Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teaching and assessing critical thinking: The interaction of student approaches to learning and teaching approaches

This study explored the relationship among student approaches to learning and teaching methods on critical thinking in two business units. Key findings included differences in critical thinking scores between student approaches to learning and some evidence of an interaction between student approaches to learning and critical thinking teach method (immersion vs. infusion). Possible explanations for the results are examined and implications for developing critical thinking skills across a degree discussed. What is apparent is that as Universities move towards program-wide level assessment of critical thinking, further work is required in terms of the design of critical thinking teaching interventions and assessment at the unit, school, and degree level. The session will discuss the challenges in developing critical thinking programs in individual units and at the Faculty level.
Splicing Programs and Cancer

Numerous studies report splicing alterations in a multitude of cancers by using gene-by-gene analysis. However, understanding of the role of alternative splicing in cancer is now reaching a new level, thanks to the use of novel technologies allowing the analysis of splicing at a large-scale level. Genome-wide analyses of alternative splicing indicate that splicing alterations can affect the products of gene networks involved in key cellular programs. In addition, many splicing variants identified as being misregulated in cancer are expressed in normal tissues. These observations suggest that splicing programs contribute to specific cellular programs that are altered during cancer initiation and progression. Supporting this model, recent studies have identified splicing factors controlling cancer-associated splicing programs. The characterization of splicing programs and their regulation by splicing factors will allow a better understanding of the genetic mechanisms involved in cancer initiation and progression and the development of new therapeutic targets.
Training Students with Mental Retardation to Self-Pace while Exercising

This report describes an effort to train adolescents and young adults with mental retardation to modify their rates of pedaling exercycles during 10-min self-paced exercise sessions in a public school setting using commercially available heart rate (HR) monitors. A signal sounded when participants’ heart rates fell outside their predetermined cardiorespiratory conditioning ranges. During Study 1 most participants consistently avoided the alarm by pedaling at rates that maintained their HRs above their criterion levels. Study 2 included a more intensive warm-up period on the treadmill. All subjects but one consistently responded to the signal, maintaining HRs within the criterion range. Two of the participants in Study 2 were exposed to a positive reinforcement condition, with music contingent on maintaining HRs above a preset lower limit. Two subjects participated in maintenance phases and continued to exhibit relatively high HRs during exercise in the absence of signals from the HR monitor.
MIBES 2007 440 The impact of financial structure on profitability : Study of Pakistan ’ s Textile Sector

Despite of substantial theoretical developments in the field of corporate finance over the past several decades, the rift between theory and practice still needs to be reconciled. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between capital structure and the financial performance of textile sector of Pakistan, by using panel data extracted from the financial statements of the companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. The rational behind the industry specific analysis is the fact that exogenous variables appear to force firms in the same industry in similar fashion, thus leading to the existence of an industry specific capital structure. It is found that a significant positive relationship exists between the short term debt and profitability and statistically significant negative relationship between long term debt and profitability. The results are partially consistent with the previous studies as the negative relationship between long term debt and the firm performance tends to sport the dominant pecking order theory. The association of short term debt and the financial performance in contrast attests the static trade-off theory. Total debt as a whole has no association with the firm’s performance because of the inherited different characteristics of short term debt and long term debt.
Linguistic projection and the ownership of English: solidarity and power with the English language in Egypt

I would like to start by thanking Dr. Phyllis Wachob to agree to be the First Reader of this thesis. Her many suggestions and detailed review of the drafts of this work were of great importance to me. Dr. Lori Fredricks and Dr. Robert Williams provided valuable suggestions that significantly impacted the study. I would also like to thank Dr. Atta Gebril for encouraging me from the beginning to undertake this work. Elizabeth Arrigoni identified people important to talk to as I developed this study. Sophie Farag, the coordinator of the Intensive English Program, introduced me to the students of the IEP and gave me valuable suggestions for questions to ask participants. George Marquis was kind enough to ask instructors in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition to request their students to complete the questionnaire. Ola Anwar, Manager of Institutional Surveys at the AUC Institutional Research office, facilitated the process needed to send the questionnaire to the undergraduate student population. Maida Torossian always kept me up-to-date on all matters regarding the thesis. Howaida Omar, a colleague and friend, gave much of her valuable time to discuss the data with me in her capacity as peer reviewer. I thank my parents, Judith and Walter Lewko, as well as Katelynn, Brittany, Kelsey, Laury, and Gary Saunders for their love and support throughout this process. Finally, I would like to thank my loving wife Erika. Without her love and encouragement, this project would not have been possible.
Medication non-adherence in bipolar disorder: A patient-centered review of research findings

