Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UNDERSTANDING SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION INSIDE PRISONS: FACTORS THAT PREDICT RISK*

Research Summary: Broad consensus exists across the country and political spectrum that sexual victimization occurs inside prisons and that it should be prevented in accordance with basic human rights, especially inside institutions that are funded and operated by government. The challenging task is to confirm the speculation by measuring reliably the extent to which sexual victimization occurs inside prison and then to understand its causal structure in an effort to prevent it. This article addresses this challenge first by summarizing what is known about the prevalence of sexual victimization in the prisons of America and then by exploring attributes of the inmate or facility that elevate the likelihood of being sexually victimized while inside prison. This descriptive evidence provides the roadmap for more contextual research that is needed to explore the causal mechanism underlying sexual victimization. The predictive part of this article uses a data set on the self-reported victimization experiences of approximately 8,000 inmates residing in twelve male adult prisons, one sex offender treatment prison for males, and one female adult prison, all located in a single state. Policy Implications: If the goal is to reduce sexual victimization inside prisons (as suggested by the Prison Rape Elimination Act), action is required by prison officials and researchers to identify those at elevated risk, to develop effective placement strategies that minimize the proximity of inmates who have predatory tendencies to those at risk of victimization, to accurately and reliably measure the prevalence of sexual victimization, and to train officers and inmates on the meaning and practice of “zero tolerance. ” Custodial power should be targeted to ensure zero tolerance because sexual victimization inside prison is not just a crime, but it is also a crime that takes place in a facility that is created, funded, and operated by the state and where the state bears the full responsibility for keeping the people under its aegis from harm that is predictable and preventable.
Effects of Air Pollution and the Introduction of the London Low Emission Zone on the Prevalence of Respiratory and Allergic Symptoms in Schoolchildren in East London: A Sequential Cross-Sectional Study

The adverse effects of traffic-related air pollution on children’s respiratory health have been widely reported, but few studies have evaluated the impact of traffic-control policies designed to reduce urban air pollution. We assessed associations between traffic-related air pollutants and respiratory/allergic symptoms amongst 8–9 year-old schoolchildren living within the London Low Emission Zone (LEZ). Information on respiratory/allergic symptoms was obtained using a parent-completed questionnaire and linked to modelled annual air pollutant concentrations based on the residential address of each child, using a multivariable mixed effects logistic regression analysis. Exposure to traffic-related air pollutants was associated with current rhinitis: NOx (OR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00–1.02), NO2 (1.03, 1.00–1.06), PM10 (1.16, 1.04–1.28) and PM2.5 (1.38, 1.08–1.78), all per μg/m3 of pollutant, but not with other respiratory/allergic symptoms. The LEZ did not reduce ambient air pollution levels, or affect the prevalence of respiratory/allergic symptoms over the period studied. These data confirm the previous association between traffic-related air pollutant exposures and symptoms of current rhinitis. Importantly, the London LEZ has not significantly improved air quality within the city, or the respiratory health of the resident population in its first three years of operation. This highlights the need for more robust measures to reduce traffic emissions.
Curcumin―The Paradigm of a Multi-Target Natural Compound with Applications in Cancer Prevention and Treatment

As cancer is a multifactor disease, it may require treatment with compounds able to target multiple intracellular components. We summarize here how curcumin is able to modulate many components of intracellular signaling pathways implicated in inflammation, cell proliferation and invasion and to induce genetic modulations eventually leading to tumor cell death. Clinical applications of this natural compound were initially limited by its low solubility and bioavailability in both plasma and tissues but combination with adjuvant and delivery vehicles was reported to largely improve bio-availability of curcumin. Moreover, curcumin was reported to act in synergism with several natural compounds or synthetic agents commonly used in chemotherapy. Based on this, curcumin could thus be considered as a good candidate for cancer prevention and treatment when used alone or in combination with other conventional treatments.
Italian Adaptation and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Full and the Short Form of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory

This study was designed to adapt and to assess the reliability and factor structure of an Italian translation of the full and short form of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. A sample of 1,244 Italian adults who had experienced a range of adverse life events participated in this study. Five models of the underlying structure of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory were tested via confirmatory factor analyses. Analyses of both the short and full form of the PTGI provided support for the original correlated five-factor structure. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis supported the invariance of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory across gender.
Hemispheric differences in neural systems for face working memory: A PET‐rCBF study

