Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Perspectives on the Integration of Immigrants

This paper discusses the question of whether or not the high incidence of poverty among immigrants in Norway persists even after immigrants have been in the country for a long period, that is, after they have had the opportunity to integrate and adapt their skills to the expectations in their new home. While similar to traditional studies of wage assimilation, a study of assimilation in relation to poverty propensity nevertheless measures something different than labor market assimilation, and this represents the main innovation of this study. Analysis of assimilation with respect to poverty focuses on welfare for the lower end of the income distribution and for all individuals, regardless of their relationship with the labor market. It can therefore be seen to better reflect the degree to which immigrants as a whole are able to achieve at least the minimum necessary to participate in the life of their new home and avoid difficulties later on.
The Impact of Persistent Deviant Sexual Interests and Persistent Low Self-Esteem on Sexual Homicide

Major commonalities among sexual homicide models include the presence of deviant sexual interests and low self-esteem. Using a sample of violent sexual offenders who have either physically injured or killed their victim (n = 229), the current study investigates the impact of persistent deviant sexual interest(s) and persistent low self-esteem on sexual homicide. Findings suggest that both persistent deviant sexual interests and persistent low self-esteem are important predictors of sexual homicide. These findings suggest that there is a group of sexual murderers with low self-esteem who are driven by deviant sexual interests and may kill to satisfy their deviant sexual interests.
Learning Conventions via Social Reinforcement Learning in Complex and Open Settings

This article explores the computation of conventions in agents' societies via social learning methods, when agents aim to perform tasks collaboratively with their acquaintances. The settings considered require agents to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously w.r. t. operational constraints, in coordination with their peers, even when they have limited monitoring and interaction abilities. In conjunction to that, agents have limited information about the potential strategies of others towards accomplishing tasks jointly, implying the need for coordination. The article formulates the problem as an MDP, and presents social reinforcement learning methods according to which agents interact concurrently with their acquaintances in their social contexts towards (a) learning about others' options and strategies to perform tasks, and (b) forming own strategies in coordination with others. The paper reports on the effectiveness of the learning methods w.r. t. to agents' constraints and limitations.
health in patients with rheumatoid arthritis Emotion regulation predicts change of perceived

Objectives: To examine whether emotion regulation predicts change of perceived health in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Sixty six patients (44 female, 22 male; mean (SD) age 57.7 (11.6) years) participated in a prospective study. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to predict change of perceived health between study entry and follow up (1 K years later) from the emotion regulation styles ambiguity, control, orientation, and expression at study entry. Results: Valuing and intensely experiencing emotions (emo-tional orientation) predicted a decrease of positive affect. Difficulty recognising and expressing emotions (ambiguity) predicted an increase of perceived disease activity. Emotion regulation showed no associations with change of negative affect and social and physical functioning. Conclusions: Two styles of emotion regulation were shown to have a significant though modest role in the prediction of perceived health change in patients with RA. This suggests that the monitoring of emotion regulation may help to identify patients who are at risk for a reduction of perceived health. If our findings were confirmed by experimental research, improving emotion regulation skills might favourably affect perceived health.
Fusion of High Resolution Aerial Multispectral and LiDAR Data: Land Cover in the Context of Urban Mosquito Habitat

Remotely sensed multi-spectral and -spatial data facilitates the study of mosquito-borne disease vectors and their response to land use and cover composition in the urban environment. In this study we assess the feasibility of integrating remotely sensed multispectral reflectance data and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)-derived height information to improve land use and land cover classification. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analyses were used to compare and contrast the enhancements and accuracy of the multi-sensor urban land cover classifications. Eight urban land-cover classes were developed for the city of Tucson, Arizona, USA. These land cover classes focus on pervious and impervious surfaces and microclimate landscape attributes that impact mosquito habitat such as water ponds, residential structures, irrigated lawns, shrubs and trees, shade, and humidity. Results show that synergistic use of LiDAR, multispectral and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data produced the most accurate urban land cover classification with a Kappa value of 0.88. Fusion of multi-sensor data leads to a better land cover product that is suitable for a variety of urban applications such as exploring the relationship between neighborhood composition and adult mosquito abundance data to inform public health issues.
Differentiation in outcome-focused physical education: pedagogical rhetoric and reality