Medication non-adherence in bipolar disorder is associated with recurrence of mania, suicidality, hospital readmission, and subsequent non-response. To evaluate the prevalence and predictors of this problem we identified 25 papers on medication adherence published between 1979 and 2004. Non-adherence ranged from 23% to 68% and the most consistent risk factors were: co-morbid personality or substance abuse disorders; self-report of side effects; single marital status/living alone; limited family or clinician support; and limited insight/knowledge about bipolar disorder. Variability in definitions, measurement and sampling, and insufficient multidimensional studies may contribute to the high number of inconsistent findings. Research guidelines are therefore needed to foster more systematic work on medication adherence in bipolar disorder. Future studies should assess family attitudes, patient self-efficacy and clinical, medication and sociodemographic factors; the results should help develop interventions targeted at non-adherence in bipolar disorder.
Th17-Associated Cytokines as a Therapeutic Target for Steroid-Insensitive Asthma

Steroid-insensitive asthma is an infrequent but problematic airway disease that presents with persistent symptoms, airflow limitation, or recurrent exacerbations even when treated with steroid-based therapies. Because of unsatisfactory results obtained from currently available therapies for steroid-insensitive asthma, a better understanding of its pathogenesis and the development of new targeted molecular therapies are warranted. Recent studies indicated that levels of interleukin (IL)-17 are increased and both eosinophils and neutrophils infiltrate the airways of severe asthmatics. IL-17 is a proinflammatory cytokine mainly secreted from helper T (Th) 17 cells and is important for the induction of neutrophil recruitment and migration at sites of inflammation. This review focuses on the pathogenetic role of Th17 cells and their associated cytokines in steroid-insensitive asthma and discusses the prospects of novel therapeutic options targeting the Th17 signaling pathway.
Endometrial Stromal Sarcoma of the Uterus: Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings Including Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Value and Its Correlation With Ki-67 Expression

Objective This study aimed to investigate the conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) features of endometrial stromal sarcoma (ESS) including a preliminary investigation of the correlation between the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value and Ki-67 expression. Methods The clinical and MRI data of 15 patients with ESS confirmed by surgery and pathology were analyzed retrospectively. The conventional MR morphological features, signal intensity on DWI, ADC value (n = 14), and clinicopathological marker Ki-67 (n = 13) were evaluated. Results Of 15 patients with ESS, 13 tumors were low-grade ESS (LGESS), and the remaining 2 were high-grade ESS (HGESS); 9 tumors were located in the myometrium, 5 were located in the endometrium and/or cervical canal, and 1 was located in extrauterine. Thirteen (87%) of 15 tumors showed a homo- or heterogeneous isointensity on T1-weighted imaging and a heterogeneous hyperintensity on T2-weighted imaging. The hypointense bands were observed in 11 tumors (73%) on T2-weighted imaging. The degenerations (cystic/necrosis/hemorrhage) were observed in 7 LGESS tumors and 2 HGESS tumors. The DWI hyperintensity was observed in 13 tumors (93%) and isointensity in remaining 1. The mean ADC value of the solid components in 14 ESSs was (1.05 ± 0.20) × 10−3mm2/s. The contrast-enhanced MRI showed an obvious enhancement in 14 tumors (93%) (heterogeneous in 7 LGESSs and 2 HGESSs; homogeneous in 5 LGESSs). The ADC value was inversely correlated with the Ki-67 expression (r = −0.613, P = 0.026). Conclusions Patients with ESS showed some characteristics on conventional MRI and DWI, and there was an inverse correlation between the ADC value and Ki-67 expression.
Agonist-evoked Mitochondrial Ca2+ Signals in Mouse Pancreatic Acinar Cells*

In the present study we have investigated cytosolic and mitochondrial Ca2+ signals in isolated mouse pancreatic acinar cells double-loaded with the fluorescent probes fluo-3 and rhod-2. Stimulation of pancreatic acinar cells with 500 nm acetylcholine caused release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores and produced cytosolic Ca2+ signals in form of Ca2+ waves propagating from the luminal to the basal cell pole. The increase in the cytosolic Ca2+concentration was followed by Ca2+ uptake into mitochondria. Between onset of cytosolic and mitochondrial Ca2+ signals there was a delay of 10.7 ± 0.4 s. Ca2+ uptake into mitochondria could be inhibited with Ruthenium Red and carbonyl cyanidem-chlorophenylhydrazone, whereas 2,5-di-tert-butylhydroquinone, which inhibits sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPases, did not prevent Ca2+ accumulation in mitochondria. Carbonyl cyanidem-chlorophenylhydrazone-induced Ca2+ release from mitochondria could only be observed after a preceding stimulation of the cell with a physiological agonist or by treatment with 2,5-di-tert-butylhydroquinone, indicating that under resting conditions mitochondria do not contain releasable Ca2+ ions. Analysis of the propagation rate of acetylcholine-induced Ca2+ waves revealed that inhibition of mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake did not accelerate spreading of cytosolic Ca2+ signals. Our experiments indicate that in the early phase of secretagogue-induced Ca2+ signals, mitochondria behave as passive Ca2+-buffering elements and do not actively suppress spreading of Ca2+ signals in pancreatic acinar cells.
The complete mitochondrial genome of Sillago sihama (Perciformes: Sillaginidae)

