Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power

This chapter examines some of the relationships between discourse and social power. After a brief theoretical analysis of these relationships, we review some of the recent work in this new area of research. Although we draw upon studies of power in several disciplines, our major perspective is found in the ways power is enacted, expressed, described, concealed, or legitimated by text and talk in the social context. We pay special attention to the role of ideology, but unlike most studies in sociology and political science, we formulate this ideological link in terms of a theory of social cognition. This formulation enables us to build the indispensable theoretical bridge between societal power of classes, groups, or institutions at the macro level of analysis and the enactment of power in interaction and discourse at the social micro level. Thus our review of other work in this field focuses on the impact of specific power structures on various discourse genres and their characteristic structures.
A Fisher Information Study of Phase Transitions in Random Boolean Networks

We study the order-chaos phase transition in random Boolean networks (RBNs), which have been used as models of gene regulatory networks. In particular we seek to characterise the phase diagram in information-theoretic terms, focussing on the effect of the control parameters (activity level and connectivity). Fisher information, which measures how much system dynamics reveal about its parameters, offers a natural interpretation of the phase diagram in RBNs. We report that this measure is maximised near the critical state in the order-chaos phase transitions in RBNs, since this is the region where the system is most sensitive to its parameters. Furthermore, we use this study of RBNs to clarify the relationship between Shannon and Fisher information measures.
Evaluation of urinary stones ex vivo with micro-computed tomography: preliminary results of an investigational technique.

PURPOSE To evaluate the ultrastructural features of the urinary stones removed with endoscopic stone surgery, using micro computed tomography (micro-CT). MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients who had endoscopic surgery for renal or ureteral stones removal were included in this study. After surgery, the stones were classified into three groups and investigated with Skyscan 1174 micro-CT. Group I underwent percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) with ultrasonic lithotripsy; group II had ureteroscopic stone surgery (USS) with pneumatic lithotripsy; and group III (the control group) had stone removal with USS or PNL without lithotripsy. Stone homogeneity, voids, and the internal structure of the stones were evaluated. Chi-square test was used to evaluate the difference statistically. P values less than . 05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS A total of 24 "calcium oxalate monohydrate" stones from 24 patients were scanned with micro-CT. Stones treated with ultrasonic lithotripsy (group I) were more fragile, fragmented, and cracked than those treated with the pneumatic lithotripsy (group II; P = .01). Stones in group II were more homogeneous and smooth than those in group I and resembled those of the control group (P = .02). Homogeneous, non-fragile stones and heterogeneous, fragile calculi were seen in all groups. CONCLUSION The stone fragility could be confirmed by micro-CT investigation. Ultrasonic lithotripters increase the stone fragility, which is demonstrated with increased heterogeneity by micro-CT.
On the leakage-resilient key exchange

Abstract Typically, secure channels are constructed from an authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol, which authenticates the communicating parties based on long-term public keys and establishes secret session keys. In this paper we address the partial leakage of long-term secret keys of key exchange protocol participants due to various side-channel attacks. Security models for two-party authenticated key exchange protocols have been developed over time to provide security even when the adversary learns certain secret values. This paper combines and extends the advances of security modelling for AKE protocols addressing more granular partial leakage of long-term secrets of protocol participants. Further, we fix some flaws in security proofs of previous leakage-resilient key exchange protocols.
Influence of age and gender on thoracic vertebral body shape and disc degeneration: an MR investigation of 169 cases

There are limited data detailing the pattern of age and gender‐related changes to the thoracic vertebral bodies and intervertebral discs. A retrospective MR investigation, involving T1‐weighted midsagittal images from 169 cases, was undertaken to examine age influences on the anterior wedge (anteroposterior height ratio or Ha/Hp), biconcavity (midposterior height ratio or Hm/Hp), and compression indices (posterior height/anteroposterior diameter or Hp/D) of the thoracic vertebral bodies. Disc degenerative changes in the annulus, nucleus, end‐plate and disc margin were noted on T2‐weighted sagittal images for the 169 cases, based on a 3‐level grading system. A linear age‐related decline in the Ha/Hp and Hm/Hp indices was noted. The Hp/D index increased during the first few decades of life, then decreased gradually thereafter. The prevalence of abnormal findings in the annuli, nuclei and disc margins increased with increasing age, particularly in the mid and lower thoracic discs. Greater disc degenerative changes were observed in males. These findings provide further insight into the nature of thoracic vertebral shape changes across the lifespan, and the typical patterns of degeneration of the thoracic intervertebral discs.
Attention-Related Potentials Allow for a Highly Accurate Discrimination of Mild Cognitive Impairment Subtypes

