Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Different Way Home : Resettlement Patterns in Northern Uganda

After decades of civil conflict leading to massive internal displacement of people, Northern Uganda is peaceful again and hundreds of thousands of displaced people have returned to the area. Using data from maps and satellite imagery, we examine the placement of homes before, during and after the conflict. Examining two study sites, one that experienced a great deal of violence over an extended period of time and one where the experience of violence was more limited, we observe the clustering of home placement in the post-conflict period. As resettlement occurs, there is also evidence of increased location of homes in close proximity to roads at the site with high levels of violence. This research informs what we presently know about the choices of returnees and has implications for service provision and the reclamation of property rights after conflict.
Virtual Grouping Byzantine Agreement: A compromised consensus scheme for a cooperative network

In a cooperative network environment, each independent node communicates with others by some agreement mechanism to make sure the majority of nodes can actuate a common corresponding action. Byzantine Agreement (BA) has been proved to effectively make all healthy nodes obey the same command issued from the commander node. The major challenge for BA is its considerable amount of exchange messages among nodes to reach the consensus, especially when BA is applied to a network environment which comprises lots of cooperative nodes. Based on above, we propose a Virtual Grouping Byzantine Agreement (VGBA) scheme to compromise between the percentage of nodes which can obtain the common command and the number of exchange messages. VGBA may suffer a lowered tolerance capability of faulty nodes and a lowered percentage of healthy nodes having the command but significantly reduce the message volume so that the improved scheme is applicable while facing a larger number of nodes. The theoretical inferences and evaluation results show that the proposed scheme provides an effective trade-off solution to the agreement problem among cooperative distributed nodes in terms of message volume and fault tolerance in an autonomous network.
Stability of power‐law discs — II. The global spiral modes

This paper reports on the in-plane normal modes in the self-consistent and the cut-out power-law discs. Although the cut-out discs are remarkably stable to bisymmetric perturbations, they are very susceptible to one-armed modes. For this harmonic, there is no inner Lindblad resonance, thus removing a powerful stabilizing influence. A physical mechanism for the generation of the one-armed instabilities is put forward. Incoming trailing waves are reflected as leading waves at the inner cut-out, thus completing the feedback for the swing-amplifier. Growing three-armed and four-armed modes occur only at very low temperatures. However, neutral m = 3 and m = 4 modes are possible at higher temperatures for some discs. The rotation curve index β has a marked effect on stability. For all azimuthal wavenumbers, any unstable modes persist to higher temperatures and grow more vigorously if the rotation curve is rising (β 0). If the central regions or outer parts of the disc are carved out more abruptly, any instabilities become more virulent. The self-consistent power-law discs possess a number of unusual stability properties. There is no natural time-scale in the self-consistent disc. If a mode is admitted at some pattern speed and growth rate, then it must be present at all pattern speeds and growth rates. Our analysis — although falling short of a complete proof — suggests that such a two-dimensional continuum of non-axisymmetric modes does not occur and that the self-consistent power-law discs admit no global non-axisymmetric normal modes whatsoever. Without reflecting boundaries or cut-outs, there is no resonant cavity and no possibility of unstable growing modes. The self-consistent power-law discs certainly admit equi-angular spirals as neutral modes, together with a one-dimensional continuum of growing axisymmetric modes.
Maternal Exposure to Occupational Solvents and Childhood Leukemia

Many organic solvents are considered probable carcinogens. We carried out a population-based case–control study including 790 incident cases of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia and as many healthy controls, matched on age and sex. Maternal occupational exposure to solvents before and during pregnancy was estimated using the expert method, which involves chemists coding each individual’s job for specific contaminants. Home exposure to solvents was also evaluated. The frequency of exposure to specific agents or mixtures was generally low. Results were generally similar for the period ranging from 2 years before pregnancy up to birth and for the pregnancy period alone. For the former period, the odds ratio (OR), adjusted for maternal age and sex, for any exposure to all solvents together was 1.11 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.88–1.40]. Increased risks were observed for specific exposures, such as to 1,1,1-trichloroethane (OR = 7.55; 95% CI, 0.92–61.97), toluene (OR = 1.88; 95% CI, 1.01–3.47), and mineral spirits (OR = 1.82; 95% CI, 1.05–3.14). There were stronger indications of moderately increased risks associated with exposure to alkanes (C5–C17; OR = 1.78; 95% CI, 1.11–2.86) and mononuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (OR = 1.64; 95% CI, 1.12–2.41). Risk did not increase with increasing exposure, except for alkanes, where a significant trend (p = 0.04) was observed. Home exposure was not associated with increased risk. Using an elaborate exposure coding method, this study shows that maternal exposure to solvents in the workplace does not seem to play a major role in childhood leukemia.
Self-construal priming selectively modulates the scope of visual attention

