Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A contraction type soft actuator using poly vinyl chloride gel

A poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuator shows great potential for use as an artificial muscle because of such positive characteristics as movement in the air, large deformation, and being light in weight. A bending type actuator using PVC gel was studied previously [4]–[6]. In order to construct an artificial muscle it is necessary to compose an actuator which has the characteristics of contraction type deformation. In this study we propose an electrode arrangement for the PVC gel actuator. Also, we investigate the characteristics of the proposed actuator experimentally and show the effectiveness of the actuator as an artificial muscle. The proposed actuator has a layered structure using mesh type electrodes. The experimental results showed that the contraction rate of the actuator was about 13%, the response rate was 1–3Hz, and the output force was 1–2kPa. The characteristics of the PVC gel actuator are shown to be very effective for constructing an artificial muscle.
Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup Distribution in Pedigrees of Southeast Asian G11778A Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy

Abstract: To investigate the association of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups and Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) in the Southeast Asian population, mtDNA haplogroup determination was performed by high-resolution restriction fragment length polymorphism in 42 patients with LHON who were carrying the G11778A mutation and in control subjects drawn from a Thai urban population unaffected by LHON. The patients with LHON were of Thai, Thai-Chinese, and Indian origin. Three mtDNA haplogroups, M, B*, and B, were found in LHON patients in a frequency similar to that in control subjects. mtDNA haplogroup F was found in none of the patients with LHON but was the second most common haplogroup in control subjects. The G11778A mutation must have arisen in our population independently from the mutation in Caucasians. In contrast to Caucasians, no specific mtDNA haplotype was associated with the patients with LHON in the Southeast Asian population. The mitochondrial polymorphisms that modify the expression of LHON in Southeast Asians could not be identified in this study. The lack of haplogroup F in our patients with LHON may indicate the protective effect of this haplogroup in the expression of this disorder.
Changing pattern for extremity amputations in University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND Trauma has been the major indication for limb amputation in almost all studies emanating from the different parts of Nigeria, except in Maiduguri. Earlier studies from this part of the country recorded malignancy as the leading indication for amputation. There is need to review the current pattern of causes. The aim of this study is to ascertain the current indications for amputation in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital and compare the findings with similar studies conducted in this centre about 15 years ago with a view to highlighting the changes in the pattern of causes. This would enable meaningful preventive measures to be proffered. METHODS Case notes of all patients that underwent amputation surgery at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital between January 2000 and December 2004 were retrieved and retrospectively studied. Data collected from the folders include demographic indices, indication for amputation, level and laterality of amputation, follow up visits and use of prosthesis. RESULTS Forty-five patients' case notes with 49 amputations were analyzed. The male to female ratio was 3.5:1. The peak age incidence was in the 4th and 5th decade with 18 patients (40%). Trauma accounted for the highest indication with 21 amputations (42.8%) while malignancy was responsible for only 9 (18.4%). There were more lower extremity amputations, 35 (71.4%), as compared to the upper extremity, 14 (28.6%). Below knee amputation was the commonest amputation carried out constituting 22 (62.8%) of the 35 lower limb amputations. CONCLUSION Trauma, especially following from road traffic accidents was the major cause of limb loss in this part of Nigeria. Concerted efforts at enforcing the already existing traffic laws and regulations would go a long way in reducing the number and severity of cases of road traffic injuries that would require amputation.
Culture, gender, and the bipolarity of momentary affect: A critical re-examination

This paper re-examines Yik's (2007) hypothesis that dialectic thinking moderates aggregated but not momentary ratings of affect. A reanalysis of Yik's (2007) correlation coefficients shows that culture is a significant moderator of the correlation between ratings of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) for two of the three response formats, and for the latent correlations reported in the original article. The effect size of this difference is similar to the effect size in previous publications with aggregated measures of affect. It is concluded that Asian dialectic thinking styles moderate the correlation of both aggregated and momentary reports of PA and NA.
Environment-adaptation mobile radio propagation prediction using radial basis function neural networks

This paper investigates the application of a radial basis function (RBF) neural network to the prediction of field strength based on topographical and morphographical data. The RBF neural network is a two-layer localized receptive field network whose output nodes from a combination of radial activation functions computed by the hidden layer nodes. Appropriate centers and connection weights in the RBF network lead to the network which is capable of forming the best approximation to any continuous nonlinear mapping up to an arbitrary resolution. Such an approximation introduces best nonlinear approximation capability into the prediction model in order to accurately predict propagation loss over an arbitrary environment based on adaptive learning from measurement data. The adaptive learning employs a hybrid competitive and recursive least squares algorithms. The unsupervised competitive algorithm adjusts the centers while the recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm estimates the connection weights. Because these two learning rules are both linear, rapid convergence is guaranteed and this hybrid algorithm significantly enhances the real-time or adaptive capability of RBF-based prediction model. The application to Okumura's (1968) data are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the RBF neural network approach.
Organic Farming in Late Modernity: At the Frontier of Modernity or Opposing Modernity?

