Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heritage culture maintenance precludes host culture adoption and vice versa

A prevalent concern with the integration of Turkish minorities is that large cultural differences hinder integration. Many majority members doubt that Turkish minority members can combine host culture adoption and heritage culture maintenance, although research has shown that most Turkish minority members experience no conflict between these orientations. The present study investigates experimentally whether majority group members perceive Turkish minorities’ host culture adoption and heritage culture maintenance as conflicting orientations. Four hundred and seven Flemish majority members received a vignette that contained information on Turkish minority members’ orientation either towards heritage culture maintenance or towards host culture adoption. Results revealed that Flemish majority members perceive host culture adoption and heritage culture maintenance as conflicting orientations. Manipulating either maintenance or adoption affected Flemish majority members’ perceptions of Turkish minorities’ maintenance and adoption but in opposite directions. These results clarify why many majority group members have doubts concerning the integration of Turkish minorities.
A Household-Based Convoy and the Reciprocity of Support Exchange Between Adult Children and Noncoresiding Parents

In response to the transition of the social support structure under rapid population change, this article proposes a four-layer household-based convoy to fully depict support structures. The four layers are referred to as the household type, family network, kinship network, and social network from the innermost to the outermost layer. The 2001 Taiwan Social Change Survey (Chang & Fu, 2002) is used to construct the household-based convoy. The results of this study show that the reciprocity of social support is mainly affected by support strategies that are probably because of spatial separation among family members. Different strategies are employed based on the nature of the social support.
Attitudes towards patients with a diagnosis of ‘borderline personality disorder’: Social rejection and dangerousness

Background: Social stigma has long been associated with mental illness labels, however few studies have evaluated the labelling effects of the psychiatric diagnosis ‘borderline personality disorder’ (BPD). Aims: To evaluate the effects of the label BPD on staff attitudes and perceptions. Methods: Nursing staff completed questionnaires relating to three psychiatric label conditions; BPD, schizophrenia and depression. Measures of dangerousness, social distance, optimism for change and ratings of personal experiences were evaluated in a repeated measures factorial design, with staff qualification as the between-groups variable. Results: Registered Mental Health Nurses (RMNs) expressed less social rejection towards patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and perceived them to be less dangerous than patients with a BPD label. Health Care Assistants (HCAs) made no such distinctions on these measures. Staff were least optimistic about patients with a BPD diagnosis and were more negative about their experience of working with this group compared to the other patient groups. Conclusions: Staff were least optimistic about patients with a BPD label and were more negative about their experience of working with this group. Only RMNs distinguished between those with a BPD and schizophrenia label on measures of dangerousness and social distance. Explanations, clinical practice and the broader implications relating to mental health legislation are explored. Declaration of interest: None.
A study on profile characteristics of men and women extension officers and their job performance and job satisfaction

A study carried out during 2004-05 on extension officers of KSDA to ascertain their job performance and job satisfaction revealed that the variables namely; age, experience, job stress, organizational commitment and job satisfaction were significantly correlated with job performance. Among men extension officers age, experience and annual income were significant but had negative relationship with job performance. Whereas, among women extension officers age, experience and information seeking behaviour were found significant. Results from multiple regression analysis followed by step-wise multiple regression showed that job involvement, job stress, organizational climate, information seeking behaviour and achievement motivation were the five major factors affecting the job satisfaction of extension officers of KSDA.
Channel estimation via oblique matching pursuit for FDD massive MIMO downlink

We consider channel estimation for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems operating in frequency division duplexing (FDD) mode. By exploiting the sparsity of significant propagation paths in massive MIMO channels, we develop a compressed sensing (CS) based channel estimator that can reduce the pilot overhead as compared with the conventional least squares (LS) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimators. The proposed scheme is based on the oblique matching pursuit (ObMP), an extension of the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP), that can exploit prior information about the sparse signal vector. Given the channel covariance matrix, we obtain the incidence probability that each quantized angle coincides with the angle-of-departure (AoD) and use the incidence probability for deriving the oblique operator of the proposed scheme. The pilot sequence is designed to minimize the MSE of the oracle estimator. The simulation results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed scheme over various existing methods including the LS, MMSE and OMP estimators.
Patch testing with the “sesquiterpene lactone mix”: a marker for contact allergy to Compositae and other sesquiterpene‐lactone‐containing plants A multicentre study of the EECDRG

