Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Questioning Qualitative Inquiry: Critical essays

Introduction Dentists, Dadaists or Discourse Analysts? On the Failings of Qualitative Inquiry Capturing Complexity? An Examination of a Common Rationale for Qualitative Research On Thick Description Interpreting Geertz The Critical Case of Analytic Induction Assessing the Radical Critique of Interviews - with Roger Gomm Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis Methods or Paradigms? The Dadaist Alternative "Postmodernist" Qualitative Research Is Qualitative Research Just Rhetoric? Validity Criteria for Qualitative Research Are They Possible or even Desirable?
Thrombolysis in very elderly people: controlled comparison of SITS International Stroke Thrombolysis Registry and Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive

Objective To assess effect of age on response to alteplase in acute ischaemic stroke. Design Adjusted controlled comparison of outcomes between non-randomised patients who did or did not undergo thrombolysis. Analysis used Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test and proportional odds logistic regression analysis. Setting Collaboration between International Stroke Thrombolysis Registry (SITS-ISTR) and Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive (VISTA). Participants 23 334 patients from SITS-ISTR (December 2002 to November 2009) who underwent thrombolysis and 6166 from VISTA neuroprotection trials (1998-2007) who did not undergo thrombolysis (as controls). Of the 29 500 patients (3472 aged >80 (“elderly,” mean 84.6), data on 272 patients were missing for baseline National Institutes of Health stroke severity score, leaving 29 228 patients for analysis adjusted for age and baseline severity. Main outcome measures Functional outcomes at 90 days measured by score on modified Rankin scale. Results Median severity at baseline was the same for patients who underwent thrombolysis and controls (median baseline stroke scale score: 12 for each group, P=0.14; n=29 228). The distribution of scores on the modified Rankin scale was better among all thrombolysis patients than controls (odds ratio 1.6, 95% confidence interval 1.5 to 1.7; Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel P<0.001). The association occurred independently among patients aged ≤80 (1.6, 1.5 to 1.7; P<0.001; n=25 789) and in those aged >80 (1.4, 1.3 to 1.6; P<0.001; n=3439). Odds ratios were consistent across all 10 year age ranges above 30, and benefit was significant from age 41 to 90; dichotomised outcomes (score on modified Rankin scale 0-1 v 2-6; 0-2 v 3-6; and 6 (death) v rest) were consistent with the results of the ordinal analysis. Conclusions Outcome in patients with acute ischaemic stroke is significantly better in those who undergo thrombolysis compared with those who do not. Increasing age is associated with poorer outcome but the association between thrombolysis treatment and improved outcome is maintained in very elderly people. Age alone should not be a barrier to treatment.
Volatile Constituents of Melissa officinalis Leaves Determined by Plant Age

The present study investigated changes in the content and chemical composition of the essential oil extracted by hydrodistillation from air-dried Melissa officinalis L. (lemon balm) leaves in the first and second year of plant growth. The lemon balm oil was analysed by GC-MS and GC-FID. The presence of 106 compounds, representing 100% of the oil constituents, was determined in the oil. The predominant components were geranial (45.2% and 45.1%) and neral (32.8% and 33.8%); their proportions in the examined samples of the oil obtained from one- and two-year-old plants were comparable. However, the age of lemon balm plants affected the concentration of other constituents and the proportions of the following compounds were subject to especially high fluctuations: citronellal (8.7% and 0.4%), geraniol (trace amounts and 0.6%), and geranyl acetate (0.5% and 3.0%), as well as, among others, isogeranial, E-caryophyllene, caryophyllene oxide, germacrene D, and carvacrol. The essential oil of two-year-old plants was characterized by a richer chemical composition than the oil from younger plants.
Prioritized Maps of Space in Human Frontoparietal Cortex

