Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cross-Cultural Mentor Effectiveness and African American Male Students

This study examined the effects of mentor ethnicity, cultural sensitivity, and student level of cultural mistrust on perceptions of mentor credibility and cultural competence. African American men attending west coast community colleges listened to a tape-recorded mentoring session in which the faculty mentor was described as eitherAfrican American or European American and was portrayed as either culturally responsive or culturally unresponsive. Mentor ethnicity, as well as an interaction between mentor ethnicity and participant level of cultural mistrust, were found to be related to perceptions of mentor credibility/effectiveness. In addition, mentor ethnicity and cultural sensitivity were found to be related to perceptions of mentor cross-cultural competence.
$L^p$-regularity for elliptic operators with unbounded coefficients

Abstract. Under suitable conditions on the functions a ∈ C(R , RN2), F ∈ C(R , R ), and V : R → [0,∞), we show that the operator Au = ∇(a∇u) + F · ∇u − V u with domain W 2,p V (R ) = {u ∈ W (R ) : V u ∈ L(R )} generates a positive analytic semigroup on L(R ), 1 < p < ∞. Analogous results are also established in the spaces L(R ) and C0(R ). As an application we show that the generalized Ornstein–Uhlenbeck operator AΦ,Gu = ∆u − ∇Φ · ∇u + G · ∇u with domain W (R , μ) generates an analytic semigroup on the weighted space L(R , μ), where 1 < p < ∞ and μ(dx) = e−Φ(x)dx.
Introduction: Sleeping Bodies

Sleep is an inescapable fact of the human condition. Sooner or later, happily or otherwise, we are all called back to this (blissful) state of oblivion which, like death itself, places temporal limits on all our waking projects and conscious involvements in the intersubjective world. This may constitute one very good reason why, despite its ubiquity or universality in both human and non-human species, sleep has been such a neglected topic of discussion and debate in the social sciences and humanities in the past. Why, after all, study this void or blank in all our lives? What indeed is there to study or report on? To the extent, moreover, that agency is wedded to consciousness or wakefulness, what possible interest can the social sciences and humanities have in sleep or sleeping? At most, one might conjecture, the world of dreams and dreaming opens up some rich and fruitful areas of inquiry, not least the social, cultural and historical significance of dreams and dreamers, but sleep as such is surely a step too far. A variety of recent work, thankfully, has begun to challenge any such waking prejudices and preoccupations, opening up sleep to critical scrutiny within the social sciences and humanities. Early sociological forays into sleep, which seem to have largely gone unnoticed (Aubert and White, 1959a, 1959b; Schwartz, 1970; Taylor, 1993), have now been joined by a variety of more recent contributions within the social sciences and humanities (Ekirch, 2001; Steger and Brunt, 2003; Williams, 2005).
Graduateness and Employability: student perceptions of the personal outcomes of university education

Abstract There is considerable pressure to expand the student take-up of university places in the United Kingdom. This has had implications for the nature of provision and pedagogy in higher education. In particular there is a tension between graduateness as a state after the completion of a course, and employability as an assessment of the economic worth of a student at that time. This investigation charts the background to the tension and reports on findings from 400 students at the commencement, and 400 students at the completion of their university courses. Evidence indicates that economic motivation is more important than the pursuit of knowledge and that instrumentalism directed towards employment is increasingly expected of higher education courses. Graduateness alone is not seen by students as a sufficient basis for continued personal and institutional investment and hoped for success in a highly competitive, flexible, and globally responsive, environment. The extension of partnerships between higher education and employers is considered essential if student numbers are to be maintained.
Regulate Chick Retinal Calcium Waves

Correlated spiking activity and associated Ca waves in the developing retina are important in determining the connectivity of the visual system. Here, we show that GABA, via GABAB receptors, regulates the temporal characteristics of Ca waves occurring before synapse formation in the embryonic chick retina. Blocking ionotropic GABA receptors did no affect these Ca transients. However, when these receptors were blocked, GABA abolished the transients, as did the GABAB agonist baclofen. The action of baclofen was prevented by the GABAB antagonist p-3-aminopropyl-p-diethoxymethyl phosphoric acid (CGP35348). CGP35348 alone increased the duration of the transients, showing that GABAB receptors are tonically activated by endogenous GABA. Blocking the GABA transporter GAT-1 with 1-(4,4-diphenyl-3-butenyl)-3-piperidine carboxylic acid (SKF89976A) reduced the frequency of the transients. This reduction was prevented by CGP35348 and thus resulted from activation of GABAB receptors by an increase in external [GABA]. The effect of GABAB receptor activation persisted in the presence of activators and blockers of the cAMP–PKA pathway. Immunocytochemistry showed GABAB receptors and GAT-1 transporters on ganglion and amacrine cells from the earliest times when Ca waves occur (embryonic day 8). Patch-clamp recordings showed that K channels on ganglion cell layer neurons are not modulated by GABAB receptors, whereas Ca 21 channels are; however, Ca channel blockade with v-conotoxin-GVIA or nimodipine did not prevent Ca waves. Thus, the regulation of Ca waves by GABAB receptors occurs independently of Nand L-type Ca 21 channels and does not involve K channels of the ganglion cell layer. GABAB receptors are likely to be of key importance in regulating retinal development.
What's going on? Analysing visual data to understand context-based decision-making processes

