Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peer worker or client?: conflicting identities among peer workers engaged in harm reduction service delivery

Abstract Background: This study sought to identify challenges surrounding peer programming in Ottawa and to provide realistic recommendations for reducing these barriers. Methods: In-person, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with managers of peer programming initiatives and people with lived experience of drug use who had previously been or were currently engaged in peer programming in Ottawa. Interviews were transcribed and coded for emergent themes using thematic analysis informed by grounded theory. Results: Eleven interviews were held with peer workers and six were held with program managers between January and March 2016. A number of emergent themes were identified, but an overarching message emerged about peer workers’ difficulties separating their identities as people who use drugs and require harm reduction services from their identities as peer workers working in harm reduction to help others who use drugs. This manifested in difficulty reporting issues of triggering, reluctance to use the agency’s harm reduction services, and feeling ‘stuck’ in positions that were dependent on a ‘drug user’ identity. Conclusion: The themes explored by peer workers in this study, particularly those of conflicting identities and the pressure to perform, contribute substantially to the evidence base on peer workers in harm reduction. We explore these themes through a symbolic interactionist lens, which notes that one’s sense of self-worth is often intrinsically linked with one’s ability to successfully perform a given identity. Collaboration between agencies in supporting peer workers and reminding them of their ongoing ability to use agency services as a client at the agency where they are employed or elsewhere, along with offering training sessions to help peer workers develop skills outside of harm reduction work may be beneficial in alleviating these challenges.
Legal Status, Civic Organizations, and Political Participation among Latino Young Adults

ABSTRACT This investigation examines the roles of legal status and civic associations in shaping political participation. Analyses of survey and semistructured interview data collected from Latino young adults indicate that the effects of legal status are conditional on the context of involvement. Furthermore, findings suggest that membership in certain types of civic organizations during both adolescence and early adulthood cumulatively shape patterns of political participation. This study has implications for understanding the roles of legal status and formative civic experience in determining the leadership capacities of undocumented immigrants and others from marginalized communities.
PENGARUH KEPUASAN KERJA TERHADAP DISIPLIN KERJA PEGAWAI KANTOR CAMAT PENDALIAN IV KOTO KABUPATEN ROKAN HULU

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh kepuasan kerja terhadap disiplin kerja pegawai Kantor Camat Pendalian IV Koto Kabupaten Rokan Hulu. Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah pegawai Kantor Camat Pendalian IV Koto Kabupaten Rokan Hulu yang berjumlah 33 orang. Analisis data yang dilakukan adalah dengan menggunakan uji validitas, uji reliabilitas, uji normalitas, regresi linear sederhana, uji R 2 , uji t. Pengujian tersebut dilakukan guna mengetahui hubungan antara variabel bebas ( independen variabel ) dengan variabel terikat ( dependent variabel ). Berdasarkan hasil penelitian bahwa kepuasan kerja berpengaruh terhadap disiplin kerja pegawai dengan nilai korelasi R = 0,486 yang menunjukkan adanya hubungan yang erat antara kepuasan kerja dengan disiplin kerja pegawai Kantor Camat Pendalian IV Koto Kabupaten Rokan Hulu. Sedangkan R square di dapat 23,6% yang berarti kepuasan kerja memiliki kontribusi sumbangan sebesar 23,6% terhadap disiplin kerja pegawai. Secara parsial diperoleh variabel kepuasan kerja berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap disiplin kerja pegawai Kantor Camat Pendalian IV Koto Kabupaten Rokan Hulu dengan persamaan regresi linear sederhana sebagai berikut : Y = 38,491 + 0,661X dengan signifikan 0,004 lebih kecil dari alpha 5%. Kesimpulan akhir dari penelitian ini, bahwa hipotesis secara parsial antara variabel kepuasan kerja terhadap disiplin kerja pegawai terbukti dan dapat diterima kebenarannya. Kata Kunci : Kepuasan Kerja, Disiplin Kerja.
A study on power saving using RTS/CTS handshake and burst transmission in wireless LAN

Recently, buttery-powered portable devices, which can use wireless LAN (WLAN), such as smart phones and tablet computers, are increasing. However, these devices consume more energy when using WLAN interfaces, and the battery lifetime is shorten. In order to reduce the power consumption of wireless stations, IEEE 802.11 specifies PSM (Power Saving Mode). However, PSM cannot save the energy optimally and it increases the transfer delay of packets severely. In this paper, to reduce the power consumption and suppress the transfer delay, we propose a power saving method using RTS/CTS handshake and burst transmission. Wireless stations save energy by sleeping for NAV (Network Allocation Vector) duration. In addition, we extend NAV duration with burst transmission. The number of packets transmitted per burst is decided so that the acceptable transfer delay of each packet is preserved. Finally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed method by computer simulation.
How Much Spectrum is too Much in Millimeter Wave Wireless Access