The three most frequent forms of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are single-domain amnestic MCI (sd-aMCI), single-domain dysexecutive MCI (sd-dMCI) and multiple-domain amnestic MCI (md-aMCI). Brain imaging differences among single domain subgroups of MCI were recently reported supporting the idea that electroencephalography (EEG) functional hallmarks can be used to differentiate these subgroups. We performed event-related potential (ERP) measures and independent component analysis in 18 sd-aMCI, 13 sd-dMCI and 35 md-aMCI cases during the successful performance of the Attentional Network Test. Sensitivity and specificity analyses of ERP for the discrimination of MCI subgroups were also made. In center-cue and spatial-cue warning stimuli, contingent negative variation (CNV) was elicited in all MCI subgroups. Two independent components (ICA1 and 2) were superimposed in the time range on the CNV. The ICA2 was strongly reduced in sd-dMCI compared to sd-aMCI and md-aMCI (4.3 vs. 7.5% and 10.9% of the CNV component). The parietal P300 ERP latency increased significantly in sd-dMCI compared to md-aMCI and sd-aMCI for both congruent and incongruent conditions. This latency for incongruent targets allowed for a highly accurate separation of sd-dMCI from both sd-aMCI and md-aMCI with correct classification rates of 90 and 81%, respectively. This EEG parameter alone performed much better than neuropsychological testing in distinguishing sd-dMCI from md-aMCI. Our data reveal qualitative changes in the composition of the neural generators of CNV in sd-dMCI. In addition, they document an increased latency of the executive P300 component that may represent a highly accurate hallmark for the discrimination of this MCI subgroup in routine clinical settings.
Web-Based Trainer for Electrical Circuit Analysis

A Web-based system for training electric circuit analysis is presented in this paper. It is centered on symbolic analysis techniques and it not only verifies the student's final answer, but it also tracks and coaches him/her through all steps of his/her reasoning path. The system mimics homework assignments, enhanced by immediate personalized feedback. Evaluation data based upon a first trial indicate that this tool is a useful complement to the traditional training approach.
Solving Bicriterion Mathematical Programs

It often happens in applications of mathematical programming that there are two incommensurate objective functions to be extremized, rather than just one. One thus encounters bicriterion programs of the form of equation 1, \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} $$\mbox{maximize}_{x \epsilon X}\ h[f_{1}x,f_{2}x],$$ \end{document} where h is an increasing utility function, preferably quasiconcave, defined on outcomes of the concave objective functions f1 and f2, and x is a decision n-vector constrained to the convex set X. It is shown how such programs can be numerically solved if a parametric programming algorithm is available for the parametric subproblem \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} $$\mbox{maximize}_{x \epsilon X}\ \alpha f_{1}x + l-\alphaf_{2}x. \quad0\leq \alpha \leq 1$$ \end{document} A natural byproduct of the calculations is a relevant portion of the "tradeoff curve" between f1 and f2. Outlines of several algorithms for solving equation 1 under various special assumptions and a numerical example are presented to illustrate the application of the theory developed herein. A useful extension is presented that permits nonlinear scale changes to be made on the fi.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) A low/hard state outburst of XTE J1550-564

We present the results of the analysis of 11 RXTE / PCA observations of the January 2002 outburst of the black-hole transient XTE J1550-564. The outburst was rather short, with an e-folding time of (cid:24) 11 days in the PCA band 3–25 keV. The source was seen in an extreme low / hard state. The energy spectra could be ﬁtted with a power law slightly steepening ( Γ (cid:24) 1 : 4 to (cid:24) 1.5) in time, with a high-energy cuto (cid:11) decreasing from (cid:24) 300 keV to (cid:24) 100 keV and some additional features between 6 and 7 keV, while the 3–150 keV ﬂux decreased by a factor of 17. The power spectra were ﬁtted with two broad Lorentzian components, whose characteristic frequencies decreased with the source ﬂux, and whose fractional rms contribution was rather constant. The timing parameters derived can be identiﬁed with those observed in other systems. These results show that, although during previous, more luminous, outbursts, a very complex behavior was observed, at low luminosities XTE J1550-564 behaves in a way comparable to most Black-Hole Candidates.
Is current training in basic and advanced cardiac life support (BLS & ACLS) effective? A study of BLS & ACLS knowledge amongst healthcare professionals of North-Kerala.