This brief research report gives an overview of a visually based methodology that has recently been used to shed light on situated decision-making in a high stakes educational assessment environment. Looking carefully at the feedback interactions taking place between senior and less senior examiners, the project aim was to gain insight into the nature of feedback given and the influences on the formation of such feedback. Given the high stakes’ consequences of the interactions taking place, technology was able to support the research process by allowing video data about examiners' practices to be gathered without intruding into the outcomes being observed. This report describes one approach that was used to analyse video data in order to address the initial research question. The video data allowed researchers to gain insights into how examiners monitor marking quality. These insights included both the frequency of monitoring behaviours and the processes underpinning them. Analyses showed a three-stage Evaluation–Diagnosis–Feedback process. Being able to isolate and reflect on individual behaviours allowed the actors to give insights into their actions, giving voice to the inherent complexities whilst not interfering with such processes.
Which nonlinearity in the Phillips curve? The absence of accelerating deflation in Japan

It is standard to model the output-inflation trade-off as a linear relationship with a time-invariant slope. We assess empirical evidence for three types of nonlinearity in the short-run Phillips curve. At an empirical level, we aim to discover why large negative output gaps in Japan during the period 1998-2002 did not lead to accelerating deflation, but instead coincided with stable, be it moderately negative inflation. We document that this episode is most convincingly interpreted as reflecting a gradual flattening of the Phillips curve. The broader relevance of our analysis lies in its attempt to shed light on the determinants of such time-variation in the Phillips curve slope. Our results suggest that, in any economy where trend inflation is substantially lower (or substantially higher) today than in past decades, time-variation in the slope of the short-run Phillips curve has become too important to ignore.
Comparison of Pasteurella spp. Simultaneously Isolated from Nasal and Transtracheal Swabs from Cattle with Clinical Signs of Bovine Respiratory Disease

ABSTRACT Twenty-four matched pairs of isolates of Pasteurella haemolytica and three matched pairs of isolates ofPasteurella multocida were isolated by using a nasal swab and a transtracheal swab from individual calves with clinical signs of bovine respiratory disease. The identity of each matched pair was confirmed biochemically and serologically. The similarity of the isolates obtained from a nasal swab and from a transtracheal swab was compared by using ribotyping and antibiotic susceptibility analyses. Although the calves were sampled only once with a nasal and a transtracheal swab, when both samples were bacteriologically positive the nasal swab identified the same bacterial species as the transtracheal swab 96% of the time. The nasal swab isolate was genetically identical to the transtracheal isolate in 70% of the matched pairs. Six different ribotypes were observed for the P. haemolytica isolates, while only one ribotype was observed for the limited number of P. multocida isolates. Of the six P. haemolytica ribotypes, two ribotypes predominated. All the paired isolates displayed similar susceptibility to ceftiofur, erythromycin, tilmicosin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and florfenicol, with some minor variations for ampicillin and spectinomycin. These results suggest that a nasal swab culture can be predictive of the bacterial pathogen within the lung when the isolates are from an acutely ill animal and can be used to determine antibiotic susceptibility.
Using tests to enhance 8th grade students' retention of U.S. history facts

Laboratory studies show that retention of information can be powerfully enhanced through testing, but evidence for their utility to promote long-term retention of course information is limited. We assessed 8th grade students' retention of U.S. history facts. Facts were reviewed after 1 week, 16 weeks or not reviewed at all. Some facts were reviewed by testing (Who assassinated president Abraham Lincoln? ) followed by feedback (John Wilkes Booth), while others were re-studied. Nine months later, all students received a test covering all of the facts. Facts reviewed through testing were retained significantly better than facts reviewed through re-studying, and nearly twice as well as those given no review. The best retention occurred for facts that were reviewed by testing after a 16-week time interval. Although the gain in item was numerically small, due to floor effects, these results support the notion that testing can enhance long-term retention of course knowledge. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Financial Modeling and Option Theory with the Truncated Levy Process

In recent studies the truncated Levy process (TLP) has been shown to be very promising for the modeling of financial dynamics. In contrast to the Levy process, the TLP has finite moments and can account for both the previously observed excess kurtosis at short timescales, along with the slow convergence to Gaussian at longer timescales. I further test the truncated Levy paradigm using high frequency data from the Australian All Ordinaries share market index. I then consider, for the early Levy dominated regime, the issue of option hedging for two different hedging strategies that are in some sense optimal. These are compared with the usual delta hedging approach and found to differ significantly. I also derive the natural generalization of the Black- Scholes option pricing formula when the underlying security is modeled by a geometric TLP. This generalization would not be possible without the truncation.
The load of short telomeres, estimated by a new method, Universal STELA, correlates with number of senescent cells

