Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Providing instructional support for AAC service delivery in low- and middle-income (LAMI) countries

Abstract Purpose: The majority of individuals with disabilities live in low- and middle-income (LAMI) countries; typically these individuals receive limited, if any, communication rehabilitation services. The present study investigated the experiences of eight augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) professionals who had provided instructional support for AAC service delivery in LAMI countries. Method: An online focus group was used to explore the training experiences of eight AAC professionals. Result: A thematic analysis of the focus group discussion resulted in four major recommendations when providing training for AAC service delivery in LAMI countries: (a) investigate learner needs, (b) provide contextually relevant instructional content, (c) use engaging instructional activities and (d) assess the impacts of instructional activities. Conclusion: The instructional recommendations of the focus group participants are discussed within a theoretical framework of recommended best practices in supporting adult learning. The information shared by the focus group participants will benefit others providing instructional support for AAC service delivery in LAMI countries.
Internal branding: an enabler of employees' brand‐supporting behaviours

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the internal branding process from the employees' perspective; it will empirically assess the relationship between internal branding and employees' delivery of the brand promise as well as the relationships among their brand identification, brand commitment and brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – On a census basis, a quantitative survey is carried out with 699 customer-interface employees from five major hotels. Findings – Internal branding is found to have a positive impact on attitudinal and behavioural aspects of employees in their delivery of the brand promise. As employees' brand commitment does not have a statistically significant relationship with employees' brand performance, it is not regarded as a mediator in the link between internal branding and employees' brand performance. Furthermore, the study shows that brand identification is a driver of brand commitment, which precedes brand loyalty of employees. Practical implications – A number of significant managerial implications are drawn from this study, for example using both internal communication and training to influence employees' brand-supporting attitudes and behaviours. Still, it should be noted that the effect of internal branding on the behaviours could be dependent on the extent to which it could effectively influence their brand attitudes. Originality/value – The results provide valuable insights from the key internal audience's perspectives into an internal branding process to ensure the delivery of the brand promise. It empirically shows the relationship between internal branding and the behavioural outcome as well as the meditational effects of employees' brand identification, commitment and loyalty.
Properties of Coconut Shell Powder-Filled Polylactic Acid Ecocomposites: Effect of Maleic Acid

Ecocomposites were produced by incorporating coconut shell powder (CSP) into polylactic acid (PLA) resin. The effect of filler content and chemical modification on the mechanical properties, thermal properties, and morphology of PLA/CSP ecocomposites were investigated. The addition of filler has decreased the tensile strength and elongation at break of PLA/CSP ecocomposites. However, tensile strength and modulus of elasticity of PLA/CSP ecocomposites were enhanced by maleic acid treatment. Meanwhile, glass transition temperature (Tg) and crystallinity (Xc) of PLA/CSP ecocomposites increased at 30 php of filler content and increased the presence of maleic acid (MA). However, the melting temperature (Tm) and crystallization temperature (Tc) were not significantly changed with the filler content and MA modification The thermal stability of PLA/CSP ecocomposites increased with the CSP content. The MA modification improved the thermal stability of PLA/CSP ecocomposites through better filler–matrix interaction. The improvement was confirmed by scanning electron microscope study. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers
Variation of the Electrostatic Adhesion Force on a Rough Surface due to the Deformation of Roughness Asperities During Micromanipulation of a Spherical Rigid Body

The micromanipulation of objects of size between 10 μm and 1 mm is often disturbed by the adhesion between the contacting surfaces. The electrostatic force in the contact alone can significantly perturb the micromanipulation by its important adhesion effect. The electrostatic adhesion force is influenced by many factors, i.e., the materials of the contacting bodies and the topography of the contact surface. Micromanipulation by contact involves applying a squeezing force to hold the object firmly which causes the contact surface to deform, flattening the surface asperities. The prime purpose of this work is to study the influence of the plastic deformation of the surface asperities on the electrostatic adhesion force considering the contact between two conductors. A single-level model of the surface roughness was considered in this study, approximating the shape of a surface asperity by a sine function. A simulation tool based on the finite element method was used to compute the elastic–plastic deformation of the model surface asperities during micromanipulation. Another numerical model was used to compute the electrostatic adhesion force acting on the surface asperities in the initial and in the deformed configurations. A magnification factor of up to 20 was obtained for the electrostatic force in the contact evaluated numerically, related to the flattening of the surface asperities, which can potentially lead to perturbations when releasing the object. The observed effect is merely a lower bound of the real one, considering the simplifying assumptions of the numerical models.
A Comparison of the Efficacy, Tolerability and Safety of Azithromycin and Co-Amoxiclav in the Treatment of Sinusitis in Adults

