Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mapping political legitimacy in Latin America

We present a general overview of political legitimacy in Latin America circa 2005. We first discuss ways in which the concept of legitimacy has coloured debates on Latin American politics. Secondly, we generate empirical information on contemporary Latin American legitimacy by replicating the innovative measurement approach of Bruce Gilley. We use this multidimensional legitimacy score to generate cross-national rankings of legitimacy in contemporary Latin America. We then examine how our new legitimacy scores correlate with a wide variety of performance data and governance indicators in the region. Finally, we offer some initial hypotheses to explain high and low performance in specific cases. Political legitimacy in Latin America is associated with past regime experience, formal channels of political representation and citizen participation. The systems that rank higher on the multidimensional measure of legitimacy are those with an established democratic tradition, with reasonably institutionalised party systems and with high rates of political participation.
Towards an explanation for the decline of athletics in the UK: a case study of male distance running

Athletics is a sport close to the hearts of the UK public. Yet, when evaluated on the basis of world rankings and championship medals, it becomes clear that athletics in the UK has been in decline for some time. Available statistics reinforce this position. Indeed few, either inside or outside the sport, would argue against it. Despite such consensus, there is little agreement on the reasons why this decline has occurred. By presenting a case study of male middle- and long-distance running – traditionally the events in which Britain have consistently produced world-class athletes – this article provides three explanations as to why current standards (especially in the longer running events) are dropping in comparison with those recorded 20–30 years ago. These explanations focus on: (1) the ‘governance’ of UK athletics, (2) broader social change, and (3) school sports provision and young peoples' attitudes towards physical activity. It is our contention that the key factors put forward in explanations for the decline of UK athletics have been profoundly affected by the shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’, but not, as we discuss, in the manner suggested by ‘new’ governance theory. In conclusion, we argue that all three variables combined have contributed to the decline of athletics in the UK in general and male distance running in particular.
Facilitating self-study of teacher education practices: toward a pedagogy of teacher educator professional development

This article reports on a two-year study of a self-study research group facilitation. The research group was designed as a professional development project in which six experienced teacher educators investigated their practices using a self-study approach. The pedagogical rationale of the facilitation was based on four broadly shared theoretical principles on how teacher educators can effectively work on their professional development. These theoretical principles were translated in a series of propositions (‘if … then …’) making clear the implications these principles held for the interventions of facilitators of teacher educator professional development. Qualitative content analysis of the audiotapes of the research group meetings, the facilitators’ logbooks and all the written materials produced during the project serves as an empirical validation and refinement of these principles. The findings are presented as amendments to the original propositions. By interpretatively discussing why these propositions functioned as they did in practice, we contribute to the development of a pedagogy of teacher educator professional development.
Gender Differences in the Stress and Coping Experiences of First Year Postsecondary Students

ABSTRACT Previous research on gender and coping has led lo a debate about whether a dispositional or a siluational perspective accounts lor the coping strategies used by females and males. In this study, methodology was used to investigate the coping responses of students within the context of perceived demands throughout their first year postsecondary experience. While academic demands remained central in the experience of all students, females had more relationship-based demands and demonstrated a wider repertoire of coping strategies in comparison to male students. Discussion focuses on the need for research on coping to consider the contexts in which coping responses are embedded.
Comparison of motor and cognitive performance of children attending public and private day care centers

Background Given that environmental factors, such as the school environment, can influence child development, more attention should be paid to the development of children attending day care centers. Objective Todetermine whether there are differences in the gross motor, fine motor, or cognitive performances of children between 1 and3 years-old of similar socioeconomic status attending public and private day care centers full time. Method Participants were divided into 2 groups, 1 of children attending public day care centers (69 children) and another of children attending private day care centers (47 children). All children were healthy and regularly attended day care full time for over 4 months. To assess cognitive, gross and fine motor performance, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development III was used. The Mann-Whitney test was used for comparative analyses between groups of children between 13 and 24 months, 25 and 41 months, and 13 and 41 months. Results Children in public day care centers exhibited lower scores on the cognitive development scale beginning at 13 months old. The fine and gross motor performance scores were lower in children over the age of 25 months attending public centers. Maternal education was not related to the performance of children in either group. Conclusion The scores of cognitive performance as well as fine and gross motor performance of children of similar socioeconomic status who attend public day care centers are lower than children attending private daycare centers.
Estimation of vegetation Equivalent Water Thickness using hyperspectral data and partial least square regression

