Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools and the prospects of an ethic of discomfort

This article analyzes the ways in which emotions are constituted and mobilized by teachers to respond to growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. The analysis is based on a two‐year ethnographic study conducted in three Greek‐Cypriot primary schools that are ‘multicultural’. The following focus questions are addressed: (1) How do teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools form particular economies of effect? ; and (2) What is the nature of these economies of affect and in what ways is it possible to form an ethic of discomfort as a space for constructive transformations in multicultural schools? An ethic of discomfort is theorised as an economy of affect that uses discomfort as a point of departure for individual and social transformation. The outcomes of this study show that teachers experience intense emotional ambivalence in their efforts to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. It is argued, however, that the capabilities of teachers to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism are enhanced, if an ethic of discomfort is constituted in multicultural schools. The implications of this study are discussed in relation to teaching and teacher education and suggest that constituting an ethic of discomfort offers opportunities to challenge structures of power, privilege, racism, and oppression.
Hospital Quality Improvement: Strategies and Lessons From U.S. Hospitals

This report focuses on the dynamics of hospital performance: how hospitals achieve and sustain improvements over time. Case studies of four hospitals that made substantial improvements reveal a pattern: 1) a trigger such as a crisis or new leader serves as a “wake-up call” that prompts the hospital to make 2) organizational and structural changes such as multidisciplinary teams, quality-related committees, and technology investments, which facilitate 3) a systematic problem-identification and problem-solving process, resulting in 4) new treatment protocols and practices, which in turn result in 5) improved outcomes. Success strengthens commitment to quality improvement and turns this temporal pattern into an ongoing cycle. The entire process reflects the establishment, growth, and reinforcement of a culture of quality. A companion report, Hospital Performance Improvement: Trends in Quality and Efficiency, presents results of a quantitative examination of the degree to which hospitals are improving (or deteriorating) in quality and efficiency over time. Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff. This report and other Fund publications are available online at www.cmwf. org. To learn more about new publications when they become available, visit the Fund’s Web site and register to receive e-mail alerts. Commonwealth Fund pub. no. 1009.
Regulation of the concentration of pre beta high-density lipoprotein in normal plasma by cell membranes and lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase activity.

A minor fraction of plasma high-density lipoprotein (pre beta-1 HDL) has been shown to promote cholesterol efflux from peripheral cell membranes [Castro, G. R. , & Fielding, C. J. (1988) Biochemistry 27, 25-29]. When isolated native plasma is incubated at 37 degrees C, this fraction is specifically decreased. On the other hand, the level of plasma pre beta-1 HDL is fully protected in the presence of even very low levels of fibroblasts, vascular smooth muscle cells, or macrophages. Blood cells were completely inactive in maintaining plasma pre beta-1 HDL levels in the absence of peripheral cells, even at the relatively high levels present in whole blood. The loss of pre beta-1 observed in isolated plasma was dependent upon lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) activity. These data suggest that reverse cholesterol transport catalyzed by pre beta-1 HDL, and subsequent LCAT-mediated cholesterol esterification, is directly dependent upon the interaction between this HDL species and competent peripheral cells.
Additive Antinociceptive Effects of a Combination of Vitamin C and Vitamin E after Peripheral Nerve Injury

Accumulating evidence indicates that increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contributes to the development of exaggerated pain hypersensitivity during persistent pain. In the present study, we investigated the antinociceptive efficacy of the antioxidants vitamin C and vitamin E in mouse models of inflammatory and neuropathic pain. We show that systemic administration of a combination of vitamins C and E inhibited the early behavioral responses to formalin injection and the neuropathic pain behavior after peripheral nerve injury, but not the inflammatory pain behavior induced by Complete Freund's Adjuvant. In contrast, vitamin C or vitamin E given alone failed to affect the nociceptive behavior in all tested models. The attenuated neuropathic pain behavior induced by the vitamin C and E combination was paralleled by a reduced p38 phosphorylation in the spinal cord and in dorsal root ganglia, and was also observed after intrathecal injection of the vitamins. Moreover, the vitamin C and E combination ameliorated the allodynia induced by an intrathecally delivered ROS donor. Our results suggest that administration of vitamins C and E in combination may exert synergistic antinociceptive effects, and further indicate that ROS essentially contribute to nociceptive processing in special pain states.
Black Teachers' Personality Dimensions and Work-Related Stress Factors

