Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
‘Hacking at our very roots’: rearticulating White racial identity within the context of teacher education

When teaching about race and racism and how we as ‘Whites’ are implicated in the discursive practices that sustain racism, we are indeed ‘hacking at the very roots’ of the ways in which students have conceptualized their identity in terms of being non‐racialized and at the same time non‐racist. In this paper I focus on the challenges and possibilities of working with teacher education students—most of whom are White—to critically deconstruct Whiteness as part of the larger project of anti‐racism. While I draw on students’ comments, in quite fundamental ways this paper is about my own—rather than students’—learning experiences. After a decade of re‐evaluating my pedagogy, the anecdotal evidence as well as results from more formal evaluations would suggest that my strategies have become increasingly effective in assisting students to work through their resistances. It is the paper’s conclusion that ‘teaching against the grain’ is likely to continue to be unpopular with some students but that education that purports to have an anti‐racism focus must incorporate an experiential component despite the discomfort this may cause.
Racial Identity Attitudes, School Achievement, and Academic Self-Efficacy Among African American High School Students

Literature has postulated that African American students often choose not to succeed in school because achievement is seen as acting White. This study examined the extent to which racial identity, self-esteem, and academic self-concept were related to academic achievementfor 86African American high school students. The majority of students indicated supportfrom both peers and parents for their academic work. Multiple regression analysis indicated that grade point average is best predicted by immersion racial identity attitudes and academic self-concept. Limitations of the present study, implications, and suggestionsforffuture research are presented.
Rhizobium etli and Rhizobium gallicum nodulate Phaseolus vulgaris in Egyptian soils and display cultivar-dependent symbiotic efficiency

Twelve rhizobial isolates were recovered from nodules of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) grown in two different locations of Egyptian soils. The most effective strains for nodule formation and nitrogen fixation were selected. Strain specificity with the bean cultivars Saxa, Canoca and Giza 6 from Germany, Colombia and Egypt were studied. The strains were characterized by amplified rDNA restriction analysis of 16S and 23S rDNA (ARDRA), plasmid DNA content and 16S rDNA sequencing. A high degree of genetic diversity was observed among the strains used. The strains were separated into three genotype groups. Genotype A was displayed by seven isolates classified as Rhizobium etli, while genotype B was displayed by a single isolate, classified as R. gallicum. Genotype C included four isolates which were unable to re-nodulate Phaseolus vulgaris, which were
Individualism/Collectivism, Perceived Task Interdependence and Teamwork Attitudes among Irish Blue-Collar Employees: a Test of the Main and Moderating Effects?

Two-hundred and four blue-collar employees participated in a study in which we tested for the effects of individualism/collectivism (I/C) orientations (solitary work preference, supremacy of individual goals, competitiveness, and self-reliance dimensions) and perceived task interdependence on two employee attitudes: team loyalty and prosocial behavior. We found support for the hypothesis that perceived task interdependence had positive effects on team loyalty and prosocial behavior. Further, solitary work preference, supremacy of individual goals, and self-reliance dimensions of I/C had main effects on loyalty to the team. The supremacy of individual goals dimension of I/C also had a main effect on pro-social behavior. We also found that task interdependence moderated the relationships between solitary work preference and pro-social behavior. The implications of our findings are discussed.
Does Power Drive Out Trust? Relations between Labour Market Actors in Sweden

Although power and trust are crucial to human cooperation, and considerable attention has been paid to both these concepts in the social sciences, the relationship between them has been poorly investigated. In this article, based on data about a complete network of labour market actors in Sweden, it is investigated whether power ‘drives out trust’ or if power is a requirement of trust. In contrast to previous research, the article concludes that there is a positive relationship between power and trust, although it levels out when power is at a very high level. Also in disagreement with previous findings, it is shown that symmetry in power relations is not a guarantee of trust: two actors with symmetric low power do not trust each other, at least not in this specific institutional setting. Moreover, the theoretical argument is developed and refined by showing that shared beliefs and group membership also have an independent impact on trust, as well as a perception that the other actor is pursuing the common good. Hence, the presumed negative impact of power on trust is not only neutralised, but also transformed into a positive impact in the social context investigated here. However, more research is needed to show whether this finding is true only within certain institutional settings and, if so, within which ones.
Disease Activity and Cytokine Production in Mitogen-Stimulated Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells from Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Objective: To test whether there are differences in the levels and ratios of 6 pro- and 3 anti-inflammatory cytokines produced by mitogen-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) subjects compared to controls. Subjects and Methods: 79 participants (42 seropositive RA patients and 37 healthy controls) were enrolled in this study. The production levels in mitogen-stimulated PBMCs of the 6 proinflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, TNF-β, IL-8, IL-17, IL-18) and 3 anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-4, IL-10, IL-13) were assayed by ELISA using kits obtained from Immunotech SA. The ratios of pro- to anti-inflammatory cytokines were calculated for all participants. Results: There were significantly elevated levels of IL-8 and IL-10, and reduced levels of IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-17 in mitogen-stimulated PBMC culture supernatants of RA subjects compared to controls. Of the 18 pro-/anti-inflammatory cytokine ratios, 3 ratios (TNF-α/IL13, IL-8/IL-4 and IL-8/IL-13) were significantly higher in RA patients compared to controls; and 6 were higher in controls (IFN-γ/IL-4; IFN-γ/IL-10; IFN-γ/IL-13; TNF-β/IL10; IL-17/IL-10; IL-18/IL-10). Conclusions:Activated PBMCs of RA patients, regardless of disease activity, showed higher-level production of IL-8 and IL-10 compared to controls; lower-level production of IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-17; and elevated ratios of TNF-α/IL-13, IL-8/IL-4 and IL-8/IL-13.
Do we need to take calcium with vitamin D supplements to prevent falls, fractures, and death?

