Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fathers' authoritative and authoritarian attitudes and paternal involvement in a climate of political violence

ABSTRACT Despite the growing attention to fathers, in both research and practice, fatherhood in the context of political violence has been understudied. As a result, knowledge regarding practical intervention is also lacking. The current study examined whether fathers’ parenting styles were related to their levels of exposure to political violence and whether exposure to political violence moderated the association between the father's parenting style and his parental involvement. The study included 293 Israeli fathers who were divided into three groups according to their levels of exposure to political violence: chronic (n = 88); acute (n = 106); and non-exposed (n = 99). Participants filled out questionnaires about their authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles and their paternal involvement. The group exposed to chronic threats reported higher levels of the authoritative parenting style than did the group exposed to acute threats. The authoritative parenting style contributed positively to paternal involvement. Acute exposure moderated the association between an authoritative parenting style and paternal involvement. These findings may indicate that the ability to be authoritative is somewhat jeopardized when the father is exposed to an acute security threat. The characteristics of acute exposure contributed to a weaker relationship between an authoritative parenting style and paternal involvement. Implications for family researchers and practitioners are discussed.
Donor criteria for men who have sex with men: a Canadian perspective

The indefinite deferral for MSM even once since 1977 was instituted in the United States in the early 1980s, before the causal agent for AIDS was identified, when MSM was noted to be a particularly high-risk group. The Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS) followed suit, and this criterion was in place in Canada until July 2013, when both Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebecchangedtoa5-yeardeferralfromlastMSM contact. Although from a practical perspective, this change will allow few gay men to donate blood, it is nonetheless significant, as it is the first change to be made to this policy since it was implemented more than 25 years
Statistical variability and reliability in nanoscale FinFETs

A comprehensive full-scale 3D simulation study of statistical variability and reliability in emerging, scaled FinFETs on SOI substrate with gate-lengths of 20nm, 14nm and 10nm and low channel doping is presented. Excellent electrostatic integrity and resulting tolerance to low channel doping are perceived as the main FinFET advantages, resulting in a dramatic reduction of statistical variability due to random discrete dopants (RDD). It is found that line edge roughness (LER), metal gate granularity (MGG) and interface trapped charges (ITC) dominate the parameter fluctuations with different distribution features, while RDD may result in relatively rare but significant changes in the device characteristics.
Influence of Weight Loss, Body Composition, and Lifestyle Behaviors on Plasma Adipokines: A Randomized Weight Loss Trial in Older Men and Women with Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis

Objective. To investigate effects of weight loss on adipokines and health measures in obese older adults with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Methods. Participants were randomly assigned to either weight loss (WL) (men: 12, women: 14) or weight stable (WS) group (men: 12, women: 13). WL intervention included meal replacements and structured exercise training. Measurements of leptin, adiponectin, soluble leptin receptor, lifestyle behaviors, and body composition were collected at baseline and 6 months. Univariate analysis of covariance was performed on 6 month variables, and Spearman and partial correlations were made between variables. Results. Weight loss was 13.0% and 6.7% in WL for men and women, respectively. Women in WL had lower whole body and trunk fat than WS. The leptin : adiponectin ratio was lower for women in WL than WS at 6 months, with no group differences in adipokines for men. Leptin and free leptin index correlated with body fat in both genders at baseline. Interestingly, only women showed reductions in leptin (P < 0.100) and correlations between the percentage change leptin and trunk fat and the percentage changes in free leptin index with total fat and trunk fat. Partial correlations between 6 month adipokines after adjustments for covariates and group/time period show potential multivariate influences. Conclusions. In the presence of an effective weight loss intervention in older obese adults, there are significant relationships between weight and fat loss and leptin in women, but not men, suggesting gender-specific features of adipokine metabolism in this age group.
Residual LSTM: Design of a Deep Recurrent Architecture for Distant Speech Recognition