BACKGROUND Healthcare professionals are expected to have knowledge of current basic and advanced cardiac life support (BLS/ACLS) guidelines to revive unresponsive patients. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the current practices and knowledge of BLS/ACLS principles among healthcare professionals of North-Kerala using pretested self-administered structured questionnaire. Answers were validated in accordance with American Heart Association's BLS/ACLS teaching manual and the results were analysed. RESULTS Among 461 healthcare professionals, 141 (30.6%) were practicing physicians, 268 (58.1%) were nurses and 52 (11.3%) supporting staff. The maximum achievable score was 20 (BLS 15/ACLS 5). The mean score amongst all healthcare professionals was 8.9±4.7. The mean score among physicians, nurses and support staff were 8.6±3.4, 9±3.6 and 9±3.3 respectively. The majority of healthcare professionals scored ≤50% (237, 51.4%); 204 (44.3%) scored 51%-80% and 20 (4.34%) scored >80%. Mean scores decreased with age, male sex and across occupation. Nurses who underwent BLS/ACLS training previously had significantly higher mean scores (10.2±3.4) than untrained (8.2±3.6, P=0.001). Physicians with <5 years experience (P=0.002) and nurses in the private sector (P=0.003) had significantly higher scores. One hundred and sixty three (35.3%) healthcare professionals knew the correct airway opening manoeuvres like head tilt, chin lift and jaw thrust. Only 54 (11.7%) respondents were aware that atropine is not used in ACLS for cardiac arrest resuscitation and 79 (17.1%) correctly opted ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia as shockable rhythms. The majority of healthcare professionals (356, 77.2%) suggested that BLS/ACLS be included in academic curriculum. CONCLUSION Inadequate knowledge of BLS/ACLS principles amongst healthcare professionals, especially physicians, illuminate lacunae in existing training systems and merit urgent redressal.
Will krill fare well under Southern Ocean acidification?

Antarctic krill embryos and larvae were experimentally exposed to 380 (control), 1000 and 2000 µatm pCO2 in order to assess the possible impact of ocean acidification on early development of krill. No significant effects were detected on embryonic development or larval behaviour at 1000 µatm pCO2; however, at 2000 µatm pCO2 development was disrupted before gastrulation in 90 per cent of embryos, and no larvae hatched successfully. Our model projections demonstrated that Southern Ocean sea water pCO2 could rise up to 1400 µatm in krill's depth range under the IPCC IS92a scenario by the year 2100 (atmospheric pCO2 788 µatm). These results point out the urgent need for understanding the pCO2-response relationship for krill developmental and later stages, in order to predict the possible fate of this key species in the Southern Ocean.
Effects of attention and emotion on repetition priming and their modulation by cholinergic enhancement.

We examined whether behavioral and neural effects of repeating faces are modulated by independent factors of selective attention, emotion, and cholinergic enhancement, during functional MRI. Face repetition occurred either between task-relevant (spatially attended) or task-irrelevant (unattended) stimuli; faces could be fearful or neutral; subjects received either placebo or physostigmine. Under placebo, a reaction time advantage occurred with repetition (i.e., priming) that did not differ between levels of attention, but was attenuated with emotion. Inferior temporo-occipital cortex demonstrated repetition decreases to both attended and unattended faces, and showed either equivalent or greater repetition decreases with emotional compared with neutral faces. By contrast, repetition decreases were attenuated for emotional relative to neutral faces in lateral orbitofrontal cortex. These results distinguish automatic repetition effects in sensory cortical regions from repetition effects modulated by emotion in orbitofrontal cortex, which parallel behavioral effects. Under physostigmine, unlike placebo, behavioral repetition effects were seen selectively for attended faces only, whereas emotional faces no longer impaired priming. Physostigmine enhanced repetition decreases in inferior occipital cortex selectively for attended faces, and reversed the emotional interaction with repetition in lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Thus we show that cholinergic enhancement both augments a neural signature of priming and modulates the effects of attention and emotion on behavioral and neural consequences of repetition.
COMMUNICATION PATTERNS BETWEEN HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS AND THEIR CLIENTS AT AN ANTENATAL CLINIC IN ZIMBABWE