Purpose of reviewThe 2011 report by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) on dietary reference intakes for calcium and vitamin D is based on meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which concluded that vitamin D supplements need to be taken with calcium supplements to prevent falls, fractures, and all-cause mortality. This study reviews recent meta-analyses of RCTs of vitamin D supplementation to determine whether their conclusions are consistent with the meta-analyses underpinning the IOM report. Recent findingsSince 2007 when the first IOM meta-analysis was published, up to May 2012, there have been nine meta-analyses of RCTs of vitamin D supplements on risk of falls, 10 on fractures, and five on all-cause mortality. About half of these reported summary effects for both vitamin D combined with calcium supplements and also vitamin D alone. However, statistical testing of results from recent meta-analyses does not support the conclusions of the IOM meta-analyses. SummaryThe inconsistency in the conclusions from meta-analyses is due to limitations in the design of previous RCTs of vitamin D supplementation. Large RCTs, giving higher doses of vitamin D (without calcium), should provide a clear answer within several years as to whether vitamin D supplements are beneficial by themselves.
Physical attraction, attachment styles, and dating development

We test theoretical arguments developed by Hazan and Diamond (2000) suggesting that attachment theory presents a more parsimonious theory of mate selection than Buss’ sexual strategies theory. We hypothesized that physical attractiveness and indicators of attachment anxiety and avoidance would be related to mate choice variables (e.g., number of first dates, and the probability of entering into an exclusive relationship in a 32-week period). We used a sample (N = 242) of Latter-day Saint (LDS) young single adults. In general, our results support the idea that both physical attractiveness and attachment dimensions are important for understanding romantic relationship formation and dating processes. Physical attractiveness is generally the strongest predictor, and is more meaningful for females. Implications for theory are discussed.
Multiple Epistemological Coherences in an Eighth-Grade Discussion of the Rock Cycle

Research on personal epistemologies (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002) has mostly conceptualized them as stable beliefs or stages of development. On these views, researchers characterize individual students' epistemologies with single, coherent descriptions. Evidence of variability in student epistemologies, however, suggests the need for more complex models. Hammer and Elby (2002) proposed modeling personal epistemologies as comprised of manifold epistemological resources. This difference in ontology—the form research attributes to cognitive structure—accounts for variability: The activation of these epistemological resources depends on context. Our purpose in this article is to argue that it also accounts for coherences in student epistemologies, in particular for multiple local coherences. We advance this argument using a case study of a 15-min discussion by a group of eighth graders about the "rock cycle" (the cyclic transformations of rock among different forms). We begin with evidence of the students' working from a stable, coherent epistemological stance. Then, after a brief, purely epistemological intervention by the teacher, the evidence indicates they are working from a different but also coherent and stable epistemological stance.
Correlation among demographic estimates of intellectual abilities, performance IQ scores, and verbal IQ scores in non-braindamaged and aphasic adults

Multiple regression equations based on demographic information are often used to estimate verbal and non-verbal intellectual function in persons with brain damage. Although the use of these equations has been studied with various brain-damaged populations, no studies have focused on a single type of brain damage such as aphasia. We studied the relationship between IQ scores obtained on the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT), and estimated IQ scores using equations developed by Barona et al. (1984). A total of 20 non-brain-damaged (NBD) adults and 10 aphasic adults participated. For both groups the estimated scores were significantly correlated with K-BIT scores for performance IQ. For the NBD group the estimated scores were significantly correlated with Full Scale IQ but not Verbal IQ. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Phytochemical investigation and antifungal activity of the seeds of Centratherum anthelminticum Kuntze.

