Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Islamic Approach to Studying History: Reflections on Ibn Khaldūn’s Deterministic Historical Approach

Abstract: This paper argues that patterns exist in history, and that these can —and should — be discerned. By doing this, Muslim intellectuals will only be resuming an intellectual and spiritual journey begun over 600 years ago, by Ibn Khaldūn, who invented sociology and the scientific study of history, basing himself on the methodology of the Qur´ān. This paper examines Khaldūn’s deterministic historical approach, comparing it to the secular attempt to understand history in Karl Marx’s “historical materialism. ” Khaldūn’s classification of societies (as being either based on human fi ṭ rah or tending towards an animal-like existence) is examined and applied to current conditions. It is argued that Muslims need to learn how to use Khaldūn’s deterministic approach, critically applying it to today’s changed conditions, to contribute to the conscious creation of a new, Allah-centred global civilisation.
Struggling with a Nontraditional Past: Academically Successful Women from Disadvantaged Backgrounds Discuss Their Relationship with “Disadvantage”

This article reports findings from a qualitative study that explored the educational experiences of women who were academic high achievers and who were disadvantaged as children. An interesting result was that most participants, if not all, believed that one reason they were successful was because they never revealed their personal histories to education professionals. This article describes the participants' relationship to the concept of disadvantage and the process they went through to have a voice in a system that rewarded them for their silence. It also addresses the question of when it is appropriate to disclose personal information in educational settings. Some believe there should be a separation between the personal and the professional. Others argue that women and disadvantaged students need education that is connected to their life experiences. If this is true, we must ask how this connection can be made when people from disadvantaged backgrounds believe they must hide who they are to succeed.
Toward Understanding and Measuring Conditions of Trust: Evolution of a Conditions of Trust Inventory

Ten conditions of trust were suggested by 84 interviews of managers, and two previous studies of managerial trust. Statements made in the interviews and the studies were used to develop a content theory of trust conditions and derive scales measuring them. The scales were generated with an iterative procedure using a total of 1531 management students. The scales were assessed for homogeneity, reliability, and validity with several samples: 180 managers and 173 of their subordinates, 111 machine operators, and four different samples of management students (n = 380, n = 129, n = 290, and n = 132). Construct validity was supported by showing that the scale measures behaved as hypothesized with respect to measures of other variables, a manipulation of expectations, and the reciprocity of trust in vertical dyads.
Multimethod Research: A Synthesis of Styles

The Multimethod Approach and Its Promises A Healthy Skepticism About Theory and Method Formulating Research Problems Collecting Data with Multiple Methods Finding the Objects to Study Measuring Concepts and Assessing Measurement Validity Explaining Social Phenomena Causally A Postscript on Postmodernism Making Research Public: The Social Context of Multimethod Research
Remote Ischemic Conditioning in Patients With Myocardial Infarction Treated With Primary Angioplasty: Impact on Left Ventricular Function Assessed by Comprehensive Echocardiography and Gated Single-Photon Emission CT

Background—We have found that remote ischemic conditioning (rIC), adjunctive to primary angioplasty, increases myocardial salvage in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and extensive myocardial area at risk (AAR). The present substudy aimed to evaluate the short-term effects of rIC on left ventricular (LV) function. Methods and Results—Patients with a first STEMI were randomized to rIC (4 cycles of 5 minutes upper-limb ischemia) during transfer to primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI) (n=123) versus pPCI alone (n=119). Ejection fraction (EF), LV volumes, (2D and 3D echocardiography and myocardial perfusion imaging), and speckle-tracking global longitudinal strain were compared between treatment groups. There was no significant difference in LV function at day 1 (EF-2D, 0.51±0.10 versus 0.49±0.10; P=0.22) and after 30 days (EF-2D, 0.54±0.08 versus 0.53±0.10) between the rIC and the pPCI-alone groups. In patients with extensive AAR ≥35% of LV (n=53), EF after 30 days was higher after rIC than after pPCI alone (EF-2D, 0.51±0.07 versus 0.46±0.09; P=0.05). In patients with anterior infarction (n=97), rIC preserved LV function on day 1 (EF-2D, 0.51±0.11 versus 0.46±0.11; P=0.03) and persistently after 30 days (EF-2D, 0.55±0.08 versus 0.50±0.11; P=0.04; EF-myocardial perfusion imaging, 0.55±0.10 versus 0.49±0.12; P=0.02). These patients had similar AAR, whereas rIC reduced infarct size from 16% to 7% of LV (P=0.01). Conclusions—Although no significant overall effect was observed, rIC seemed to result in modest improvement in LV function in high-risk patients prone to develop large myocardial infarcts. These results need to be confirmed in larger trials. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00435266.
AGRONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND THE EFFECT OF SELF-FERTILIZATION ON GERMAN WINTER FABA BEANS