In this paper, a novel architecture for a deep recurrent neural network, residual LSTM is introduced. A plain LSTM has an internal memory cell that can learn long term dependencies of sequential data. It also provides a temporal shortcut path to avoid vanishing or exploding gradients in the temporal domain. The residual LSTM provides an additional spatial shortcut path from lower layers for efficient training of deep networks with multiple LSTM layers. Compared with the previous work, highway LSTM, residual LSTM separates a spatial shortcut path with temporal one by using output layers, which can help to avoid a conflict between spatial and temporal-domain gradient flows. Furthermore, residual LSTM reuses the output projection matrix and the output gate of LSTM to control the spatial information flow instead of additional gate networks, which effectively reduces more than 10% of network parameters. An experiment for distant speech recognition on the AMI SDM corpus shows that 10-layer plain and highway LSTM networks presented 13.7% and 6.2% increase in WER over 3-layer aselines, respectively. On the contrary, 10-layer residual LSTM networks provided the lowest WER 41.0%, which corresponds to 3.3% and 2.8% WER reduction over plain and highway LSTM networks, respectively.
The Effects of School-Related and Home-Related Optional Science Experiences on Science Attitudes and Knowledge

Science learning is most often examined within formal education contexts, even though students spend more of their lives outside of the classroom. Students may interact with scientific phenomena during these out-of-school experiences, providing additional opportunities for learning to take place. Prior studies have found that optional science experiences have positive effects on science knowledge and attitudes. However, these studies do not always account for initial differences between students who are able to participate in many optional experiences and those who cannot. Moreover, many studies focus on high-quality science programs, which may not be representative of the average out-of-school experience. Using a longitudinal dataset of 3,700 6th and 8th grade students in urban and suburban schools from two regions in the United States, the current study investigates the effects of typically occurring optional science experiences during the school year on the development of science knowledge and attitudes. Using propensity score matching, we matched participating and nonparticipating students for characteristics that drive self-selection into these experiences, then analyzed separately for effects of school-related versus home-related science learning experiences. Stable patterns across analytic models reveal growth in science attitudes with both school- and home-related science experiences, but a greater relative decline in science knowledge with school-related science experiences. Thus, typically occurring optional science experiences can influence students’ attitudes and knowledge, but the effects can vary by the type of experience that students attend.
MARK 2 / EMK 1 / Par-1 B Phosphorylation of Rab 11-Family Interacting Protein 2 Is Necessary for the Timely Establishment of Polarity in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney Cells

*Departments of Surgery and Cell and Developmental Biology and ‡Department of Biochemistry and Mass Spectrometry Research Center, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and the Nashville VA Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232; †Institute of Molecular Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA 30912; and §Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15261
Graffiti slogans and the construction of collective identity: evidence from the anti-austerity protests in Greece

Abstract This article examines the way that collective identity was discursively constructed during the anti-austerity protests of 28 and 29 June 2011 on the environs of the Greek Parliament. Drawing on the framework of critical discourse analysis, we study the interrelation between macro-level (dominant) values and views, and micro-level individual positions as expressed in graffiti slogans that appeared during the protests. The graffiti data comes from a personal archive which consists of 40 slogans, collected during June 2011. We conduct a systemic-functional analysis to scrutinize the transitivity structures of graffiti slogans, employing the notion of anti-language as central to the micro-level. We then draw on the notion of collective identity to frame the graffiti at the macro-level. Among our main findings is that the writers of graffiti slogans construct their collective identity on a two-fold oppositional axis: the first consists of the dominant institutions or “others,” which are negatively represented, while the second consists of a positively represented and inclusive in-group or “we. ” The focus on graffiti has two manifest and interrelated goals: (a) to scrutinize the protesters’ semiotics in order to piece together their identity, thus avoiding subsequent hegemonic interpretations of the participants’ identity; and (b) to preserve the elaborate counter-reality constructed by these ephemeral messages against the official and “mainstream” discourses and their reality.
Facilitating the Intention to Expand E-business Payment Systems Use in Nigerian Small Firms: An Empirical Analysis

Electronic business (e-business) refers to the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support of all aspects of business (Turban et al., 2010). The term was first used by IBM's marketing and Internet teams in 1996 (Amor, 1999). E-business payment systems or solutions refer to the various innovative applications and approaches including the use of credit cards, magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) checks, automated teller machines (ATMs), electronic cash (E-cash), electronic funds transfer (EFT), amongst others that are used to facilitate the customer’s decision to pay for a product or services (Vassiliou, 2004). Gholami et al. (2010, 53) while citing Andam (2003, 22) describe e-payment systems as “the use of pre-loaded, debit and credit cards on the Internet or other electronic devices to perform daily transactions which include paying for goods and services, transfers and bill payments at any time of the day. ” These researchers added that e-payments are part of a larger electronic payment systems (EPS), which includes a system of financial exchange between buyers and sellers in the online environment through the use of such digital financial instruments as credit cards, electronic checks, and digital cash.
The effect of diff erent marinating baths on sensory properties and shelf life parameters of cold marinated anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus, L.)