Neural systems that participate in working memory for faces were investigated in an experiment designed to distinguish face perception areas from working memory areas. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured using positron emission tomography (PET) while subjects performed a sensorimotor control task, a face perception control task, and five working memory tasks with parametrically varied retention intervals, ranging from 1 to 21 sec. Striate and ventral occipitotemporal extrastriate areas demonstrated a simple negative correlation between rCBF and retention delay, indicating that these areas participate principally in perceptual operations performed during visual stimulation. By contrast, right and left frontal areas demonstrated rCBF increases that were significantly more sustained across delays than were increases in ventral extrastriate areas, but the relation between rCBF and retention interval differed significantly by hemisphere. Whereas right frontal rCBF showed a nonsignificant tendency to diminish at longer delays, left inferior frontal, middle frontal, and anterior cingulate cortex, as well as left parietal and inferior temporal cortex, demonstrated their largest rCBF increases at the longest delays. These results indicate that right frontal and left frontal, parietal, and temporal areas all participate in face working memory, but that left hemisphere areas are associated with a more durable working memory representation or strategy that subjects rely on increasingly with longer retention intervals. One possible explanation for this hemispheric difference is that left hemisphere activity is associated with a face representation that embodies the result of more analysis and elaboration, whereas right frontal activity is associated with a simpler, icon‐like image of a face that is harder to maintain in working memory. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Some Haematological Parameters of Tuberculosis (TB) Infected Africans: The Nigerian Perspective

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in Nigeria. This study was aimed at providing information on haematological changes in pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) infection. One hundred PTB patients aged 15-45 years, attending tuberculosis clinics in Calabar, Nigeria were studied while 70 apparently healthy subjects served as controls. Â Standard techniques were used for the assays. Results showed significantly lower values of Packed cell volume(PCV), haemoglobin concentration(Hb), mean cell haemoglobin(MCH), mean cell haemoglobin concentration(MCHC) (p<0.05) in PTB while mean cell volume(MCV), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), relative plasma viscosity (RPV), euglobulin lysis time (ELT) and fibrinogen concentration showed significantly higher values in PTB patients than that of control subjects. ESR, RPV and ELT decreased significantly (p<0.05) as anti-tuberculosis therapy progressed. PCV, HB, MCV, MCH, MCHC and ESR of PTB patients co-infected with HIV changed significantly (p<0.05). Anaemia, increased haemorheologic activity and reduced fibrinolysis occur in pulmonary tuberculosis. Key words: Pulmonary tuberculosis, haematological variables, haemorheology, fibrinolysis
Learning to Teach Social Studies: A Case Study of Belief Restructuring

Abstract Research has shown that outcomes of social studies teacher education are shaped by the interaction of prospective teachers' beliefs, the meanings they assign to methods course content, and their interpretations of social studies curriculum encountered in student teaching. Through observation, description, and analysis of two elementary teaching candidates' experience in social studies methods and student teaching, 1 have probed the interaction between program experience and existing beliefs. Margaret's case suggests that beliefs can facilitate professional growth if they are articulated as tools for reflection. Holly's story demonstrates that existing beliefs can represent obstacles to new conceptualizations of teaching. The cross-case analysis supports two generative hypotheses: (a) when similar messages issue from multiple sources in a teacher education program, the overlap enhances the influence of program ideas on prospective teachers' existing beliefs, and (b) the individual's willingness to.
Multicues 3D Monocular Upper Body Tracking Using Constrained Belief Propagation

This paper describes a method for articulated 3D upper body tracking in monocular scenes using a graphical model to represent an articulated body structure. Belief propagation on factor graphs is used to compute the marginal probabilities of limbs. The body model is a loose-limbed model including attraction factors between adjacent limbs and constraints to reject poses resulting in collisions. To solve ambiguities resulting from monocular view, robust contour and colour based cues are extracted from the images. Moreover, a set of constraints on the model articulations is implemented according to human pose capabilities. Quantitative and qualitative results illustrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Cyclic nucleotide content in gingival tissue of smokers and non-smokers.

The total amount of cAMP and cGMP was determined in gingival tissue of smokers and non-smokers. The mean gingival tissue content from 56 patients was 1.80 pmol cAMP/mg protein and 0.56 pmol cGMP/mg protein. There was no significant difference in nucleotide levels as between smokers and non-smokers. Heavy smokers (> 15 cig/day, x= 19.7). however, were found to have significantly elevated nucleotide levels as compared to moderate smokers (≤ 15 cig/day, x= 6.8). Smokers also had a significantly lower gingival exudate flow as compared to non-smokers. These findings suggest that tobacco smoking may change the cellular metabolism in human gingival tissue.
Social Support and Socioeconomic Status Predict Secondary Students' Grades and Educational Plans Indifferently Across Immigrant Group and Gender