Great increase in wireless access rates might be attainable using the large amount of spectrum available in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band. However, higher propagation losses inherent in these frequencies must be addressed, especially at ranges beyond 100 m and in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) settings. In contrast to the interference limited legacy cellular systems, where using more bandwidth is favorable, to use wider bandwidth for mmWave channels in noise limited settings may be ineffective or even counterproductive when accounting for channel estimation penalty. In this paper, we quantify the maximum beneficial bandwidth for mmWave transmission in some typical deployment scenarios where pilot-based channel estimation penalty is considered assuming a minimum mean square error channel estimator at the receiver. We find that, under I.I. D. block fading model with coherence time <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and coherence bandwidth <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, for transmitters and receivers equipped with a single antenna, the optimal (rate maximizing) signal-to-noise-ratio is a constant that only depends on the product <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B_{c}T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, which measures the channel coherence and equals the average number of orthogonal symbols per each independent channel coefficient. That is, for fixed channel coherence <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B_{c}T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, the optimal bandwidth scales linearly with the received signal power. Under 3GPP urban micro NLOS path loss model with coherence time <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}=5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ms and coherence bandwidth <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B_{c}=10$ </tex-math></inline-formula> MHz, using 52-dBm equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) at the transmitter and 11-dBi antenna gain at the receiver, the maximum beneficial bandwidth at 28 (resp. 39) GHz is less than 1 GHz at a distance beyond 210 (resp. 170) m with maximum throughput about 200 Mbps, and less than 100 MHz beyond 400 (resp. 310) m with maximum throughput about 20 Mbps. At EIRP of 85 dBm, corresponding to the FCC limit of 75 dBm per 100 MHz, 1 Gbps rate can be delivered using 1-GHz bandwidth up to 860 (resp. 680) m.
Firm Performance, Entrenchment and Managerial Succession in Family Firms

This paper investigates the role of the family status of a company's top officer in managerial replacement decisions for a sample of 683 UK companies over the period 1992 to 1998. We report evidence that family firms are characterised by higher levels of board control, and weak internal governance in the form of independent company board structures. Consistent with a managerial entrenchment hypothesis, we find evidence that family CEOs are less likely to be removed from their position following poor performance than non-family CEOs. This relationship occurs even after controlling for the ownership of the company's top executive, suggesting that family status conveys additional power to the company's top officer in excess of that implied by their shareholding alone. Stock prices react favourably when companies announce that departure of a family CEO, but only when these directors are replaced by a non-family successor. We also report evidence of increases in operating performance following the departure of a family CEO, which are not witnessed following non-family CEO departures amongst our sample companies. Finally, we also find growth in company sales and employment following family CEO departures in excess of that witnessed following non-family CEO departures, indicating an untapped potential that family CEOs were unable to exploit prior to their departure. Overall, our results appear consistent with a managerial entrenchment hypothesis of the family status of a company's CEO, whereby the cash flows that shareholders expect to receive following their replacement are in excess of those anticipated under the family CEO.
Division of Labor in Frontal Eye Field Neurons during Presaccadic Remapping of 1 Visual Receptive Fields 2 3 Sooyoon Shin

40 Our percept of visual stability across saccadic eye movements may be mediated by 41 presaccadic remapping. Just before a saccade, neurons that remap become visually 42 responsive at a future field (FF) that anticipates the saccade vector. Hence the neurons 43 use corollary discharge of saccades. Many of the neurons also decrease their response at 44 the receptive field (RF). Presaccadic remapping occurs in several brain areas including 45 the frontal eye field (FEF), which receives corollary discharge of saccades in its layer IV 46 from a collicular-thalamic pathway. We studied, at two levels, the microcircuitry of 47 remapping in the FEF. At the laminar level, we compared remapping between layers IV 48 and V. At the cellular level, we compared remapping between different neuron types of 49 layer IV. In the FEF in four monkeys (Macaca mulatta), we identified 27 layer IV 50 neurons with orthodromic stimulation and 57 layer V neurons with antidromic 51 stimulation from the superior colliculus (SC). Using established criteria, we classified the 52 layer IV neurons as putative excitatory (n=11), putative inhibitory (n=12), or ambiguous 53 (n=4). We found that, just before a saccade, putative excitatory neurons increased their 54 visual response at the RF, putative inhibitory neurons showed no change, and ambiguous 55 neurons increased their visual response at the FF. None of the neurons showed 56 presaccadic visual changes at both RF and FF. In contrast, neurons in layer V showed full 57 remapping (at both the RF and FF). Our data suggest that elemental signals for 58 remapping are distributed across neuron types in early cortical processing and combined 59 in later stages of cortical microcircuitry. 60
Fast and Low-Memory-Bandwidth Architecture of SIFT Descriptor Generation with Scalability on Speed and Accuracy for VGA Video