To determine the relationship between black teachers' personalities and their stress levels on work-related factors, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Occupational Stress Inventory for Teachers (OSIT) were used. Participants included 444 black teachers, 186 of whom were male and 258 were female, from 24 randomly selected schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The mean scores obtained on teachers' biographical variables were analyzed by means of a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicate significant regression of personality on the predictor variables such as time pressures, administrative problems and pupil misbehaviour. The extraversion personality dimension shows significant negative correlation with educational changes. A significant positive correlation is found between neuroticism and time pressures, administrative problems and pupil misbehaviour. The results also indicate significant three-way interaction effects for work-related stress factors such as time pressure and pupil misbehaviour. The results are discussed and implications for the psychological adjustment of teachers indicated.
Keyphrase Extraction in Scientific Articles: A Supervised Approach

This paper contains the detailed approach of automatic extraction of Keyphrases from scientific articles (i.e. research paper) using supervised tool like Conditional Random Fields (CRF). Keyphrase is a word or set of words that describe the close relationship of content and context in the document. Keyphrases are sometimes topics of the document that represent the key ideas of the document. Automatic Keyphrase extraction is a very important module for the automatic systems like query or topic independent summarization, question-answering (QA), information retrieval (IR), document classification etc. The system was developed for the Task 5 of SemEval2. The system is trained using 144 scientific articles and tested on 100 scientific articles. Different combinations of features have been used. With combined keywords i.e. both authorassigned and reader-assigned keyword sets as answers, the system shows a precision of 32.34%, recall of 33.09% and F-measure of 32.71% with top 15 candidates.
Explaining the variability of antisaccade performance in healthy participants

In the antisaccade task participants are required to saccade to the mirror image location of a sudden onset target. As such, the task provides a powerful tool with which to investigate the cognitive processes underlying goal-directed behaviour. In healthy participants antisaccade errors (prosaccades directed towards the target) occur on approximately 20% of trials, and increased antisaccade error rate is widely used as a measure of “cognitive disinhibition” in clinical settings. One aspect of antisaccade performance that has received relatively little attention is the large variability in error rate typically observed within healthy participants. Whilst there are many studies describing increased antisaccade error rates in patient populations, there has been comparatively little research into what individual differences might underlie the dramatic variations that are observed within healthy participants. This thesis presents five papers, each of which explores potential sources of variability in antisaccade performance in healthy participants. The first paper used a cueing manipulation to explore the extent to which individual differences in the ability to maintain the task goal in mind will influence antisaccade error rate. The second paper addressed the potential role of differences in motivation, by determining the extent to which antisaccade performance is moderated by a range of incentives. In paper 3, the role of strategic influences was investigated by altering the task instructions that participants were given. In paper 4, task instructions and working memory load were manipulated in order to determine their effect on antisaccade error awareness. The final paper, based on data gathered across the preceding experiments, explored the extent to which individual differences in factors such as working memory capacity, processing speed, and personality measures (schizotypy and impulsivity) correlated with antisaccade performance. Across all studies, the data is used to test predictions made by current parallel programming models of antisaccade performance. The data suggests that a range of “top-down” factors can influence antisaccade performance, but that the most important individual difference in explaining antisaccade error rate in healthy participants is prosaccade latency.
Novel PINK1 mutations in early‐onset parkinsonism

PINK1 was recently found to be associated with PARK6 as the causative gene. We performed mutation analysis in eight inbred families whose haplotypes link to the PARK6 region. We identified six pathogenic mutations (R246X, H271Q, E417G, L347P, and Q239X/R492X) in six unrelated families. All sites of mutations were novel, suggesting that PINK1 may be the second most common causative gene next to parkin in parkinsonism with the recessive mode of inheritance. Ann Neurol 2004;56:424–427
Exploring the Impact of Identity on the Experiences of Entry-Level Men in Student Affairs.

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of men at the entry-level of the student affairs profession. Using the concepts found in the existing literature related to gender identity as a framework, the research was focused upon the meanings constructed by entry-level men within the field of student affairs and how those meanings are similar to or different from the societal definitions of masculinity. The study consisted of 22 entry-level men currently working in the field of student affairs. Participants took part either in individual interviews (n=18) or a focus group (n=4) and discussed their experiences being a man in the student affairs workplace. Careful attention was paid to the perceived identity of entry-level men in student affairs in an effort to uncover any relationships between this identity and their experiences in the field. In addition, particular consideration was placed upon the ways in which these entry-level men in student affairs defined their roles and the ways in which they negotiated their identity. Results indicated these entry-level men in student affairs identified with three distinct roles: Traditional Man, Leader/Mentor, and World Changer. In addition, according to participants, relationships and environmental factors have an impact on the experiences of this population. The level of support that an entry-level man receives, particularly from male mentors, has a large impact on his experience and potentially on his decision to remain in the field. Findings revealed that these men make meaning based upon their day-to-day activities, the contextual environment, and from traditional societal norms. Addition findings include strategies used by this population to negotiate their identity within student affairs.
Citizenship Education in Egyptian Public Schools : What Values to Teach and in which Administrative and Political Contexts ?

