Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Bear do it for you? Gen-Y gappers and alternative tourism

Popular culture and travel are both major points of interest within the realm of leisure in contemporary consumer society. Respectively, they are both highly contentious and diverse fields. This paper explores the more specific areas of popular culture celebrities and alternative tourism in an effort to examine the influence that popular culture and travel engagements have on a segment of Generation Y (Gen-Y) – the gappers. These two areas of leisure activity shape social and cultural norms and influence the construction of self-identity amongst this generation. The aim of this exploratory research is to highlight some areas where popular culture and alternative tourism can be valued as constructive factors influencing a Gen-Y group. The theory of planned behaviour acted as a framework and was used to identify the influence that popular culture celebrity ‘Bear’ Grylls and his TV show Man vs. Wild had on the alternative tourism engagements of the Gen-Y gappers.
Validation of a facial pictorial rating of perceived exertion scale for evaluating physical tasks

A new pictorial rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale that focuses on the facial expression of effort was developed for evaluating physical tasks. This study aimed to examine the concurrent validity and construct validity of the facial pictorial RPE scale. Twenty-two males and eighteen females were recruited. Concurrent validity was established by correlating the scale with respiratory rate (RR) and heart rate (HR) responses to a load-incremented cycle ergometer protocol. Construct validity was established by correlating RPE derived from the facial pictorial RPE scale with RPE derived from the Borg scale. Both concurrent and construct evidence supported the use of the facial pictorial RPE scale by males and females to estimate RPE during the incremental cycle ergometer test. This validation implies that adult participants could establish the link between the symbolic representation of pictorial faces and the sensory cues provided by HR and RR.
Relations between Technology, Parent Education, Self-Confidence, and Academic Aspiration of Hispanic Immigrant Students

The purpose of this project is to test a theoretical model explaining the relationship between technology use, parent educational background, academic aspiration, and self-confidence as predictors of mathematics achievement across three immigrant groups. This study utilized data from the TIMSS 2007. To compare the effect size of technology use, multi-group analyses of the path model were performed with Analysis of Moment Structures. The result shows that later immigrated students' technology use is positively related to their mathematics performance. They may gain more benefits from technology use than moderately or early immigrated student groups. It is reasoned that later immigrated Hispanic students may reduce their learning hindrance associated with cultural barriers or limited English proficiency by using educational technology. Enhancement in the investment of educational technology into this subgroup may narrow the achievement gap between later immigrated, moderately immigrated, and early immigrated students.
The CIP safety protocol in connecting single machines to create production lines

When designing single machines, manufacturers are usually aware of relevant restrictions prescribed by legislation and safety requirements, but they do not assume that the given machines will be used as individual components in a production line. End users are then made to face the serious problem of how to build a complete production line consisting of such machines, satisfying the requirements of Performance Level or SIL in multiple branches of machinery. The paper describes a hardwired solution and compares it with the approach based on a current trend in automation, namely, communication control over the Ethernet or via the CIP-Safety protocol, in which all the machines involved can communicate very effectively. Such a procedure is capable of satisfying not only the hardware reliability requirements but also the demands of end users, who seek to achieve a productivity rate as high as possible.
Hemostasis in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Coagulopathy Induced by Disease and Treatment

Thromboembolic events (TE) are serious complications of treatment for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that result in significant morbidity and occasionally mortality. These events are strongly associated with the administration of L'asparaginase (ASP). There have been many studies reporting TE and assessing the coagulopathy associated with treatment. The intention of these studies was to determine a potential mechanism for thrombosis. This article reviews the current literature in this area. First, data on thrombotic complications in terms of incidence, location, diagnosis, and timing of events are summarized. The second section discusses the coagulopathy associated with the disease and treatment. To minimize the effects of confounding treatments, the data are divided into sections covering pretreatment, after ASP only, after combination chemotherapy without ASP, and after combination chemotherapy with ASP. In addition, the effects of glucocorticoid steroids on the hemostatic system are discussed. As thrombin regulation is critically important to hemostasis, the next section of the review discusses the regulation of thrombin in children with ALL, both in vitro and in vivo, and the link between impaired thrombin regulation and TE in this population. Finally current hypothesis on mechanisms for TE and proposed preventative strategies are examined.
Differentiating pidgin from early interlanguage — a comparison of Pidgin Nguni (Fanakalo) and interlanguage varieties of Xhosa and Zulu

This article examines five key areas of grammar which differentiate the pidgin, Fanakalo from L2 learner varieties of its lexifiers, Zulu and to a lesser extent, Xhosa. Taking Fanakalo as the descriptive starting point, these areas are (a) the article lo; (b) the preposition lapha; (c) the free pronouns mina 'I', wena 'you' etc.; (d) the locative copula khona and (e) verb suffixes like –ile (perfective), –isa (causative) etc. The context of the discussion is whether early fossilised interlanguages can be differentiated from pidgins (Schumann, 1974; Andersen, 1981; Siegel, 2003). Whilst there appear to be immense overlaps between the two for English as target language or lexifier (Schumann, 1974), this article argues that for an agglutinating language like Zulu or Xhosa, there are clear-cut differences between pidgin and relatively early-fossilised forms of the L2. However, for more complex tense patterns, similar simplificatory strategies occur in pidgin and L2.
The Problem of Transfer from Confidential Interactive Problem‐Solving: What Is the Role of the Facilitator?