Abstract In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of Sillago sihama has been determined by long polymerase chain reaction and primer walking methods. The complete mitochondrial genome is a circular molecule of 17 003 bp in length and contains 37 mitochondrial genes and a control region. Within the control region, we identified the variable number tandem repeats, as well as the termination-associated sequence domain (TAS), the central conserved sequence block domains (CSB-F∼CSB-A) and the conserved sequence block domains (CSB-1, CSB-2, and CSB-3).
Laboratory Variables as Additional Staging Parameters in Patients with Small-Cell Lung Carcinoma. A Systematic Review

Abstract We have reviewed the biomedical literature published over the last 25 years in order to try to establish which of four frequently evaluated laboratory parameters (i.e. serum, or plasma, NSE, LDH, sodium or albumin) might, alone or in combination, give the "best" pretreatment prognostic information in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients, independent of the usual radiological and clinical parameters. From the 45 studies included in this review, the only clear conclusion that can be derived is that it has not yet been clearly demonstrated that the "new" tests (NSE or other tumor markers) are superior to the "old" tests (LDH, sodium, albumin etc.). From the only seven studies that used the same powerful statistical methodologies (Cox's models in association with recursive partitioning and amalgamation proceduce (RECPAM) analysis) it could be concluded that LDH and albumin might have independent prognostic significance in SCLC and in advanced SCLC respectively. Provided that, in the future, both laboratory and statistical expertises are clearly guaranteed in the primary studies in this field, it might become possible to propose laboratory parameters as additional staging parameters in SCLC.
Depth of emotional experience and outcome

Abstract The relationship between theme-related depth of experiencing (EXP) and outcome was explored in experiential therapy with depressed clients. The study sought to investigate whether depth of EXP predicts outcome, whether change in depth of EXP over therapy predicts outcome, and how these factors compare with the therapeutic alliance as predictors of outcome. The sample consisted of 35 clients, each of whom received 16 to 20 weeks of therapy. Themes that had emerged across therapy were identified. Depth of EXP was measured in relation to themes in one early session and in three sessions sampled from blocks across the last half of therapy. Analyses revealed that EXP on core themes in the last half of therapy was a significant predictor of reduced symptom distress and increased self-esteem. EXP did not correlate significantly with changes on the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems. EXP on core themes also accounted for outcome variance over and above that accounted for by early EXP and alliance.
Learning to Discover Key Moments in Social Media Streams

This paper introduces LABurst, a general technique for identifying key moments, or moments of high impact, in social media streams without the need for domain-specific information or seed keywords. We leverage machine learning to model temporal patterns around bursts in Twitter's unfiltered public sample stream and build a classifier to identify tokens experiencing these bursts. We show LABurst performs competitively with existing burst detection techniques while simultaneously providing insight into and detection of unanticipated moments. To demonstrate our approach's potential, we compare two baseline event-detection algorithms with our language-agnostic algorithm to detect key moments across three major sporting competitions: 2013 World Series, 2014 Super Bowl, and 2014 World Cup. Our results show LABurst outperforms a time series analysis baseline and is competitive with a domain-specific baseline even though we operate without any domain knowledge. We then go further by transferring LABurst's models learned in the sports domain to the task of identifying earthquakes in Japan and show our method detects large spikes in earthquake-related tokens within two minutes of the actual event.
Expression of pentraxin 3 (PTX3) in human atherosclerotic lesions

Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) and C‐reactive protein (CRP) are members of the pentraxin superfamily. PTX3 expression is induced in response to inflammatory signals, and is produced at sites of inflammation by several types of cell, primarily monocytes/macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells (SMCs), and fibroblasts, but is not produced by hepatocytes, which are a major source of CRP. The aim of our study was to investigate the expression pattern of PTX3 in human atherosclerotic lesions using a novel monoclonal antibody against PTX3. We examined coronary arterial thrombi containing an atherosclerotic plaque component removed from patients with acute myocardial infarction and human aortic tissues with various degrees of atherosclerosis sampled from autopsy cases. Immunohistochemical study of paraffin and frozen sections indicated that macrophages, mainly foam cells, expressed PTX3 in advanced atherosclerotic lesions. Interestingly, we also clearly observed PTX3‐positive neutrophils infiltrating into atherosclerotic plaques, suggesting that PTX3 derived from neutrophils as well as macrophages plays an important role in atherogenesis. Copyright © 2008 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Ileal Perforation in a Patient with Ulcerative Colitis after Proctocolectomy