The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in Egypt has recently recognized the negative consequences of low political involvement of youth in public life. These have caused violence and instability. For this, the NDP has placed citizenship programs in the forefront of its political agenda. The latter acknowledges the roles of several societal institutions such as media, civil society, religion, and family. Nevertheless, it has neglected the role of educational institutions. This article claims that schools remain a main vehicle for the transmission of democratic values and focuses on the role of social studies curriculum to promote these values. It highlights the various issues that face Egyptian policy makers and educators in the preparation and implementation of a curriculum geared to promote democratic citizenship concepts.
Children and Adolescents with Transsexual Parents Referred to a Specialist Gender Identity Development Service: A Brief Report of Key Developmental Features

An investigation of the psychosocial development of children of transsexual parents provides a special opportunity to examine whether and how parental gender role influences children’s own gender development, mental health, family relationships and peer relationships. Data on the presence or absence of gender identity disorder, depression, peer relationship difficulties and problems in family relationships among children of transsexual parents were collated from audit of a specialist clinical service. Only 1 female adolescent of the 18 children of transsexual parents recorded temporary concerns with respect to gender identity. Compared with children referred to the same clinical service regarding concerns about their own gender identity, the children of transsexual parents were less depressed and less likely to report peer harassment, persecution or victimization. However, the case notes of children of transsexual parents revealed that this group was more likely to have experienced marital conflict between their parents than were children referred with gender identity concerns and as likely to record difficulties in parent-child relationships and general difficulties with peer relationships. It is suggested that clinical work with children of transsexual parents needs to focus on the quality of family relationships.
Serum inflammatory markers in diabetic retinopathy.

PURPOSE To evaluate the association of serum factors with the severity of diabetic retinopathy and to assess their presence in retinal tissue obtained at autopsy. METHODS The following serum factors of 93 subjects were examined at the National Eye Institute (NEI) clinical center: the chemokines regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and presumably secreted (RANTES)/CCL5, epithelial neutrophil activator (ENA)-78/CXCL5, interferon-induced protein (IP)-10/CXCL10, stromal cell-derived factor (SDF)-1alpha/CXCLl2, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1/CCL2, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1alpha/CCL3, interleukin (IL)-8/CXCL8; the cytokine IL-6; the cell adhesion molecules intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM-1/CD54) and vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM/CD106); and the growth factor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Logistic regression was performed to assess the association of these factors with age, sex, severity of retinopathy, hemoglobin A(1C), total cholesterol, creatinine, duration of diabetes, and presence of macular edema. The outcome assessed was severity of retinopathy. Frozen sections of two donor eyes obtained at autopsy from a donor with documented severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema and of a normal nondiabetic eye were processed by immunoperoxidase staining with primary antibodies against RANTES, MCP-1, ICAM-1, and LFA-1alpha/CD11a. RESULTS The levels of RANTES and SDF-1alpha were significantly elevated in patients with at least severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy compared with those with less severe diabetic retinopathy (P < 0.001 and 0.007, respectively). Positive immunostaining was observed in the inner retina for MCP-1 and RANTES of the patient with diabetes. Staining was strongly positive throughout the diabetic retina for ICAM-1. Normal retinal tissues showed little reactivity. CONCLUSIONS Serum chemokines were significantly elevated in patients with at least severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy compared with those who had less severe retinopathy. Elevated levels of the chemokines and cell adhesion molecules were also identified in eyes of a donor with ischemic diabetic retinopathy. These findings provide evidence to support the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy.
Studies on the Production of Fungal Peroxidases inAspergillus niger

ABSTRACT To get insight into the limiting factors existing for the efficient production of fungal peroxidase in filamentous fungi, the expression of the Phanerochaete chrysosporium lignin peroxidase H8 (lipA) and manganese peroxidase (MnP) H4 (mnp1) genes in Aspergillus niger has been studied. For this purpose, a protease-deficient A. niger strain and different expression cassettes have been used. Northern blotting experiments indicated high steady-state mRNA levels for the recombinant genes. Manganese peroxidase was secreted into the culture medium as an active protein. The recombinant protein showed specific activity and a spectrum profile similar to those of the native enzyme, was correctly processed at its N terminus, and had a slightly lower mobility on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Recombinant MnP production could be increased up to 100 mg/liter upon hemoglobin supplementation of the culture medium. Lignin peroxidase was also secreted into the extracellular medium, although the protein was not active, presumably due to incorrect processing of the secreted enzyme. Expression of the lipA and mnp1 genes fused to the A. niger glucoamylase gene did not result in improved production yields.
Doing Disability: Disability Formations in the Search for Work*