Priority maps are theorized to be composed of large populations of neurons organized topographically into a map of gaze-centered space whose activity spatially tags salient and behaviorally relevant information. Here, we identified four priority map candidates along human posterior intraparietal sulcus (IPS0–IPS3) and two along the precentral sulcus (PCS) that contained reliable retinotopically organized maps of contralateral visual space. Persistent activity increased from posterior-to-anterior IPS areas and from inferior-to-superior PCS areas during the maintenance of a working memory representation, the maintenance of covert attention, and the maintenance of a saccade plan. Moreover, decoders trained to predict the locations on one task (e.g., working memory) cross-predicted the locations on other tasks (e.g., attention) in superior PCS and IPS2, suggesting that these patterns of maintenance activity may be interchangeable across the tasks. Such properties make these two areas in frontal and parietal cortex viable priority map candidates.
FormatGuard: Automatic Protection From printf Format String Vulnerabilities

In June 2000, a major new class of vulnerabilities called "format bugs" was discovered when an vulnerability in WU-FTP appeared that acted almost like a buffer overflow, but wasn't. Since then, dozens of format string vulnerabilities have appeared. This paper describes the format bug problem, and presents FormatGuard: our proposed solution. FormatGuard is a small patch to glibc that provides general protection against format bugs. We show that FormatGuard is effective in protecting several real programs with format vulnerabilities against live exploits, and we show that FormatGuard imposes minimal compatibility and performance costs.
Downregulation of TMEM16A Calcium-Activated Chloride Channel Contributes to Cerebrovascular Remodeling During Hypertension by Promoting Basilar Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation

Background— The Ca2+-activated chloride channel (CaCC) plays an important role in a variety of physiological functions. In vascular smooth muscle cells, CaCC is involved in the regulation of agonist-stimulated contraction and myogenic tone. The physiological functions of CaCC in blood vessels are not fully revealed because of the lack of specific channel blockers and the uncertainty concerning its molecular identity. Methods and Results— Whole-cell patch-clamp studies showed that knockdown of TMEM16A but not bestrophin-3 attenuated CaCC currents in rat basilar smooth muscle cells. The activity of CaCC in basilar smooth muscle cells isolated from 2-kidney, 2-clip renohypertensive rats was decreased, and CaCC activity was negatively correlated with blood pressure (n=25; P<0.0001) and medial cross-sectional area (n=24; P<0.0001) in basilar artery during hypertension. Both upregulation of CaMKII activity and downregulation of TMEM16A expression contributed to the reduction of CaCC in the hypertensive basilar artery. Western blot results demonstrated that angiotensin II repressed TMEM16A expression in basilar smooth muscle cells (n=6; P<0.01). Knockdown of TMEM16A facilitated and overexpression of TMEM16A inhibited angiotensin II–induced cell cycle transition and cell proliferation determined by flow cytometry and BrdU incorporation (n=6 in each group; P<0.05). TMEM16A affected cell cycle progression mainly through regulating the expression of cyclin D1 and cyclin E. Conclusions— TMEM16A CaCC is a negative regulator of cell proliferation. Downregulation of CaCC may play an important role in hypertension-induced cerebrovascular remodeling, suggesting that modification of the activity of CaCC may be a novel therapeutic strategy for hypertension-associated cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.
Self-compassion, Achievement Goals, and Coping with Academic Failure

Two studies examined the relationship between self-compassion, academic achievement goals, and coping with perceived academic failure among undergraduates. Self-compassion entails being kind to oneself in instances of failure, perceiving one's experiences as part of the larger human experience, and holding painful feelings in mindful awareness. Study 1 (N = 222) found that self-compassion was positively associated with mastery goals and negatively associated with performance goals, a relationship that was mediated by the lesser fear of failure and greater perceived competence of self-compassionate individuals. Study 2 confirmed these findings among students who perceived their recent midterm grade as a failure (N = 110), with results also indicating that self-compassion was positively associated with emotion-focused coping strategies and negatively associated with avoidance-oriented strategies.
Pneumocystis colonisation is common among hospitalised HIV infected patients with non-Pneumocystis pneumonia