Faba bean is mostly grown as spring crop in Central Europe; additionally it is grown as winter crop in few mild areas of UK and France. A genetically divers winter bean population selected for high winter hardiness and very promising as winter crop in Germany was studied here. The population was assessed for its agronomic performance as well as for the effect of inbreeding depression due selfing using an open-pollinated generation and two inbred generations developed from it. The assessment was carried out at four environments in two successive seasons (2001 and 2002) at Goettingen, Central Germany. The open-pollinated population showed better performance in overwintering ability than the UK checks but equivalent performance in yield and other agronomic traits. Winter damage, plant height and yield suffered from inbreeding depression proving heterosis in the open-pollinated generation. Overwintering ability and yield were shown to exhibit a mid parent heterosis of about 32% and of about 75%, respectively. Application of the results in breeding of synthetic cultivars is discussed.
Biodegradation of polyethylene and polypropylene

Polyethylene and polypropylene are the two polyolefins with wide ranging applications. They are recalcitrant and hence remain inert to degradation and deterioration leading to their accumulation in the environment, and, therefore creating serious environmental problems. In this review, biodegradation of these two polymers under in vitro conditions is reported. An attempt has been made to cover the mechanism of biodegradation, the various bacterial and fungal organisms that have been reported for the same, methods adopted for the studies and different characterization techniques followed to measure the extent of degradation
Fractal analysis of region-based vascular change in the normal and non-proliferative diabetic retina

Purpose. Evaluation of normal and abnormal vascular pattern in the human retina using a novel method: quantitative region-based fractal analysis. Methods. Binary (black/white) vascular patterns of the human retina originating at the optic disc were obtained by semi-automatic computer processing of digital images from 60-degree fundus fluorescein angiography of 5 normal eyes and 5 eyes with non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR). As determined by image resolution, vascular patterns included vessels with diameters =50 µm and excluded small vessels and capillaries. The density of linearized (i.e., skeletonized) vascular patterns in the macular region versus paramacular region (termed “region-based” linearized vascular pattern) was quantified with the fractal dimension (D f) and confirmed by grid intersection (? v) . Results. By region-based quantification, D f and ? v were significantly higher in the normal macular region than in the NPDR macular region (p = 0.008 and p = 0.019, respectively). However, differences in D f and ? v between the normal and NPDR paramacular regions were not strongly signficant (p = 0.168 and p = 0.337, respectively). Conclusions. Results from the retrospective analytical study demonstrate the feasibility of using quantitative region-based fractal analysis of early-stage vascular disease in the human retina. The results are encouraging for a broader study of diverse patient populations.
Using Spiritual Resources to Prevent Declines in Sexuality among First-Time Parents

Annette Mahoney, Advisor Using a rigorous longitudinal design, this dissertation examined whether spiritual beliefs and practices centered on marriage are resources that predict 164 married, first time parents’ sexual satisfaction and intimacy from pregnancy to their child’s first birthday. Spiritual resources were defined using the conceptual frameworks of sanctification of marriage, and individual and joint positive spiritual coping to handle marital difficulties. Contrary to expectations, greater sanctification of marriage, and the use of positive individual and joint spiritual coping did not predict sexual functioning from the third trimester of pregnancy to one year later after accounting for demographics, initial levels of sexual outcomes, and global religiousness. Some direct effects were found when only the given spiritual resource was entered in regression analyses. Analyses also supported the unique roles of initial levels of sexual functioning, biblical conservatism, and conflict about sex as predictors of spouses’ future sexual quality. Both wives and husbands reported very high marital and sexual functioning across time, and thus indicated little to no stress that may have otherwise necessitated coping processes and impacted negatively their sexual bond during this transition. Therefore, while sanctification and coping have been found to be helpful in predicting individual and relational functioning, they did not emerge as particularly advantageous for these reportedly very happy, married couples. Several directions for future research are discussed.
Students’ Critical Awareness of Voice and Agency in Mathematics Classroom Discourse

This account of my extended conversation with a high school mathematics class focuses on voice and agency. As an investigation of possibilities opened up by introducing mathematics students to what Fairclough (1992) called “critical language awareness” (p. 2), I prompted the students daily to become ever more aware of their language practices in class. The tensions in this conversation proved parallel to the tension in mathematics between individual initiative and convention, a tension that Pickering (1995) called the “dance of agency” (p. 21). Participant students in this classroom-based research resisted the idea of linguistic reference to human agency, although their actual language practice revealed some recognition of human agency.
Physician Participation in Crowdsourcing: Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Physician Participation in Crowdsourcing: Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation by Rod Brace MBA, University of St. Thomas – Houston, 1989 BSBA, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1980 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Management Walden University October 2015
An Empirical Investigation of Load Indices for Load Balancing Applications