Centratherum anthelminticum O. Kuntze, syn. Vernonia anthelmintica Willd. (Asteraceae), is known as kalajiri or purple fleebane. It is an erect, branched, leafy annual herb, 50 to 90 cm in height, distributed throughout India up to 1650 m altitude in the Himalayas, Afghanistan and Malaysia. The seeds are acrid, astringent, anthelmintic, diuretic, stomachic, tonic and used to treat fever, skin diseases, leucoderma, ulcers, asthma, kidney troubles, hiccough, intestinal colics, inflammation, sores and itching eyes (1). The seeds contained carbohydrates (2), steroids (3n5), acetylated triterpenoid saponins (6, 7), fatty acids (8, 9), aliphatic constituents (5), chalcone, flavone and butin (10, 11) and elemanolide lactone (12). The seeds exhibited analgesic and antipyretic (13), larvicidal (14), antimicrobial (15), antifilarial (16), antiviral (17), spermicidal (18) and anthelmintic (19) activities. The present manuscript describes the isolation and characterization of two new naphthalene derivatives and antifungal activity of the seeds of C. anthelminticum.
Rhetorical figures and the translation of advertising headlines

In advertising texts, the most important linguistic element is the headline. The function of the headline is to persuade readers to continue reading the remaining body text and, ideally, buy the advertised product. Using a corpus of 45 English-language advertisements and their translated Russian pairs, this article investigates what happens to rhetorical figures in the translation process. Three broad translation strategies are identified (transference, source-language-orientated and target-language-orientated) and their implications discussed in detail. The use of transference (untranslated retention of original) highlights the foreignness of the product being advertised, relying on the source culture’s attractiveness to the target audience. The most popular strategies are those which are source-language-orientated, maintaining the source meaning in the target headline. These strategies, often resulting from advertisers’ insistence on following a model advertisement, have the greatest impact on the use of figures, and examples of compensation, loss and addition can be found. When target-language-orientated strategies are employed, translators have more freedom to create headlines using rhetorical figures. The article ends by suggesting that the analysis of translated Russian advertising headlines offers another concrete example of the globalizing tendencies of large corporations and the power they exercise in shaping contemporary media discourses.
FaceCloak: An Architecture for User Privacy on Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Flickr, are gaining more and more popularity among Internet users. As users are enjoying this new style of networking, privacy concerns are also attracting increasing public attention due to reports about privacy breaches on social networking sites. We propose FaceCloak, an architecture that protects user privacy on a social networking site by shielding a user's personal information from the site and from other users that were not explicitly authorized by the user. At the same time, FaceCloak seamlessly maintains usability of the site's services. FaceCloak achieves these goals by providing fake information to the social networking site and by storing sensitive information in encrypted form on a separate server. We implemented our solution as a Firefox browser extension for the Facebook platform. Our experiments show that our solution successfully conceals a user's personal information, while allowing the user and her friends to explore Facebook pages and services as usual.
GML learning, a generic machine learning model for network measurements analysis

The application of machine learning models to the analysis of network measurement problems has largely increased in the last decade; however, there is still no clear best-practice or silver bullet approach to address these problems in a general context, and only adhoc and tailored approaches have been evaluated so far. While deep-learning models have provided a major breakthrough in highly-dimensional problems such as image processing, it is difficult to say today which is the best model to address the analysis of large volumes of highly-dimensional data collected in operational networks. In this paper we present a potential solution to fill this gap, exploring the application of ensemble learning models to multiple network measurement problems. We introduce GML Learning, a generic Machine Learning model for the analysis of network measurements. The GML model is a generalization of the well-known stacking approach to ensemble learning, and follows the concepts of the Super Learner model. The Super Learner performs asymptotically as well as the best input base or weak learners, providing a very powerful approach to tackle multiple problems with the same technique. In addition, it defines an approach to minimize over-fitting likelihood during training, using a variant of cross-validation. We deploy the GML model on top of Big-DAMA, a big data analytics framework for network measurement applications. We test the proposed solution in five different and assorted network measurement problems, including detection of network attacks and anomalies, QoE modeling and prediction, and Internet-paths dynamics tracking. Results confirm that the GML model provides better results than any of the single baseline models of the stack, and outperforms traditional bagging and boosting ensemble learning approaches. The GML Learning model opens the door for a generalization of a best-practice technique for the analysis of network measurements.
Participation in Extracurricular Activities in Secondary School: What Is Known, What Needs to Be Known?