Social support and socioeconomic status (SES) have received considerable attention in explaining academic achievement and the achievement gap between students with ethic majority and immigrant background, and between boys and girls. Using a Structural Equation Modeling approach we examine (1) if there exist a gap in school achievements between these groups, (2) whether social support and SES is associated with achievements across these groups, (3) whether social support is associated with achievements after controlling for SES, and (4) whether achievement gaps are explained by group differences in social support and SES. Self-reported cross-sectional survey and register data from 8,574 10th graders in Norway was employed. Although we found group differences in achievements, and direct associations with social support and SES, we found no group differences in these associations. Controlling for SES and other sources of social support, teachers' support remained a significant positive influence on students' school outcomes.
Lesson study: the effect on teachers' professional development

This study combines elements of the Japanese Lesson Study approach and teachers’ professional development. An explorative research design is conducted with three upper level high school teachers in the light of educational design research, whereby design activities will be cyclically evaluated. The Lesson Study team observed and evaluated two different research lesson cycles. The first one focused on the concept of the derivative. The second one deepened teachers’ pilot experiences with regard to another mathematical concept. The Lesson Study revealed students’ misconceptions with regard to the tangent line. Results of teachers’ professional development are used to refine the Lesson Study observation instruments
The Epigenetic Landscape of Latent Kaposi Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Genomes

Herpesvirus latency is generally thought to be governed by epigenetic modifications, but the dynamics of viral chromatin at early timepoints of latent infection are poorly understood. Here, we report a comprehensive spatial and temporal analysis of DNA methylation and histone modifications during latent infection with Kaposi Sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), the etiologic agent of Kaposi Sarcoma and primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). By use of high resolution tiling microarrays in conjunction with immunoprecipitation of methylated DNA (MeDIP) or modified histones (chromatin IP, ChIP), our study revealed highly distinct landscapes of epigenetic modifications associated with latent KSHV infection in several tumor-derived cell lines as well as de novo infected endothelial cells. We find that KSHV genomes are subject to profound methylation at CpG dinucleotides, leading to the establishment of characteristic global DNA methylation patterns. However, such patterns evolve slowly and thus are unlikely to control early latency. In contrast, we observed that latency-specific histone modification patterns were rapidly established upon a de novo infection. Our analysis furthermore demonstrates that such patterns are not characterized by the absence of activating histone modifications, as H3K9/K14-ac and H3K4-me3 marks were prominently detected at several loci, including the promoter of the lytic cycle transactivator Rta. While these regions were furthermore largely devoid of the constitutive heterochromatin marker H3K9-me3, we observed rapid and widespread deposition of H3K27-me3 across latent KSHV genomes, a bivalent modification which is able to repress transcription in spite of the simultaneous presence of activating marks. Our findings suggest that the modification patterns identified here induce a poised state of repression during viral latency, which can be rapidly reversed once the lytic cycle is induced.
On Maltsev Digraphs

We study digraphs preserved by a Maltsev operation, Maltsev digraphs. We show that these digraphs retract either onto a directed path or to the disjoint union of directed cycles, showing that the constraint satisfaction problem for Maltsev digraphs is in logspace, L. (This was observed in [19] using an indirect argument.) We then generalize results in [19] to show that a Maltsev digraph is preserved not only by a majority operation, but by a class of other operations (e.g., minority, Pixley) and obtain a O(VG4)-time algorithm to recognize Maltsev digraphs. We also prove analogous results for digraphs preserved by conservative Maltsev operations which we use to establish that the list homomorphism problem for Maltsev digraphs is in L. We then give a polynomial time characterisation of Maltsev digraphs admitting a conservative 2-semilattice operation. Finally, we give a simple inductive construction of directed acyclic digraphs preserved by a Maltsev operation.
Do Get-Out-the-Vote Calls Reduce Turnout? The Importance of Statistical Methods for Field Experiments