Self-concept is one of the major factors to explain the cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners. In the field of visual attention, most studies have focused on the modulation of visual spatial-based attention, whereas possible influences of culture or self-concept on other types of visual attention remain largely unexplored. The present study investigated the possible modulation of visual feature-based attention by self-concept, using a within-group self-construal priming design. The experiment paradigm employed visual stimuli consisted of two intermixing random dot clouds presented in the focal visual field with red and green colors. After primed with an interdependent, independent, or neutral self-construal, the participants were instructed to attend to one of the focally presented dot cloud and respond to occasional luminance decrement events of the attended dot cloud. The detection of the focal events was found to be significantly faster when exogenously cued by a peripheral dot cloud of either the same or different colors as the attended focal dot cloud (congruent/incongruent), compared to the uncued condition. More importantly, the self-construal priming took effect only on the reaction time (RT) differences between the congruent and incongruent cued conditions: the participants responded much slower to incongruent cued events than congruent cued events under interdependent self-construal priming, while the RT difference was significantly smaller under independent self-construal priming. A closer look on the results suggests that the attention scope is selectively modulated by self-construal priming, and the modulation is mainly reflected by varying the degree of suppression on the processing of the incongruent contextual stimuli that do not share visual features with the focal object. Our findings provide new evidences that could possibly extend the current understanding on the cultural influence on visual attention.
Using Performance Feedback and Goal Setting to Improve Elementary Students' Writing Fluency: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract. Although performance feedback interventions successfully lead to improvements in students' performance, research suggests that the combination of feedback and goal setting leads to greater performance than either component alone and that graphing performance in relation to a goal can lead to improvements in academic performance. The goal of the study was to examine the writing fluency growth of 115 third-grade students participating in a performance feedback intervention combined with a salient goal-setting component (n = 38) in comparison to a performance feedback (n = 39) or control (n = 38) condition, using a randomized controlled trial. As hypothesized, students in the two performance feedback conditions significantly improved their writing fluency over the course of the study, averaging a weekly gain of approximately 1.88 to 2.11 correct writing sequences, in contrast to students participating in the control condition, who averaged a weekly gain of less than one correct writing sequence. However, contrary to one of the major hypotheses, providing students with an additional goal-setting component did not improve students' writing fluency more than performance feedback alone. Considerations regarding the use of performance feedback interventions, as well as limitations of the study, are discussed.
Phylogenetic Distribution of Extant Richness Suggests Metamorphosis Is a Key Innovation Driving Diversification in Insects

Insects and their six-legged relatives (Hexapoda) comprise more than half of all described species and dominate terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. Understanding the macroevolutionary processes generating this richness requires a historical perspective, but the fossil record of hexapods is patchy and incomplete. Dated molecular phylogenies provide an alternative perspective on divergence times and have been combined with birth-death models to infer patterns of diversification across a range of taxonomic groups. Here we generate a dated phylogeny of hexapod families, based on previously published sequence data and literature derived constraints, in order to identify the broad pattern of macroevolutionary changes responsible for the composition of the extant hexapod fauna. The most prominent increase in diversification identified is associated with the origin of complete metamorphosis, confirming this as a key innovation in promoting insect diversity. Subsequent reductions are recovered for several groups previously identified as having a higher fossil diversity during the Mesozoic. In addition, a number of recently derived taxa are found to have radiated following the development of flowering plant (angiosperm) floras during the mid-Cretaceous. These results reveal that the composition of the modern hexapod fauna is a product of a key developmental innovation, combined with multiple and varied evolutionary responses to environmental changes from the mid Cretaceous floral transition onward.
NRF2 Signaling Negatively Regulates Phorbol-12-Myristate-13-Acetate (PMA)-Induced Differentiation of Human Monocytic U937 Cells into Pro-Inflammatory Macrophages

