Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Schooling and life projects : experiences and perspectives of migrant and minority ethnic youth in England and Spain

This thesis is a discussion of the way young people of migrant and minority ethnic background experience schooling and plan for their futures within two different national contexts - England and Spain. It is based on a comparative and ethnographic fieldwork which I carried out in Birmingham and Madrid over the course of 14 months in 2007-2009. As part of the research, I did particular observation at a school in each city and interviewed a total of 54 young people. The thesis presents how they described their life at school, their plans and wishes for the future, and the influences which they considered important to their schooling and future lives. The education of migrant and minority ethnic groups is a topic that increasingly appears in public and political debates in Europe. Reports and research often describe education as crucial to socio-economic well-being and empowerment, but they also show a tendency among migrant and minority ethnic groups to be disadvantaged in terms of education. The literature presents a number of ways to understand this phenomenon and shows that schooling is affected by many complex and interlinking issues. Comparative research has good potential for exploring these complexities, but there is a gap within the existing comparative literature. Most comparative studies of migrant and minority ethnic youth in education are quantitative and analyse the situation of either large categories of young people or distinct ethnic or national groups. Furthermore, these studies focus almost exclusively on achievement and attainment. Thus, there is a lack of qualitative comparative research, which explores how young people from a variety of ethnic or national backgrounds experience schooling and plan for their future, and which discusses their experiences from a more holistic and contextual perspective. In this thesis I respond to this gap. I analyse the experiences of young people from a mixture of ethnic and national backgrounds. The data has been collected using qualitative ethnographic research methods. Finally, the findings are shaped by my informants’ narratives and perceptions and this has given the thesis a broader perspective than the traditional focus on achievement and attainment. The main findings arising from the data was the importance of social relations in influencing young people’s schooling experiences and life projects. Friends and family were described as particularly influential in providing support and socio-emotional wellbeing. In the thesis I analyse these findings through the lens of social capital. I argue that socio-emotional well-being should be considered a resource in itself and included in social capital theory. However, the analysis also shows that young people of migrant and minority ethnic origin do not all have the same conditions for accessing this ‘resource of well-being’. The thesis therefore concludes with a number of practical recommendations, aimed to improve the inclusion and general well-being of migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools.
Regulation of proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts derived from adult mouse skeletal muscle by specific isoforms of PDGF

The expression of receptors and the mitogenic response to PDGF by C2 myoblasts, derived from adult mouse skeletal muscle, was investigated. Employing 125I-PDGF binding assays, we showed that the cells exhibit high level binding of PDGF-BB (approximately 165 x 10(3) molecules/cell at saturation) and much lower binding of the PDGF-AA and PDGF-AB (6-12 x 10(3) molecules/cell at saturation). This indicates that the C2 myoblasts express high levels of PDGF receptor beta-subunits and low levels of alpha-subunits. PDGF-BB enhances the proliferation of C2 cells maintained in 2% FCS by about fivefold. PDGF-AB had a moderate effect on cell proliferation (less than twofold) and PDGF-AA had no effect. Inverse effects of PDGF isoforms on the frequency of differentiated myoblasts were observed; the frequency of myosin- positive cells was reduced in the presence of PDGF-BB while PDGF-AA and PDGF-AB had no effect. PDGF may thus act to increase the number of myoblasts that participate in muscle regeneration following muscle trauma by stimulating the proliferation and by inhibiting the differentiation of myogenic cells.
Control of Upper Extremity Prosthetics

An Upper Extremity Prosthetic is a device that is worn by an amputee, to restore the missing functions of the limb. These devices which used to be simple structures mounted to the body, has evolved in to electrically powered robotic devices. Such prosthetics are already available in the market but controlling of these devices pose a major challenge. This report outlines the current research in the field of intelligent upper limb prosthetic control. A review on the control strategies, its alternate forms and hardware are discussed, outlining the directions of future research. KEY INDEXING TERMS: Upper Limb Prosthetics, Myoelectric Control, Electro Myography (EMG), Artificial Intelligence(AI), Targeted Muscle Reinervation(TMR)
Relation between renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and otosclerosis: a genetic association and in vitro study.

OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS Angiotensin II (Ang II) may be implicated in the regulation of bone remodeling, and its activity is related to several gene polymorphisms including AGT M235T for plasmatic and tissular concentrations of angiotensinogen (AGT), ACE I/D for the angiotensin-converting enzyme activity, and AT(1)R A/C(1166) for the Ang II receptor function. The objective of this study was to investigate the implication of this hormone in otosclerosis. STUDY DESIGN Prospective case-control study. METHODS The above-mentionedpolymorphisms were investigated in 186 patients with otosclerosis and 526 healthy controls, both groups originated from the French Caucasian population. Primary cell cultures of stapedial bone from patients with otosclerosis (n = 6) and control subjects (n = 5) were investigated for the messenger ribonucleic acid expressions of Ang II receptors (Types 1 and 2) and cellular AGT and the effect of Ang II (10(-7) mol/L, 24 h) on the alkaline phosphatase activity and the interleukin-6 secretion in the culture media. RESULTS A significant association was found between otosclerosis and the AGT M235T and the ACE I/D polymorphisms. Higher proportions of TT (29% versus 16%; p < 0.01) and DD (50% versus 38%; p < 0.05) genotypes were observed in cases versus controls. No association was found between the AT(1)R A/C(1166) polymorphism and otosclerosis. Ang II receptor Types 1 and 2 and AGT were detected in the cultures. Ang II increased the in vitro secretion of interleukin-6 and decreased the alkaline phosphatase activity only in otosclerotic cells. CONCLUSION These observations suggest a relation between the local renin angiotensin system activity and otosclerosis, opening new therapeutic insights.
Altered Insulin Receptor Signalling and β-Cell Cycle Dynamics in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Insulin resistance, reduced β-cell mass, and hyperglucagonemia are consistent features in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We used pancreas and islets from humans with T2DM to examine the regulation of insulin signaling and cell-cycle control of islet cells. We observed reduced β-cell mass and increased α-cell mass in the Type 2 diabetic pancreas. Confocal microscopy, real-time PCR and western blotting analyses revealed increased expression of PCNA and down-regulation of p27-Kip1 and altered expression of insulin receptors, insulin receptor substrate-2 and phosphorylated BAD. To investigate the mechanisms underlying these findings, we examined a mouse model of insulin resistance in β-cells – which also exhibits reduced β-cell mass, the β-cell-specific insulin receptor knockout (βIRKO). Freshly isolated islets and β-cell lines derived from βIRKO mice exhibited poor cell-cycle progression, nuclear restriction of FoxO1 and reduced expression of cell-cycle proteins favoring growth arrest. Re-expression of insulin receptors in βIRKO β-cells reversed the defects and promoted cell cycle progression and proliferation implying a role for insulin-signaling in β-cell growth. These data provide evidence that human β- and α-cells can enter the cell-cycle, but proliferation of β-cells in T2DM fails due to G1-to-S phase arrest secondary to defective insulin signaling. Activation of insulin signaling, FoxO1 and proteins in β-cell-cycle progression are attractive therapeutic targets to enhance β-cell regeneration in the treatment of T2DM.
Becoming simultaneously thicker and thinner skinned: The inherent conflicts arising in the professional development of coaches

Purpose – There is a hidden paradox inherent in the ideal of continuing professional development (CPD) for executive coaches, stemming from the fact that the coach wishes to retain or preserve the freshness and openness of a “beginner”, whilst also acquiring greater robustness and resilience in the face of difficult assignments. The paradox reminds us of the “castle and battlefield” metaphor of Roger Harrison: on the one hand a strong container is needed and on the other vulnerability to allow the coach to be affected and even hurt by the coaching experiences. The objective of this paper is to find ways of resolving this paradox, based on what coaches themselves say about critical moments in their practice.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 69 critical moments as reported by 60 coaches are content‐analysed with the help of grounded research.Findings – In the analysis a picture emerges of doubts (instrumental, relational and existential), which the coaching process opens up for coaches, and which CPD.
Marital Adjustment And Life Satisfaction Among Early And Late Marriages

The current research focused on exploring the relationship of marital adjustment and life satisfaction among early and late marriages. Main objective of the study was to find out the effect of age on marital adjustment and life satisfaction among early and late marriages. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) Urdu (Spanier, 1976) and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985) were used to measure the phenomenon of marital adjustment and life satisfaction. The sample was comprised of (N=160) early and late married, men and women. Early married (n=80) and late married (n=80) selected from different cities of Punjab, Pakistan. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and t-test were used for statistical analysis. Results indicate a significant positive correlation (r= .33, significant at p .01) in marital adjustment and life satisfaction. On the other hand there is a significant difference (significant at p .001) between late marriages and early marriages on marital adjustment. The results also indicate that there is a significant difference (significant at p .001) between late marriages and early marriages on life satisfaction. Key Words : Marital adjustment, life satisfaction, early married, late married
A 2D systems approach to iterative learning control for discrete linear processes with zero Markov parameters