Background: This study was grounded in the differentiated instructional model where teachers tailor content, process/support, and product in response to their students' levels of readiness and interest. The value of differentiated teaching is well established; however, the implementation of such a technique is difficult due to differences in student skills and preferences. Purpose: In this study, we sought to explore physical education (PE) teachers' perceptions about the need for differentiation in their swimming programs (i.e. the differentiation ‘rhetoric’), along with their actual use of differentiation strategies (i.e. the differentiation ‘reality’) in their swimming lessons. Participants: Three Western Australian high school Year 8 and Year 9 PE teachers (two from a non-government school and one from a government school), ranging in age from 25 to 39 years and with 5 to 15 years of PE teaching experience, participated in this study. The study involved four classes, totaling 103 students. Data collection: Teachers' perceptions about the need for differentiation, along with their actual use of differentiation strategies, were recorded using class observations (i.e. 36 lessons) and questionnaires and were supported by in-depth teacher interviews. Students from these classes were also targeted for observation and interview during a single school term. Data analysis: Observation data were inductively analyzed according to Tomlinson's model of differentiation. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, before transcripts were coded in order to identify recurring themes. Percentage yes/no scores were calculated for student questionnaire data. Findings: While successfully differentiating content and process/support in the swimming classroom, teachers infrequently differentiated for product (e.g. different forms of assessment). Moreover, the limitations of space/numbers, time, and student readiness impacted on the differentiation strategies and student learning opportunities and outcomes. Conclusion: Implementing a differentiated approach to swimming teaching appears to represent a significant challenge, though these data provide evidence of differentiated pedagogy that facilitated student learning outcomes.
Friend me: Which factors influence top global brands participation in social network sites

Purpose – This study focuses on how brands participate in social network sites (SNSs) and investigates both the different strategies they adopt and the factors that influence these strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The activities of top brands in SNSs were investigated through a content analysis of brand web sites in three countries, measuring two primary dimensions: presence in SNSs and level of engagement which the brand hoped to establish with stakeholders. The study then built logistic regression models to understand which factors drive brands to adopt and use SNSs, using insights from previous studies related to internet innovation adoption cycles.Findings – The study confirmed that SNS adoption follows a general path of Internet innovation adoption by brands. Industry markets exert influence, with technology and consumer intensive brands being more likely than all other industry segments to be present in SNSs and to participate at higher engagement levels, while brands targeting younger audie.
Therapeutic MUC 1-Based Cancer Vaccine Expressed in Flagella — Efficacy in an Aggressive Model of Breast Cancer

MUC1, a tumor-associated antigen overexpressed in many carcinomas, represents a candidate of choice for cancer immunotherapy. Flagella-based MUC1 vaccines were tested in therapeutic setting in two aggressive breast cancer models, comprising the implantation of the 4T1-MUC1 cell line in either Balb/c, or Human MUC1 transgenic mice in which spontaneous metastases occur. Recombinant flagella carrying only 7 amino acid of MUC1 elicited therapeutic activity, affecting both the growth of established growing tumors and the number of metastases. Higher therapeutic activity was achieved with an additional recombinant flagella designed with the SYFPEITHI algorithm. The vaccines triggered a Th1 response against MUC1 with no evident autoimmune response towards healthy MUC1-expressing tissues. Recombinant flagella carrying a 25-residue fragment of MUC1, induced the most effective response, as evidenced by a significant reduction of both the size and growth rate of the tumor as well as by the lower number of metastases, and expanding life span of vaccinated mice.
Growth and survival of aerial roots of hemiepiphytes in a lower montane tropical moist forest in Panama

Hemiepiphytic plants grow for part of their life as true epiphytes, then become terrestrial through the production of aerial roots that grow from the canopy to the ground. Long-term measurement of growth, dieback and mortality of aerial roots of hemiepiphytic plants in a lower montane moist tropical forest in western Panama was used to elucidate life-history strategies of hemiepiphytes from two families. The fates of 156 aerial roots of five species of Clusiaceae and Araceae were followed for 10 mo. Some roots were cut to experimentally study the effect of injury on resprouting and survival. Aerial roots of Araceae grew more than twice as fast as those of Clusiaceae but had a much greater mortality rate. Roots of both families grew much faster during the wet than dry season. Even for the fastest growing roots, growth and survival models suggest that only 18% of Araceae roots were likely to survive long enough to reach the ground from a branch 10 m high, whereas 87% of roots of Clusiaceae were likely to do so. This suggests that only those Araceae hemiepiphytes that produce a large number of aerial roots or are located close to the ground are likely to reach the soil.
Feeding forward: using feedback to promote student reflection and learning – a teaching model

Engaging in reflection is a vital part of learning for university students and its practice should be embedded in course design. Feedback on written work can be used as a vehicle for reflection. Both the gift and receipt of feedback and the habit of reflection require practice and capturing this experiential learning can be achieved in a class environment. This paper outlines how reflection on written feedback may be used formatively by teachers in a university context. The paper reports on the use of a simple tool, a self‐copying sheet, given to management undergraduates on the return of coursework, which engages students and captures their reflection on their feedback. The teaching model presented outlines an approach to reflective learning that recognises the need for students to engage with feedback in the classroom, to reflect on it and to feed forward to the next assessment, thus completing the learning cycle.
Improved quality and comprehensiveness in nursing documentation of pressure ulcers after implementing an electronic health record in hospital care.