The contention of this paper is that organic farming, the movement and ideology, challenges sociological theory of the nature–culture relation (environmental issues, the role of science). The idea is discussed and explored in two ways. Firstly the paper gives a ‘diagnosis’ of organic farming in terms of modernization. The organic farming movement is a social movement having some success in a period when the power of social movements in general seems low. It is also a movement with a radical view on environmental issues and the man–nature relationship. Recently, several researchers have written about the institutionalization of organic farming, where institutionalization might be understood as a kind of modernization. How can we understand the organic farming movement in terms of modernization? Is the organic farming movement a movement opposing modernity, arguing for pre-modern structures of society? Is it perfectly modern in the classical sense? Or is the existence of the organic farming movement rather a frontier empirical example of the reflexive state of modern society? The Danish organic farming movement serves as an example for the discussion. The ‘diagnosis’ depends on the theoretical point of departure – which theory of modernity is used. This leads to the second approach, namely the comparison of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society and Bruno Latour's theory of actor-networks. Both theories are dealing explicitly with the nature–culture relation in late (or ‘post’ or ‘reflexive’) modern societies.
Intermarriage Patterns among the Children of Hispanic Immigrants

Utilising data from the 2005–07 American Community Survey Public Use Micro Sample (ACS-PUMS), this study investigates the intermarriage patterns of Mexican, Cuban and Dominican Americans who were born in the United States or came to the country as immigrant children. Using intermarriage patterns as an indicator of social relations, I examine how cultural and structural assimilation factors affect the marital assimilation process among the children of Hispanic immigrants. One of the major contributions of this study is the examination of diversity within the US census categorisation of ‘Hispanic’. Results from multinomial logistic regression analyses suggest that the marital assimilation process of Mexicans, Cubans and Dominicans varies across and within the groups according to their different individual characteristics and metropolitan context. My study is novel because it recognises that broad-sweep analyses of intermarriage patterns are overly simplistic renderings of racial/ethnic assimilation because they fail to reveal distinctive and noteworthy within-group diversity.
Acute renal failure due to a malignant lymphoma infiltration uncovered by renal biopsy.

Renal involvement by large B-cell lymphoma represents an exceptional manifestation of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Acute renal failure (ARF) by a lymphoma infiltration of the kidney is extremely rare (so far 11 cases have been reported in the literature). We report a patient who was hospitalized for upper GI bleeding. Clinical examination revealed a tumour of the os sacrum. A CT-guided needle biopsy led to the diagnosis of a sarcoma. At this time, progressive renal failure was observed. Ultrasound showed enlarged kidneys with normal arterial and venous perfusion conditions. No urinary tract obstruction was detected. The cause of ARF was diagnosed by renal biopsy to be a diffuse infiltration of a large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The re-evaluation of the primary histology of the os sacrum confirmed the renal biopsy diagnosis of the B-cell lymphoma. Subsequent staging showed an additional lymphoma infiltration of the lung and liver, but no bone marrow infiltration. Adequate dose-adjusted chemotherapy (CHOP) led to recovery of renal function in the follow-up. This report shows the importance of a renal biopsy in the work-up of ARF even in patients with known malignant diseases. Case
Self-Injury in a Statewide Sample of Young Children With Developmental Disabilities

Self-injurious behavior (SIB) is a devastating condition associated with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Efforts to understand its development are focused on early childhood when the behavior first emerges. Limited prevalence data on SIB during early childhood are currently available. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of SIB in a sample of children with IDD between the ages of 18 and 72 months and associated demographic, diagnostic, and behavioral characteristics. The prevalence rate was 19.1% for SIB including head banging, self-biting, and hitting self. Factors associated with SIB in adults, such as severe intellectual disability; visual, hearing, or mobility impairment; or diagnoses of autism, cerebral palsy, or seizure disorder were not associated with SIB in these children. However, children with SIB had higher rates of Hurtful to Others than the contrast group. Issues related to the characterization of SIB in young children are also discussed.
A Look at High School Programs as Perceived by Youth with Learning Disabilities

This study illustrated how youth with learning disabilities (LD) perceive various aspects of their high school program. One hundred and eighty-five students with LD participated in an interview that explored their views of high school. Specifically, they responded to questions about the best and worst parts of school, recommended school, family, or personal changes that would improve their success in school, gave examples of how a teacher had helped them to learn, and offered general recommendations for improving school. The responses provide information on how they, as consumers of services, view their high school program. This information, in turn, offers insight into how educators might better tailor high school interventions to help more youth with LD to complete high school.
Progressive fiber tract affections after temporal lobe surgery

