Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Provision of Learning Support for University Students with Learning, Mental Health, and Other Forms of Hidden Disabilities

Much of the research on the topic of tertiary students with hidden disabilities has focused on attempting to understand the nature of these disabilities and their impact on students' academic performance. Very few studies have explored how effective learning support addresses the commonly reported problem of poor academic outcomes. Studies of the latter kind, however, are important in promoting not only learning at all levels - from the level of the students and their instructors, to those of institutional management and government policy makers - but also the development of effective institutional support mechanisms. This paper describes the support provisions of a university program that aims to facilitate better learning in students with hidden disabilities. Several indicators suggest that the program is achieving this aim. The increasing number of students using the program shows, among other things, that its support provisions are appropriate and are also viewed this way by students and referring agencies. An increasing proportion of students seeking not only assessment and accommodations, but also skills training, suggests that the program is succeeding in promoting student aspirations toward self-development and independent learning. Furthermore, student retention and pass rates indicate parity with other students, therefore addressing the issue of poorer academic performance of students with hidden disabilities. Three case studies illustrate the means by which Learning Advisors from the program assist students with hidden disabilities in meeting these students' learning development needs.
The Influence of CEO Tenure and Attitude Toward Change on Organizational Approaches to Innovation

Using Miles and Snow’s typology as a measure for organizational approach toward innovation, this study investigates the effect of CEOs’ attitudes toward change on the extent of emphasis on innovation in competitive strategies. The data come from multiple respondents at nonprofit organizations and are gathered in a manner that eliminates the possibility of common method variance, a problem that has plagued past studies linking executives’ attitudes and organization-level innovation. The findings suggest that organizations headed by CEOs with more liberal attitudes toward change follow prospector strategies characterized by high levels of exploration to develop innovations. Meanwhile, organizations managed by CEOs who have more conservative attitudes toward change were found to focus more on defender strategies that exploit existing advantages rather than innovations. Increasing CEO tenure was found to positively moderate this relationship.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Sperm Antibodies, Intra‐Acrosomal Sperm Proteins, and Cytokines in Semen in Men from Infertile Couples

Problem The aim of this study was to investigate seminal sperm‐agglutinating antibodies, intra‐acrosomal proteins, sperm head abnormalities, and cytokines (IL‐1β, IL‐2, IL‐4, IL‐5, IL‐6, IL‐8, IL‐10, IL‐12p70 TNF‐α, and IFN‐γ) in men from infertile couples.
Canonical Divergence Analysis

We aim to analyze the relation between two random vectors that may potentially have both different number of attributes as well as realizations, and which may even not have a joint distribution. This problem arises in many practical domains, including biology and architecture. Existing techniques assume the vectors to have the same domain or to be jointly distributed, and hence are not applicable. To address this, we propose Canonical Divergence Analysis (CDA). We introduce three instantiations, each of which permits practical implementation. Extensive empirical evaluation shows the potential of our method.
Social justice, service delivery and welfare : reform the politics of deprivation, disaffection and education in the District of Thanet

Thanet is the most deprived district in the county of Kent. The district's social topography is reviewed and contextualized within New Labour's education policy, and public service responses to social need in Thanet are considered. Preliminary attempts to integrate public service provision are described, and structural barriers that inhibit access to education services are revealed. Paterson's analysis of New Labour policy is modified and applied to explain the particular circumstances of the district, and a critique of the developing system of extended and full-service schools in the district is suggested. The type of social justice enacted in Thanet is located within a taxonomy of different styles of social justice, and the article shows how the emphasis on neo-liberal policies has embedded a strategic reorientation from equity-driven to competition-driven provision that results in an individualised concept of social justice. The article highlights the difficulty of reconciling choice and social justice and concludes that the social market in Thanet is not structured to deliver equity to the needy.
The Rise and Fall of Popular Mass Movements

This article is about the erosion of the Norwegian democratic infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the causes and effects of the transformation of the voluntary sector and the decline of social movements. We are seeing a turning away from large-scale ideological mass movements and an increase in smaller and nimbler associations that are better at catering for individual needs and wishes, but poorer in plugging members into the central decision-making institutions. This is putting increasing pressure on the Norwegian social contract, which has been characterized by high levels of institutional centralization balanced by high levels of citizen control. We relate these important changes in the democratic infrastructure to the impact of globalization, highlighting structural similarities between globalization and the new organizational forms of political or civic participation. Our argument is that globalization is a process that has particular structural characteristics, and that these characteristics are giving shape to the new forms of civic participation that are now emerging in Norway (and probably also in the rest of Scandinavia).
Evaluating newspaper performance in the public sphere: Press accounts of Westminster elections in Scotland and in England in the early post-devolution period