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a form of inflammatory bowel disease that typically involves the colorectum; it has been reported that a certain proportion of patients with UC also develop ileitis, leading to ileal perforation in very extreme cases. We report a 66-year-old male with UC who presented with ileal perforation eight days after proctocolectomy. Although this situation is very rare, differential diagnoses for small bowel perforation after UC surgery could include backwash ileitis, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, Crohn’s disease, diffuse enteritis, ischemic enteritis, Behcet’s disease, medication adverse effect, and iatrogenic injury. Of these, backwash ileitis or diffuse enteritis is the most probable diagnosis in our case. Granulomas and transmural lymphoid aggregates with associated mucosal ulceration were absent. In addition, no signs or symptoms suggestive of Crohn’s disease were seen postoperatively. Thus, the original diagnosis was likely fulminant UC. Infectious enteritis (including CMV), ischemic enteritis, and Behcet’s diseases were clinically ruled out. Stool cultures and CMV antigen testing were negative. Moreover, histopathology revealed no evidence of CMV infection. Only a few cases of ileal perforation after UC surgery have been reported thus far. Surgeons should evaluate for perforation of the small bowel intraoperatively. Resection of the affected ileum is still a matter of debate. Although the inflammation is usually reversible and preservation of the distal ileum is vital for the creation of an ileal pouch and the avoidance of high output, the rare possibility of ileal perforation should be kept in mind in extreme cases of fulminant UC.
Language communities in enterprise architecture research

As a result of the rigor vs. relevance debate, researchers who focus on design research on organizational problems are beginning to focus on their research methodology's rigor. One of the means to lever the standards is the explicit establishment of defined language communities. This paper investigates to what extent current design research focusing on organizational problems is satisfying the requirements to establish such language communities. As research on organizational problems in IS research is still a very broad field, this paper focuses on research on enterprise architecture (EA). It contributes a state of the art overview on EA research regarding the research methodology employed and their language community state. Results show that local language communities in EA research do exist, but still have to lever their standards---both regarding the quality of the language communities and the quality of the design research.
The Predictive Validity of the MCAT for Medical School Performance and Medical Board Licensing Examinations: A Meta-Analysis of the Published Research

Purpose To conduct a meta-analysis of published studies to determine the predictive validity of the MCAT on medical school performance and medical board licensing examinations. Method The authors included all peer-reviewed published studies reporting empirical data on the relationship between MCAT scores and medical school performance or medical board licensing exam measures. Moderator variables, participant characteristics, and medical school performance/medical board licensing exam measures were extracted and reviewed separately by three reviewers using a standardized protocol. Results Medical school performance measures from 11 studies and medical board licensing examinations from 18 studies, for a total of 23 studies, were selected. A random-effects model meta-analysis of weighted effects sizes (r) resulted in (1) a predictive validity coefficient for the MCAT in the preclinical years of r = 0.39 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.21–0.54) and on the USMLE Step 1 of r = 0.60 (95% CI, 0.50–0.67); and (2) the biological sciences subtest as the best predictor of medical school performance in the preclinical years (r = 0.32 95% CI, 0.21–0.42) and on the USMLE Step 1 (r = 0.48 95% CI, 0.41–0.54). Conclusions The predictive validity of the MCAT ranges from small to medium for both medical school performance and medical board licensing exam measures. The medical profession is challenged to develop screening and selection criteria with improved validity that can supplement the MCAT as an important criterion for admission to medical schools.
Detection of coronary stenoses by stress echocardiography using a previously implanted pacemaker for ventricular pacing: Preliminary report of a new method

Background: The number of patients with pacemakers has been increasing and a large number of them will present with chest pain or symptoms suggesting angina pectoris. Myocardial ischemia and presence of coronary artery disease are difficult to detect and assess by noninvasive methods in patients with a pacemaker; the electrocardiogram (ECG) at rest and during exercise is usually very difficult to analyze in terms of ischemia or even presence of an acute myocardial infarction.
Maximising Data Use: Mixed Qualitative Methods

Mixed Methodology is a new star in the social science sky. More and more researchers are discontent with mono-method concepts for their research projects. They are trying new ways in combining or integrating different methods and methodological approaches. There are two debates in this field: the qualitative * quantitative controversy and the one-method * multi-method discourse. This book discusses those controversies and tries to give some reasons and examples for overcoming mono-method research in psychology. We think the discussion of methodological topics should not be divided from specific research projects. Only in the context of a concrete research question it makes sense to consider adequate research methods. So the volume presents examples of mixed methodologies from different fields in psychology and education, from psychiatry to organisational psychology, from learning studies to media analysis. The studies are grouped into four sections: combining qualitative methods, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, access to individual experience by mixed methods and deeper understanding of findings by mixing methods The book is adressed to all students, researchers and methodological interested people in social sciences and especially in psychology.