Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Task Types Effects and Task Involvement Load on Vocabulary Learning of EFL Learners

This study investigated the impact of task types on English learners’ receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. A total of 125 (70 female and 55 male) first year ELT students from eight intact classes taking Academic Reading Course in the winter semester of 2017-2018 were assigned to four experimental groups randomly and a control group randomly assigned to one of five tasks of learning 45 target words. The design of the tasks was based on the involvement load hypothesis (ILH) arguing that learning of unfamiliar words to be contingent on the amount of task induced involvement. The components of involvement in ILH include need (N), search (S), and evaluation (E). In this study, the tasks induced the same or different involvement loads regarding the presence and strength of each component: writing (+N, +S, ++E), combining (+N, –S, +E), fill in the blank (+N, –S, +E), definition (+N, –S, +E), and control (–N, –S, –E). After the last treatment session, both receptive and productive knowledge of the target words were measured. Moreover, an unexpected delayed post-test was administered 1 month later. The results revealed that all output tasks were more effective than the control task in enhancing the participants’ receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge.
Nucleosome positioning and energetics: Recent advances in genomic and computational studies

Chromatin is a complex of DNA, RNA and proteins whose primary function is to package genomic DNA into the tight confines of a cell nucleus. A fundamental repeating unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, an octamer of histone proteins around which 147 base pairs of DNA are wound in almost two turns of a left-handed superhelix. Chromatin is a dynamic structure which exerts profound influence on regulation of gene expression and other cellular functions. These chromatin-directed processes are facilitated by optimizing nucleosome positions throughout the genome and by remodeling nucleosomes in response to various external and internal signals such as environmental perturbations. Here we discuss large-scale maps of nucleosome positions made available through recent advances in parallel high-throughput sequencing and microarray technologies. We show that these maps reveal common features of nucleosome organization in eukaryotic genomes. We also survey computational models designed to predict nucleosome formation scores or energies, and demonstrate how these predictions can be used to position multiple nucleosome on the genome without steric overlap.
STUDIES ON THE EFFECT OF TRITON (WR-1339) ON GUINEA PIG TISSUES

Guinea pig red cells exposed to triton WR-1339 either in vitro or in vivo demonstrate an increased sensitivity to hemolysis by thermal shock. Although the sensitivity of guinea pig leucocytes to thermal shock remains unchanged after a single injection of triton, their resistance to disruption by acetone and by sonic vibration is increased significantly. Resistance to sonic vibration appears to be maximum within a few hours after injection and then it gradually wanes. Paraffin oil-induced peritoneal exudate cells (monocytes) and leucocytes from whole blood are rendered more resistant to disruption by sonic vibration when exposed to triton in vitro. These findings are discussed briefly in relation to the therapeutic effect of triton in experimental tuberculosis.
The element abundance FIP effect in the quiet sun

The Mg/Ne abundance ratio in the quiet Sun is measured in both network and supergranule cell centre regions through EUV spectra from the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer on SOHO. Twenty four sets of data over the period 1996 March to 1998 June (corresponding to solar minimum and the onset of the next cycle) are studied. Emission lines of the sequences Ne IV–VII and Mg V–VIII are simultaneously analysed by comparing with theoretical emissivities from the CHIANTI database to yield the Mg/Ne abundance and emission measure over the temperature region $5.0\le\log\,T\le 6.1$. The average enhancements over the photospheric Mg/Ne abundance are found to be $1.25\pm 0.10$ (network) and $1.66\pm 0.23$ (cell centres), implying that the structures making up the transition region have close-to photospheric abundances. In particular, this implies that only a small fraction of the quiet Sun can connect to the solar wind where the Mg/Ne abundance ratio is found to be factors 4–5 greater than the photospheric value. The quiet Sun spectra are also utilised to determine the coronal density and temperature, leading to average values of $2.6^{+0.5}_{-0.4}\times 10^8$ cm -3 and $\log\,(T/{\rm K})=5.95\pm 0.02$. No significant trend with the rise in solar activity during 1996–98 is found for any of the derived quantities, implying that quiet Sun regions show little dependence on the solar cycle.
Flow-Mediated Vasodilatation and Intima-Media Thickness in Patients with Coexisting Heart Failure and Diabetes Receiving Medical Therapy