Interactive problem-solving workshops provide a relatively confidential atmosphere in which members of societies engaged in protracted social conflict can examine and share their assumptions and perceptions about the conflict and think creatively about the possibilities for de-escalation. Two sorts of workshop goals have generally been articulated: (1) creating change in participants’ understanding, and (2) transferring participants’ new ideas to political decision-making and public discussion. Although facilitators have tended to emphasize the role of the participants in generating and transferring new learning, this article expands our conceptions of change and transfer to include both participants and facilitators. A basic complementarity is postulated between the strengths and weaknesses of these two agents of transfer. If considered this way, the integrity of this confidential process—and thus of its potentially unique contributions to a peace process—can be maintained while increasing the opportunities for transfer.
Methodology of the third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3)

Background Data from the first two National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, carried out in 1990–1991 (Natsal-1) and 1999–2001 (Natsal-2), have been extensively used to inform sexual health policy in Britain over the past two decades. Natsal-3 was carried out from September 2010 to August 2012 in order to provide up-to-date measures of sexual lifestyles and to extend the scope of the previous studies by including an older age group (up to 74 years), an extended range of topics and biological measures. Methods We describe the methods used in Natsal-3, which surveyed the general population in Britain aged 16–74 years (with oversampling of younger adults aged 16–34 years). Results Overall, 15 162 interviews were completed, with a response rate of 57.7% and a cooperation rate of 65.8%. The response rate for the boost sample of ages 16–34 years was 64.8%, only marginally lower than the 65.4% achieved for Natsal-2, which surveyed a similar age range (16–44). The data were weighted by age, gender and region to reduce possible bias. Comparisons with census data show the weighted sample to provide good representation on a range of respondent characteristics. The interview involved a combination of face-to-face and self-completion components, both carried out on computer. Urine samples from 4550 sexually-experienced participants aged 16–44 years were tested for a range of STIs. Saliva samples from 4128 participants aged 18–74 years were tested for testosterone. Conclusions Natsal-3 provides a high quality dataset that can be used to examine trends in sexual attitudes and behaviours over the past 20 years.
Depressive symptoms in advanced cancer. Part 2. Depression over time; the role of the palliative care professional

Objective: To survey changes in depressive symptoms over time in patients with advanced cancer using the Mood Evaluation Questionnaire (MEQ), and explore how effective Palliative Care Professionals (PCPs) are at assessing this. Method: Forty-five advanced cancer patients were followed monthly for up to six interviews (108 interviews in total). Selected clinical variables were recorded. Results: At first interview, 26 (58%) patients were depressed using MEQ, seven (16%) severely. Attrition rates were high, with 28, 13, nine, seven and six patients available for subsequent interviews. A > 12-point increase in MEQ over sequential interviews was associated with reduced survival (Hazard ratio 3.2, CI 1.2–8.4). PCPs recognized depressed mood, but underdiagnosed severe depression in 9% of patients (CI 3–16%, P = 0.002). A past history of depression was a strong indicator of current depressed mood on the MEQ. Conclusion: Change in depressive symptoms over time is related to mortality in this patient cohort, patients with marked deterioration in mood dying earlier. PCPs usually recognize patients' depression but underestimate the severity of depressed mood.
Free-lance spiritual seekers: self-growth or compensatory motives?

People attending various spirituality and self-development conferences outside the framework of organised religious groups (N = 204) were compared to norms from the general population and to members of New Religious Movements (NRMs) on the following measures: attachment to parents in childhood, adult attachment, need for closure, need for cognition, openness to experience, and quest religious orientation. Results indicated that these people, in comparison to the general population, share with NRM members similar cognitive (need for closure) and affective (insecure attachment in childhood) needs that seem to be addressed by spirituality. However, in comparison to NRM members, participants scored higher on measures reflecting self-growth, that is openness to experience and quest religious orientation, and lower on need for closure. These findings may be interpreted as indicating a desire to seek spirituality but to preserve autonomy. These people were called free-lance spiritual seekers.
Natural polyphenol disposition via coupled metabolic pathways