Blood monocytes are recruited to injured tissue sites and differentiate into macrophages, which protect against pathogens and repair damaged tissues. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are known to be an important contributor to monocytes’ differentiation and macrophages’ function. NF-E2-related factor 2 (NRF2), a transcription factor regulating cellular redox homeostasis, is known to be a critical modulator of inflammatory responses. We herein investigated the role of NRF2 in macrophage differentiation using the human monocytic U937 cell line and phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA). In U937 cells with NRF2 silencing, PMA-stimulated cell adherence was significantly facilitated when compared to control U937 cells. Both transcript and protein levels for pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukine-1β (IL-1β), IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) were highly elevated in PMA-stimulated NRF2-silenced U937 compared to the control. In addition, PMA-inducible secretion of monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1) was significantly high in NRF2-silenced U937. As an underlying mechanism, we showed that NRF2-knockdown U937 retained high levels of cellular ROS and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers expression; and subsequently, PMA-stimulated levels of Ca2+ and PKCα were greater in NRF2-knockdown U937 cells, which caused enhanced nuclear accumulation of nuclear factor-ҡB (NFҡB) p50 and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-1/2 phosphorylation. Whereas the treatment of NRF2-silenced U937 cells with pharmacological inhibitors of NFҡB or ERK1/2 largely blocked PMA-induced IL-1β and IL-6 expression, indicating that these pathways are associated with cell differentiation. Taken together, our results suggest that the NRF2 system functions to suppress PMA-stimulated U937 cell differentiation into pro-inflammatory macrophages and provide evidence that the ROS-PKCα-ERK-NFҡB axis is involved in PMA-facilitated differentiation of NRF2-silenced U937 cells.
Class and race health disparities and health information seeking behaviors: The role of social capital

Researchers have spent considerable time studying how racial-ethnic minorities experience poorer health than whites [Townsend, P., & Davidson, N. (Eds). (1990). Inequalities in health: The black report. England: Penguin Press; Platt, L. (2006). Assessing the impact of illness, caring and ethnicity on social activity. STICERD Research Paper No. CASE108 London England), and how low socioeconomic status (SES) can negatively influence health status (Lynch, J., & Kaplan, G. (2000). Socioeconomic position. In: L. F. Berkman & I. Kawachi (Eds), Social epidemiology (pp. 13–55). New York: Oxford University Press]. This research investigates the relationship between class and race and perceived health status among patients with chronic conditions. More specifically, we apply the concept of social capital to assess whether the quantity of health information seeking behaviors (HISB) via social networks mediates the relationship between race and health status, and between SES and health status. Regression, t-test and ANOVA analyses of 305 surveys completed at a chronic illness management clinic in a Northwest research hospital reveal three important findings: first, that social class affects perceived health status more strongly than race; second, that frequency and amount of HISB do not play a significant role in perceived health status, regardless of race or SES; and third, that an interaction effect between frequency and amount of HISB suggests that the way that patients seek health information, and the quality of that information, may be more useful indicators of the role of social capital in HISB than our study can provide.
Hodge numbers of moduli spaces of stable bundles on K3 surfaces

We show that the Hodge numbers of the moduli space of stable rank two sheaves with primitive determinant on a K3 surface coincide with the Hodge numbers of an appropriate Hilbert scheme of points on the K3 surface. The precise result is: Theorem: Let $X$ be a K3 surface, $L$ a primitive big and nef line bundle and $H$ a generic polarization. If the moduli space of rank two $H$ semi-stable torsion-free sheaves with determiant $L$ and second Chern class $c_2$ has at least dimension 10 then its Hodge numbers coincide with those of the Hilbert scheme of $l:=2c_2-\frac{L^2}{2}-3$ points on $X$.
Distinct effects of IPSU and suvorexant on mouse sleep architecture

Dual orexin receptor (OXR) antagonists (DORAs) such as almorexant, SB-649868, suvorexant (MK-4305), and filorexant (MK-6096), have shown promise for the treatment of insomnias and sleep disorders. Whether antagonism of both OX1R and OX2R is necessary for sleep induction has been a matter of some debate. Experiments using knockout mice suggest that it may be sufficient to antagonize only OX2R. The recent identification of an orally bioavailable, brain penetrant OX2R preferring antagonist 2-((1H-Indol-3-yl)methyl)-9-(4-methoxypyrimidin-2-yl)-2,9-diazaspiro[5.5]undecan-1-one (IPSU) has allowed us to test whether selective antagonism of OX2R may also be a viable strategy for induction of sleep. We previously demonstrated that IPSU and suvorexant increase sleep when dosed during the mouse active phase (lights off); IPSU inducing sleep primarily by increasing NREM sleep, suvorexant primarily by increasing REM sleep. Here, our goal was to determine whether suvorexant and IPSU affect sleep architecture independently of overall sleep induction. We therefore tested suvorexant (25 mg/kg) and IPSU (50 mg/kg) in mice during the inactive phase (lights on) when sleep is naturally more prevalent and when orexin levels are normally low. Whereas IPSU was devoid of effects on the time spent in NREM or REM, suvorexant substantially disturbed the sleep architecture by selectively increasing REM during the first 4 h after dosing. At the doses tested, suvorexant significantly decreased wake only during the first hour and IPSU did not affect wake time. These data suggest that OX2R preferring antagonists may have a reduced tendency for perturbing NREM/REM architecture in comparison with DORAs. Whether this effect will prove to be a general feature of OX2R antagonists vs. DORAs remains to be seen.
RAPID GRANULAR FLOWS

