Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The End of Democracy as We Know it? The Legitimacy Deficits of Bureaucratic Social Policy Governance

Abstract New modes of governance and, in particular, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), have attracted considerable and often unduly favourable scholarly attention since 2000. Learning from best practice and increased policy effectiveness are often assumed to be the main outcome of the OMC. In contrast, this contribution seeks to assess the democratic legitimacy of the OMC by using a research design that integrates criteria both from the liberal and the deliberative theories of democracy. In analysing the OMC inclusion and its implementation in France, Germany and at the European level, it is shown that the democratic benchmarks that can be derived from either theory are not met. By way of conclusion, the potential consequences of the obvious democratic deficit of the OMC are discussed briefly.
A Cross-Validation Study of the Other Customers Perceptions Scale in the Context of Sport and Fitness Centres Un estudio de validación cruzada sobre la escala de percepción de otros consumidores en el contexto de centros deportivos y de fitness

This study aimed to extent the use of the Other Customer Perception (OCP) scale by testing its psychometric properties and its generalizability in the context of sport and fitness centres. 360 members of three fitness clubs in Greece participated in the study. They were randomly divided into two subsamples (a calibration and a validation sample). Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and composite reliability estimates the construct validity of OCP was supported. A cross-validation approach using invariance testing procedures across the two samples further supported the validity and generalizability of OCP in sport and fitness settings. OCP was found to be a reliable and valid scale for assessing the role of other customers in the service experience.
Medical Providers as Global Warming and Climate Change Health Educators: A Health Literacy Approach

Climate change is a threat to wildlife and the environment, but it also one of the most pervasive threats to human health. The goal of this study was to examine the relationships among dimensions of health literacy, patient education about global warming and climate change (GWCC), and health behaviors. Results reveal that patients who have higher levels of health literacy are more likely to engage in mitigation behaviors. An empirically based set of recommendations for providers to educate patients about the health risks of global warming and climate change is proposed.
A geometric framework for channel network extraction from lidar: Nonlinear diffusion and geodesic paths

[1] A geometric framework for the automatic extraction of channels and channel networks from high-resolution digital elevation data is introduced in this paper. The proposed approach incorporates nonlinear diffusion for the preprocessing of the data, both to remove noise and to enhance features that are critical to the network extraction. Following this preprocessing, channels are defined as curves of minimal effort, or geodesics, where the effort is measured on the basis of fundamental geomorphological characteristics such as flow accumulation area and isoheight contours curvature. The merits of the proposed methodology, and especially the computational efficiency and accurate localization of the extracted channels, are demonstrated using light detection and ranging (lidar) data of the Skunk Creek, a tributary of the South Fork Eel River basin in northern California.
The potential of EMFi sensors in heart activity monitoring

The unobtrusive monitoring of patients and people’s general physiological state using wearable sensors hasattracted a lot of attention in recent years. Our research group has studied the possibilities of using EMFi(Electromechanical film) sensors for monitoring tiny mechanical movements caused by the activity of the heart.The EMFi material, originally developed and patented by the Technical Research Centre of Finland in 1987[1], is a plastic film which converts mechanical energy to an electrical signal and vice versa. It is basicallyflexible and thin biaxially oriented polypropylene film coated with electrically conductive layers, which arepermanently polarized. EMFi has a static charge corresponding to hundreds of Volts. Changes in the pressureacting on the film generate a charge on its electrically conductive surfaces and this charge can be measured as acurrent or voltage signal, often with a charge amplifier. Thus the EMFi acts as a sensitive movement sensor. Thesensitivity is an order of magnitude better than the one obtained with usual piezo materials.As a result of high intrinsic resistance and bubble structure the charge persists for a long time. Adisadvantage is that storing or using the sensors in temperatures above 50
Efficacy and Safety of Quinidine Therapy for Maintenance of Sinus Rhythm After Cardioversion