A major challenge associated with the development of chemopreventive polyphenols is the lack of bioavailability in vivo, which are primarily the result of coupled metabolic activities of conjugating enzymes and efflux transporters. These coupling processes are present in disposition tissues and organs in mammals and are efficient for the purposes of drug metabolism, elimination and detoxification. Therefore, it was expected that these coupling processes represent a significant barrier to the oral bioavailabilities of polyphenols. In various studies of this coupling process, it was identified that various conjugating enzymes such as uridine 5′-diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase and sulfotransferase are capable of producing very hydrophilic metabolites of polyphenols, which cannot diffuse out of the cells and needs the action of efflux transporters to pump them out of the cells. Additional studies have shown that efflux transporters, such as multi-drug resistance-associated protein 2, breast cancer-resistant protein and the organic anion transporters, appear to serve as the gate keeper when there is an excess capacity to metabolise the compounds. These efflux transporters may also act as the facilitator of metabolism when there is a product/metabolite inhibition. For polyphenols, these coupled processes enable a duo recycling scheme of enteric and enterohepatic recycling, which allows the polyphenols to be reabsorbed and results in longer than expected apparent plasma half-lifes for these compounds and their conjugates. Because the vast majority of polyphenols in plasma are hydrophilic conjugates, more research is needed to determine if the metabolites are active or reactive, which will help explain their mechanism of actions.
Constructing press releases, constructing quotations: A case study

This paper reports on empirical research into how press releases are being constructed. It starts from previous discourse-analytic work which has pointed to the ‘preformulated’ nature of press releases: in particular, it has been shown that through a number of metapragmatic features press releases can easily be copied by journalists in their own news reporting. In this paper we set out to subject one of these features, viz. pseudo-quotations (or so-called constructed direct speech), to a further empirical study, in which we scrutinize the process of constructing the press releases. We propose a detailed analysis of this process by combining ethnographic fieldwork with some of the methodology of cognitive psychology, including think-aloud protocols and on-line registration of the writing process. On the basis of this case study it is concluded that the design and functions of quotations in press releases are more complex than has been assumed so far. In addition, our preliminary results indicate that the combination of methods that we propose in this paper provides a sound starting point for both quantitative and qualitative analysis, allowing for a detailed analysis and interpretation of how press releases are being constructed.
An Automated Approach for Geocoding Tabular Itineraries

Historical itineraries, often accessible as lists or tables describing places visited in sequence, are abundant resources and also important objects of study for humanities scholars. This article advances a novel method for automatically geocoding tabular itineraries, combining approximate string matching with a cost optimization algorithm based on dynamic programming. Experiments with a dataset of historical itineraries, with ground-truth geocoding annotations provided by domain experts and leveraging also the GeoNames gazetteer, attest to the effectiveness of the proposed method. The obtained results show that while approximate string matching can already achieve very low median errors, with many toponyms matching exactly against GeoNames entries, the combination with cost optimization can significantly improve results in terms of the average distance towards the correct disambiguations.
What role does angel finance play in the early-stage capital market ? Job Market Paper

Despite anecdotal evidence connecting angel and venture capital (VC) financing, there is little systematic evidence on how the two early-stage capital sources interact. To study this topic, I assemble the first comprehensive dataset on angel financing and characterize its size, scope, and role in the early-stage capital market. I use the population of newly incorporated startups located in California, the largest VC financing state in the United States. Here, the angel capital market is large: approximately 4% of all startups receive angel financing within three years of incorporation. At least five times as many startups receive financing from angels as from VCs in the VC-active industries. Using local individual income as an instrument for angel financing at the zip code level, I show that angels play both supportive and competitive roles in relation to VCs. Angel financing leads to more VC follow-on financing over firms’ life cycles (complement), while it crowds out VC financing from the initial financing round (substitute). My results demonstrate the explicit role of angel financing in the early-stage capital market. ∗California Institute of Technology, email: jchen3@caltech.edu. I am deeply grateful to Michael Ewens, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and Richard Roll for their invaluable guidance and encouragement. I thank seminar participants at Caltech for extremely helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful for funding provided by the Linde Institute Research Grant at Caltech.
DEWAX Transcription Factor Is Involved in Resistance to Botrytis cinerea in Arabidopsis thaliana and Camelina sativa