Background: When Pneumocystis DNA is recovered from respiratory specimens of patients without Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), patients are said to be colonised with Pneumocystis, although the significance of this state is unknown. Understanding risk factors for and outcomes of colonisation may provide insights into the life cycle and transmission dynamics of Pneumocystis jirovecii. Methods: We performed a cross sectional study of the prevalence and clinical predictors of Pneumocystis colonisation in 172 HIV infected, PCP negative inpatients undergoing diagnostic evaluation of 183 episodes of pneumonia at either the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans between 2003 and 2005 or San Francisco General Hospital between 2000 and 2005. DNA was extracted from sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage specimens and amplified using a nested PCR assay at the mitochondrial large subunit (18S) ribosomal RNA locus. Colonisation was deemed present if Pneumocystis DNA was identified by both gel electrophoresis and direct DNA sequencing. Results: 68% (117/172) of all patients were colonised with Pneumocystis. No strong associations with colonisation were identified for any demographic factors. Among clinical factors, having a CD4+ T cell count ⩽50 cells/μl (unadjusted OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.09 to 5.48; p = 0.031) and using PCP prophylaxis (unadjusted OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.29 to 1.07; p = 0.077) were associated with Pneumocystis colonisation, although the latter association may have been due to chance. After adjustment for CD4+ T cell count, use of PCP prophylaxis was associated with a decreased odds of colonisation (adjusted OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.98; p = 0.045). 11 patients who were colonised were subsequently readmitted for evaluation of a second episode of pneumonia; three were found to be colonised again, but none had PCP. Conclusions: The majority of hospitalised HIV infected patients with non-PCP pneumonia are colonised with Pneumocystis. Failure to use co-trimoxazole prophylaxis and severe immunosuppression are associated with an increase in the odds of colonisation. Pneumocystis colonisation among hospitalised patients does not commonly lead to PCP.
Synthetic Population Generation Without a Sample

The advent of microsimulation in the transportation sector has created the need for extensive disaggregated data concerning the population whose behavior is modeled. Because of the cost of collecting this data and the existing privacy regulations, this need is often met by the creation of a synthetic population on the basis of aggregate data. Although several techniques for generating such a population are known, they suffer from a number of limitations. The first is the need for a sample of the population for which fully disaggregated data must be collected, although such samples may not exist or may not be financially feasible. The second limiting assumption is that the aggregate data used must be consistent, a situation that is most unusual because these data often come from different sources and are collected, possibly at different moments, using different protocols. The paper presents a new synthetic population generator in the class of the Synthetic Reconstruction methods, whose objective is to obviate these limitations. It proceeds in three main successive steps: generation of individuals, generation of household type's joint distributions, and generation of households by gathering individuals. The main idea in these generation steps is to use data at the most disaggregated level possible to define joint distributions, from which individuals and households are randomly drawn. The method also makes explicit use of both continuous and discrete optimization and uses the χ2 metric to estimate distances between estimated and generated distributions. The new generator is applied for constructing a synthetic population of approximately 10,000,000 individuals and 4,350,000 households localized in the 589 municipalities of Belgium. The statistical quality of the generated population is discussed using criteria extracted from the literature, and it is shown that the new population generator produces excellent results.
Coding in the Auditory Cortex

Characterization of response properties of neurons in higher-level sensory areas is not well defined. Here we show that firing rates of neurons in a secondary sensory forebrain area of songbirds can be modeled by different representations of birdsong. In this work, we modeled neurons in the caudo-medial nidopallium (NCM) of adult European starlings with three different representations of the natural birdsong called signal, prediction, and error. Prediction spectrogram was computed by training the data as a Gaussian distribution on a loss function given by the
Estimation of an Entropy-based Functional