6278 patients were patch tested with a sesquiterpene lactone mix (SL‐mix) in 10 European clinics. 4011 patients were tested only with 0.1% SL‐mix. 63 (approximately 1.5%) of whom were positive, with 26 (41%) of these cases being considered clinically relevant. There were no cases of active sensitization occurred though 5 eases of irritation were reported. 22 irritant reactions and 22 cases of active sensitization occurred when testing also with 1% and 0.33% concentrations of SL‐mix. SL‐mix 0.1% pet is shown to be an important patch test and many relevant sensitizations will be missed without routine screening with such a mix. Most patients with SL‐mix sensitivity presented with hand and/or face dermatitis, apparent photodermatitis or more generalised eczema.
Unidirectional Influx and Net Accumulation of PIB

The compound {N-methyl-[11C]}2-(4’-methylaminophenyl)-6-hydroxybenzothiazole, “PIB”, measured by positron emission tomography, has been demonstrated to image brain β-amyloid deposition in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the present study the benefit of measuring the PIB accumulation rate together with the unidirectional influx of PIB into the brain was investigated in healthy control subjects and patients with AD. In a monkey changes in the influx rate constant K1 of PIB closely followed changes in CBF, caused by alteration of PaCO2. In addition, K1 was high both in the monkey and in humans, suggesting that this parameter reflects CBF. Most AD patients studied showed clearly higher accumulation rate for PIB than the controls in cortical brain areas, while a few patients showed as low accumulation as the controls. K1 did not correlate with the accumulation rate, indicating that K1 for PIB provides extra information besides the accumulation rate.
Why are doctors so unhappy?

Editor—As an economist who has spent the past 30 years looking at health care all round the world, may I suggest that frustration and perhaps boredom play a part in the anger of doctors and contribute to their unhappiness, as described by Smith in his editorial? 1 This is aside from what I accept are genuine conflicts between levels of public funding and clinical aspirations to help patients. Looking at other professions, I note that people advance through their careers, their work changes, and they build teams and grow their businesses. Some stay in single practice, but many move into management, with changes periodically in their working life. Similarly, economists like me have a wide range of research and travel as part of our work, and we manage teams on a diversity of projects. I have no idea what I will be doing in September this year, but I am confident that it will be interesting. Contrast these professional lives with those of doctors. General practitioners may have opportunities to develop their management skills but in an environment where the management structures and self employed status of colleagues make this far from easy. And someone has to see the patients each week. Consultants have more of the variety and team building mentioned, but, again, their work plans look very much the same—year in, year out—to the outsider. This leads me to my conclusion. Might the calibre of people recruited to medicine be too high for the job, not necessarily for the technical elements but for the pattern of work once general practitioner or consultant status is reached? Is a degree of frustration inevitable given doctors' abilities and the relative consistency of the job beyond the age of 30 or 35? Are many years of clinical practice consistent with the job enrichment that able people may want as their career develops?
Heel and Toe Clearance Estimation for Gait Analysis Using Wireless Inertial Sensors

Tripping is considered a major cause of fall in older people. Therefore, foot clearance (i.e., height of the foot above ground during swing phase) could be a key factor to better understand the complex relationship between gait and falls. This paper presents a new method to estimate clearance using a foot-worn and wireless inertial sensor system. The method relies on the computation of foot orientation and trajectory from sensors signal data fusion, combined with the temporal detection of toe-off and heel-strike events. Based on a kinematic model that automatically estimates sensor position relative to the foot, heel and toe trajectories are estimated. 2-D and 3-D models are presented with different solving approaches, and validated against an optical motion capture system on 12 healthy adults performing short walking trials at self-selected, slow, and fast speed. Parameters corresponding to local minimum and maximum of heel and toe clearance were extracted and showed accuracy ± precision of 4.1 ± 2.3 cm for maximal heel clearance and 1.3 ± 0.9 cm for minimal toe clearance compared to the reference. The system is lightweight, wireless, easy to wear and to use, and provide a new and useful tool for routine clinical assessment of gait outside a dedicated laboratory.
Changes in Intracellular Calcium and Glutathione in Astrocytes as the Primary Mechanism of Amyloid Neurotoxicity

Although the accumulation of the neurotoxic peptide β amyloid (βA) in the CNS is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, the mechanism of βA neurotoxicity remains controversial. In cultures of mixed neurons and astrocytes, we found that both the full-length peptide βA (1–42) and the neurotoxic fragment (25–35) caused sporadic cytoplasmic calcium [intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]c)] signals in astrocytes that continued for hours, whereas adjacent neurons were completely unaffected. Nevertheless, after 24 hr, although astrocyte cell death was marginally increased, ∼50% of the neurons had died. The [Ca2+]c signal was entirely dependent on Ca2+ influx and was blocked by zinc and by clioquinol, a heavy-metal chelator that is neuroprotective in models of Alzheimer's disease. Neuronal death was associated with Ca2+-dependent glutathione depletion in both astrocytes and neurons. Thus, astrocytes appear to be the primary target of βA, whereas the neurotoxicity reflects the neuronal dependence on astrocytes for antioxidant support.
When projects of ‘empowerment’ don’t liberate: Locating agency in a ‘postcolonial’ peace education