Vegetation water content is an important parameter to evaluate vegetation vigor. Therefore, it is very important to timely understand the vegetation moisture status, especially in the fields of agriculture and forestry. The hyperspectral data can provide continuous spectral information and shows to be a promising tool for precisely describing vegetation water content. Commonly, vegetation water content is often expressed as Equivalent Water Thickness (EWT). In this paper, using LOPEX dataset, we mainly explored the strength of partial least square regression (PLSR) models based on different spectral transformations (original reflectance, logarithmic reflectance and the first derivative reflectance) to retrieve EWT from vegetation reflectance spectra. Also, the performance of different models for EWT estimation was compared. According to the results, all three approaches using PLSR achieve high precision to predict EWT using reflectance spectra. The PLSR models with the first derivative reflectance perform the best with an estimation precision of 0.963 for calibration & 0.938 for independent validation; and the PLSR models with original reflectance follow next with an estimation precision of 0.916 for calibration & 0.859 for independent validation; and the PLSR models with logarithmic reflectance rank last with an estimation precision of 0.914 for calibration & 0.827 for independent validation. From this study, PLSR demonstrates great potential to predict EWT from hyperspectral data and the PLSR models yield the best prediction when combined with the first derivative reflectance.
Eosinophilic Granuloma with Splendore-Hoeppli Material Caused by Toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans in a Heifer

ABSTRACT Raised lesions were present on the left nasal vestibule of a 20-month-old Japanese Brown heifer. The largest mass which caused partial nasal obstruction was removed surgically. Corynebacterium ulcerans was identified in the mass. 16S ribosomal RNA and RNA polymerase beta subunit genes were 100% and 98% identical to other C. ulcerans strains. Histologically, multiple foci of eosinophilic granuloma with Splendore-Hoeppli material were seen. Rod-shaped Gram-positive organisms were detected with metachromatic granules, producing diphtheria toxin with 5, 30 and 48 amino acid differences to another C. ulcerans strain, C. diphtheriae or C. pseudotuberculosis, respectively. The toxin is highly cytotoxic and may be responsible for the formation of abundant Splendore-Hoeppli material. The lesion was therefore judged to be an allergic reaction to bacterial antigens or diphtheria toxin.
Beta event-related desynchronization as an index of individual differences in processing human facial expression: further investigations of autistic traits in typically developing adults

The human mirror neuron system (hMNS) has been associated with various forms of social cognition and affective processing including vicarious experience. It has also been proposed that a faulty hMNS may underlie some of the deficits seen in the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In the present study we set out to investigate whether emotional facial expressions could modulate a putative EEG index of hMNS activation (mu suppression) and if so, would this differ according to the individual level of autistic traits [high versus low Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) score]. Participants were presented with 3 s films of actors opening and closing their hands (classic hMNS mu-suppression protocol) while simultaneously wearing happy, angry, or neutral expressions. Mu-suppression was measured in the alpha and low beta bands. The low AQ group displayed greater low beta event-related desynchronization (ERD) to both angry and neutral expressions. The high AQ group displayed greater low beta ERD to angry than to happy expressions. There was also significantly more low beta ERD to happy faces for the low than for the high AQ group. In conclusion, an interesting interaction between AQ group and emotional expression revealed that hMNS activation can be modulated by emotional facial expressions and that this is differentiated according to individual differences in the level of autistic traits. The EEG index of hMNS activation (mu suppression) seems to be a sensitive measure of the variability in facial processing in typically developing individuals with high and low self-reported traits of autism.
Geometry‐Aware Framebuffer Level of Detail

This paper introduces a framebuffer level of detail algorithm for controlling the pixel workload in an interactive rendering application. Our basic strategy is to evaluate the shading in a low resolution buffer and, in a second rendering pass, resample this buffer at the desired screen resolution. The size of the lower resolution buffer provides a trade‐off between rendering time and the level of detail in the final shading. In order to reduce approximation error we use a feature‐preserving reconstruction technique that more faithfully approximates the shading near depth and normal discontinuities. We also demonstrate how intermediate components of the shading can be selectively resized to provide finer‐grained control over resource allocation. Finally, we introduce a simple control mechanism that continuously adjusts the amount of resizing necessary to maintain a target framerate. These techniques do not require any preprocessing, are straightforward to implement on modern GPUs, and are shown to provide significant performance gains for several pixel‐bound scenes.
How the jilt triumphed over the slut: the evolution of an epithet, 1660-1780