In this article a new approach to iterative learning control for the practically relevant case of deterministic discrete linear plants with uniform rank greater than unity is developed. The analysis is undertaken in a 2D systems setting that, by using a strong form of stability for linear repetitive processes, allows simultaneous consideration of both trial-to-trial error convergence and along the trial performance, resulting in design algorithms that can be computed using linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, the control laws are experimentally verified on a gantry robot that replicates a pick and place operation commonly found in a number of applications to which iterative learning control is applicable.
Eco-innovation: insights from a literature review

Eco-innovation is still a young area of research; however it has been an area of increasing concern for policy makers, academics and practitioners. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing body of literature on eco-innovations, and identify the most relevant publications in the field and the topics of interest. We have carried out a review of previous literature based on a Scopus search and selecting the discipline “Social Sciences and Humanities”. The search offers us 384 articles. From their analysis, it can be observed that there is a clear increase in the relevance of this issue within academia and several thematic trends arise in eco-innovation research, with drivers of eco-innovation being the most popular. Our main theoretical contribution is the development of a multilevel framework of eco-innovation drivers, with our literature review having a specific focus on systematizing the findings of the studies within this theme.
Determination of Rifaximin Treatment Period According to Lactulose Breath Test Values in Nonconstipated Irritable Bowel Syndrome Subjects

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) can partly explain irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and rifaximin has been observed to improve abdominal symptoms in nonconstipated IBS patients. However, there are few reports on the association of the rifaximin treatment periods with the results of a lactulose breath test (LBT). Therefore, we performed a retrospective review of patient charts to investigate the relation between the rifaximin treatment periods with LBT results in nonconstipated IBS patients. We also evaluated the time to achieve a symptomatic improvement in the IBS patients as compared to the changes in the LBT. We reviewed the charts for patients who showed IBS symptoms with documented positive results for LBT during their initial visit and who had a follow-up LBT after treatment with rifaximin. The LBT values were compared to the subjects' symptom scores. A total of 102 subjects had a follow-up LBT to assess LBT normalization. The subjects were divided into groups according to treatment periods of 4 weeks (n = 36), 8 weeks (n = 43), and 12 weeks (n = 23). The groups with a longer treatment exhibited an increase in the hydrogen gas value at 90 min and its sum during 90 min at the initial LBT. There were significant differences in hydrogen gas value at 90 min and in its sum during 90 min at the initial LBT between the groups treated for 4 and 12 weeks. The most significant treatment response was observed during the first 4 weeks for all treatment groups. Symptomatic improvement occurred earlier than LBT normalization in the treatment period over 4 weeks. The results indicate that different rifaximin treatment periods are needed in accordance with LBT levels to effectively eradicate SIBO. Graphical Abstract
Secreted Frizzled-Related Protein 4 (SFRP4): A Novel Biomarker of β-Cell Dysfunction and Insulin Resistance in Individuals With Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes

Studying biomarkers early could help to identify high-risk individuals who could be targeted for the prevention of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (SFRP4) is highly expressed in the islets, and its levels are increased several years before diabetes diagnosis (1). We report here on the systemic levels of SFRP4 and its association with insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction. Individuals with normal glucose tolerance (NGT; n = 100), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT; n = 60), and T2D ( n = 100) were recruited from a large tertiary diabetes center in Chennai and a medical college hospital at Manipal in southern India. NGT, IGT, and T2D were defined using World Health Organization consulting group criteria (2). β-Cell function and insulin resistance were calculated by the oral disposition index (DIo) and the HOMA of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), respectively. SFRP4 levels were measured by ELISA. …
Spreadsheet Property Detection With Rule-assisted Active Learning

Spreadsheets are a critical and widely-used data management tool. Converting spreadsheet data into relational tables would bring benefits to a number of fields, including public policy, public health, and economics. Research to date has focused on designing domain-specific languages to describe transformation processes or automatically converting a specific type of spreadsheets. To handle a larger variety of spreadsheets, we have to identify various spreadsheet properties, which correspond to a series of transformation programs that contribute towards a general framework that converts spreadsheets to relational tables. In this paper, we focus on the problem of spreadsheet property detection. We propose a hybrid approach of building a variety of spreadsheet property detectors to reduce the amount of required human labeling effort. Our approach integrates an active learning framework with crude, easy-to-write, user-provided rules to save human labeling effort by generating additional high-quality labeled data especially in the initial training stage. Using a bagging-like technique, Our approach can also tolerate lower-quality user-provided rules. Our experiments show that when compared to a standard active learning approach, we reduced the training data needed to reach the performance plateau by 34-44% when a human provides relatively high-quality rules, and by a comparable amount with low-quality rules. A study on a large-scale web-crawled spreadsheet dataset demonstrates that it is crucial to detect a variety of spreadsheet properties in order to transform a large portion of the spreadsheets into a relational form.
A Framework for Goal-Oriented Discovery of Resources in the RESTful Architecture