AIMS One aim was to compare the quality and comprehensiveness in nursing documentation of pressure ulcers before and after implementation of an electronic health record in a hospital setting. Another aim was to investigate the use of preformulated templates for pressure ulcer recording in the electronic health record. BACKGROUND With the possibilities of the electronic health record to provide information and give accurate and reliable feedback to the healthcare organisation, it is of high priority to develop standardised documentation practices for various areas of care (e.g. such as pressure ulcer care). DESIGN A cross-sectional retrospective review of health records. METHODS Three departments in a Swedish university hospital participated. In 2002, there were 413 patients, including 59 paper-based records identified with notes on pressure ulcers and in 2006, 343 patients, including 71 electronic health records with pressure ulcer recording. Recorded data on pressure ulcers were retrospectively reviewed. Results. Significantly more patient records showed notes of pressure ulcer grade (p < 0.001), size (p = 0.004), risk assessment (p = 0.002), nursing history (p = 0.040), nursing diagnoses (p < 0.001), nursing goals (p < 0.001) and nursing outcomes (p = 0.016) in 2006 than in 2002. One third of the recordings used preformulated templates. CONCLUSIONS Although there were significant improvements in pressure ulcer recording after the change to the electronic health record, several deficiencies remained. Due to the short time of our follow-up after implementation of the electronic health record, we suspect that the quality of recording will improve when nurses become more familiar with the new system. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Education related to the use of the electronic health record and evidence-based pressure ulcer prevention should be provided to the nurses. To facilitate documentation, the templates need to be refined to be more user-friendly.
The Moderating Effect of Interaction Avoidance Between Abusive Supervision and Subordinates' Job Promotions

ABSTRACT While abusive supervision is shown to have negative stress-related effects on targets, less is known about the factors capable of mitigating these negative effects and their career-related outcomes. In this paper, we drew on the transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1986) and the upward mobility theory (Turner, 1960) to explore the moderating effect of subordinates' interaction avoidance between abusive supervision and job promotions. To test this moderating effect, we collected data from 604 full-time employees at three points in time over a 12-month time period in Japan. The findings suggest that interaction avoidance moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and promotions, such that this relationship will be less negative as interaction avoidance increases.
Review on Hydrogel-based pH Sensors and Microsensors

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels are materials with great potential for development of active functionalities in fluidics and micro-fluidics. Based on the current state of research on pH sensors, hydrogel sensors are described qualitatively and quantitatively for the first time. The review introduces the physical background of the special properties of stimuli-responsive hydrogels. Following, transducers are described which are able to convert the non-electrical changes of the physical properties of stimuli-responsive hydrogels into an electrical signal. Finally, the specific sensor properties, design rules and general conditions for sensor applications are discussed.
Optimistic planning for belief-augmented Markov Decision Processes

This paper presents the Bayesian Optimistic Planning (BOP) algorithm, a novel model-based Bayesian reinforcement learning approach. BOP extends the planning approach of the Optimistic Planning for Markov Decision Processes (OP-MDP) algorithm [10], [9] to contexts where the transition model of the MDP is initially unknown and progressively learned through interactions within the environment. The knowledge about the unknown MDP is represented with a probability distribution over all possible transition models using Dirichlet distributions, and the BOP algorithm plans in the belief-augmented state space constructed by concatenating the original state vector with the current posterior distribution over transition models. We show that BOP becomes Bayesian optimal when the budget parameter increases to infinity. Preliminary empirical validations show promising performance.
Querying Multimedia Presentations Based on Content