This article explores ways of evaluating the performance of the press in an electoral public sphere and compares the output of newspapers in England and in Scotland during the 2001 and 2005 general election campaigns. It combines content analysis with critical discussion of examples of coverage and complements these with evidence from interviews with Scottish political editors. It argues that, even though Scottish newspapers gave less coverage to the two elections than titles sold in England, both sets of newspapers performed better in their role as providers of information and opinion to inform the electorate, than in that of presenting an inclusive, discursive and diverse electoral debate or encouraging forms of active citizenry.
Environmental factors as a conceptual framework for examining cognitive performance in Chinese adults

Cognitive abilities were examined across the lifespan for a Chinese sample, taking into consideration gender, education, and environmental factors. Participants were tested on the ” ve subtests of the Primary Mental Abilities (PMA), a psychometric instrument measuring cognitive abilities. Environmental factors were assessed with a measure known as the Life Complexity Inventory (LCI), which provides information on the many aspects of the participants’ micro-environment. A MANOVA was used to examine patterns of cohort and gender differences in intellectual performance, and significant main effects for cohort were found. Polynomial trend analyses confirmed that age was linearly related to most mental abilities. Of the seven environmental factors, only the Intellectual Environment factor was significantly associated with all ability scores with positive correlations ranging from r = . 20 to . 32. Positive correlations indicate that a particular environmental factor is associated with higher ability or greater ‘ exibility.
Organizational sciences’ obsession with “that’s interesting!”

We suggest that the organizational science’s increasing preoccupation with “interesting” theories and “counterintuitive” facts can lead to nonreplicable findings, fragmented theory, and irrelevance. The focus on the interesting and novel reveals a profound misunderstanding of the scientific enterprise. Organizational scholarship will be better off if it reverts to according primacy to the problem being solved over novel theory development.
Increased incidence of stroke and impaired prognosis after stroke among patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To examine the incidence of, and outcome after, a stroke in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with the general population. METHODS The northern Sweden MONICA register was used to compare the incidence of stroke in a cohort of RA patients with the general population. Forty RA patients who had also suffered a stroke were identified. For each patient with RA, three controls with a history of stroke but without RA were randomly collected from the same register, and matched for age and sex. RESULTS The standardised incidence ratio (SIR) for stroke was 2.7 in RA patients compared with the general population (p<0.05). During the follow-up, RA patients had a higher overall case fatality (CF) following stroke compared with controls (hazard ratio (HR) =1.70, p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Both the incidence of a stroke, and the subsequent CF, were higher among RA patients compared with the general population. The results emphasize the necessity of optimising the prevention of stroke and follow-up care after a stroke in RA.
QuickDough: A rapid FPGA loop accelerator design framework using soft CGRA overlay

The use of FPGAs as compute accelerators has been demonstrated by numerous researchers as an effective solution to meet the performance requirement across many application domains. However, the design productivity of developing FPGA accelerators remains much lower compared to the use of a typical software development flow. Although the use of the high-level design tools may partly alleviate this shortcoming, the lengthy low-level FPGA implementation process including synthesis, placing and routing still dramatically limits the number of compile-debug-edit cycles per day and hinders the widespread adoption of FPGAs. To address this design productivity problem, we have developed a rapid FPGA loop accelerator generation framework called QuickDough. By utilizing a soft coarse-grained reconfigurable array (SCGRA) overlay built on top of off-the-shelf FPGAs, it compiles a high-level loop to the overlay through a rapid operation scheduling first and then generates the FPGA accelerator bitstream through a rapid integration of the scheduling result and a pre-built overlay bitstream. According to the experiments, QuickDough is able to produce accelerators in the order of seconds while achieving up to 9X performance speedup over the execution of the same software running on a hard ARM processor.
Setting the News Story Agenda: Candidates and Commentators in News Coverage of a Governor's Race