Disability theorists have spent much time discussing how disability is defined. The theoretical roots for these debates reside in the medical, structural, and minority models of disability. The medical model views disability as equivalent to a functional impairment; the minority model sees a lack of equal rights as a primary impediment to social equality between able and disabled populations; and the structural model looks to environmental factors as the cause of disability. While debates over how to define disability are informative, there is currently an insufficient amount of empirical research looking at how people come to identify themselves as having a disability. Rather than focus on how disability is (or should be) defined, herein we look at how disability identities are constructed as people search for work. We show that people's interactions with employers and employment agencies have important influences on how disability identities are constructed. We borrow from the "doing gender" and "racial formations" paradigms to introduce an interactive approach to looking at how disability identities are constructed. We introduce the concept of disability formation to highlight how disability identities are continually negotiated through interactions with employment agencies and employers. Our findings are based on focus groups with 58 people who self-identified as having a disability and were working or searching for work.
Spatio-Temporal Analysis of climatic data using additive regression splines

Environmental modelling often requires knowledge of the values of certain climatic variables at locations where no such information is available. When this is the case, one must rely on interpolated values derived from climatic data recorded at surrounding locations. The accuracy of the interpolated field, however, can often be critically dependent on the inclusion of additional predictor variables in the data models used to calculate the interpolated values. This is the case with precipitation, for example, as it is often influenced by the underlying topography. When interpolating precipitation data it is therefore desirable to include predictors such as elevation and topographic slope and aspect, in addition to those quantifying the data point locations, to achieve accurate precipitation surfaces. Furthermore, studies have shown that interpolation accuracy is improved by allowing for a spatially varying dependence on these topographic variables. Additional predictors will also be appropriate when analysing temporal trends in climatic data. Interpolation procedures that incorporate additional predictors in a spatially varying way can also be useful tools for analysing how the effects of certain predictors vary across the spatial extent of the region under consideration.
X-band MMIC GaN power amplifiers designed for high-efficiency supply-modulated transmitters

The design and measured performance of X-band power amplifier MMICs that utilize 0. 15μm GaN on SiC process technology are presented. Under continuous wave operating conditions these single and 2-stage MMICs demonstrate peak power added efficiencies (PAE) from 45% to 69%, output powers from 2.5-13W, and up to 20dB of large signal gain. Designed for drain modulated applications, the power amplifiers maintain good performance at reduced drain bias voltage. The output power of the two stage MMIC can be varied from 2W to 13W when the drain bias is varied between 7.5V and 20V while maintaining a PAE above 54%.
In Liddle Syndrome, Epithelial Sodium Channel Is Hyperactive Mainly in the Early Part of the Aldosterone-Sensitive Distal Nephron

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) is rate limiting for Na+ absorption in the aldosterone-sensitive distal nephron comprising the late distal convoluted tubule (DCT2), the connecting tubule (CNT), and the entire collecting duct. Liddle syndrome (pseudohyperaldosteronism), a severe form of salt-sensitive hypertension, is caused by gain-of-function mutations of ENaC, but the precise tubular site of increased ENaC function is unknown. In the cortical collecting duct (CCD), ENaC is known to be regulated by aldosterone. In contrast, we recently reported aldosterone-independent ENaC regulation in the early part of the aldosterone-sensitive distal nephron. Here, we investigated ENaC function in the transition zone of DCT2/CNT or CNT/CCD microdissected from mice homozygous for Liddle syndrome mutation or from wild-type control mice. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were used to measure amiloride-sensitive ENaC currents in nephron fragments from mice maintained on different sodium diets to vary plasma aldosterone levels. Our data indicate that in mice with Liddle syndrome, the primary site of increased Na+ reabsorption is the DCT2/CNT. In addition, increased aldosterone responsiveness of ENaC in CNT/CCD may contribute to salt-sensitive hypertension in Liddle syndrome. Single channel properties of ENaC were similar in Liddle syndrome mutation and wild-type mice, but ENaC expression at the apical membrane was increased in Liddle syndrome mutation when compared with wild-type mice, in particular, in animals maintained on a high salt diet. Our findings highlight the importance of ENaC function and regulation in the early part of the aldosterone-sensitive distal nephron for the maintenance of sodium balance and blood pressure control.