In their landmark study of a field experiment, Gerber and Green (2000) found that get-out-the-vote calls reduce turnout by five percentage points. In this article, I introduce statistical methods that can uncover discrepancies between experimental design and actual implementation. The application of this methodology shows that Gerber and Green's negative finding is caused by inadvertent deviations from their stated experimental protocol. The initial discovery led to revisions of the original data by the authors and retraction of the numerical results in their article. Analysis of their revised data, however, reveals new systematic patterns of implementation errors. Indeed, treatment assignments of the revised data appear to be even less randomized than before their corrections. To adjust for these problems, I employ a more appropriate statistical method and demonstrate that telephone canvassing increases turnout by five percentage points. This article demonstrates how statistical methods can find and correct complications of field experiments.
Vascular Loops at the Cerebellopontine Angle: Is There a Correlation with Tinnitus?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Tinnitus is a common disorder, and the etiology remains mostly unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the causative effect of the vascular loop and compression of the vestibulocochlear nerve at the cerebellopontine angle in patients with unexplained tinnitus. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was approved by our institutional review board. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Fifty-eight patients with unexplained tinnitus and 44 age- and sex-matched asymptomatic controls were examined with temporal MR imaging. Besides the tinnitus and control groups, a third group was formed by asymptomatic sides of patients with unilateral tinnitus. A 3D fast imaging employing steady-state acquisition (3D-FIESTA) sequence was performed in addition to the regular pre- and postcontrast axial and coronal sequences. The anatomic type of vascular loop, the vascular contact, and the angulation of the vestibulocochlear nerve at the cerebellopontine angle (CPA) were evaluated by 2 experienced neuroradiologists. The χ2 test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were found between the patient and control groups for the anatomic type of vascular loop, the vascular contact, and the angulation of the vestibulocochlear nerve at the CPA (P > .05). CONCLUSION: Although 3D-FIESTA MR imaging correctly shows the anatomic relationships of the vestibulocochlear nerve, its vascular compression cannot be attributed as an etiological factor for tinnitus.
Determining if active learning through a formative assessment process translates to better performance in summative assessment

Formative assessment used in a level 2 unit, Immunology, gave outcomes that were both surprising and applicable across disciplines. Four formative tests were given and reviewed during class time. The students’ attitudes to formative assessment were evaluated using questionnaires and its effectiveness in closing the gap was measured by the students’ final exam performance. Despite general enthusiasm for formative tests, the final exam performances were disappointing. Lessons learnt indicated that the students answered questions with ‘knowledge dumps’ rather than addressing the verb, and that feedback from the instructors, although providing answers, did not empower students to understand the verb in the question. Therefore, using formative tests to identify and address bad habits, rather than providing exam practice, would be a more judicious approach to formative testing and likely to improve the overall skills base of students commensurate with higher learning.
Parametric Analysis of Ship Noise Spectra

A growing attention has been recently devoted to the impact of the underwater noise field generated by shipping activities on the marine fauna. A key aspect for the quantification of such impact is a proper model of the source levels radiated from the vessels. At a first level of approximation, simplified formulations based on a small number of macroparameters describing the ship characteristics are needed to quantify the emission and, accordingly, assess the noise impact and evaluate strategies for its control. In fact, a few models of this kind are available in the literature, mainly based on measurements and databases developed for military purposes. Most of these models have been tuned on old ships: this poses the question whether they are still applicable to modern commercial vessels. In this work, spectra of a series of measurements of underwater noise emitted by commercial vessels measured in the framework of two EU FP7 projects (SILENV: www.silenv.eu and AQUO: www.aquo.eu) are analyzed and compared with the results obtained applying the available literature models. The analysis is carried out for noise emitted both at design and off-design conditions. In such conditions, the models are also compared with a proposed spectral parametrization. Focusing on the off-design conditions, a detailed narrow band analysis of a complete set of noise spectra is presented for a ship equipped with a controllable pitch propeller (CPP). The spectral peculiarities of such a propulsion plant, when operated at constant revolutions per minute (RPM) are highlighted. Results of the suggested parametrization applied to the same ship are presented together with the data of other CPP ships and a critical analysis is carried out discussing the limits of the existing predictive models.
The field researcher as author-writer

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce the literary authority of qualitative management accounting field research (QMAFR) and its interconnectedness with the scientific authority of this form of research. Design/methodology/approach - The paper adopts a non-positivist perspective on the writing/authoring of QMAFR. The paper illustrates its arguments by analysing how the field is written/authored in two well-known examples of qualitative management accounting research, using Golden-Biddle and Locke's framework as a way of initiating an understanding of how field research attains its “convincingness”. Findings - The paper finds that these two examples of QMAFR attain their convincingness by authoring a strong sense of authenticity and plausibility, adopting writing strategies that signal the authority of the researcher and their figuration of the “facts”. Research limitations/implications - The paper argues for a more aesthetically informed consideration of the “goodness” of non-positivist QMAFR, arguing that its scientific and aesthetic forms of authority are ultimately intertwined. Practical implications - This paper has practical implications for informing the ways in which QMAFR is read and written, arguing for greater experimentation in terms of its narration. Originality/value - The value of this paper lies in its recognition of the authorial and aesthetic nature of QMAFR, as well as it potential to encourage debate, reflection and changed practices within the community of scholars interested in this form of research.