Because individual studies evaluating the role of quinidine in the maintenance of sinus rhythm after cardioversion from chronic atrial fibrillation have involved relatively few patients, a meta-analysis of randomized control trials was performed. Six trials published between 1970 and 1984 were selected by two blinded reviewers based on study design and statistical analysis. Data from these six trials involving 808 patients were pooled after testing for homogeneity of treatment effects across trials. Life table estimates of the percent of patients still in sinus rhythm at 3, 6, and 12 months after cardioversion were constructed for quinidine and control groups. The proportion of patients remaining in sinus rhythm in the quinidine group was 69O, 58%, and 50% at 3, 6, and 12 months postcardioversion respectively. The proportion of patients remaining in sinus rhythm in the control group was 45%, 33%, and 25% at the same time intervals. The pooled rate difference, or difference in proportion of patients in sinus rhythm between quinidine and control groups, was 24%, 23%, and 24% at 3, 6, and 12 months of follow-up (p<0.001 at all time intervals). The unadjusted total mortality rate in the quinidinetreated patients was 2.9%o and in the control group was 0.8%. The odds of dying in the quinidine-treated group were approximately three times that of the control group ("typical" odds ratio= 2.98, p<0.05). Thus, quinidine treatment is more effective than no antiarrhythmic therapy in suppressing recurrences of atrial fibrillation but appears to be associated with increased total mortality. (Circulation 1990;82:1106-1116)
Dependence of the direct and indirect gap of AlSb on hydrostatic pressure.

The variation of the lowest direct and indirect absorption edges of A1Sb with pressure has been measured at room temperature for pressures up to the phase transition at 7.9+0.2 GPa. Deviations from the simple indirect (square-root) absorption law are shown to be consistent at all pressures with a model which takes into account the variation of the energy denominators with photon energy. The analysis of the data provides accurate values for the indirect gap versus pressure and for the direct gap at zero pressure. The indirect gap varies linearly with pressure and sublinearly with lattice constant. These results are compared with predictions based on the empirical pseudopotential method. The calculated sublinearity of the direct and indirect gaps is nearly the same. I. INTRODUCTION Aluminum antimonide is a zinc-blende-type semiconductor with an indirect optical gap of — 1.6 eV at room conditions. In spite of the fact that it is closely related (isoelectronic) to the important direct-gap materials Inp and GaAs, A15b has received comparatively little attention. The results of the few available theoretical' and experimental band-structure studies show considerable quantitative discrepancies. In the case of the experiments, these discrepancies are related, in part, to the hygroscopicity of the material: A1Sb single crystals crumble within weeks when left in moist air. Correspondingly, it is difficult to prepare samples with surfaces of good optical quality. The material has, nevertheless, found recent application in solar-energy conversion ' and for the development of Gai „Al„Sb-based optoelectronic devices. ' Its analog, A1As, is the base of the much stud
Long-Term Comparison of the Results of Four Techniques Used for Bilateral Cleft Nose Repair: A Single Surgeon’s Experience

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate progressive changes in surgical techniques and results, aiming for improved nasal shape in primary bilateral cleft rhinoplasty. Methods: This is an institutional review board–approved retrospective study. Ninety-one consecutive patients with bilateral complete cleft lip underwent primary cheiloplasty with four different techniques of nasal reconstruction from 1992 to 2007 as follows: group I, primary rhinoplasty alone; group II, nasoalveolar molding alone; group III, nasoalveolar molding plus primary rhinoplasty; group IV, nasoalveolar molding plus primary rhinoplasty with overcorrection; and group V, patients without cleft lip. The surgical results were analyzed using photographic records obtained at age 3 years. Four measurements and one angle measurement were obtained. A panel assessment was obtained to grade the appearance of the surgical results. Results: The results are expressed in order from groups I through V. The nostril height-to-width ratio was 0.49, 0.59, 0.62, 0.78, and 0.82, respectively. The nasal tip height–to–nasal width ratio was 0.29, 0.39, 0.49, 0.57, and 0.60. The columella height–to–nasal width ratio was 0.11, 0.18, 0.22, 0.27, and 0.28. The dome-to-columella ratio was 1.88, 1.25, 1.26, 1.14, and 1.10. The nostril area ratio was 1.2, 1.17, 1.13, 1.11, and 1.07. The nasolabial angle was 144.95, 143.98, 121.98, 120.99, and 100.88. Finally, group IV had the best panel assessment. Conclusions: The results revealed that group IV had the best overall result. Presurgical nasoalveolar molding followed by primary rhinoplasty with overcorrection resulted in a nasal appearance that was closer to the patients without cleft lip. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, III.
Information Exchange in Context: Effects of Gender Composition of Group, Accountability, and Intergroup Perception on Group Decision Making1

In the present study, the dissemination of shared and unshared information (cf. Stasser & Titus, 1985) in unstructured group discussion is analyzed. In previous experiments, several manipulations of the task itself were introduced, in search of conditions that could facilitate the exchange of unshared information. As such, these studies neglected the potential impact of context variables on group performance. In the present study, the effects of accountability, intergroup perception, and gender composition of group on information exchange are investigated. The results indicate that heterogeneous groups exchanged more information when a second group was present. Information exchange was not promoted by the presence of an outgroup for homogeneous groups. Groups in the accountability condition displayed more difficulties to reach agreement, but this did not lead to the mentioning of more information.
Locus Of Control - Predictor Of Health And Subjective Well – Being