Short telomeres are thought to trigger senescence, most likely through a single – or a group of few – critically shortened telomeres. Such short telomeres are thought to result from a combination of gradual linear shortening resulting from the end replication problem, reflecting the division history of the cell, superimposed by a more stochastic mechanism, suddenly causing a significant shortening of a single telomere. Previously, studies that have tried to explore the role of critically shortened telomeres have been hampered by methodological problems. With the method presented here, Universal STELA, we have a tool that can directly investigate the relationship between senescence and the load of short telomeres. The method is a variant of the chromosome‐specific STELA method but has the advantage that it can demonstrate short telomeres regardless of chromosome. With Universal STELA, we find a strong correlation between the load of short telomeres and cellular senescence. Further we show that the load of short telomeres is higher in senescent cells compared to proliferating cells at the same passage, offering an explanation of premature cell senescence. This new method, Universal STELA, offers some advantages compared to existing methods and can be used to explore many of the unanswered questions in telomere biology including the role that telomeres play in cancer and aging.
Finding Young Stellar Populations in Elliptical Galaxies from Independent Components of Optical Spectra

Elliptical galaxies are believed to consist of a single population of old stars formed together at an early epoch in the Universe, yet recent analyses of galaxy spectra seem to indicate the presence of significant younger populations of stars in them. The detailed physical modelling of such populations is computationally expensive, inhibiting the detailed analysis of the several million galaxy spectra becoming available over the next few years. Here we present a data mining application aimed at decomposing the spectra of elliptical galaxies into several coeval stellar populations, without the use of detailed physical models. This is achieved by performing a linear independent basis transformation that essentially decouples the initial problem of joint processing of a set of correlated spectral measurements into that of the independent processing of a small set of prototypical spectra. Two methods are investigated: (1) A fast projection approach is derived by exploiting the correlation structure of neighboring wavelength bins within the spectral data. (2) A factorisation method that takes advantage of the positivity of the spectra is also investigated. The preliminary results show that typical features observed in stellar population spectra of different evolutionary histories can be convincingly disentangled by these methods, despite the absence of input physics. The success of this basis transformation analysis in recovering physically interpretable representations indicates that this technique is a potentially powerful tool for astronomical data mining.
Effects of dietary treatment alone or diet with voglibose or glyburide on abdominal adipose tissue and metabolic abnormalities in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.

UNLABELLED OBJECTIVE; To examine the effects of diet and diet with voglibose or glyburide on abdominal adiposity and metabolic abnormalities in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 36 Japanese patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (50.8 +/- 8.6 years of age, BMI 24.5 +/- 3.5 kg/m(2)) and 273 normal control subjects were studied. The patients were treated for 3 months with diet alone (30 kcal/kg per day) (n = 15), diet with voglibose (n = 12), or diet with glyburide (n = 9). They underwent 75-g oral glucose tolerance testing, assessment of insulin sensitivity (SI), and acute insulin response (AIR) with intravenous glucose tolerance testing based on the minimal model, and measurement of abdominal visceral adipose tissue area (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue area (SAT) by computed tomography before and after treatment. RESULTS The diabetic patients had comparable SAT but larger VAT than the control subjects. With a mean weight loss of 2-3 kg, VAT and SAT were decreased similarly in all treatment groups. The VAT-to-SAT ratio was decreased only in the voglibose group. Glycemic control and serum lipid profiles were improved in all groups. Changes in glycemic control after diet were closely correlated with changes in VAT but not with changes in SAT. SI and AIR were unchanged in the diet group but were improved in the voglibose and glyburide groups. CONCLUSIONS In Japanese patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes who were relatively lean but had excess VAT, diet with or without voglibose or glyburide effectively reduced VAT. Decrease in VAT was closely associated with improvement of glycemic control with diet. Additional use of voglibose or low-dose glyburide had no detrimental effects on abdominal adiposity and had beneficial effects on SI and AIR.
Locating Possibilities for Control and Resistance in a Self-Help Program

This paper studies attempts to regulate employees' identities through self-help programs to examine control and resistance. Extant research shows how identity regulation secures organization control. Less attention is paid to resistance of such control. This study addresses this limitation by examining one self-help change program, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, during implementation in a knowledge-intensive organization. The analysis highlights how (1) the implementation of “universal” organizational and personal change programs must be made concrete for particular organizations and people, (2) self-help programs provide various and often unintended avenues for control and resistance because of the universal-local translation, and (3) analyses of control and resistance must be conducted across organizational boundaries.
Classical and modular approaches to exponential Diophantine equations I. Fibonacci and Lucas perfect powers