Several studies reported changes in white matter architecture following temporal lobe surgery in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) at short intervals after surgery. We investigated 20 patients with left‐sided TLE using diffusion‐imaging at two time points, that is, at 3–6 months and 12 months after surgery, to investigate postsurgical plasticity. We observed a loss of fiber tract integrity mainly in fiber tracts of the ipsilateral temporal lobe. Our data show that the remodeling of brain connectivity after surgical interventions continues for longer time periods. The functional implications of these plastic changes will have to be explored.
Centenary paper: Urban planning in Southeast Asia: perspective from Singapore

Southeast Asia is one of the world's fastest-growing regions in terms of population and urban growth. The economic and physical landscapes of its cities continue to change with globalisation and transnationalism, requiring update and development of new urban and spatial practices. The aim of this paper is to reflect and review the state of urban planning and policy in Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on the roots of urban planning from European colonial planning, their inherent ideas and principles. Using the case study of Singapore, the intention is to drill down and examine the products of the first modernity represented by British colonial modernist planning, and discuss how largely Eurocentric planning models have shaped and impacted on the present urban structure and development, and are intersecting with the second wave of modernity brought on by globalisation and the new economic growth of the twenty-first century, especially in terms of addressing urban liveability and sustainability.
Maximum-likelihood estimation for mixture multivariate stochastic observations of Markov chains

In this paper we discuss parameter estimation by means of the reestimation algorithm for a class of multivariate mixture density functions of Markov chains. The scope of the original reestimation algorithm is expanded and the previous assumptions of log concavity or ellipsoidal symmetry are obviated, thereby enhancing the modeling capability of the technique. Reestimation formulas in terms of the well-known forward-backward inductive procedure are also derived.
Black-White Differences in Job Satisfaction: Evidence from 21 Nationwide Surveys

Examination of a number of published studies of black-white differences in job satisfaction suggests their contradictory results are explained, at least in part, by misinterpretation of the representativeness of samples and nonresponse error. Evidence from 21 nationwide opinion surveys from 1972 through 1996 provides strong evidence that in the United States labor force African-Americans (n = 1231) reported being less satisfied than Euro-Americans (n = 10,709) with their jobs. This difference existed for both women and men across categories of education, age, and occupation.
High School Seniors' Occupational Plans and Values: Trends in Sex Differences 1976 through 1980.

Occupational plans and values of high school seniors were examined for evidence of declining sex differences. Questionnaire data were collected in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980from large national samples of high school seniors. Marked sex differences were found for the kinds of work seniors plan to do when they are 30 years old, the settings they would like to work in, and the work characteristics that are important to them. Between 1976 and 1980, only afew of those sex differences were declining, including plans to work as "clerical" or in the protective service, and in preference for self-employment.
Investigating students' mental models and knowledge construction of microscopic friction. I. Implications for curriculum design and development

Our previous research showed that students’ mental models of friction at the atomic level are significantly influenced by their macroscopic ideas. For most students, friction is due to the meshing of bumps and valleys and rubbing of atoms. The aforementioned results motivated us to further investigate how students can be helped to improve their present models of microscopic friction. Teaching interviews were conducted to study the dynamics of their model construction as they interacted with the interviewer, the scaffolding activities, and/or with each other. In this paper, we present the different scaffolding activities and the variation in the ideas that students generated as they did the hands-on and minds-on scaffolding activities. Results imply that through a series of carefully designed scaffolding activities, it is possible to facilitate the refinement of students’ ideas of microscopic friction.
Gender and Causal Attributions for Mastery, Personal, and Interpersonal Events

In two studies, achievement was conceptualized as consisting of affiliative as well as mastery events. Participants wrote about a recent achievement, provided causal attributions, and assessed the degree to which that achievement involved mastery, personal, and interpersonal themes in the first study. A second study randomly assigned participants a theme and asked them to assess the involvement of traditional correlates of achievement. Results indicated that individuals viewed achievement as consisting of mastery, personal, and interpersonal activities. These activities differed, however, in their associated pattern of correlates and attributions. Mastery events were characterized by public standards, high expectations, a process focus, completed time frame, and attributions to ability and effort. Interpersonal events were characterized by internal standards, lower expectations, an outcome focus, ongoing time frame, and attributions to luck. Characteristics reported for personal events varied as a function of methodology.
Insights into migraine mechanisms and CaV2.1 calcium channel function from mouse models of familial hemiplegic migraine