Given a function f from [0, 1] to the real line, we consider the (nonlinear) functional h obtained by evaluating the continuous entropy of the “density function” of f. Motivated by an application in signal processing, we wish to estimate h(f). Our main tool is a decomposition of h into two terms, which each have favorable scaling properties. We show that, if functions f and g satisfy a regularity condition, then the smallness of ∥f −g∥∞ and ∥f′ − g′∥∞, along with some basic control on derivatives of f and g, is sufficient to imply that h(f) and h(g) are close.
Infection: Characteristics of Monocyte Subpopulations

Mice could well tolerate infection with a lethal dose of Listeria monocytogenes after intraperitoneal preinjections with 250 ,Ig of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) per kg of body weight for 5 days. The characteristic changes in the surface markers (Mac-1, LFA-1, and F4/80) of peripheral monocytes were also investigated in order to analyze the mechanism of protection by M-CSF. This investigation shows the excellent effect of intraperitoneal preinjections of M-CSF on the reduction of viable Listeria organisms and the improvement of survival after an intravenous Listeria infection.
Towards Conceptual Compression

We introduce a simple recurrent variational auto-encoder architecture that significantly improves image modeling. The system represents the state-of-the-art in latent variable models for both the ImageNet and Omniglot datasets. We show that it naturally separates global conceptual information from lower level details, thus addressing one of the fundamentally desired properties of unsupervised learning. Furthermore, the possibility of restricting ourselves to storing only global information about an image allows us to achieve high quality 'conceptual compression'.
Lobbies and Technology Diffusion

This paper explores whether lobbies slow down technology diffusion. To answer this question, we exploit the differential effect of various institutional attributes that should affect the costs of erecting barriers when the new technology has a technologically close predecessor but not otherwise. We implement this test using a data set that covers the diffusion of twenty technologies for 23 countries over the past two centuries. We find that each of the relevant institutional variables that affect the costs of erecting barriers has a significantly larger effect on the diffusion of technologies with a competing predecessor technology than when no such technology exists. These effects are quantitatively important. Thus, we conclude that lobbies are an important barrier to technology adoption and to development.
Grounds for Cognition: How Goal-guided Behavior Shapes the Mind

Contents: The Project. Part I: The Teleoevolutionary Stance. By Way of Means and Ends. The Guidance Equation. Part II: Forms of Guidance. Teleonomic Guidance. Primitive Semantics. Intimations of Re-presentation: Vision. Mental Guidance. Social Guidance. Part III: Implications. Psychosemanticism. Prospects for Explanation.
Factors Affecting Entrapment: Justification Needs, Face Concerns, and Personal Networks

This study explores the link between the entrapment bias and the concept of face (self- and other-positive) and internal and external justification processes. It examines how face-saving concerns and justification needs moderate the entrapment bias in accountability condition (i.e., presence of constituencies and reporting requirements). In addition, this research looks at whether the size and influence of personal networks is associated with face-saving behaviors that, in turn, affect entrapment. The research also explores whether overall face concerns have an effect on internal and external self-justification. Participants were 236 undergraduate communication majors enrolled in a large East Coast university, who were assigned to one of the four conditions: (1) constituency, reporting; (2) constituency, no reporting; (3) no constituency; reporting; (4) no constituency; no reporting. The current investigation did not support the findings from previous studies that suggest that justification processes and face concerns lead to entrapment. This study found that only internal self-justification and other-positive face concerns are related to entrapment, but instead of contributing to entrapment, these aspects prevent individuals from becoming entrapped. Personal networks were demonstrated to have positive effect on both self- and other-positive face concerns, providing empirical support for the value of using personal networks as a predictor of face goals. However, personal networks did not contribute to entrapment. Overall, this study identifies processes and conditions (e.g., concern for other-positive face, internal self-justification, reporting requirement, no direct observation by constituency, keeping clear record of performance success or failure) that may prevent the entrapment bias from occurring. Implications of this research are discussed as well as directions for future research.
A Desktop Virtual Reality Earth Motion System in Astronomy Education