A granular material is a collection of a large number of discrete solid particles. Generally, the interstices between the particles are filled with a fluid such as air or water, and thus, technically, a granular flow is a multiphase process. However, if the particles are closely packed or if they are much denser than the interstitial fluid, the particles alone-and not the fluid or the fluid-particle interactions-will play the greatest role in momentum transport within the material, in which case the interstitial fluid can be ignored in describing the flow behavior. Granular-material fl ows are generally taken to fall into this limiting category and thus may be considered dispersed single-phase rather than multiphase flows. This review addresses the fluidlike behavior of granular solids and, in particular, those flows for which the material is rapidly sheared. I outline what is currently known about rapid granular flows, discuss the various modeling techniques used to describe the motion of the bulk material, and point out many questions that remain to be answered. Depending on the local stress conditions, a granular material may behave as either an elastic solid or a fluid. When a granular material is showing its elastic-solid behavior, it can support the large loads of building foundations or form i nto hills with finite slopes. However, much of the load is supported across frictional bonds between the particles, and, as such, the system's strength is limited to the loads that those bonds can support. When enough of the bonds have been overcome, the system will fail and begin to flow. The initial failure will consist of many-particle blocks moving relative to one another along shear bands that roughly follow stress characteristics through the material. If the motion occurs slowly, particles will stay in contact and interact frictionally with their neighbors over long periods of time. The failure will continue in this
Reading Comprehension and Students with Learning Disabilities

Elementary students with learning disabilities typically demonstrate difficulty in reading and reading comprehension. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of graphic organizers and their effects on improving students reading and reading comprehension. Statement of the Problem Elementary students who are labeled as learning disabled (LD) typically demonstrate difficulties in the area of reading (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007; Gersten, Fuchs, William, & Baker, 2001; Wade, Boon, & Spencer, 2010). Elementary school teachers spend much of their time implementing different interventions to remediate the gap in the students’ reading achievement. Struggling readers are required to participant in high stakes tests alongside their peers who may be proficient readers. They are also expected to complete the same reading classwork and homework reading assignments. For struggling readers, this presents an obstacle that becomes increasingly difficult as reading content and vocabulary become more complex in upper elementary grades. Purpose and Research Questions Is it possible that graphic organizers improve a students’ reading comprehension? Does the reliability of a graphic organizer differ on who is generating the graphic organizer? The studies reviewed have clearly indicated systematic approached to adhere to the deficiencies of struggling readers and the use of graphic organizers. Students who are struggling readers may have difficulty applying metacognitive strategies while reading. Some areas of difficulty include: (a) making inferences, (b) combining READING COMPREHENSION 3 words with ideas, and (c) tracking of understanding of what is being read (Gambrell, 2004). Gambrell (2004) suggests that these three areas (i.e. making inferences, combining words, and tracking understanding) should be evaluated in order to better understand the struggle that young readers endure during their growth. Many researchers argue that children’s environment has an influence on their ability to overcome reading difficulties. Reading comprehension is a key component in a student’s development. Perhaps, most importantly, for elementary aged students as they begin to learn to read. The basic ability to retell a story to a classmate, to ask/use questions related to a problem or even more an emphasis in learning how to generate information from a text is fundamental in children’s academic growth. The developmental growth described by Woolley (2006) clearly defined the crucial aspect of students relating to other with an exchange of verbal cognitive information. The study described struggling readers as poor decoders with lack of conscious for others communication efforts. When a child is a poor reader, studies shows that the he or she begins to struggle with self-esteem and suffer from lack of motivation (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007). Woolley (2006) also described struggling readers as clustering readers.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING AND EDUCATION AS STRATEGIC TOOLS FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN NIGERIA

The main objective of the study is to investigate the intensity of entrepreneurship training and education as strategic tools for poverty alleviation in Nigeria. Using a stratified random sampling technique, 250 entrepreneurs and apprenticeships from five recognized local government areas in Lagos state, South Western Nigeria were selected as our respondents. Data were gathered through a self-monitored questionnaire survey. Simple regression analysis was used to test the relationship between the entrepreneurship training and education and poverty alleviation. Two hypotheses were postulated to determine the relationship between technical skill and youth empowerment and between personal entrepreneurial skill and social welfare services. This study confirmed that entrepreneurship training and education are significantly related to the youth empowerment and social welfare services. Findings revealed that youth empowerment are influenced by their acquired technical skill. The study recommends effective technical education, youth empowerment, and social welfare service as a catalyst for poverty alleviation.