This study assessed the kinds of sources setting the story “agenda” in election news covering the 1998 governor's race in the nine largest Michigan dailies. The assertions of candidates or their partisan supporters were more likely than those of experts or other sources to dominate story leads and paragraphs. Sources included for their expertise on the “horse race” and issue aspects of the campaign were cited in only a third of the election stories, and their comments were usually placed far down in the stories. Statehouse bureau reporters were more likely than their newsroom-based and wire-service colleagues to write stories including experts. A substantial number of stories also contained unattributed “reporter leads. ” Most of these leads were references to events or developments that could be verified by any reader. Other reporter leads contained interpretations that were substantiated in the stories. But about 5 percent of the stories were introduced by reporter leads that contained interpretations or conclusions that were not or could not be substantiated in stories. Statehouse bureau reporters were also more likely than wire service or newsroom reporters to write interpretative leads.
Predictive Validity and Time Dependency of Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Personal Goals, and Academic Performance

This article seeks to clarify some conceptual and empirical ambiguities regarding self-efficacy and self-esteem in the educational, psychological, and organizational literatures. The validity of self-efficacy versus self-esteem for predicting personal goals and performance and the subsequent reciprocal effects of personal goals and performance on self-efficacy and self-esteem were investigated. Also examined were the distal and proximal measures of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and personal goals in relation to performance because their conceptual meaning and predictive validity may vary depending on measurement timing. Across three performance trials (academic course exams), self efficacy had greater predictive validity than self-esteem for and was more affected by personal goals and performance. However, the lead and lag measurement times produced no significant differences. Theoretical and practical implications of differential predictive validity and measurement timing are discussed.
The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation in the Task Environment–Performance Relationship

Despite the importance of the external task environment for firm performance, little is known about the mechanisms that enable firms to benefit from a specific environmental setting. The authors argue that firms adjust their entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to the external environment and use it as a mechanism to transform the advantages provided by the environment into above-average performance levels. Specifically, the authors use meta-analysis supplemented by structural equation modeling to explore the links among environmental munificence, hostility, dynamism and complexity, EO, and firm performance in a mediation model. The results suggest that environmental munificence, dynamism, and complexity affect EO and, in turn, firm performance. The authors discuss the meta-analytical findings with respect to their theoretical contribution and their practical implications.
Review on IOT Technologies

A direct interpretation of the term Internet of Things refers to the use of standard Internet protocols for the human-to-thing or thing-to-thing communication in embedded networks. The main aim of IoT is to create a virtual footprint of all the devices and people connected to it. It provides a new method of communication between all the things and the people, and also between the objects itself. IoT provides a different level of communication. This paper explains all the concepts of IoT and the mechanism in brief. The important technologies which enable IoT are RFID systems, Sensor networks and intelligence technologies. The potential applications of these technologies are reviewed and the major research issues are described.
Phenotypic Modulation of Corpus Cavernosum Smooth Muscle Cells in a Rat Model of Cavernous Neurectomy

Background Patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (RP) are at high risk for erectile dysfunction (ED) due to potential cavernous nerve (CN) damage during surgery. Penile hypoxia after RP is thought to significantly contribute to ED pathogenesis. Aim We previously showed that corpora cavernosum smooth muscle cells (CCSMCs) undergo phenotypic modulation under hypoxic conditions in vitro. Here, we studied such changes in an in vivo post-RP ED model by investigating CCSMCs in bilateral cavernous neurectomy (BCN) rats. Methods Sprague-Dawley rats underwent sham (n = 12) or BCN (n = 12) surgery. After 12 weeks, they were injected with apomorphine to determine erectile function. The penile tissues were harvested and assessed for fibrosis using Masson trichrome staining and for molecular markers of phenotypic modulation using immunohistochemistry and western blotting. CCSMC morphological structure was evaluated by hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results Erectile function was significantly lower in BCN rats than in sham rats. BCN increased hypoxia-inducible factor-1α and collagen protein expression in corpora cavernous tissue. H&E staining and TEM showed that CCSMCs in BCN rats underwent hypertrophy and showed rough endoplasmic reticulum formation. The expression of CCSMC phenotypic markers, such as smooth muscle α-actin, smooth muscle myosin heavy chain, and desmin, was markedly lower, whereas vimentin protein expression was significantly higher in BCN rats than in control rats. Conclusions CCSMCs undergo phenotype modulation in rats with cavernous neurectomy. The results have unveiled physiological transformations that occur at the cellular and molecular levels and have helped characterize CN injury–induced ED.
Developing an Outcome Measure With High Luminance for Optogenetics Treatment of Severe Retinal Degenerations and for Gene Therapy of Cone Diseases