Abstract This essay is a historical-linguistic examination of sexual epithets for women. Women authors of drama and fiction were able to change the meanings of two words, jilt and slut, in just eighty years. This article nuances literary-critical understanding of linguistics, which has too often meant wholesale adoption of the arbitrary nature of the signifier, without reasoned consideration of sound symbolism. It also seeks to broaden the definition of women's literary achievement by including anonymous texts and popular works like canting dictionaries as a viable part of the literary record.
Unsatisfiable random formulas are hard to certify

We prove that every property of 3CNF formulas that implies unsatisfiability and is expressible in Datalog has asymptotic probability zero when formulas are randomly generated by taking 6n non-trivial clauses of exactly three literals uniformly and independently. Our result is a consequence of designing a winning strategy for Duplicator in the existential k-pebble game on the structure that encodes the 3CNF formula and a fixed template structure encoding a satisfiable formula. The winning strategy makes use of certain extension axioms that we introduce and hold almost surely on a random 3CNF formula. An interesting feature of our result is that it brings the fields of propositional proof complexity and finite model theory together. To make this connection more explicit, we show that Duplicator wins the existential pebble game on the structure encoding the pigeonhole principle and the template structure above. Moreover, we also prove that there exists a 2k-Datalog program expressing that an input 3CNF formula has a resolution refutation of width k. As a consequence to our result and the known size-width relationship in resolution, we obtain new proofs of the exponential lower bounds for resolution refutations of random 3CNF formulas and the pigeonhole principle.
The validity of the occupational stress indicator

Abstract This paper investigates the validity of four subscales of the Occupational Stress Inventory (OSI). Data derived from a sample of British managers are used to generate a multitrait–multimethod matrix. The results obtained suggest that three of the four OSI sales (job satisfaction, mental health, type A behaviour) show acceptable validity. The fourth scale (locus of control) needs further development. Further analysis, using multiple regression procedures, was conducted to explore the validity of the theoretical ideas underlying the OSI. The results reveal that both sources of pressure at work and type A behaviour are linked to mental health and job satisfaction.
Research as a form of work: expertise, community and methodological objectivity

Recent years have witnessed the rapid rise of a new educational research orthodoxy in the UK and the USA. Central to that orthodoxy are the assumptions that method can ensure objectivity in research, and that more objective ‘safe’ research to inform practice is needed. But educational research is a field made up of overlapping communities of practice. This field has rules, but they are largely unwritten, and modify and change as part of a contingent tradition. Within the field, knowledge formation develops through the making of embodied judgements, which can only ever be partly rational, and are related to developing researcher identities. The new research orthodoxy entails deliberate attempts to restrict and modify practices in this field. This is unlikely to completely succeed, but centralised sources of funding for educational research make many researchers vulnerable. In resisting these tendencies, it is helpful to view research as contributing to better understanding, in ways that owe more to the qua.
Sensitivity to bitter and sweet taste perception in schoolchildren and their relation to dental caries.

PURPOSE The objective of the present study was to evaluate whether sensitivity to bitter taste and perception of sweet taste have an influence on dental caries in urban and rural areas. MATERIALS AND METHODS The caries experience in 181 children, aged 12 years, from rural and urban areas of southern Brazil, was assessed according to World Health Organization guidelines. Sensitivity to the bitterness of phenylthiocarbamide was determined using the Harris–Kalmus procedure, and the sweet taste thresholds of sucrose were measured by Nilsson and Holm's method. RESULTS The caries index (DMFT > 0) was 3.73 (SD = 2.26) in the rural area and 3.51 (SD = 2.14) in the urban area. The sensitivity to bitter taste and sweet taste perception showed significant association with the gender of schoolchildren (P = 0.04). Girls were predominant in the high sweet perception taster group (62.3%) and the bitter taster group (59.4%). No significant difference in sweet perception status could be observed between the groups of low and high caries severity. The genetic ability to taste bitterness significantly influenced the levels of caries only in children from the urban area (P = 0.005). Bitter non-tasters presented higher severity of caries. A positive correlation was observed between sensitivity to bitter taste and sweet taste perception among children in the rural (r = 0.42, P = 0.002) and urban areas (r = 0.36, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the bitter non-tasters are more susceptible to dental caries than the tasters in the urban area.
Combined Toxic Effects of Heavy Metals and Antibiotics on a Pseudomonas fluorescens Strain ZY2 Isolated from Swine Wastewater