Objective Intensive medical treatment of heart failure (HF) patients with diabetes may reduce the endothelial dysfunction and the accelerated atherosclerotic process seen in these patients. To study this, we investigated the endothelial function and the presence of atherosclerosis as measured by flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD) and intima-media thickness (IMT) in intensively treated patients with coexisting HF and diabetes. Research Design and Method FMD of the brachial artery and IMT of the common carotid arteries were determined in 26 patients with systolic HF and diabetes who were in intensive medical therapy, as well as in 19 healthy controls. The two groups were matched according to age and sex. In all subjects left ventricular ejection fraction was measured by two-dimensional echocardiography. Biochemical parameters including serum cholesterol, HDL and LDL, triglyceride, glucose, hemoglobin/hemoglobin-A1C (HbA1C), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal pro-BNP were also assessed. Results Mean FMD and IMT did not differ significantly between patients and controls. Left ventricular ejection fraction was lower in patients compared to controls (P < 0.001). The patients had a higher mean BNP, NT pro-BNP, triglyceride, HbA1C and glucose in comparison to controls. Cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were lower in patients compared to controls. Conclusions Intensively treated patients with coexisting systolic HF and diabetes seem to have normal endothelial function as measured by FMD and they have no sign of accelerated atherosclerosis as measured by IMT. This suggests a positive effect of medication on the cardiovascular alterations in this group of patients.
An Interrogation into Strategy-Technology Linkage at the Department of Immigration Services, Kenya

There exists a debate on the nature of strategy-technology linkage. Consensus is lacking on whether strategy informs technology, whether technology informs strategy, whether strategy and technology develop independently but match at a later stage, and whether there is no linkage between strategy and technology. This study aimed to find out the extant nature of strategy-technology linkage at the Department of Immigration Services, Kenya. Through a case study research design, primary data were obtained through personal interviews using a structured interview guide. The interviewees were top level managers comprising of the Director of Immigration Services and Assistant Directors of Immigration Services in charge of regions namely: Coast, Eastern, North Eastern, South Rift/Nairobi, North Rift/Western and Nyanza. The study also made use of secondary data from documents in the Department. The data gathered were then analyzed using thematic content analysis. The findings revealed presence of strategytechnology linkage at the Department of Immigration Services, Kenya. The nature cuts across the four thematic areas, but leans more towards strategy informing technology. Incidences supportive of the finding that technology informs strategy, strategy and technology develop independently but match at a later stage and no linkage between strategy and strategy were found but not as recurrent as those of strategy informing technology. The study findings largely support postulations of Configuration and Resource Based theories. The study concludes that strategy informs technology at the Department of Immigration Services, Kenya. For policy making, the study recommends the Department of Immigration Services expends more effort to develop a robust strategy that will inform appropriate technology with selective juxtapositions of technology informing strategy where necessary. For practice, the study recommends strategy-technology linkage that fits the environmental setting with a keen eye on the ever changing environment. The study acknowledged limitations on the contextual setting, design, data collection and analysis methods. The design was a case study which means findings might not be generalized. Data collection was through interviews and analysis was through content analysis, both viewed as largely subjective. Interviews were administered to only the top management within the department. Lower cadres were not represented. The study suggests for further research on the subject through different contextual settings, different designs and different instruments.
Association and Deployment Considerations in Dense Wireless LANs

Wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11 standard are one of the most commonplace indoor wireless access solutions. As the ever growing demand for data consumption necessitates higher rates and volumes, it is fairly common to observe more and more WLANs being deployed in close proximity to each other. As distances between WLAN installations diminish, the access points (APs) and stations (STAs) in these WLANs create a complex interference environment, which is also compounded by the indoor propagation environment. In this paper, we investigate the impact of two important parameters related to the deployment and operation of densely deployed wireless LANs on the aggregate throughput obtained by all the nodes in these WLANs. The first such operational parameter we investigate is access point and user station association; namely, whether STAs associate with a random "strong" AP or the AP from which they obtain the strongest received power. The second operational parameter we consider is the way in which APs are placed in the indoor environment; namely, whether APs are deployed randomly or in a manner to reduce inter-AP interference. In order to account for the complex node interactions in the MAC layer, which is crucial for accurate performance estimation, we perform packet-level simulations using OPNET. Our results show that the type of node association used in densely deployed WLANs has a critical impact on the aggregate throughput. In comparison, the type of AP deployment used is not nearly as significant; varying from moderate to no impact at all.
Matrices with large permanent [ 7 ]