The efficacy, tolerability and safety of azithromycin and co-amoxiclav in the treatment of non-severe acute maxillary/ethmoidal sinusitis were compared in a randomized, open clinical trial in 254 adult patients. The predominant pathogens were Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae (83 patients). Azithromycin was administered orally to 165 patients at a single daily dose of 500 mg for 3 days, and co-amoxiclav (4:1) to 89 patients, at a dose of 500 mg three times daily for 10 days. The overall clinical response rates were 87.5% for azithromycin and 83.7% for co-amoxiclav at follow-up (day 21–28). Microbiological responses to both drugs were good, with only five patients in each group having a persistent infection after treatment. Both drugs were well tolerated and produced similar incidences of adverse events, which were mostly gastrointestinal. Azithromycin was as effective, and as well tolerated as co-amoxiclav, and its shorter simpler dosing regime may offer advantages in compliance and cost.
Joint optimization of error feedback and coordinate transformation for roundoff noise minimization in state-space digital filters

An iterative approach for joint optimization of a scalar error-feedback matrix and a coordinate transformation matrix is developed to minimize the roundoff noise subject to the l/sub 2/-norm dynamic-range scaling constraints. When the iterative algorithm converges and the optimal coordinate transformation matrix is obtained, the diagonal error-feedback matrix is derived to minimize the noise gain in the optimal state-space realization. This diagonal error-feedback matrix enables one to produce more reduction of the noise gain. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the utility of the proposed technique.
Property enhancement of epoxy resin using a combination of amine-terminated butadiene–acrylonitrile copolymer and nanoclay

The present work investigates the effect of organomodified nanoclay (ZW1) and butadiene–acrylonitrile copolymer terminated with amine group (ATBN copolymer) on the properties of epoxy resin (EP). The impact strength (IS) and the critical stress intensity factor (KC ) values of EP containing 1% nanoclay increased approximately by 200% and 75%, respectively, in relation to neat EP. Moreover, hybrid composites containing 1% or 2% nanoclay and ATBN showed improved mechanical properties in relation with unmodified EP. The magnification and analysis of the Fourier-transform infrared spectra showed an increase in the peak height of 3338 cm-1 due to polymeric modifier incorporation. This finding might be explained by the reaction between modifier or hardener amine groups and the unreacted part of EP cured at room temperature. Hybrid composite containing 2% Nanobent ZW1 and 5% ATBN exhibited synergistic effect in terms of tensile adhesive strength toward composites with one modifier. Moreover, scanning electron micrographs showed more elongated and leaf-like structure for hybrid compositions, explaining the enhancement of IS and KC values of the tested composites.
Effect of Plasma Amino Acid Replacement on Glucagon and Substrate Responses to Insulin-Induced Hypoglycemia in Humans

A defective glucagon response impairs glucose recovery from insulin-induced hypoglycemia in some insulin-dependent (type I) diabetic patients. Our objective was to determine whether the glucagon reponse to insulin-induced hypoglycemia could be stimulated in nondiabetic humans. Because insulin reduces plasma amino acid concentrations, and amino acids are known to stimulate glucagon secretion, we investigated the effect of amino acid replacement during insulin infusion on the glucagon response to hypoglycemia in six healthy nondiabetic subjects. In two separate studies, blood glucose was clamped at the postabsorptive level during a constant infusion of insulin (0.05 U · kg−1 · h−1) for 3 h. Blood glucose was then reduced to 45 mg/dl over 20 min. Hormone and substrate concentrations during recovery from hypoglycemia were monitored for 2 h. In the control study, normal saline was infused, and in the other study, an amino acid mixture was infused to prevent the insulin-induced fall in plasma amino acids. Amino acid replacement did not change the basal glucagon levels but resulted in a more robust glucagon response to hypoglycemia (from 184 ± 24 to 292 ± 36 pg/ml) than in the control study (from 176 ± 30 to an average 229 ± 32 pg/ml, P < 0.01). Plasma concentrations of epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, and growth hormones increased during hypoglycemia, but the magnitude of the response was not different between the control and amino acid-replacement studies. Amino acid replacement did not affect glucose recovery but inhibited the recovery of plasma concentrations of free fatty acids, glycerol, and β-hydroxybutyrate. We conclude that the glucagon response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia is enhanced by amino acid replacement in humans and that changes in plasma amino acid concentrations modulate the effect of stress hormones on lipid metabolism during hypoglycemia.
Recent natural selection causes adaptive evolution of an avian polygenic trait