A Pseudomonas fluorescens strain ZY2, isolated from swine wastewater, was used to investigate the synergistic effects of five heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Zn, Cr(VI) and Hg) on bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Results indicate that the combined effects of antibiotic type, heavy metal type and concentration were significant (p < 0.01). Cross-resistance to Hg and antibiotics was the most noticeable. Moreover, the resistance to Hg and cefradine or amoxicillin, and Cr and amoxicillin were synergistic for low heavy metal concentrations, and turned antagonistic with increasing concentrations, while the resistances to Cr or Cu and cefradine, Pb or Cu and amoxicillin, Cu and norfloxacin showed reverse effects. In addition, resistance to Zn and amoxicillin were always synergetic, while resistance to Pb and cefradine or norfloxacin, Cr or Hg and norfloxacin as well as all the heavy metals and tetracycline were antagonistic. These results indicate that bacterial resistance to antibiotics can be affected by the type and concentration of co-exposed heavy metals and may further threaten people’s health and ecological security severely via horizontal gene transfer.
Grandparents Who Provide Auxiliary Care for Their Grandchildren: Satisfaction, Difficulties, and Impact on Their Health and Well-being

The paper is focused on grandparents who offer auxiliary care to their grandchildren. The objectives were twofold: (a) examining the satisfaction and difficulties that grandparents who provide auxiliary care drew from that task; (b) determining to what extent different care-related variables (such as the intensity of the type of provided care) and the perception of satisfaction and difficulties predict grandparent’s health and well-being. The sample was made up of 312 grandparents whose age ranged from 46 to 91. They cared for at least one grandchild whose age was 12 years or less for 10 hours a week or more. Data were gathered by means of a self-administered questionnaire designed by the researchers. As well as sociodemographic variables, the questionnaire included questions related to the intensity and type of care provided, grandchildren’s behavioral problems, satisfaction and difficulties drew from caring, health, and well-being. Results indicated that auxiliary care for grandchildren is more a source of positive emotions and an opportunity to establish a rewarding affective relationship than a burden or a stressing responsibility. Intensity and type of care provided did not have any significant effect on grandparents’ health and well-being. In contrast, the perception of care-related difficulties did predict lower levels of health and well-being among grandparents.
The ingroup overexclusion effect: Identity concerns in decisions about group membership

There are circumstances in which one is reluctant to express a judgment on the basis of the available information. This is for instance the case when the decision may jeopardize the integrity of the group one is a member of. In particular, ingroup members are considered less judgeable than outgroup members. This phenomenon corresponds to the ingroup overexclusion effect (Leyens and Yzerbyt, 1992). An experimental situation was designed in order to rule out an explanation of this phenomenon in terms of confirmation of hypothesis. French- or Dutch-speaking subjects heard recordings of 40 sentences and, depending on the specific wording of the question, decided whether the speakers belonged to the group of French-speaking (i.e. Walloon) versus Dutch-speaking (i.e. Flemish) Belgians or not. The 40 sentences enabled to cross three factors with five sentences in each cell: Walloon versus Flemish speakers, French versus Dutch sentences, and short versus long sentences. As predicted, subjects made most errors when ingroup members read short outgroup sentences. Most importantly, the specific wording of the question did not lead to a reversal of the pattern of errors of group identification. Subjects also took longer to make a decision about an ingroup member reading an outgroup sentence than about an outgroup member reading an ingroup sentence. Such a pattern clearly supports a motivational explanation and undermines a confirmation of hypothesis explanation of the ingroup overexclusion effect. Older accounts of ethnic identification phenomena are addressed and it is suggested that identity concerns greatly affect impression formation processes.
Fossil evidence for a herbaceous diversification of early eudicot angiosperms during the Early Cretaceous

Eudicot flowering plants comprise roughly 70% of land plant species diversity today, but their early evolution is not well understood. Fossil evidence has been largely restricted to their distinctive tricolpate pollen grains and this has limited our understanding of the ecological strategies that characterized their primary radiation. I describe megafossils of an Early Cretaceous eudicot from the Potomac Group in Maryland and Virginia, USA that are complete enough to allow reconstruction of important life-history traits. I draw on quantitative and qualitative analysis of functional traits, phylogenetic analysis and sedimentological evidence to reconstruct the biology of this extinct species. These plants were small and locally rare but widespread, fast-growing herbs. They had complex leaves and they were colonizers of bright, wet, disturbance-prone habitats. Other early eudicot megafossils appear to be herbaceous rather than woody, suggesting that this habit was characteristic of their primary radiation. A mostly herbaceous initial diversification of eudicots could simultaneously explain the heretofore sparse megafossil record as well as their rapid diversification during the Early Cretaceous because the angiosperm capacity for fast reproduction and fast evolution is best expressed in herbs.