My research interests are in discrete mathematics, which includes combinatorics, graph theory, and theoretical computer science. I tend to gravitate to problems that are easy to state yet have proved resistant to established approaches. I especially like problems that seem potentially amenable to other, ideally surprising areas of mathematics such as algebra, Fourier analysis, topology, and probability. I have written on diverse topics in discrete math including algorithms [14, 7], hypergraphs [17], sequences [15, 18], information theory [3], and extremal combinatorics [16, 13]. To provide a more cohesive narrative, I discuss here four papers connected not by content so much as by their association with a main theme of my research: probability in discrete mathematics. For easier reading, I begin with quick, high-level accounts followed by more detailed descriptions of each of the four. I conclude with some discussion of continuing research plans. Leonid Gurvits [24] proved that the permanent of an n × n matrix A over C is bounded by its operator norm via |perm(A)| ≤ A n. Motivated by questions related to boson sampling and quantum computing, Scott Aaronson and Travis Hance [1] asked for a characterization of matrices for which this bound is nearly tight. Appealing to inverse Littlewood-Offord theory (developed by Terry Tao and Van Vu), several papers [2, 28] attempted to address this question with only limited successs. We settled it by proving (a quantified version of) the following, which was a conjecture of Aaronson. Theorem 1. If |perm(A)| ≥ A n /n 100 , then A must have a readily identifiable form where virtually every row and column is dominated by a single entry of very large modulus. Although the result deterministically holds for all matrices over C, our proof is entirely proba-bilistic, using Talagrand's inequality, hypercontractivity, and Khintchine's inequality. It would be interesting to extend our results to obtain deterministic algorithms approximating |perm(A)| to within an additive error of ±εA n , which was a driving motivation of [1]. We prove the following, which was conjectured by Tom Leighton and Ankur Moitra [27] in connection with the algorithmic problem of sorting under partial information. |P(σ(i) < σ(j)) − 1/2| > ε ∀i = j (1) for fixed ε > 0, then σ has entropy at most (1 − δ) log(n! ), where δ > 0 depends only on ε. That is, the assumption (1) implies a significant loss of information relative to the …
Energy Efficient Tracking of Land-Based Targets Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Target tracking is one of the most important applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In this application, a large number of sensors collaborate in the detection and tracking of a target object(s). Because sensors are equipped with non-rechargeable batteries, a key design objective in such applications is to extend the network lifetime while maintaining an acceptable quality of monitoring. One common approach to extend the lifetime of WSNs is to dynamically schedule active /sleep cycles. There are many node scheduling mechanisms published in the literature, most of which, however, assume continuous monitoring with full coverage of the network area. In this paper, we present a dynamic node scheduling mechanism for land-based target detection and tracking applications. To take advantage of the characteristics of such applications, the proposed method requires only the boundary nodes to be in the active mode when no intrusion is detected. In addition, a boundary construction algorithm is proposed that minimizes overlapping coverage among the active boundary nodes. Based on our simulation study, the proposed method achieves better energy conservation than full-area coverage methods while maintaining maximum tracking accuracy.
Taxing Times: Inter-Criminal Victimization And Drug Robbery Amongst The English Professional Criminal Milieu

ABSTRACT This article considers the oft-hidden instances of inter-criminal victimization in illegal drug markets amongst serious criminals in the North of England. Focusing on proto-criminal activity known in regional argot as ‘taxing’ (drug dealers robbing one another) it draws on ethnographic material and suggests that contrast to the literature on the subject from the USA ‘taxing’ in England rarely leads to cycles of retaliatory violence. Yet against a more general climate of precariousness in disadvantaged communities in England, ‘taxing’ as a deviant behavior is a gainful, relatively low-risk activity for a minority of established, professional violent criminals.
mSpace: interaction design for user-determined, adaptable domain exploration in hypermedia

Adaptive Hypermedia systems have sought to support users by anticipating the usersi information requirements for a particular context, and rendering the appropriate version of the content and hypermedia links. Adaptable Hypermedia, on the other hand, takes the approach that there are times when adaptive approaches may not be feasible or available and that it would still be appropriate to facilitate user-determined access to information. For instance, users may come to a hypermedia and not have a well-defined goal in mind. Similarly their goals may change throughout exploration, or their expertise change from one section to another. To support these shifting conditions, we may need affordances on the content that a solely adaptive approach cannot best support. In this paper we present an interaction design to support user-determined adaptable content and describe three techniques which support the interaction: preview cues, dimensional sorting and spatial context. We call the combined approach mSpace. We present the preliminary task analysis that lead us to our interaction design, we describe the three techniques, overview the architecture for our prototype and consider next steps for generalizing deployment.
On the detection of chemically peculiar stars using ∆a photometry