By juxtaposing male secondary student and teacher classroom practices with a postcolonial analysis of the structural and discursive forces that characterize education reform in Jordan, this study draws attention to the ways that authoritarian regimes may coopt peace education language and concepts, such as ‘dialogue’ and ‘empowerment’, to create a democratic veneer for neoliberal educational projects. Jordanian (along with other Arab and Muslim) male youth are often discursively positioned in transnational accounts as objects of educational intervention requiring assistance to become democratic and empowered citizens rather than subjects of self-empowerment. Employing a postcolonial framework of centering ‘marginalized’ voices, then, challenges prevalent cultural representations of Jordanian youth as ‘vulnerable’ and allows scholars and practitioners to see how students enact agency and contest sociopolitical norms in everyday practices of schooling. Using ethnographic data collected in two government secondary schools in Jordan, the author highlights satirical practices in different venues as a means by which male secondary students subvert such structural constraints and exercise transformative agency in schools. These findings are then related back to the need for critical educators to engage with local knowledge and meanings to become more effective practitioners and scholars in the field across diverse sociopolitical and economic contexts.
Worst-case System Identification using Binary Sensors : Input Design and Time Complexity

Binary-valued sensors are widespread in monitoring and con trol systems, due to both simplicity of use and low cost. This paper addresses system identification using binary-valued sensors in a worstcase set-membership setting. The main contribution is the s olution of the optimal input design problem for identification of scalar gains. Two different cost funct ions are considered for input design: the maximum parametric identification error and the relative un certainty reduction with respect to the minimum achievable error. It is shown that in the latter case , th solution enjoys the property of being independent on the length of the identification experiment a nd s such it can be implemented as an optimal recursive procedure over a time interval of arbitra ry length. A further contribution is a new upper bound on time complexity for identification of FIR mode ls, which improves over existing bounds in the literature. The resulting input sequence can be combi ned with the optimal input design strategy for scalar gains, in order to devise suboptimal input signal s for identification of FIR models of arbitrary order.
Centroid based Binary Tree Structured SVM for multi classification

Support Vector Machines (SVMs) were primarily designed for 2-class classification. But they have been extended for N-class classification also based on the requirement of multiclasses in the practical applications. Although N-class classification using SVM has considerable research attention, getting minimum number of classifiers at the time of training and testing is still a continuing research. We propose a new algorithm CBTS-SVM (Centroid based Binary Tree Structured SVM) which addresses this issue. In this we build a binary tree of SVM models based on the similarity of the class labels by finding their distance from the corresponding centroids at the root level. The experimental results demonstrates the comparable accuracy for CBTS with OVO with reasonable gamma and cost values. On the other hand when CBTS is compared with OVA, it gives the better accuracy with reduced training time and testing time. Furthermore CBTS is also scalable as it is able to handle the large data sets.
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF TWO VERSIONS OF THE STUDENT PRIOR ATTITUDE SCALE (SPA)

It is not uncommon for students to have preconceptions of a class before it begins. These preconceptions may come from information about a class, often through word of mouth, or knowledge that the class requires skills inconsistent with the student’s skill set. These preconceptions of a class may have a positive or negative effect on how a student initially feels about the class, and may, in fact, have an effect on endof-term student evaluations. Since student evaluations are often used for personnel decisions, it is vital that these evaluations be reliable and valid. This study reports on the development and validation of a scale, the Student Prior Attitude (SPA) scale, to measure the degree to which students are engaged/disengaged, interested/uninterested, or excited/unexcited to be taking a class before the class even begins. Both an 11-item and a 4-item scale are investigated for reliability and validity. Possible uses of the scales are discussed and descriptive data from the sample are reported for both scales. Implications for future research are discussed.
Aclidinium inhibits cholinergic and tobacco smoke-induced MUC5AC in human airways