This is the first in a series of papers whereby we combine the classical approach to exponential Diophantine equations (linear forms in logarithms, Thue equations, etc.) with a modular approach based on some of the ideas of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. In this paper we give new improved bounds for linear forms in three logarithms. We also apply a combination of classical techniques with the modular approach to show that the only perfect powers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0, 1, 8 and 144 and the only perfect powers in the Lucas sequence are 1 and 4.
The Cholinergic Hypothesis of Age and Alzheimer's Disease-Related Cognitive Deficits: Recent Challenges and Their Implications for Novel Drug Development

The cholinergic hypothesis was initially presented over 20 years ago and suggests that a dysfunction of acetylcholine containing neurons in the brain contributes substantially to the cognitive decline observed in those with advanced age and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This premise has since served as the basis for the majority of treatment strategies and drug development approaches for AD to date. Recent studies of the brains of patients who had mild cognitive impairment or early stage AD in which choline acetyltransferase and/or acetylcholinesterase activity was unaffected (or even up-regulated) have, however, led some to challenge the validity of the hypothesis as well as the rationale for using cholinomimetics to treat the disorder, particularly in the earlier stages. These challenges, primarily based on assays of post mortem enzyme activity, should be taken in perspective and evaluated within the wide range of cholinergic abnormalities known to exist in both aging and AD. The results of both post mortem and antemortem studies in aged humans and AD patients, as well as animal experiments suggest that a host of cholinergic abnormalities including alterations in choline transport, acetylcholine release, nicotinic and muscarinic receptor expression, neurotrophin support, and perhaps axonal transport may all contribute to cognitive abnormalities in aging and AD. Cholinergic abnormalities may also contribute to noncognitive behavioral abnormalities as well as the deposition of toxic neuritic plaques in AD. Therefore, cholinergic-based strategies will likely remain valid as one approach to rational drug development for the treatment of AD other forms of dementia.
Clinical utility of plasma Epstein‐Barr virus DNA and ERCC1 single nucleotide polymorphism in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the excision repair cross‐complementing group 1 (ERCC1) gene has been linked with sensitivity to platinum and radiation. The authors hypothesized that the ERCC1 genotype for the SNPs cytosine‐to‐thymine substitution at codon 118 (C118T) and cytosine‐to‐adenine substitution at codon 8092 (C8092A) is prognostic in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) who receive either radiotherapy (RT) or cisplatin plus RT.
Prevalence and Impact of Manic Traits in Depressed Patients Initiating Interferon Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection

Goals To evaluate the impact of manic traits on adverse events in depressed hepatitis C patients initiating interferon therapy. Background Interferon α therapy for hepatitis C can exacerbate preexisting depression. Bipolar disorder frequently presents as depressive symptoms that are indistinguishable from or misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder. The impact of bipolar disorder on adverse psychiatric events during therapy is unknown. Study A retrospective study was performed on consecutive patients initiating interferon therapy in the Hepatology clinic at a tertiary-care center between December 2004 and October 2007. All patients completed the Physicians Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a validated survey for major depressive disorder. Patients with a positive PHQ screen completed the Mood Disorders Questionnaire (MDQ), a validated screening tool for manic traits. Patients with a negative PHQ served as controls. All adverse psychiatric events were documented through retrospective record review for 6 months after interferon initiation. Results A total of 165 patients were treated with interferon α. One hundred thirty-two (80%) had a negative PHQ (controls) and 33 had a positive PHQ. Forty-one (30%) of the control patients had adverse psychiatric events. Psychiatric events occurred in 8 of 22 (36%) patients with positive PHQ but negative MDQ; 8 of 11 (73%) with positive PHQ and positive MDQ had psychiatric adverse events. This finding was statistically significant compared with the control group (P=0.007). The overall sustained viral response rate was 58% and was not statistically significant among groups. Conclusions Baseline manic traits, as detected by the MDQ, were associated with high rates of adverse psychiatric events among individuals receiving antiviral therapy.
REFLECTIONS OF THE PAST: NEW VARIABLES AFFECTING LIFE SATISFACTION IN LATER LIFE

The goal of this study was to identify variables affecting life satisfaction in later life that could be manipulated through intervention. The results indicate that life revision, regretfulness, and reminiscence is related to life satisfaction. A random sample of 122 retired persons completed a questionnaire assessing life satisfaction and degree of life revision, regretfulness, and reminiscence. Controlling for health, social activity, and income, life revision and regretfulness were found to be more significant predictors of life satisfaction than income. The relationship between reminiscence and life satisfaction depended on marital status. Reminiscence had a significant negative relationship with life satisfaction for those who had a spouse present and a significant positive relationship for those who did not have a spouse present. Implications for practice and direction for future research are discussed.