF, in contrast to the lack of staining in the brain extracellular space, together with the quantitative permeability data showing that the radiolabelled markers penetrated more rapidly and to a much higher steady‐state level in CSF than in the brain, suggests that lipid‐insoluble molecules such as sucrose and inulin reach the immature brain predominantly via the CSF rather than directly across the very few blood vessels that are present at that time.
Recrystallization of the copper bottom electrode during complex oxide deposition onto kapton films

In this work, we investigate for the first time the influence of complex oxide film deposition onto copper-coated polymer foils comprising a TiN seed layer on the microstructure of the underlaying randomly oriented copper film by means of wide-angle X-ray diffraction. Evidence of Cu crystallite size growth is given which is accompanied by an increase of Cu scattering crystalline volume. The final size of the copper crystallites depends on composition and microstructure of the ceramic oxide film.
The Development of Brain Systems Associated with Successful Memory Retrieval of Scenes

Neuroanatomical and psychological evidence suggests prolonged maturation of declarative memory systems in the human brain from childhood into young adulthood. Here, we examine functional brain development during successful memory retrieval of scenes in children, adolescents, and young adults ages 8–21 via functional magnetic resonance imaging. Recognition memory improved with age, specifically for accurate identification of studied scenes (hits). Successful retrieval (correct old–new decisions for studied vs unstudied scenes) was associated with activations in frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions. Activations associated with successful retrieval increased with age in left parietal cortex (BA7), bilateral prefrontal, and bilateral caudate regions. In contrast, activations associated with successful retrieval did not change with age in the MTL. Psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that there were, however, age-relate changes in differential connectivity for successful retrieval between MTL and prefrontal regions. These results suggest that neocortical regions related to attentional or strategic control show the greatest developmental changes for memory retrieval of scenes. Furthermore, these results suggest that functional interactions between MTL and prefrontal regions during memory retrieval also develop into young adulthood. The developmental increase of memory-related activations in frontal and parietal regions for retrieval of scenes and the absence of such an increase in MTL regions parallels what has been observed for memory encoding of scenes.
Late‐onset Caloric Restriction Alters Skeletal Muscle Metabolism by Modulating Pyruvate Metabolism

Caloric restriction (CR) attenuates age‐related muscle loss. However, the underlying mechanism responsible for this attenuation is not fully understood. This study evaluates the role of energy metabolism in the CR‐induced attenuation of muscle loss. The aims of this study were three‐fold: (1) to evaluate the effects of CR on energy metabolism, (2) to explore if there is a relationship between markers of energy metabolism and muscle mass, and (3) to determine whether the effects of CR are age‐dependent. Young and middle‐aged rats were randomized into either 40% CR or ad libitum (AL) diet groups for 14 weeks. Major energy‐producing pathways in muscles, glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), were examined. We found that the effects of CR were age‐dependent. CR improved muscle metabolism and normalized muscle mass in middle‐aged animals but not young animals. CR decreased glycolysis and increased the cellular preference for OXPHOS versus glycolysis in muscles of middle‐aged rats, which was associated with the improvement of normalized muscle mass. The metabolic re‐programming induced by CR was related to modulation of pyruvate metabolism and increased mitochondrial biogenesis. Compared to animals fed AL, middle‐aged animals with CR had lower lactate dehydrogenase A content and greater mitochondrial pyruvate carrier content. Markers of mitochondrial biogenesis including AMPK activation levels and SIRT1and COX IV content also increased. In conclusion, 14 weeks of CR improved muscle metabolism and preserved muscle mass in middle‐aged animals but not young, developing animals. CR attenuates age‐related muscle loss due to reprogramming of metabolic pathway from glycolysis to OXPHOS.
User preference of cyber security awareness delivery methods

Operating systems and programmes are more protected these days and attackers have shifted their attention to human elements to break into the organisation's information systems. As the number and frequency of cyber-attacks designed to take advantage of unsuspecting personnel are increasing, the significance of the human factor in information security management cannot be understated. In order to counter cyber-attacks designed to exploit human factors in information security chain, information security awareness with an objective to reduce information security risks that occur due to human related vulnerabilities is paramount. This paper discusses and evaluates the effects of various information security awareness delivery methods used in improving end-users’ information security awareness and behaviour. There are a wide range of information security awareness delivery methods such as web-based training materials, contextual training and embedded training. In spite of efforts to increase information security awareness, research is scant regarding effective information security awareness delivery methods. To this end, this study focuses on determining the security awareness delivery method that is most successful in providing information security awareness and which delivery method is preferred by users. We conducted information security awareness using text-based, game-based and video-based delivery methods with the aim of determining user preferences. Our study suggests that a combined delivery methods are better than individual security awareness delivery method.