Synergistic effect of acid and salt content plays the most important role in the marinating process. Selection of suitable procedures for preparing raw fish material for marination, the marinating baths compositions and storage conditions were carried out in order to achieve longer shelf life, to maintain quality and achieve good sensory characteristics of marinated products. In this paper 22 samples of cold marinated anchovies containing marinating baths of different composition (different proportions of vine vinegar, alcoholic vinegar, salt and water) were investigated, in order to determine changes in sensory characteristics during maturation, as well as the shelf life parameters. For this purpose, pH values, water activity, NaCl content and sensory properties of marinated anchovy fillets, the content of volatile amines and the index of fat oxidation were determined. The fillets marinated in the marination bath prepared from 45% of water, 30% of vine vinegar, 25% of alcoholic vinegar and 7% of salt obtained the best sensory scores, a pH value of 3.09, 3.60% NaCl and water activity of 0.84. A weak accumulation of volatile amines during storage (<20mg TVB-N / 100g ; <1mgTMA/100g) and statistically significant increase of the TBA index (6.41 to 7.36 malondialdehyde / kg) were observed during ripening, but the rancidity was not described as an intensive sensory property of the marinated fillets.
Board Structure and Agency Costs

The purpose of the paper is to test the hypothesis that board structure and its impact on value is a function of firm's growth opportunities. Consistent with this hypothesis, the results show that, while low growth firms are less likely to have an independent board, i.e., to split the roles of the chairman and CEO, to have a high proportion of non-executive directors and to appoint a non-executive as a chairman, their value is positively related to these board structure variables. In contrast, for high growth firms, the relationship between board structure and firm value is weak, suggesting that board structure does not always mitigate the agency conflicts. The results suggest that imposing the same board structure for all companies independently of their specific characteristics is likely to reduce the value of firms that may be forced to depart from optimal corporate governance structures which have been successful.
Iranians’ Beliefs About Dreams: Developing and Validating the My Beliefs About Dreams Questionnaire

Several different beliefs about the importance of dreams have been recorded from ancient times to the present. In ancient Iranian culture, dreams had a special importance. Similarly, in modern times, Iranians pay much attention to their dreams. The present questionnaire study of several beliefs about dreams describes the beliefs of 486 Iranian university students in Tehran (men = 253; women = 233) from the Tarbiat Modares and Allameh Tabatabai University about their dreams through administering of the My Beliefs About Dream Questionnaire (MBDQ). The two main objectives of the research were to examine the psychometric properties of the MBDQ and to describe the dream beliefs of Iranian college students. Factor analysis of the MBDQ yielded a six-factor solution. In general, the present investigation revealed moderate to high construct validity and reliability of the MBDQ. A wide range of variation in dream beliefs was found among Iranian college students, with religious beliefs having much influence upon them.
Genomic and phenotypic characterisation of a wild Medaka population: Establishing an isogenic population genetic resource in fish

Background Oryzias latipes (Medaka) has been established as a vertebrate genetic model for over a century, and has recently been rediscovered outside its native Japan. The power of new sequencing methods now makes it possible to reinvigorate Medaka genetics, in particular by establishing a near-isogenic panel derived from a single wild population. Results Here we characterise the genomes of wild Medaka catches obtained from a single Southern Japanese population in Kiyosu as a precursor for the establishment of a near isogenic panel of wild lines. The population is free of significant detrimental population structure, and has advantageous linkage disequilibrium properties suitable for establishment of the proposed panel. Analysis of morphometric traits in five representative inbred strains suggests phenotypic mapping will be feasible in the panel. In addition high throughput genome sequencing of these Medaka strains confirms their evolutionary relationships on lines of geographic separation and provides further evidence that there has been little significant interbreeding between the Southern and Northern Medaka population since the Southern/Northern population split. The sequence data suggest that the Southern Japanese Medaka existed as a larger older population which went through a relatively recent bottleneck around 10,000 years ago. In addition we detect patterns of recent positive selection in the Southern population. Conclusions These data indicate that the genetic structure of the Kiyosu Medaka samples are suitable for the establishment of a vertebrate near isogenic panel and therefore inbreeding of 200 lines based on this population has commenced. Progress of this project can be tracked at this http URL
The Characteristics and Causes of Homelessness among At Risk Families with Children in Twenty American Cities Running Head : Family Homelessness in Twenty American Cities