Purpose To present stimuli with varied sizes, colors, and patterns over a large range of luminance. Methods The filter bar used in scotopic MP1 was replaced with a custom slide-in tray that introduces light from an external projector driven by an additional computer. MP1 software was modified to provide retinal tracking information to the computer driving the projector. Retinal tracking performance was evaluated by imaging the system input and the output simultaneously with a high-speed video system. Spatial resolution was measured with achromatic and chromatic grating/background combinations over scotopic and photopic ranges. Results The range of retinal illuminance achievable by the modification was up to 6.8 log photopic Trolands (phot-Td); however, in the current work, only a lower range over −4 to +3 log phot-Td was tested in human subjects. Optical magnification was optimized for low-vision testing with gratings from 4.5 to 0.2 cyc/deg. In normal subjects, spatial resolution driven by rods, short wavelength-sensitive (S-) cones, and long/middle wavelength-sensitive (L/M-) cones was obtained by the choice of adapting conditions and wavelengths of grating and background. Data from a patient with blue cone monochromacy was used to confirm mediation. Conclusions The modified MP1 can be developed into an outcome measure for treatments in patients with severe retinal degeneration, very low vision, and abnormal eye movements such as those for whom treatment with optogenetics is planned, as well as for patients with cone disorders such as blue cone monochromacy for whom treatment with gene therapy is planned to improve L/M-cone function above a normal complement of rod and S-cone function.
Formative versus Reflective Indicators in Organizational Measure Development: A Comparison and Empirical Illustration

A comparison is undertaken between scale development and index construction procedures to trace the implications of adopting a reflective versus formative perspective when creating multi-item measures for organizational research. Focusing on export coordination as an illustrative construct of interest, the results show that the choice of measurement perspective impacts on the content, parsimony and criterion validity of the derived coordination measures. Implications for practising researchers seeking to develop multi-item measures of organizational constructs are considered.
Life course influences on quality of life at age 50 years: evidence from the National Child Development Study (1958 British birth cohort study)

The objectives of this study were to investigate whether prospective data reveal life course influences on quality of life at older ages; to establish a baseline for the evolution of quality of life through the Third Age; and to estimate the relative importance of direct and indirect effects in these life course relationships. We used the age 50 years sweep of the National Child Development Study (1958 British birth cohort study) that included the CASP measure of positive quality of life at older ages, allowing prospective path analysis of life course influences on quality of life at the start of the Third Age. We found that material (social class; deprivation) and psycho-social (family conflict; family fracture) circumstances in childhood and adulthood were linked using path analysis to CASP scores at age 50 years. The strength of these relationships was modest; and their influence was primarily indirect via well-recognised contemporaneous factors. Prospective data revealed life course influences on quality of life at the start of the Third Age. We conclude that the influence of these longitudinal factors is weak in comparison with that of contemporaneous circumstances. In this respect quality of life differs from health.
Vibratory or visual stimulation reduces self-injury

Although self-injurious behaviour (SIB) may be maintained by its sensory consequences independently of any social reinforcement, there have been no studies carried out which have compared the effects of alternate sources of sensory stimulation on SIB. Vibratory stimulation (a massager) and visual stimulation (flashing red light) were presented separately to a female with profound mental retardation by means of a combined reversal and alternating-treatments design. Both vibratory and visual stimulation equally and significantly decreased the subject's SIB from approximately 35% to 8% and 2% respectively of the time observed in both the treatment room and later, in the subject's typical environment.
‘We can't keep going on like this’: identifying family storylines in young onset dementia

ABSTRACT In this study, we identify the dominant storylines that were embedded in the narratives of younger people with dementia and their nominated family members. By implementing a longitudinal, narrative design underpinned by biographical methods we generated detailed family biographies with five families during repeated and planned research contacts (N=126) over a 12–15-month period between 2009 and 2010. The application of narrative analysis within and between each family biography resulted in the emergence of five family storyline types that were identified as: agreeing; colluding; conflicting; fabricating; and protecting. Whilst families were likely to use each of these storylines at different points and at different times in their exposure to young onset dementia, it was found that families that adopted a predominantly ‘agreeing’ storyline were more likely to find ways of positively overcoming challenges in their everyday lives. In contrast, families who adopted predominantly ‘conflicting’ and ‘colluding’ storylines were more likely to require help to understand family positions and promote change. The findings suggest that the identification of the most dominant and frequently occurring storylines used by families may help to further understand family experience in young onset dementia and assist in planning supportive services.