The cuticle of land plants is the first physical barrier to protect their aerial parts from biotic and abiotic stresses. DEWAX, an AP2/ERF-type transcription factor, negatively regulates cuticular wax biosynthesis. In this study, we investigated the resistance to Botrytis cinerea in Arabidopsis thaliana and Camelina sativa overexpressing DEWAX and in Arabidopsis dewax mutant. Compared to wild type (WT) leaves, Arabidopsis DEWAX OX and dewax leaves were more and less permeable to toluidine blue dye, respectively. The ROS levels increased in DEWAX OX leaves, but decreased in dewax relative to WT leaves. Compared to WT, DEWAX OX was more resistant, while dewax was more sensitive to B. cinerea; however, defense responses to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000:GFP were inversely modulated. Microarray and RT-PCR analyses indicated that the expression of defense-related genes was upregulated in DEWAX OX, but downregulated in dewax relative to WT. Transactivation assay showed that DEWAX upregulated the expression of PDF1.2a, IGMT1, and PRX37. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that DEWAX directly interacts with the GCC-box motifs of PDF1.2a promoter. In addition, ectopic expression of DEWAX increased the tolerance to B. cinerea in C. sativa. Taken together, we suggest that increased ROS accumulation and DEWAX-mediated upregulation of defense-related genes are closely associated with enhanced resistance to B. cinerea in Arabidopsis and C. sativa.
Vanilloid Receptor 1 Agonists, Capsaicin and Resiniferatoxin, Enhance MHC Class I-restricted Viral Antigen Presentation in Virus-infected Dendritic Cells

DCs, like the sensory neurons, express vanilloid receptor 1 (VR1). Here we demonstrate that the VR1 agonists, capsaicin (CP) and resiniferatoxin (RTX), enhance antiviral CTL responses by increasing MHC class I-restricted viral antigen presentation in dendritic cells (DCs). Bone marrow-derived DCs (BM-DCs) were infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus (VV) expressing OVA (VV-OVA), and then treated with CP or RTX. Both CP and RTX increased MHC class I-restricted presentation of virus-encoded endogenous OVA in BM-DCs. Oral administration of CP or RTX significantly increased MHC class I-restricted OVA presentation by splenic and lymph node DCs in VV-OVA-infected mice, as assessed by directly measuring OVA peptide SIINFEKL-Kb complexes on the cell surface and by performing functional assays using OVA-specific CD8 T cells. Accordingly, oral administration of CP or RTX elicited potent OVA-specific CTL activity in VV-OVA-infected mice. The results from this study demonstrate that VR1 agonists enhance anti-viral CTL responses, as well as a neuro-immune connection in anti-viral immune responses.
Developmental Comparisons of Implicit and Explicit Language Learning

Conventional wisdom holds that children learn languages implicitly whereas older learners learn languages explicitly, and some have claimed that after puberty only explicit language learning is possible. However, older learners often receive more explicit instruction than child L2 learners, which may affect their learning strategies. This study teases apart the effects of age from the effects of instruction by comparing child and adolescent classroom learners of Spanish on tasks tapping implicit and explicit knowledge separately. Results show that implicitly instructed children favor implicit knowledge. Postpuberty learners receiving the same type of implicit instruction as the children pattern like the children, performing better on tasks tapping implicit knowledge, and unlike postpuberty learners who receive explicit grammar instruction and perform better on tasks tapping explicit knowledge—in other words, instruction trumps age. This suggests that the bias toward explicit learning in adulthood may be at least partially an artifact of explicit instruction.
Daily home-based spirometry during withdrawal of inhaled corticosteroid in severe to very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The WISDOM study (NCT00975195) reported a change in lung function following withdrawal of fluticasone propionate in patients with severe to very severe COPD treated with tiotropium and salmeterol. However, little is known about the validity of home-based spirometry measurements of lung function in COPD. Therefore, as part of this study, following suitable training, patients recorded daily home-based spirometry measurements in addition to undergoing periodic in-clinic spirometric testing throughout the study duration. We subsequently determined the validity of home-based spirometry for detecting changes in lung function by comparing in-clinic and home-based forced expiratory volume in 1 second in patients who underwent stepwise fluticasone propionate withdrawal over 12 weeks versus patients remaining on fluticasone propionate for 52 weeks. Bland–Altman analysis of these data confirmed good agreement between in-clinic and home-based measurements, both across all visits and at the individual visits at study weeks 6, 12, 18, and 52. There was a measurable difference between the forced expiratory volume in 1 second values recorded at home and in the clinic (mean difference of −0.05 L), which may be due to suboptimal patient effort in performing unsupervised recordings. However, this difference remained consistent over time. Overall, these data demonstrate that home-based and in-clinic spirometric measurements were equally valid and reliable for assessing lung function in patients with COPD, and suggest that home-based spirometry may be a useful tool to facilitate analysis of changes in lung function on a day-to-day basis.
Sexual Harassment and Bullying Behaviors in Sixth-Graders

ABSTRACT Sexual harassment is widely viewed as a form of bullying, but has received little attention in studies of middle school students. A survey of 109 6th grade students found that 29% of students reported at least one sexual harassment experience in the past 30 days, with 11% reporting harassment once per week or more. Although boys and girls reported similar rates of harassment, there were important gender differences-boys were more likely than girls to try to ignore sexual harassment, but girls were more likely to tell someone about their experience and to tell the perpetrator to stop. There was high concordance between sexual harassment and bullying for both boys and girls. These findings indicate the need to recognize the role of sexual harassment in bullying in middle school.