Mucus hypersecretion and mucin MUC5AC overexpression are pathological features of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study examines the inhibitory effect of aclidinium, a new long-acting muscarinic antagonist, on MUC5AC expression in human airway epithelial cells. MUC5AC mRNA (RT-PCR) and protein expression (ELISA and immunohistochemistry) were studied in human bronchial tissue and differentiated human airway epithelial cells activated with carbachol (100 &mgr;M) or cigarette smoke extract in the absence or presence of aclidinium. Carbachol increased MUC5AC mRNA and protein expression in human bronchus and cultured epithelial cells. Aclidinium inhibited the carbachol-induced MUC5AC mRNA and protein expression with potency (half maximal inhibitory concentration) ∼1 nM in human bronchus and cultured airway epithelial cells. AG1478, a selective inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase, inhibited carbachol-induced MUC5AC responses, indicating EGFR transactivation. Aclidinium inhibited carbachol-induced phospho-EGFR and phospho-p44/42 MAPK expression. In cultured airway epithelial cells transfected with small interfering (si)RNA against muscarinic receptor subtypes, siRNA-M3 but not siRNA-M2 blocked carbachol-induced MUC5AC expression. Cigarette smoke-induced MUC5AC upregulation in cultured airway epithelial cells was suppressed by aclidinium. In conclusion, aclidinium decreases carbachol and tobacco smoke-induced MUC5AC overexpression in human airway epithelial cells. This effect may contribute to the clinical efficacy of aclidinium in mucus hypersecretory diseases including COPD.
Subjective QoE assessment on video service: Laboratory controllable approach

This paper introduces research that addresses the subjective assessment of Quality of Experience (QoE) during the entire life cycle of a video session. We define a video session life cycle as the time from when a user attempts to initiate playback, until such time that the video ends either from normal video conclusion or through a network-induced failure. We provide a detailed description of our assessment methodology designed to discern whether a user's QoE would be impacted by the presence of failures. To accomphsh this, we carefully select various test conditions to take into consideration the rating scale used, the types of impairments and failures seen by the user, and whether impaired videos are seen together with failed videos in multi-video sessions. The selection and creation of source video sequences are also discussed, as well as the use of between-subjects and within-subjects approaches for running our experiments in a controlled laboratory setting. Statistical analysis was carried out to interpret our experimental results. We compared the results of the between-subjects measures and the results of the within-subjects measures, and concluded that the introduction of a scale with an extended lower bound enabled subjects to more clearly express their dissatisfaction of videos with failures when compared to the traditional ITU 5-point rating scale. In addition, we observed that videos that were simply impaired but concluded normally did not have a statistically significant difference when an extended scale was used.
The Internet and American Political Campaigns

Abstract This article provides an overview of major research findings regarding the Internet and American political campaigns. This is still a nascent subfield, but the research community has come to general agreement on five key points: (1) at the mass behavioral level, the Internet has not changed fundamental participatory inequalities; (2) we have seen an increase in small-donor activity, and these donations tend to flow toward polarizing candidates; (3) for political campaign operations, “mundane mobilization tools” carry the largest impacts; (4) with political campaigns, the new focus on data analytics and the “culture of testing” is substantially changing resource expenditures and work routines; and (5) there is currently a clear partisan divide between how Democrats and Republicans employ digital technology for campaigning. The article also discusses the methodological challenges that separate Internet-related research from many of the more established fields of campaign finance-related research. It concludes by posing a set of research questions for the 2014 and 2016 election cycles which will likely prove fruitful.
Antimicrobial resistance and molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This study aimed to characterize Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) strains isolated from human infections in Mongolia. Infection samples were collected at two time periods (2007–08 and 2011) by the National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. S. aureus isolates were characterized using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for mecA, PVL, and sasX genes and tested for agr functionality. All isolates were also spa typed. A subset of isolates selected by frequency of spa types was subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing and multilocus sequence typing. Among 251 S. aureus isolates, genotyping demonstrated methicillin resistance in 8.8% of isolates (22/251). Approximately 28% of the tested S. aureus isolates were observed to be multidrug resistant (MDR). Sequence type (ST) 154 (spa t667) was observed to be a strain with high virulence potential, as all isolates for this spa type were positive for PVL, had a functional agr system and 78% were MDR. S. aureus isolates of ST239 (spa t037) were observed to cause infections and roughly 60% had functional agr system with a greater proportion being MDR. Additionally, new multilocus sequence types and new spa types were identified, warranting continued surveillance for S. aureus in this region.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-evidence of early denervation of fast-twitch muscles

In the SOD transgenic ALS mouse model, motoneuron death has not been reported earlier than 90 days of age, the so-called pre-symptomatic phase. We recorded contractile force from the fast-twitch medial gastrocnemius and slow-twitch soleus muscles and their constituent motor units to determine the number of intact motor units during the asymptomatic phase of disease. We found an early, selective and progressive loss of the largest and fastest motor units in the MG muscle. No such loss was evident in the slowtwitch soleus muscle. This data indicates selective axon die-back of the motoneurons that innervate the largest and fastest motor units. This die-back occurs prior to the death of the motoneurons in the spinal cord. Evidence of fiber-type conversions to more fatigueresistant motor units suggested that this early loss may be slowed by increasing neuromuscular activity.