Recent natural selection in a wild bird Many studies have found evidence of rapid evolution in response to environmental change. In most cases, there has been some suggestion of which traits might be most responsive ahead of time. Bosse et al. turn this approach on its head by using genomic regions with a signature of selection to identify traits that are changing. In great tits (Parus major) in the United Kingdom, genomic regions showing selection invariably contained genes associated with bill growth. Indeed, U.K. birds not only have longer bills, but these longer bills are associated with increased fitness. These changes likely reflect an increase in domestic garden bird feeders over the past several decades. Science, this issue p. 365 Genomic regions under selection reveal that bills have lengthened in great tits in the UK. We used extensive data from a long-term study of great tits (Parus major) in the United Kingdom and Netherlands to better understand how genetic signatures of selection translate into variation in fitness and phenotypes. We found that genomic regions under differential selection contained candidate genes for bill morphology and used genetic architecture analyses to confirm that these genes, especially the collagen gene COL4A5, explained variation in bill length. COL4A5 variation was associated with reproductive success, which, combined with spatiotemporal patterns of bill length, suggested ongoing selection for longer bills in the United Kingdom. Last, bill length and COL4A5 variation were associated with usage of feeders, suggesting that longer bills may have evolved in the United Kingdom as a response to supplementary feeding.
Pioglitazone Enhances Cytokine-Induced Apoptosis in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells and Reduces Intimal Hyperplasia

Background— Cytokines induce apoptosis in vascular disease lesions through enhancement of inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase (iNOS) activation. The thiazolidinediones, novel insulin-sensitizing agents, have been demonstrated to modulate cytokine-induced NO production. We have investigated the role of pioglitazone in the apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vitro and developed intimal hyperplasia in vivo. Methods and Results— Pioglitazone (0.1 to 10 &mgr;mol/L) significantly enhanced cytokine-induced expression of iNOS and NO production in a dose-dependent manner in rat VSMCs, but 15-deoxy-&Dgr;12,14-prostaglandin J2 (up to 10 &mgr;mol/L), a native peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-&ggr; ligand, showed no effect. Pioglitazone also significantly enhanced reduction of cell viability, as evidenced by the increase in the number of TUNEL-positive cells. All of these effects of pioglitazone were blocked by treatment with N-monomethyl-l-arginine, an NO synthesis inhibitor. In an in vivo study with a balloon-injured rat carotid artery, neointimal thickness had reached maximum levels at 2 weeks after injury. Then, rats were fed with or without pioglitazone (3 mg · kg−1 · d−1) for an additional week. The ratio of intima to media area of carotid artery was significantly decreased by 30%, and the ratio of apoptotic cells in neointima was significantly increased in pioglitazone-treated rats compared with vehicle-treated control rats. Conclusions— Pioglitazone enhanced apoptosis in an NO-dependent manner in cytokine-activated VSMCs and induced significant regression of intimal hyperplasia in balloon-injured rat carotid artery. It appears that pioglitazone is a potent apoptosis inducer in vascular lesions, providing a novel pharmacological strategy to prevent restenosis after vascular intervention.
What Should We Eat? Evidence from Observational Studies

Observational studies provide a wealth of important correlations between diet and disease. There is a clear pattern of dietary habits that is associated with reduced rates of a multitude of common illnesses, including heart attack, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and hypertension. In some cases, interventional studies have proven the benefits of dietary change; in others, there is insufficient evidence to prove causation. Based on the existing evidence, the optimal diet should emphasize fruits and vegetables, nuts, unsaturated oils, whole grains, and fish, while minimizing saturated fats (especially trans fats), sodium, and red meats. Its overall calorie content should be low enough to maintain a healthy weight.
Minimum Fisher information spectral analysis

Minimizing the Fisher information measure over the set of power spectrum densities fitting a finite number of autocorrelation lag constraints is treated. Due to an explicit control of the derivative values of the densities, the Fisher information measure produces a useful smoothing effect. The Fisher information based estimate exhibits improved characteristics compared to the maximum entropy approach proposed by Burg (1967). We show that the resulting power spectrum estimate is positive, and along with the autocorrelation constraints, satisfies a generalized Riccati differential equation. In general, the true estimate of the power spectrum may be obtained only by numerically integrating the corresponding boundary value problem. For real time applications, we therefore propose a fast and numerically stable approximate solution in explicit trigonometric form. Although suboptimal, the proposed approach has proven to be advantageous especially for flat spectra. The presented theory is verified on simulated examples.
Towards a standard evaluation method for grammatical error detection and correction

We present a novel evaluation method for grammatical error correction that addresses problems with previous approaches and scores systems in terms of improvement on the original text. Our method evaluates corrections at the token level using a globally optimal alignment between the source, a system hypothesis, and a reference. Unlike the M 2 Scorer, our method provides scores for both detection and correction and is sensitive to different types of edit operations.
Layered space-time receivers for frequency-selective wireless channels