Considers the problem of querying multimedia presentations based on content information. Multimedia presentations are modeled as presentation graphs, which are directed acyclic graphs that visually specify the presentations. We present a graph data model for the specification of multimedia presentations and discuss query languages as effective tools to query and manipulate multimedia presentation graphs with respect to content information. To query the information flow throughout a multimedia presentation, as well as in each individual multimedia stream, we use revised versions of temporal operators Next, Connected and Until, together with path formulas. These constructs allow us to specify and query paths along a presentation graph. We present an icon-based graphical query language, GVISUAL, that provides iconic representations for these constructs and a user-friendly graphical interface for query specification. We also present an OQL-like language, GOQL (Graph OQL), with similar constructs, that allows textual and more traditional specifications of graph queries. Finally, we introduce GCalculus (Graph Calculus), a calculus-based language that establishes the formal grounds for the use of temporal operators in path formulas and for querying presentation graphs with respect to content information. We also discuss GCalculus/S (GCalculus with Sets) which avoids highly complex query expressions by eliminating the universal path quantifier, the negation operator and the universal quantifier. GCalculus/S represents the formal basis for GVISUAL, i.e. GVISUAL uses the constructs of GCalculus/S directly.
Behavioral and other characteristics of relevance for health in adolescents with self-perceived sleeping problems

AIM To study the associations between self-perceived sleeping problems and wide areas of adolescent life. METHODS All eligible adolescents 13-18 years old (3216 pupils) in a medium-sized town in Sweden completed a validated in-depth questionnaire (Q90), with 165 questions. RESULTS Nine hundred and thirty-two (29.3%) adolescents (36.3% among girls; 21.9% among boys) reported having poor sleep, combined with daytime tiredness in the vast majority. Significant independent associations in specific age and gender groups were found for 'feeling depressed', breakfast habits, 'I do well in school' (inverse), physical training (inverse), no adult to talk to, having bullied someone, shop-lifting, physical fighting, not feeling healthy, abdominal pain, headache, tobacco use, and sexual experience. CONCLUSIONS Many of these adolescents feel very poorly, as is evident from the magnitude of the problems. Poor sleepers form an easily recognized group, but it seems unlikely that therapy for sleeping problems alone would be successful in a large proportion of these adolescents.
Advanced synthetic aperture radar based on digital beamforming and waveform diversity

This paper introduces innovative SAR system concepts for the acquisition of high resolution radar images with wide swath coverage from spaceborne platforms. The new concepts rely on the combination of advanced multi-channel SAR front-end architectures with novel operational modes. The architectures differ regarding their implementation complexity and it is shown that even a low number of channels is already well suited to significantly improve the imaging performance and to overcome fundamental limitations inherent to classical SAR systems. The more advanced concepts employ a multidimensional encoding of the transmitted waveforms to further improve the performance and to enable a new class of hybrid SAR imaging modes that are well suited to satisfy hitherto incompatible user requirements for frequent monitoring and detailed mapping. Implementation specific issues will be discussed and examples demonstrate the potential of the new techniques for different remote sensing applications.
Genome-Wide Identification and Structural Analysis of bZIP Transcription Factor Genes in Brassica napus

The basic region/leucine zipper motif (bZIP) transcription factor family is one of the largest families of transcriptional regulators in plants. bZIP genes have been systematically characterized in some plants, but not in rapeseed (Brassica napus). In this study, we identified 247 BnbZIP genes in the rapeseed genome, which we classified into 10 subfamilies based on phylogenetic analysis of their deduced protein sequences. The BnbZIP genes were grouped into functional clades with Arabidopsis genes with similar putative functions, indicating functional conservation. Genome mapping analysis revealed that the BnbZIPs are distributed unevenly across all 19 chromosomes, and that some of these genes arose through whole-genome duplication and dispersed duplication events. All expression profiles of 247 bZIP genes were extracted from RNA-sequencing data obtained from 17 different B. napus ZS11 tissues with 42 various developmental stages. These genes exhibited different expression patterns in various tissues, revealing that these genes are differentially regulated. Our results provide a valuable foundation for functional dissection of the different BnbZIP homologs in B. napus and its parental lines and for molecular breeding studies of bZIP genes in B. napus.
Human Monocytes Use Rac1, Not Rac2, in the NADPH Oxidase Complex*

Phagocyte NADPH oxidase is critical for defense against pathogens and contributes to inflammatory tissue injury. One component of the NADPH oxidase complex is the small GTP-binding protein Rac. There are two isoforms of Rac, and Rac2 is the predominant isoform in neutrophils and has been shown to be essential for NADPH oxidase activity. In primary human monocytes we report that in contrast to neutrophils, Rac1 is the predominantly expressed isoform. Upon monocyte activation by a variety of agents, we found that Rac1 dissociates from Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor (RhoGDI) and translocates to the membrane. We also found that Rac1 interacts with two other NADPH oxidase components, p67phox and p47phox, upon monocyte activation. These data indicate that Rac1, and not Rac2, is a component of the activated NADPH oxidase in monocytes. This finding suggests that it may be possible to selectively interfere with either monocyte or neutrophil NADPH oxidase activity, thereby selectively targeting chronic versus acute inflammatory processes.