This paper explores the characteristics and causes of homeless families with children using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. These unique data measure a rich set of risk factors likely thought to influence homelessness at the individual, household, and city level. We find that homelessness is most strongly linked to informal and institutional social support, and is only modestly associated with local housing and labor market conditions. These results suggest that interventions designed to build and strengthen informal and institutional social support among low-income mothers, including low-income housing assistance, will have the greatest impact on reducing the likelihood of family homelessness, while policies designed to alter local housing and labor market conditions are unlikely to substantially reduce the risk of this pressing social problem.
Evolutionary Computation: An Overview

Evolutionary computation is an area of computer science that uses ideas from biological evolution to solve computational problems. Many such problems require searching through a huge space of possibilities for solutions, such as among a vast number of possible hardware circuit layouts for a configuration that produces desired behavior, for a set of equations that will predict the ups and downs of a financial market, or for a collection of rules that will control a robot as it navigates its environment. Such computational problems often require a system to be adaptive— that is, to continue to perform well in a changing environment. Problems like these require complex solutions that are usually difficult for human programmers to devise. Artificial intelligence practitioners once believed that it would be straightforward to encode the rules that would confer intelligence on a program; expert systems were one result of this early optimism. Nowadays, however, many researchers believe that the “rules” underlying intelligence are too complex for scientists to encode by hand in a top-down fashion. Instead they believe that the best route to artificial intelligence and other difficult computational problems is through a bottom-up paradigm in which humans write only very simple rules and provide a means for the system to adapt. Complex behaviors such as intelligence will emerge from the parallel application and interaction of these rules. Neural networks are one example of this philosophy; evolutionary computation is another. Biological evolution is an appealing source of inspiration for addressing difficult computational problems. Evolution is, in effect, a method of searching among an enormous number of possibilities—e.g., the set of possible gene sequences—for “solutions” that allow organisms to survive and reproduce in their environments. Evolution can also be seen as a method for adapting to changing environments. And, viewed from a high level, the “rules” of evolution are remarkably simple: Species evolve by means of random variation (via mutation, recombination, and
OnabotulinumtoxinA for chronic migraine: efficacy, safety, and tolerability in patients who received all five treatment cycles in the PREEMPT clinical program

Chronic migraine (CM) is a prevalent and disabling neurological disorder. Phase III REsearch Evaluating Migraine Prophylaxis Therapy (PREEMPT) clinical program assessed efficacy and safety of onabotulinumtoxinA (BOTOX®) for prophylaxis of headaches in adults with CM. This secondary analysis assessed patients who received all five treatment cycles and completed the study.
Flipping the laboratory: improving student engagement and learning outcomes in second year science courses

ABSTRACT The flipped classroom pedagogy was implemented in two core undergraduate science courses; Animal and Plant Biochemistry II (APB) and Microbiology and Invertebrate Biology II (MIB) to encourage students to prepare for laboratory classes. Students often attend class without little understanding or appreciation of what they are going to learn in the laboratory, the types of techniques they are going to use or the safety precautions required. This is not only hazardous for students but also requires detailed explanations from teaching staff at the start of class, overloading students with information. This disconnection between theory and practice was overcome by ‘flipping the laboratory’ to integrate online, interactive pre-laboratory activities into the curriculum. The aims of this study were to: (1) evaluate student engagement with pre-laboratory content; (2) investigate student performance and learning outcomes; (3) review failure rates following implementation of pre-laboratory activities. Students agreed that the pre-laboratory activities bridged the gap between theory and practice (65%) and enhanced their engagement with course material (79%). The integration of pre-laboratory activities significantly increased student learning outcomes immediately after implementation into the curriculum, despite a 26.8% increase in enrolments from 2011 to 2017. Failure rates significantly decreased in both APB and MIB over three consecutive years.
Thresholded smoothed-ℓ0(SL0) dictionary learning for sparse representations

In this paper, we suggest to use a modified version of Smoothed-ℓ0 (SL0) algorithm in the sparse representation step of iterative dictionary learning algorithms. In addition, we use a steepest descent for updating the non unit column-norm dictionary instead of unit column-norm dictionary. Moreover, to do the dictionary learning task more blindly, we estimate the average number of active atoms in the sparse representation of the training signals, while previous algorithms assumed that it is known in advance. Our simulation results show the advantages of our method over K-SVD in terms of complexity and performance.