Results in information theory have demonstrated the enormous potential of wireless communication systems with antenna arrays at both the transmitter and receiver. To exploit this potential, a number of layered space-time architectures have been proposed. These layered space-time systems transmit parallel data streams, simultaneously and on the same frequency, in a multiple-input multiple-output fashion. With rich multipath propagation, these different streams can be separated at the receiver because of their distinct spatial signatures. However, the analysis of these techniques presented thus far had mostly been strictly narrowband. In order to enable high-data-rate applications, it might be necessary to utilize signals whose bandwidth exceeds the coherence bandwidth of the channel, which brings in the issue of frequency selectivity. In this paper, we present a class of layered space-time receivers devised for frequency-selective channels. These new receivers, which offer various performance and complexity tradeoffs, are compared and evaluated in the context of a typical urban channel with excellent results.
Menopause: Irish women's voices.

OBJECTIVE To gain an understanding of the cultural meanings of menopause for Irish women. DESIGN Phenomenological, using Colaizzi's methodology to focus on the menopausal stories of Irish women. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Six Irish women who were postmenopausal by 1-6 years were interviewed about their experiences. The participants were all mothers of five or more surviving children, chosen to exclude women who may have wished for more children. These women lived in small villages in rural southern Ireland. The taped interviews were conducted in the participants' homes. RESULTS The sociocultural context of menopause in Ireland is described, including common perceptions of fertility and social timing of childbirth, and the meaning and significance of loss of fertility at menopause. The predominant themes found were a shared sense of relief at reaching menopause, a sense of acceptance of menopause as a natural event in a woman's life cycle, and a sense of satisfaction at having successfully raised their families to adulthood. There was also a bittersweet paradox of associated menopausal symptoms, particularly heavy bleeding. CONCLUSION Rural Irish women in this study experience menopause as a normal process of aging and do not associate it with illness. Their experiences are strongly contextual and support the view that menopause is a complex phenomenon experienced within a sociocultural context.
Inhibition of STAT1 sensitizes radioresistant nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line CNE-2R to radiotherapy

Radioresistance remains a major obstacle for clinicians in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Others and we have reported that signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) may be as an important gene for resistance to radiation. However, the relationship between STAT1 and radioresistance is still elusive. In this study, by constitutive silencing STAT1 in human radioresistant nasopharyngeal carcinoma CNE-2R cell line, we showed that inhibition of STAT1 enhanced radiosensitivity of CNE-2R. Furthermore, knockdown of STAT1 led to growth suppression and apoptosis promotion in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, cells with low STAT1 expression increased G2/M phase and decreased S phase at 2Gy. These result revealed that knockdown of stat1 expression could sensitizes the CNE-2R to radiotherapy, But the exact mechanism needs to be further clarified.
Citius: A Naive-Bayes Strategy for Sentiment Analysis on English Tweets

This article describes a strategy based on a naive-bayes classifier for detecting the polarity of English tweets. The experiments have shown that the best performance is achieved by using a binary classifier between just two sharp polarity categories: positive and negative. In addition, in order to detect tweets with and without polarity, the system makes use of a very basic rule that searchs for polarity words within the analysed tweets/texts. When the classifier is provided with a polarity lexicon and multiwords it achieves 63% F-score.
Perspectives of unemployed workers with mental health problems: barriers to and solutions for return to work

Abstract Purpose: To evaluate the barriers to and solutions for return to work (RTW) from the perspective of unemployed workers who were sick-listed due to mental health problems. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 sick-listed unemployed workers with mental health problems. Qualitative data analysis was performed, using a process of identifying, coding, and categorising the patterns in data. Results: All workers experienced multiple problems in different domains of life related to their disease, personal circumstances (e.g., divorced, debts) and their environment (e.g., labour market problems, issues with the Social Security Agency). Workers differed in the way they perceived their RTW process and in the extent to which they were able to envision and implement the solutions for RTW, thus resulting in three types of workers’ attitudes towards their own RTW process: (1) “frozen”; (2) “insightful though passive”; and (3) “action mode”. Conclusions: We conclude that the sick-listed unemployed workers with mental health problems have to deal with multiple problems, of which medical problems are only a part. These workers need help aimed at their coping methods according to one of the three types of workers’ characteristics. Moreover, they need specific help organising and structuring their problems, getting their life back on track, and finding employment. Implications for Rehabilitation Unemployed workers with mental health problems face considerable challenges which impede their return to work. Evaluating the workers’ attitude may provide useful information on their own return-to-work process. In many cases, workers indicate a need for coaching to help them with problem-solving, planning, gaining structure, getting their life back on track, and finding employment. Rehabilitation professionals should tailor RTW interventions to the needs of these workers, aimed at their specific problems and taking into account the workers’ coping methods according to one of three types of workers’ attitudes towards their own RTW process.