Migraine is a very common disabling brain disorder with unclear pathogenesis. A subtype of migraine with aura (familial hemiplegic migraine type 1: FHM1) is caused by mutations in CaV2.1 (P/Q‐type) Ca2+ channels. This review describes the functional consequences of FHM1 mutations in knockin mouse models carrying the mild R192Q or severe S218L mutations in the orthologous gene. The FHM1 knockin mice show allele dosage‐dependent gain‐of‐function of neuronal P/Q‐type Ca2+ current, reflecting activation of mutant channels at lower voltages, and allele dosage‐ and sex‐dependent facilitation of induction and propagation of cortical spreading depression (CSD), the phenomenon that underlies migraine aura. Gain‐of‐function of neuronal Ca2+ current, facilitation of CSD and post‐CSD motor deficits were larger in S218L than R192Q knockin mice, in correlation with the more severe human S218L phenotype. Enhanced cortical excitatory neurotransmission, due to increased action potential‐evoked Ca2+ influx and increased probability of glutamate release at pyramidal cell synapses, but unaltered inhibitory neurotransmission at fast‐spiking interneuron synapses, were demonstrated in R192Q knockin mice. Evidence for a causative link between enhanced glutamate release and CSD facilitation was obtained. The data from FHM1 mice strengthen the view of CSD as a key player in the pathogenesis of migraine, give insight into CSD mechanisms and point to episodic disruption of excitation–inhibition balance and neuronal hyperactivity as the basis for vulnerability to CSD ignition in migraine.
Societal Change and Change in Family Violence from 1975 to 1985 As Revealed by Two National Surveys

Comparisons between two national surveys conducted in 1975 and 1985 on the rates of physical violence against children and spouses are presented in this article. The sample consisted of 2143 families in 1975 and 3520 families in 1985. Findings showed that 1) physical child abuse decreased by 47% from 1975 to 1985; 2) wife beating decreased by 27% while severe assaults declined by 4.3%; and 3) despite these reductions the rates of child abuse and wife beating remain extremely high. The lower rates of severe violence in 1985 are attributed to several factors such as 1) differences in methodology used 2) reluctance of the respondents to report violence and 3) a decrease in the amount of child abuse and wife beating. The policy implications of the reductions and of the continued high rate of child and spouse abuse were discussed in the last part of this paper.
A role for adherons in neural retina cell adhesion

Embryonic chick neural retina cells release glycoprotein complexes, termed adherons, into their culture medium. When absorbed onto the surface of petri dishes, neural retina adherons increase the initial rate of neural retina cell adhesion; they also stimulate the rate of cell-cell aggregation. Adheron-stimulated adhesion is tissue specific, and the spontaneous aggregation of neural retina cells is inhibited by monovalent Fab' fragments prepared from an antiserum against neural retina adherons. Therefore cell surface antigenic determinants shared with adherons are involved in normal cell-cell adhesions. The particles from the heterogeneous neural retina population contain many proteins and several glycosaminoglycans. The adherons migrate as a symmetrical 12S peak on sucrose gradients and are predominantly 15-nm spheres when examined by electron microscopy. Finally, the specific activity of neural retina adherons increases from embryonic days 7 through 12 and then declines. These results suggest that glycoprotein particles may be involved in some of the adhesive interactions between neural retina cells and between the cells and their environment.
Play‐group politics: a critical social capital exploration of exclusion and conformity in mothers groups

Mothers groups, or informal collections of mothers who meet regularly or semi‐regularly with other women who have children of similar ages, are often positive sources of friendship, support and the exchange of resources. Of course, they are also sites of less positive outcomes such as exclusion, judgement and the reproduction of dominant gender ideologies. In this paper, the authors explore the experiences of members of mothers groups by using a critical social capital analysis. Based on an analysis of interview transcripts of 24 mothers who were members of various mothers groups from a mid‐sized city located in south‐western Ontario, Canada, findings from the study suggest mothers groups enable mothers to ‘get together’, ‘get by’ and ‘get ahead’, whilst also representing groups in which mothers ‘get left out’, ‘get judged’ and ‘get gendered’. By drawing upon social capital literature, including feminist and critical social capital literature, the authors conclude the paper with a discussion of two questions: (1) What do mothers groups tell us about parenthood? (2) Who benefits from this story?
Exploring the Challenges Faced by Latinas Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

This article explores the help-seeking challenges faced by a community sample of 25 Latina intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors. We include the experiences of Latinas who sought help from IPV services and those who did not. Additionally, we utilize an ecological framework to highlight the barriers that are present at multiple levels for Latinas who seek assistance, and we include their recommendations for increasing access. The information provided by these Latina survivors afford social workers the opportunity to address the barriers experienced by them as well as the opportunity to take a proactive stance in further enhancing services available in the community.