One of the challenges facing the current web is the efficient use of all the available information. The Web 2.0 phenomenon has favored the creation of contents by average users, and thus the amount of information that can be found for diverse topics has grown exponentially in the last years. Initiatives such as linked data are helping to build the Semantic Web, in which a set of standards are proposed for the exchange of data among heterogeneous systems. However, these standards are sometimes not used, and there are still plenty of websites that require naive techniques to discover their contents and services. This paper proposes an integrated framework for content and service discovery and extraction. The framework is divided into several layers where the discovery of contents and services is made in a representational stateless transfer system such as the web. It employs several web mining techniques as well as feature-oriented modeling for the discovery of cross-cutting features in web resources. The framework is used in a scenario of electronic newspapers. An intelligent agent crawls the web for related news, and uses services and visits links automatically according to its goal. This scenario illustrates how the discovery is made at different levels and how the use of semantics helps implement an agent that performs high-level tasks.
Destinations of Irish Exports:A Gravity Model Approach

This paper uses a gravity model approach in order to analyse the geographical patterns of Irish exports. The gravity model in international trade has been demonstrated to be an extremely robust empirical method. The gravity model is first applied to aggregate Irish exports from 1980 to 2007. Distance is found to have a strong negative effect on exports. On the other hand, exports are positively related to sharing a common language and when communications infrastructure is well developed. The gravity model is shown to fit the data extremely well. We then use firm-level data on indigenous Irish exporters to divide the effects of trade costs into how they influence the number of firms exporting to each market and the average exports per firm. Finally the firm data is divided into four broad sectors to examine if there is any sectoral variation in the standard results.
Relation of Gene Expression Phenotype to Immunoglobulin Mutation Genotype in B Cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

The most common human leukemia is B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a malignancy of mature B cells with a characteristic clinical presentation but a variable clinical course. The rearranged immunoglobulin (Ig) genes of CLL cells may be either germ-line in sequence or somatically mutated. Lack of Ig mutations defined a distinctly worse prognostic group of CLL patients raising the possibility that CLL comprises two distinct diseases. Using genomic-scale gene expression profiling, we show that CLL is characterized by a common gene expression “signature,” irrespective of Ig mutational status, suggesting that CLL cases share a common mechanism of transformation and/or cell of origin. Nonetheless, the expression of hundreds of other genes correlated with the Ig mutational status, including many genes that are modulated in expression during mitogenic B cell receptor signaling. These genes were used to build a CLL subtype predictor that may help in the clinical classification of patients with this disease.
The Role of Attachment in Faculty Mentoring

This nonexperimental, correlational study examined the relationships between the attachment styles of mentors ( N = 52) and proteges ( N = 50), mentoring as measured by psychosocial support and career support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to turnover. An Internet-based self-report survey instrument consisting of six scales were administered to the participants of a formal faculty mentoring program. Hypotheses were tested through correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. Results of this study supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. For mentors and proteges, the variables attachment and mentoring were significantly associated with each of the outcome variables job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to turnover. Furthermore, in the case of mentors after controlling for gender and ethnicity, attachment and mentoring specifically psychosocial mentoring predicted unique variance in job satisfaction ( R 2 = .43), organizational commitment ( R 2 = .47), and intent to turnover ( R 2 = -.28). For proteges, while secure attachment and mentoring predicted unique variance in job satisfaction ( R 2 = .65), only secure attachment predicted unique variance in organizational commitment ( R 2 = .55), and intent to turnover ( R 2 = -.58). Zero-order correlations as well as the regression models indicated medium to large effect sizes, supporting the empirical and practical relevance of understanding the relationships between attachment, mentoring, and organizational outcomes. Responses to open-ended survey questions by mentors converged with the quantitative results and additionally indicated that mentors experienced learning from their proteges. They experienced job satisfaction by providing both career support and psychosocial support. Responses to open-ended questions by proteges indicated that they experienced satisfaction as they received psychosocial support from their mentors in the form of trust, friendship, advice, and help. The study specifically informs the field of faculty mentoring research by linking faculty job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions to attachment styles and mentoring. Practitioners in higher education developing faculty mentoring programs can use this information in the selection of mentors and proteges.
First contributions to psycho-analysis

This book is a collection of Ferenczi's early papers which secured him, in an amazingly short time, his prominent position among Freud's followers. Included here are several of the papers that now belong to the classics of psychoanalysis, such as: "Introjection and Transference", "On Obscene Words", "On Onasism: Stages in Development of the Sense of Reality" and "The Ontogenesis of the Interest in Money". In addition it contains Ferenczi's pioneer papers on impotence, homosexuality, paranoia, and symbolism.