In this paper, we empirically evaluate the quality of several load indices in the context of dynamic load balancing. We have implemented a load balancer for Sun/UNIX environments. In our experimental setup, six Sun-2 workstations were driven by job scripts, and job response times were measured while loads were being balanced and various load indices used to make job placement decisions. We study the effects on performance of the choice of load index, the averaging interval, the load information exchange period, and the characteristics of the workload. Measurements show that the performance benefits of load balancing are indeed strongly dependent upon the load index. Load indices based on resource queue lengths are found to perform better than those based on resource utilization, and the use of an exponential smoothing method yields further improvement over that of instantaneous queue lengths.
A New High Speed Neural Model for Fast Character Recognition Using Cross Correlation and Matrix Decomposition

This invention is directed to water-in-oil emulsions which are useful as explosives. These emulsions comprise: a discontinuous aqueous phase comprising at least one oxygen-supplying component; a continuous organic phase comprising at least one carbonaceous fuel; and a minor emulsifying amount of at least one emulsifier. The emulsifier is the product made by the reaction of component (A) with component (B), component (A) being at least one substituted succinic acylating agent, said substituted succinic acylating agent consisting of substituent groups and succinic groups wherein the substituent groups are derived from a polyalkene, said acylating agents being characterized by the presence within their structure of an average of at least 1.3 succinic groups for each equivalent weight of substituent groups, and component (B) being ammonia and/or at least one mono-amine.
Common single nucleotide variants underlying drug addiction: more than a decade of research

Drug‐related phenotypes are common complex and highly heritable traits. In the last few years, candidate gene (CGAS) and genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a huge number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with drug use, abuse or dependence, mainly related to alcohol or nicotine. Nevertheless, few of these associations have been replicated in independent studies. The aim of this study was to provide a review of the SNPs that have been most significantly associated with alcohol‐, nicotine‐, cannabis‐ and cocaine‐related phenotypes in humans between the years of 2000 and 2012. To this end, we selected CGAS, GWAS, family‐based association and case‐only studies published in peer‐reviewed international scientific journals (using the PubMed/MEDLINE and Addiction GWAS Resource databases) in which a significant association was reported. A total of 371 studies fit the search criteria. We then filtered SNPs with at least one replication study and performed meta‐analysis of the significance of the associations. SNPs in the alcohol metabolizing genes, in the cholinergic gene cluster CHRNA5‐CHRNA3‐CHRNB4, and in the DRD2 and ANNK1 genes, are, to date, the most replicated and significant gene variants associated with alcohol‐ and nicotine‐related phenotypes. In the case of cannabis and cocaine, a far fewer number of studies and replications have been reported, indicating either a need for further investigation or that the genetics of cannabis/cocaine addiction are more elusive. This review brings a global state‐of‐the‐art vision of the behavioral genetics of addiction and collaborates on formulation of new hypothesis to guide future work.
The challenge of sustaining organizational hybridity: The role of power and agency

Hybrid organizations harbor different and often conflicting institutional logics, thus facing the challenge of sustaining their hybridity. Crucial to overcoming this challenge is the identification process of organizational actors. We propose a theorization of how power relations affect this process. More specifically, we argue that an actor’s power influences their own professional identity: an increase [decrease] in their power, via the heightened [diminished] control that this power provides them over organizational discourse, boosts [threatens] their identity. Our theorization has implications for the longevity of a newly adopted logic within an organization. If the new logic modifies incumbent power relations, the identities of (formerly and newly) powerful individuals are influenced, which may lead these individuals to promote or resist the new logic, thereby affecting the odds that the logic will survive within the organization. We illustrate our theorization with a case study in a professional service firm. Our study contributes to nascent research on hybrid organizations by emphasizing the role of power and agency in the longevity of hybridity.
Reaching balance and sustainability: weight regulation in combat sports. A case study of a female boxer