The paper reviews literature relating to extracurricular participation and adolescent development. Five areas are described: personal-social characteristics, academic achievement, educational aspirations and attainments, participants’ roles in activities, and environmental social context. A methodological critique and directions for future research are provided. Participation correlated with higher levels of self-esteem, improved race relations, involvement in political/social activity in young adulthood, academic ability and grades in males, educational aspirations and attainments, feelings of control over one’s life, and lower delinquency rates. However, causal relationships between participation and desirable characteristics have not been demonstrated. Students in smaller schools participate in a greater number and variety of extracurricular activities than students in larger schools. Low-ability and lower SES students are more involved in school life in smaller schools. The existing findings justify additional research into the processes by which participation may influence students’ lives.
Arts and Ageing; Life Expectancy of Historical Artists in the Low Countries

Practising arts has been linked to lowering stress, anxiety and blood pressure. These mechanisms are all known to affect the ageing process. Therefore, we examine the relation between long-term involvement in arts and life expectancy at age 50 (LE50), in a cohort of 12,159 male acoustic, literary and visual artists, who were born between 1700 and 1899 in the Low Countries. We compared the life expectancy at age 50 of the various artists with the elite and middle class of that time. In the birth cohorts before 1850, acoustic (LE50:14.5–19.5) and literary artists (LE50:17.8–20.8) had a similar life expectancy at age 50 compared to the elite (LE50:18.0–19.0). Only visual artists (LE50:15.5–17.1) had a lower life expectancy at age 50 compared to the elite at that time. For the most recent birth cohorts from 1850 through 1899, the comparison between artists and the elite reversed and acoustic and literary artist had a lower life expectancy at age 50, while visual artists enjoyed a similar life expectancy at age 50. Although artists belonged to the middle socioeconomic class and lived predominantly in urban areas with poor living conditions, they had a life expectancy similar to the elite population. This is in line with observed favourable effects of practicing arts on health in the short-term. From our historical analysis, we hypothesize several mechanisms through which artistic creativity could influence the ageing process and life expectancy. These hypotheses, however, should be formally tested before any definite conclusions on effects of arts on ageing can be drawn.
Regulation of spontaneous phasic firing of rat supraoptic vasopressin neurones in vivo by glutamate receptors.

1. Vasopressin‐secreting neurones in the rat hypothalamic supraoptic nucleus display patterned spontaneous phasic activity, which is apparently maintained in vivo through yet unidentified neurotransmitter system(s). The present investigation used extracellular recording techniques in anaesthetized Long‐Evans rats to evaluate whether the neurotransmitter mechanism underlying phasic firing is provided via a family of ionotropic glutamate receptors. 2. N‐Methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) reliably evoked bursts of activity in twenty‐seven of twenty‐eight phasic neurones. Amino‐3‐hydroxy‐5‐methyl‐isoxazole‐4‐propionic acid (AMPA) and kainate also elicited pronounced excitations in twenty‐one of twenty‐one and and fourteen of fifteen phasic cells, respectively. 3. A rapid blockade of on‐going phasic activity was consistently induced following brief applications of both NMDA and non‐NMDA receptor antagonists; extended application of antagonists resulted in prolonged silent periods, during which phasic activity failed to recur for minutes. Neither saline nor a cholecystokinin receptor antagonist influenced cell firing. 4. In contrast to putative vasopressin cells, application of NMDA receptor ligands did not affect the spontaneous activity in most putative oxytocin‐secreting neurones, whereas kainate and AMPA potently excited seven of nine and four of five putative oxytocin cells, respectively. 5. These results imply that the maintenance of spontaneous phasic discharges in vivo in supraoptic vasopressin‐secreting neurones requires tonic synaptic activation involving both NMDA and non‐NMDA glutamate receptors. In putative oxytocin‐secreting neurones, spontaneous firing appears to be predominantly regulated by non‐NMDA receptors. Glutamatergic innervations may be in a unique position to influence the genesis of patterned electrical activity in supraoptic vasopressin neurones.
The science journalist online: Shifting roles and emerging practices

Science reporters today work within an evolving science media ecosystem that is pluralistic, participatory and social. It is a mostly online environment that has challenged the historically dominant and exceptional role of science reporters as privileged conveyers of specialist information to general audiences. We map this science media environment, drawing on interviews with journalists and writers from nationally prominent US and UK media organizations, describing the shifting roles and emerging practices of science journalists online. Compared to a decade ago, this occupational group, driven by economic imperatives and technological changes, is performing a wider plurality of roles, including those of curator, convener, public intellectual and civic educator, in addition to more traditional journalistic roles of reporter, conduit, watchdog and agenda-setter. Online science journalists have a more collaborative relationship with their audiences and sources and are generally adopting a more critical and interpretative stance towards the scientific community, industry, and policy-oriented organizations.