The article presents results of a study of the relationship 'locus of control - health and subjective well-being. In a heterogeneous sample (N = 239) in the stage of youth (19-30 years) shall be established: locus of control determines 11.56% of the changes in the assessment of health, changes in health contribute to 12.82% of the variation in assessment of happiness and 6.10% in the measurement of life satisfaction. Young people with an internal locus of control are healthier, happier and more satisfied with their lives than those with an external locus of control. In a study of cause - effect relationship is established that internal locus of control determines a healthier lifestyle. Inadequate health care, more severe risk factors (stress, unhealthy diet, inadequate sleep, smoking) among young people with an external locus of control, outline prospects for greater vulnerability of this group of the population of the so called "Diseases of modern society. " Most preferred activities of young people beneficial to their health are: walking, relaxation, hobbies and sports, and this is the way to state "flow" (activity of happiness) and highlights the positive experiences in health.
The automatic improvement of locality in storage systems

Disk I/O is increasingly the performance bottleneck in computer systems despite rapidly increasing disk data transfer rates. In this article, we propose Automatic Locality-Improving Storage (ALIS), an introspective storage system that automatically reorganizes selected disk blocks based on the dynamic reference stream to increase effective storage performance. ALIS is based on the observations that sequential data fetch is far more efficient than random access, that improving seek distances produces only marginal performance improvements, and that the increasingly powerful processors and large memories in storage systems have ample capacity to reorganize the data layout and redirect the accesses so as to take advantage of rapid sequential data transfer. Using trace-driven simulation with a large set of real workloads, we demonstrate that ALIS considerably outperforms prior techniques, improving the average read performance by up to 50% for server workloads and by about 15% for personal computer workloads. We also show that the performance improvement persists as disk technology evolves. Since disk performance in practice is increasing by only about 8% per year, the benefit of ALIS may correspond to as much as several years of technological progress.
Normative Family Interactions

Hmong American adolescents' perceptions of their parents were examined using the parenting styles and family ecologies models. Individual interviews of forty 11- to 18-year-old Hmong American teenagers resulted in open-ended and fixed-choice responses. In the open-ended responses, adolescents emphasized themes of parental involvement and depending on the family for support. The theme of depending on the family was more commonly used to describe mothers, whereas respectful relationships was used more frequently to describe fathers. Two emergent themes were the adolescents' views of fathers as hard-working but absent and the adolescents' understanding that parents were preparing them for “the good life. ” Using fixed-choice warmth and behavioral control scores, 40% of mothers and 27.5% of fathers were identified as authoritative. The remaining parents showed authoritarian, permissive, or neglectful parenting styles. The older adolescents described relationships with parents that were less close than the descriptions provided by younger adolescents.
Validation study of the Korean version of the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire

This study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Korean version of McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL-K) for use with 140 palliative care patients in Korea. Our results confirmed the suitability of using the 16 questions of the questionnaire clustered into four domains (physical, psychological, existential and support) as in the original version of the MQOL, although the distribution of items among the domains differed somewhat from the original. The MQOL-K demonstrated moderate to high internal consistency (Cronbach's α, 0.62—0.90), convergent validity without scaling error, and a good concurrent validity with European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30, sense of dignity, and general health perception. In addition, we tested the clinical validity of the MQOL-K using a known group comparison to quantify sensitivity. Regression results indicated that the existential and psychological domains had independent effects on the overall quality of life of patients in Korea. Therefore, the MQOL-K is deemed suitable for assessing the quality of life in a Korean palliative care setting. Palliative Medicine 2007;> 21 : 441—447
Can Canopy Radiometric Temperature Be Used as an Alternate of Air Temperature to Predict Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes

Net ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) exchange (NEE) and ecosystem respiration (R<sub>eco</sub>) were determined in an alfalfa (Medicago sativa L) crop in Taiyuan basin, Shanxi province of China, using the closed chamber technique. Gross primary production (GPP) was calculated as the sum of NEE and R<sub>eco</sub>. The results showed that the coefficients of determination (r<sup>2</sup>) of the GPP and NEE with canopy radiometric temperature (T<sub>c</sub>) were significantly higher than those with air temperature (T<sub>a</sub>) on diurnal scales. The R<sub>eco</sub> was closely correlated to both Ta and Tc on all measurement dates on a diurnal scale. The coefficients of determination (r<sup>2</sup>) values between R<sub>eco</sub> and T<sub>s</sub> were lower than those between R<sub>eco</sub> and both T<sub>a</sub> and T<sub>c</sub> on diurnal scale. Those results suggest that at the plot scale T<sub>c</sub> is a better predict factor for ecosystem carbon fluxes estimate than both T<sub>a</sub> and T<sub>s</sub> are. Those results give us some implications for linking remotely sensed infrared temperature of canopy to ecosystem carbon flux estimate.
Effect of roughness as determined by atomic force microscopy on the wetting properties of PTFE thin films