This¿paper describes an FPGA implementation which features a hardware-oriented Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm, a scalable architecture with high-speed mode and high-accuracy mode, and highly parallel datapath modules. The proposed FPGA implementation can generate a SIFT descriptor vector with 50 MHz for VGA resolution¿video¿(640 × 480 pixels) at 56 frames per second (fps). ¿Our proposed implementation made the operating frequency and memory bandwidth a half or less than that of the conventional FPGA implementation and as a result, we achieved a system that can provide low power consumption.
Trust and the Choice between Housing and Financial Assets: Evidence from Spanish Households

Trusting behavior has been shown to affect households' portfolio choice between risky and risk-free financial assets. We extend the analysis of the effect of trust on portfolio choice to include the dominant component of households' portfolios, real estate. In a simple model, we show how the effect of trust on expected investment returns affects portfolio composition, including the share of real estate. Using data from the European Social Survey, we estimate individual-level trust as an unobserved attitude using survey questions on personal attitudes by applying a hierarchical item response model. Combining these estimates with data on Spanish households' financial decisions from the Survey of Household Finances (EFF) conducted by the Bank of Spain, we show that households with less trust invest more in housing and less in financial assets, in particular risky ones. Trust thus may drive not only (limited) stock market participation, but financial development more generally.
Inter-Network magnetic fields observed during the minimum of the solar cycle

We analyze a time series of high angular resolution magnetograms of quiet Sun Inter-Network (IN) magnetic fields. These magnetograms have a spatial resolution better than 0: 5, a noise of some 20 G, and they have been obtained at the disk center during the minimum of the solar cycle. The IN regions show a typical unsigned flux density of the order of 15 G. Signals occur, preferentially, in the intergranular lanes, and the strongest signals trace a network with a scale similar to the mesogran- ulation. All these features are consistent with the IN magnetograms by Dom´ inguez Cerdena et al. (2003a,b), obtained during the maximum of the solar cycle. Consequently, the unsigned magnetic flux of the structures that give rise to the IN polarization signals does not seem to undergo large variations during the solar cycle.
How Young, Uninsured Americans Respond to News Coverage of Obamacare: An Experimental Test of an Affective Mediation Model

This experiment integrated theory from multiple domains to examine how aspects of news coverage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and differences in participants’ cognitive and emotional contingent conditions interact to shape attitudes and behavioral intentions toward health care legislation. Using a sample of uninsured young adults (N = 1,056), we tested an affective mediation model, which assessed the mechanisms through which media frames, exemplar case studies, and individual predispositions affect this type of news consumer. Results demonstrate the complicated pathways through which emotions mediate the effects of news coverage of ACA based on political predispositions, the need for orientation toward the health care issue, and the influence of equivalency framing in the form of example cases. These findings contribute to a more nuanced explanation of the causal mechanisms underpinning framing effects of public policy news coverage on an understudied population. The need for further examination of emotion along with cognition when investigating framing effects of public policy news is discussed, and the importance of exemplar cases as a significant manifestation of the effects equivalence framing is highlighted.
Modeling networks of spiking neurons as interacting processes with memory of variable length

We consider a new class of non Markovian processes with a countable number of interacting components, both in discrete and continuous time. Each component is represented by a point process indicating if it has a spike or not at a given time. The system evolves as follows. For each component, the rate (in continuous time) or the probability (in discrete time) of having a spike depends on the entire time evolution of the system since the last spike time of the component. In discrete time this class of systems extends in a non trivial way both Spitzer's interacting particle systems, which are Markovian, and Rissanen's stochastic chains with memory of variable length which have finite state space. In continuous time they can be seen as a kind of Rissanen's variable length memory version of the class of self-exciting point processes which are also called "Hawkes processes", however with infinitely many components. These features make this class a good candidate to describe the time evolution of networks of spiking neurons. In this article we present a critical reader's guide to recent papers dealing with this class of models, both in discrete and in continuous time. We briefly sketch results concerning perfect simulation and existence issues, de-correlation between successive interspike intervals, the longtime behavior of finite non-excited systems and propagation of chaos in mean field systems.
Orbital Solution & Fundamental Parameters of sigma Scorpii

The first orbital solution for the spectroscopic pair in the multiple star system sigma Scorpii, determined from measurements with the Sydney University Stellar Interferometer (SUSI), is presented. The primary component is of beta Cephei variable type and has been one of the most intensively studied examples of its class. The orbital solution, when combined with radial velocity results found in the literature, yields a distance of 174(+23,-18) pc, which is consistent with, but more accurate than the Hipparcos value. For the primary component we determine 18.4+/-5.4 M_sun, -4.12+/-0.34 mag and 12.7+/-1.8 R_sun for the mass, absolute visual magnitude and radius respectively. A B1 dwarf spectral type and luminosity class for the secondary is proposed from the mass determination of 11.9+/-3.1 M_sun and the estimated system age of 10 Myr.
Molecular evidence for ecological speciation in tropical habitats