We conducted this study to explore communication between pregnant women and health care providers at an antenatal clinic in Zimbabwe. We adopted a field research approach using qualitative strategies for data collection and analysis. Using content analysis, we identified impersonal communication, nonprivate communication, rigid communication, uninformed communication, and authoritative communication as characteristic components of the interaction between the pregnant women and the health care providers. The attitudes reflected by the communication styles at the antenatal clinic must be viewed in relationship to the culture and tradition of Zimbabwe. With further research, we may identify obstacles to communication that are not related to culture. This knowledge may lead to a better understanding of appropriate communication strategies to promote healthy pregnancy.
Biochar – synergies between carbon storage, environmental functions and renewable energy production

v Abstract Growing concerns about climate change and the inevitable depletion of fossil fuel resources have led to an increased focus on renewable energy technologies and reducing GHG emissions. Limiting the atmospheric level of CO2 is essential to prevent the most damaging effects of climate change. Among renewable energy resources, biomass combustion has the largest potential to contribute to global energy demands, however it is considered to be a carbon neutral solution and so only limits CO2 concentrations rather than reducing them. Through pyrolysis rather than combustion, biomass can lead to carbon negative liquid, gaseous and solid fuels while also offering a route for long term carbon storage in the form of biochar. Biochar is a carbonaceous material which has shown potential for improving soil fertility, reducing GHG emissions and most importantly long term C storage in the environment. However many questions still remain unanswered with regard to biochar, especially the influence that process conditions can have on its performance in soil as well as any potential trade-offs between soil amendment, C sequestration and heat/power generation. This thesis is therefore focused on assessing the influence that process conditions and feedstock selection have on biochar properties related to carbon stabilisation, improving soil fertility (functional properties) as well as the distribution of energy amongst the pyrolysis co-products. To achieve this, a systematic set of biochar samples was produced, using a wide range of pyrolysis parameters (highest treatment temperature (HTT), heating rate, residence time, carrier gas flow rate and feedstock type), and analysed for physicochemical and functional properties. Pyrolysis HTT consistently showed a dominant influence on determining the final yields and properties of biochar, while the effect of other production parameters was varied. In this thesis the candidate first studied the effect that process conditions had on the long term stability of biochar, as an important indicator of its ability to sequester carbon. While increasing the HTT resulted in a decrease in biochar yield, overall the yield of stable-C increased with temperature. This meant that by applying a higher HTT during pyrolysis a higher C sequestration potential for biochar was achieved. Next to be examined was the influence that process conditions had on other Biochar – synergies between carbon storage, environmental functions and renewable energy
An agent-based approach to dialogue management in personal assistants

Personal assistants need to allow the user to interact with the system in a flexible and adaptive way such as through spoken language dialogue. In this research we focus on an application in which the user can use a variety of devices to interact with a collection of personal assistants each specializing in a task domain such as email or calendar management, information seeking, etc. We propose an agent-based approach for developing the dialogue manager that acts as the central point maintaining continuous user-system interaction and coordinating the activities of the assistants. In addition, this approach enables development of multi-modal interfaces. We describe our initial implementation which contains an email management agent that the user can interact with through a spoken dialogue and an interface on PDAs. The dialogue manager was implemented by extending a BDI agent architecture.
Evaluating LSTM models for grammatical function labelling

To improve grammatical function labelling for German, we augment the labelling component of a neural dependency parser with a decision history. We present different ways to encode the history, using different LSTM architectures, and show that our models yield significant improvements, resulting in a LAS for German that is close to the best result from the SPMRL 2014 shared task (without the reranker).
Marrow transplantation for patients with thalassemia: results in class 3 patients.

Thalassemia patients can be categorized as class 1 (minimal liver damage and iron overload), class 3 (extensive liver damage from iron overload), and class 2 (intermediate). These categories are prognostic for treatment outcome after marrow transplantation. Class 3 patients have more transplant-related mortality than other patients. This study examines transplantation outcome for class 3 patients. Records were reviewed of 215 patients in class 3 who received transplants in Pesaro from HLA-identical related donors between May 1, 1984 and May 1, 1994. The influence of pretransplant, peritransplant, and posttransplant variables on survival, relapse, and transplant-related mortality was examined by product-limit and proportional-hazards multivariate analysis. Age and conditioning regimen were influential on survival, and regimens with less than 200 mg/kg cyclosporine (CY) were associated with 5-year survival probabilities of . 74 and . 63 patients younger than 17 years and older patients, respectively. Transfusion history and regimen were influential on rejection with 5 year probabilities of . 53 and . 24 in patients who received less than or greater than 100 red blood cell transfusions before transplantation and regimens containing less than 200 mg/kg CY. Results of transplantation for patients with advanced thalassemia treatment have improved with the introduction of conditioning regimens with less CY. This has been associated with an increase in rejection (particularly in patients who have received < 100 red blood cell transfusions before transplant). Efforts at reducing the rejection rate by modifying the conditioning regimen should be concentrated on younger patients who have received a small number of transfusions. Patients with thalassemia who have HLA-identical family members should be transplanted before they are in class 3.