In this study, a desktop virtual reality earth motion system (DVREMS) is designed and developed to be applied in the classroom. The system is implemented to assist elementary school students to clarify earth motion concepts using virtual reality principles. A study was conducted to observe the influences of the proposed system in learning. Twenty-one sixth-grade students participated in the study. Statistical results show that the scores in the pre-test and post-test significantly differ and using virtual reality can assist students in understanding the concepts. Besides, four design recommendations – information, spatial behavior, manipulation and concept representation – for improving the desktop VR system in education are also presented.
Rapid UBVRI Follow-up of the Highly Collimated Optical Afterglow of GRB 010222

We present the earliest optical observations of the optical counterpart to the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 010222, obtained with the Fred L. Whipple Observatory 1.2 m telescope in UBVRI passbands, starting 3.64 hr after the burst (0.4 hr after public notification of the burst localization). We also present late R-band observations of the afterglow obtained with the 1.8 m Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope ~25 days after the burst. The temporal analysis of our data joined with published data indicates a steepening decay, independent of wavelength, asymptotically approaching Fν ∝ t-0.80±0.05 at early times (t ≪ 1 day) and Fν ∝ t-1.30±0.05 at late times, with a sharp break at tb = 0.72 ± 0.10 days. This is the second earliest observed break of any afterglow (after GRB 980519), which clearly indicates the importance of rapid multiband follow-up for GRB afterglow research. The optical spectral energy distribution, corrected for small Galactic reddening, can be fitted fairly well by a single power law with Fν ∝ ν-1.07±0.09. However, when we fit using our BVRI data only, we obtain a shallower slope of -0.88 ± 0.10, in excellent agreement with the slope derived from our low-resolution spectrum (-0.89 ± 0.03). The spectral slope and light-curve decay slopes we derive are not consistent with a jet model despite the presence of a temporal break. Significant host dust extinction with a starburst reddening law would flatten the spectral index to match jet predictions and still be consistent with the observed spectral energy distribution. We derive an opening angle of 2. °1, smaller than any listed in the recent compilation of Frail et al. The total beamed energy corrected for the jet geometry is 4 × 1050 ergs, very close to the "standard" value of 5 × 1050 ergs found by Frail et al. for a number of other bursts with light-curve breaks.
The role of psychopathy and childhood experiences in rape myth acceptance in a sample of prisoners and non-prisoners

Due to the lack of a suitable measure of psychopathy to be used with Polish participants, the focus of the first empirical chapter was to translate the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP-III) into Polish with the aim to test construct validity and dimensionality, incremental validity, and composite reliability of the measure in a sample of working adults (N = 319). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the best fitting model was the bifactor conceptualisation containing two general factors and four grouping factors represented by interpersonal, affective, antisocial, and lifestyle latent variables. This measure was then applied in further chapters to examine the role of psychopathy in rape myth acceptance. Based on a sample of Polish non-offending adults (n = 319) and a sample of prisoners (n = 129), the second empirical chapter investigated the direct effects of four psychopathy dimensions (Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle and Antisocial Behaviour), exposure to violence, relationship status, age, gender, and type of data (prisoners vs. non-prisoners) on rape myth acceptance. A model of rape myth acceptance was estimated and assessed in AMOS, using structural equation modelling. Results indicated that Callous Affect and childhood exposure to violence had a significant positive effect on attitudes towards rape. The aim of the third empirical chapter was to extend the findings of the earlier study by including additional psychological variables into the earlier specified model of rape myth acceptance. The study considered the role of psychopathy, aggression, and adverse childhood experiences in rape myth acceptance using a sample of prisoners (n = 98) and non-prisoners (n = 98). This research employed a quasi-experimental design with propensity score matching in order to control for selection bias. Post-matching regression results indicated that maternal anxious and avoidant attachment, Callous Affect, and aggression were significant predictors of rape myth acceptance.