Weight classification systems that operate in most combat sports often result in dietary restraint and preoccupation with body weight. The practice of rapid weight loss by severe reductions of food and fluid intake as well as sweat induced dehydration is prevalent. Research has demonstrated negative physiological, psychological and performance effects as an outcome of such practices, and sport governing bodies and medical associations have highlighted the importance of coming to terms with weight-making practices in combat sports. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into non-legislative ways of weight-making practices in boxing and consider this information with a sustainability lens. Two semi-structured interviews with a former world class female boxer concerning three phases during her career (novice, elite and coach) were conducted. The results of a content analysis demonstrate that irrespective of the boxing phase, the most prominent aspects in influencing weight regulation were knowledge, identity and balance. The phenomenon of weight regulation is not without contradiction however, and results suggest that structural changes (rules) within weight category sports should be considered.
Theories and Policies of Innovation: A Critical Review

For more than two decades economic geographers and others have been examining the reasons why some places are more innovative than others. Policy makers have also been actively involved, as they try to develop their countries and regions through innovation and knowledge. In this paper I will address three criticisms that have been made to this literature and suggest avenues of research that could help address them. These criticisms are: the neglect of power asymmetries at the international and intra-regional levels between economic and other relevant agents, and their impact on the evolution of regional economies; the excessive focus on the region and the neglect of the multi-scalar nature of innovation; the emphasis on networks and systems which masks heterogeneity and fragmentation at the local level. Finally I will also discuss some of the more recent guidelines for place-based policy making in this field. Overall my objective is to contribute to the literature on territorial innovation systems by suggesting how these concepts can be improved.
Change in the Racial Composition of Occupations, 1960–1970

This study estimates change in the racial inequality of employment during the 1960s, a decade characterized by substantial economic growth and significant government antidiscriminatory activity. The focus is on the influence of (1) structural change, as measured by industrial and occupational growth, and (2) indicators of industrial structure (e.g., profitability, concentration) on change in the racial composition of occupations within industries. The analysis indicates that black workers in both white-collar and blue-collar occupations made relative employment gains primarily in expanding sectors of the economy. The structural growth that occurred in the 1960s, therefore, had substantial benefits for black employment opportunities. Extrapolating from our findings on black employment gains in the 1960s, we conclude that there is little reason to expect dramatic progress in positional inequality for blacks today given current political and economic conditions.
What is ‘effective’ CPD for contemporary physical education teachers? A Deweyan framework

ABSTRACT It is widely argued that continuing professional development (CPD) for physical education (PE) teachers is important, yet questions remain about ‘effective’ CPD. We consider these questions afresh from a Deweyan perspective. An overview of the CPD/PE-CPD literature reveals conflicting positions on teachers as learners. Considering the nature of contemporary PE, and the learning needs of teachers, we argue that a different model of PE-CPD is required to reflect the dynamic nature of contemporary practice. We propose John Dewey's classic concept of ‘education as growth’ to underpin a new conceptual framework for the design, delivery and evaluation of PE-CPD. We argue that ‘effective’ PE-CPD will not be found in formal policies, structures and processes, however, well-intentioned, unless it (i) focuses on the dazzling complexity of the learning process, (ii) prioritises context and contemporary challenges; (iii) bridges research/theory–practice in innovative ways; and (iv) nurtures the career-long growth of PE teachers.
Selective Heart Rate Reduction With Ivabradine Increases Central Blood Pressure in Stable Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract—Heart rate (HR) lowering by &bgr;-blockade was shown to be beneficial after myocardial infarction. In contrast, HR lowering with ivabradine was found to confer no benefits in 2 prospective randomized trials in patients with coronary artery disease. We hypothesized that this inefficacy could be in part related to ivabradine’s effect on central (aortic) pressure. Our study included 46 patients with chronic stable coronary artery disease who were randomly allocated to placebo (n=23) or ivabradine (n=23) in a single-blinded fashion for 6 months. Concomitant baseline medication was continued unchanged throughout the study except for &bgr;-blockers, which were stopped during the study period. Central blood pressure and stroke volume were measured directly by left heart catheterization at baseline and after 6 months. For the determination of resting HR at baseline and at follow-up, 24-hour ECG monitoring was performed. Patients on ivabradine showed an increase of 11 mm Hg in central systolic pressure from 129±22 mm Hg to 140±26 mm Hg (P=0.02) and in stroke volume by 86±21.8 to 107.2±30.0 mL (P=0.002). In the placebo group, central systolic pressure and stroke volume remained unchanged. Estimates of myocardial oxygen consumption (HR×systolic pressure and time-tension index) remained unchanged with ivabradine.The decrease in HR from baseline to follow-up correlated with the concomitant increase in central systolic pressure (r=−0.41, P=0.009) and in stroke volume (r=−0.61, P<0.001). In conclusion, the decrease in HR with ivabradine was associated with an increase in central systolic pressure, which may have antagonized possible benefits of HR lowering in coronary artery disease patients. Clinical Trials—URL:http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier NCT01039389.