The influence of film roughness on the wetting properties of vacuum-deposited polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) thin films has been investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and contact angle goniometry. Surface roughness has been characterized by atomic force microscopy in terms of RMS roughness (Rq) and fractal dimensions. A contact angle correlation with surface roughness, as determined by AFM, is evident from these results, which are discussed on the basis of wetting theory. The results also confirm that the high water contact angles (as high as 150°) recently observed at the surface of a new water repulsive coating material (mixture of PTFE and binder) are because of surface roughness. Such measurements clarify the effect of nanometer-size surface asperities on the wetting properties of hydrophobic coating.
Emotion and Affective Style: Hemispheric Substrates

Research on cerebral asymmetry and the experience and expression of emotion is reviewed. The studies described use electrophysiological procedures to make inferences about patterns of regional cortical activation. Such procedures have sufficient temporal resolution to be used in the study of brief emotional experiences denoted by spontaneous facial expressions. In adults and infants, the experimental arousal of positive, approach-related emotions is associated with selective activation of the left frontal region, while arousal of negative, withdrawal-related emotions is associated with selective activation of the right frontal region. Individual differences in baseline measures of frontal asymmetry are associated with dispositional mood, affective reactivity, temperament, and immune function. These studies suggest that neural systems mediating approach- and withdrawal-related emotion and action are, in part, represented in the left and right frontal regions, respectively, and that individual differences in the activation levels of these systems are associated with a coherent nomological network of associations which constitute a person's affective style.
Governing Quintuple Helix Innovation: Urban Living Labs and Socio-Ecological Entrepreneurship

Growing urbanization puts pressure on both social and ecological systems. This pressure raises complex and multi-facetted challenges that can only be tackled by collaborative and distributed innovation development processes. However, theoretical frameworks that assess such collaborations are often very conceptual, with little focus on the actual governance mechanisms that facilitate them. This article studies the urban living lab concept as an inter-organizational design and multi-stakeholder innovation development process to govern the quintuple helix model for innovation by means of an action research based multidimensional case study design, which focuses on the concepts of innovation democracy, mode 3 knowledge production, the innovation ecosystem as a system of societal subsystems, and socio-ecological transition. In this way, we provide a more profound understanding of such innovation processes to tackle socio-ecological challenges by means of public–private interactions driven by eco-entrepreneurship. Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem. In fact, a city is nothing more than a solution to a problem, that in turn creates more problems that need more solutions, until towers rise, roads widen, bridges are built, and millions of people are caught up in a mad race to feed the problem-solving, problem-creating frenzy. Neal Shusterman Author of young-adult fiction In Downsiders (2001)
Adult play, psychology and design

Within psychology, play is studied mainly as an instrumental phenomenon for child development and therapy. This body of knowledge is utilised for the development of ludic objects and environments in the context of leisure, learning and therapy. Where adults are concerned, play is almost exclusively studied in therapeutic contexts. This paper explores the far broader contributions psychology could make to the understanding of ludic engagement in adulthood. Using primarily Burghardt's (2004) conceptual analysis of animal play behaviour and Sutton-Smith's (1997) rhetorics of play, a number of research questions will be proposed. Finally, the contribution such research could make to the design of ludic objects and environments, as well as the need for an interdisciplinary approach will be discussed.
Developing alternative frameworks for exploring intercultural learning: a critique of Hofstede's cultural difference model

Hofstede's model of cultural difference has been used widely for exploring aspects of culture in educational settings. In this paper, we review Hofstede's model and explore some of its limitations, particularly in relation to the field of higher education. These limitations include an oversimplification of cultural differences, inconsistencies between his categories, lack of empirical evidence from educational settings and overall a model of culture as static (instead of dynamic). We argue that educationalists interested in the field of students’ experiences in internationally diverse settings ought to treat Hofstede's model more critically. Other models are recommended that take into account flexible notions of culture, based on research evidence from a range of educational settings, which can be critically and explicitly examined against different educational theories.