Recent research on rainforest speciation has highlighted the importance of habitat variation in generating population diversification but lacks evidence of an associated reduction in gene flow. This paper describes a study in which molecular markers were used to examine the effects of allopatric divergence and habitat on levels of gene flow in the Caribbean lizard, Anolis roquet. Three study transects were constructed to compare variation in microsatellite allele frequencies and morphology across phylogenetic and habitat boundaries in northern Martinique. Results showed reductions in gene flow to be concordant with divergent selection for habitat type. No evidence could be found for divergence in allopatry influencing current gene flow. Morphological data match these findings, with multivariate analysis showing correlation with habitat type but no grouping by phylogenetic lineage. The results support the ecological speciation model of evolutionary divergence, indicating the importance of habitats in biodiversity generation.
Exploring gender differences in the prevalence of childhood externalising disorders

Results demonstrated that externalising disorders are more prevalent in boys than girls, except for Oppositional Defiant Disorder in Non-Western countries, where no gender difference was found. Results also found that parenting and diagnosis did not impact this gender imbalance, however there appears a potential for ADHD to be misdiagnosed in both genders.
TCWTP: Time-Constrained Weighted Targets Patrolling Mechanism in Wireless Mobile Sensor Networks

Target coverage problems have received much attention in recent years. In a large monitoring environment where targets are distributed over an entire monitored region, deploying static sensors leads to high hardware costs because a high number of sensors may be required to achieve network connectivity. This paper considers the target-patrol issue where a set of mobile data mules (DMs) are dispatched to efficiently patrol the given targets under a predefined time constraint. The targets are assigned weights indicating their importance, where more important targets should be visited more frequently by the DMs. Accordingly, this paper proposes a time-constrained weighted targets patrolling (TCWTP) algorithm for locally constructing efficient patrol paths, thereby ensuring globally stable intervals between visits to all target points. A performance analysis revealed that the proposed TCWTP mechanism outperforms existing works in terms of the average interval between visits, quality of monitoring satisfaction ratio, and monitoring fairness ratio.
Models of DNA denaturation dynamics: universal properties

We briefly review some of the models used to describe DNA denaturation dynamics, focusing on the value of the dynamical exponent $z$, which governs the scaling of the characteristic time $\tau\sim L^z$ as a function of the sequence length $L$. The models contain different degrees of simplifications, in particular sometimes they do not include a description for helical entanglement: we discuss how this aspect influences the value of $z$, which ranges from $z=0$ to $z \approx 3.3$. Connections with experiments are also mentioned.
Experiences, Feelings and Thoughts of Women Undergoing Second Trimester Medical Termination of Pregnancy

Main Objective The objective of this study was to explore women's expectations and experiences of undergoing second trimester abortion. Methods This is a cross-sectional study using a screening questionnaire and semi-structured interviews for data collection. Thirty-one women filled out the questionnaire and 23 of them were later interviewed. The questionnaires were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Most Important Findings Indications for the abortion were fetal malformation or unintended pregnancy. The women expressed similar feelings and these were irrespective for the reason for having an abortion. Both physical and mental pain was experienced during the abortion process and described by the women. Taking the mifepristone-pill was experienced as especially emotionally difficult for many participants. Professional support from the staff together with support from the partner, a friend or relative helped in transforming the worries related to something unknown to feelings of coping with a new and hard experience. Prior to the abortion most women stated that they did not want to view the fetus but women who chose to view the fetus described this as a way of confronting the reality and an opportunity to say farewell to the pregnancy/fetus. The analysis of the interview transcripts revealed five themes mirroring the women's experiences, thoughts and feelings related to the abortion. Conclusions The decision to undergo second trimester abortion sometimes exposes women to strong and conflicting emotions which are irrespective for the reason for having an abortion. Despite this women do not regret their decision to terminate the pregnancy. This analysis shows that their rational thinking outweighs their emotionally difficult feelings. It is important for the attending staff to be responsive to the needs of each individual woman whatever the indication is for the abortion.
Library and Social Media Use as Predictors of National Integration among Distance Learning Students in Benin Study Center, Nigeria

ABSTRACT The study seeks to investigate library and social media use as predictors of national integration among distance learning students in Benin Study Center, Nigeria, using four research questions and four null hypotheses. The survey research design of the correlation type was employed for a population of 18,000 undergraduate students, while the Israel (1992) model supported the use of 200 undergraduates as the sample size for the study. The questionnaire pretested to yield reliability of 0.86 Cronbach alpha elicited data for the study analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results were presented, discussed, and recommendations were made based on the study's conclusion.