We have summarized all ∆a measurements for galactic field stars (1474 objects) from the literature published over more than two decades. These measurements were, for the first time, compiled and homogeneously analyzed. The ∆a interme- diate band photometric system samples the depth of the 5200 A flux depression by comparing the flux at the center with the adjacent regions with bandwidths of 110 A to 230 A. Because it was slightly modified over the last three decades, we checked for systematic trends for the different measurements but found no correlations whatsoever. The ∆a photometric system is most suitable to detecting magnetic chemically peculiar (CP) stars with high efficiency, but is also capable of detecting a small per- centage of non-magnetic CP objects. Furthermore, the groups of (metal-weak) λ Bootis, as well as classical Be/shell stars, can be successfully investigated. In addition, we also analyzed the behaviour of supergiants (luminosity class I and II). On the basis of apparent normal type objects, the correlation of the 3σ significance limit and the percentage of positive detection for all groups was derived. We compared the capability of the ∆a photometric system with the ∆(V1 − G )a ndZ indices of the Geneva 7-color system to detect peculiar objects. Both photometric systems show the same efficiency for the detection of CP and λ Bootis stars, while the indices in the Geneva system are even more efficient at detecting Be/shell objects. On the basis of this statistical analysis it is possible to derive the incidence of CP stars in galactic open cluster and extragalactic systems including the former unknown bias of undetected objects. This is especially important in order to make a sound statistical analysis of the correlation between the occurrence of these objects and astrophysical parameters such as the age, metallicity, and strength of global, as well as local, magnetic fields.
A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing the Effect of Different Haemostatic Agents for Haemostasis of the Liver after Hepatic Resection

Introduction. Operative blood loss is still a great obstacle to liver resection, and various topical hemostatic agents were introduced to reduce it. The aim of the current study is to evaluate effects of 3 different types of these agents. Methods. In this randomized clinical trial, 45 patients undergoing liver resection were assigned to receive TachoSil, Surgicel, and Glubran 2 for controlling bleeding. Intraoperative and postoperative findings were compared between groups. Results. Postoperative bleeding (0 versus 33.3%, P = 0.04) and drainage volume first day after surgery (281.33 ± 103.98 versus 150.00 ± 60.82 mL, P = 0.02) were significantly higher in Surgicel than in TachoSil group. Postoperative complications included bile leak (3 cases in Surgicel, 1 case in TachoSil and Glubran 2), noninfectious collection (2 cases in TachoSil and Surgicel and 1 case in Glubran 2), perihepatic abscess, and massive hematoma around hepatectomy site both in Surgicel group. There was no death during the study period. Conclusion. Due to higher complications in Surgicel group, its application as hemostatic agent after liver resection is not recommended. Better results in TachoSil in comparison to the other two are indicative of its better efficacy and superiority in controlling hemostasis.
INFLUENCE OF UV RADIATION ON ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF FROG SKIN

The influence of UV radiation on electrophysiological parameters of isolated frog skin mounted in Ussing apparatus was studied with the aim to determine the local physiological regulatory mechanisms involved. The studies were performed on isolated ventral frog skin (Rana esculenta L.). Baseline transepithelial electrical potential difference (PD), changes of transepithelial electrical potential difference before, during and after mechanical, chemical and pharmacological stimulation (dPD) and transepithelial tissue resistance (R) were measured before and after stimulation. Electrophysiological parameters were determined under control conditions and after UV irradiation ranged 1.0-69.5 J/cm from the apparatus UV Hand/Foot Compact System TP-4. Two different types of tissue responses were observed. The electrophysiological parameters were augmented, particularly after low level and of short time UV exposure, or diminished, after high level and longer exposure. It can be assumed that the tissue response to UV radiation is evoked partially by neuropeptides released from C-fibers endings, as evidenced by changes in reaction after chemical stimulation with capsaicin or dimethyl sulphoxide. It can be concluded that changes of electrophysiological parameters are the result of transepithelial or paracellular ion transport shift evoked by changes of C-fiber excitability in the same way as during the phenomenon of neurogenic inflammation. 88 A. -LELIÑSKA-et -a l . 88