Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Language Testing and English as an International Language Constraints and Contributions

Clyne and Sharifian (“C & S”) make special reference to English language testers in the conclusion of their paper, describing them (along with English language teachers) as “gatekeepers” of the English language. The authors suggest that these groups “need to explore and implement, in fundamental ways, the implications of the current and future situations of the complexity of English as an international language. ” More specifically, they argue that, "The expanding pluricentricity of English needs to be reflected in ELT materials, which currently lean towards either American or British English (and to a much lesser extent Australian English), under-representing other varieties. Language testing needs also to be informed by the unprecedented growth of variation in the norms of international communication (e.g. Canagarajah, 2006; Elder and Davies, 2006). Furthermore, the contents of language tests ought to correspond with the functions for which the testees will employ the language (see Zafar Khan, 2009). In many contexts, people who take language tests such as IELTS and TOEFL use English for intercultural communication, often in the absence of "native" speakers. In such cases, we believe the test should try to evaluate intercultural communicative skills instead of obsessively testing the “inner circle” Englishes. "
Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Ion Flux through Membrane Channels

Ion flux through membrane channels is passively driven by the electrochemical potential differences across the cell membrane. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics has been successful in explaining transport mechanisms, including the ion transport phenomenon. However, physiologists may not be familiar with biophysical concepts based on the view of entropy production. In this paper, I have reviewed the physical meanings and connections between nonequilibrium thermodynamics and the expressions commonly used in describing ion fluxes in membrane physiology. The fluctuation theorem can be applied to interpret the flux ratio in the small molecular systems. The multi-ion single-file feature of the ion channel facilitates the utilization of the natural tendency of electrochemical driving force to couple specific biophysical processes and biochemical reactions on the membrane.
Chromatic Imbalance Due to Commonly Used Red‐Green Filters Reduces Accuracy of Stereoscopic Depth Perception

ABSTRACT This study was designed to determine the effect on stereopsis of interocular retinal chromatic and illuminance imbalance in 30 subjects with normal binocularity. A Randot 3 Circle Stereotest, viewed through polarizing glasses only, was the control condition. In each of three additional conditions, illuminance and chromatic imbalances were created by commonly used red and green filters and neutral density filters combined with the polarizing filters. The effect of each of these experimental conditions on stereopsis was determined by comparing total stereo judgement errors on the Randot Circle Stereotest for each condition to the control condition. Total average flux through the filter combinations was held constant by adjusting the luminance level of light reflected from the target. The chromatic imbalance created by the red‐green filters significantly increased the number of stereo judgment errors (37%, p < 0.05). However, illuminance imbalance (0.2 log units) of the magnitude created by the red‐green filters did not significantly increase the number of errors (2.9%, p < 0.65). Finally, the combined illuminance and chromatic imbalance created by the red‐green filters significantly increased the error frequency (46%, p < 0.05). The chromatic imbalance caused by red‐green glasses significantly degrades stereopsis, whereas the illuminance imbalance caused by these filters has no significant effect on stereopsis.
Incorporation of xenobiotic carboxylic acids into lipids by cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes

1. The study was established to assess the potential for a variety of xenobiotic aromatic carboxylic acids to be incorporated into glycerolipids. 2. The 14C-labelled xenobiotic acids were included in incubations of cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes under defined conditions. Lipids were extracted and identified by TLC and radioscanning. 3. Ibuprofen, 4-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)-butanoic acid (2,4-DB), 4-(2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxy)-butanoic acid (MCPB) and 2-(2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxy)-propanoic acid (MCPP) (all 0.5 mM) were incorporated into lipid extracts at rates of 220, 227, 199 and 21 pmol µg−1 phospholipid/h, respectively. 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), indomethacin, naproxen and fluroxypyr were incorporated at rates lower than MCPP or not at all. The incorporation of acids was first order to at least 1 mM acid (except MCPB: 300 μM). Triacylglycerol analogues were the major products with incorporation into diacylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine also observed. After digestion with pancreatic lipase, ibuprofen-containing triacylglycerol was unusual in that the main product was the monoacylglycerol analogue, suggesting that esterification had been at the sn-2 position. 4. Incubation with cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes is a useful and easy method to assess whether xenobiotic compounds can be incorporated into glycerolipids; of eight acids assessed, four (of which three have not previously been reported) were shown to form xenobiotic triacylglycerols.
Migrants in the Nineteenth Century: Fugitives or Families in Motion?

The author critically examines the "transiency thesis" which states that the rapid turnover of local populations in the nineteenth century was largely a result of rootless individualistic wandering. He argues instead that migration was often undertaken within family and kinship networks or by whole families. Evidence from studies in the United States Canada Great Britain and France is presented in support of this position and three circumstances in which migration under family sponsorship was especially likely are identified. (ANNOTATION)
Health as status? Network relations and social structure in an American retirement community

ABSTRACT This study examines social ties within a community of retirement residents to examine how health influences patterns of social interaction. Drawing from a social fields perspective, I anticipated that health would emerge as a key form of status. I hypothesised that this would manifest in the healthiest residents receiving a disproportionate share of social tie nominations, and that the network would be characterised by distinct patterns of health-based sorting. Exponential random graph models were used to disentangle individual, dyadic and higher-order influences on reports of interaction. Findings support the main hypotheses, pointing to the importance of health as a basis of micro-level social structure in contexts where it is a scarce and valued resource. I urge further research to trace out these implications in other unique settings.
A passion for service: Using content analysis to explicate service climate themes.

Описывается исследование фирмы, оказывающей финансовые услуги. Организационный климат организации определяется как рабочие условия, являющиеся результатом восприятия работниками событий, инструкций и процедур, так же как и восприятие ими поведения, которое ожидается, поддерживается и вознаграждается. В исследовании использовалась комбинация полуструктурированного интервью со стандартизованным вопросником. Было опрошено около 350 работников. Их просили оценить восприятие услуг клиентами компании. В результате была описана практика, ориентированная на обслуживание клиентов, которая сильно коррелировала с практикой фирмы в области управления человеческими ресурсами (например, обучение, оценка исполнения). С помощью успешного совмещения качественных и количественных методов диагностики организационного климата авторы показали, что практика управления человеческими ресурсами может придавать определенный смысл и значение ориентации работников на клиента. Результаты исследования дают возможность предположить, что важными концептуальными элементами организационного климата, ориентированного на обслуживание клиентов, являются такие латентные переменные, как внимание и забота о работниках и внимание к клиентам. (С.А. Липатов)
Benefits of Living in High- Opportunity Neighborhoods Insights from the Moving to Opportunity Demonstration

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designed and implemented the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration to assess the long-term impacts of providing housing vouchers to help low-income families move from severely distressed, high-poverty housing projects to lowpoverty neighborhoods. Families living in public and assisted housing projects in five cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) were invited to participate. Those that volunteered for the demonstration were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. The experimental group received housing vouchers that (for the first year) could only be used in low-poverty neighborhoods, along with one-time help finding a house or apartment that qualified. The comparison group received regular housing vouchers that they could use to move to any neighborhood. And the control group continued to receive housing subsidies in the original development (for more on the origins and design of MTO, see Briggs, Popkin, and Goering 2010).
Mature students in higher education: I. A literature survey on approaches to studying

ABSTRACT Although mature students are often said to be deficient in study skills, most research into approaches to studying in higher education has ignored age as an important explanatory variable. There is nevertheless a consistent suggestion in research using inventories and questionnaires on study processes that mature students exhibit more desirable approaches to academic learning. In particular, mature students seem to be more likely than younger students to adopt a deep approach or a meaning orientation, and conversely they seem to be less likely to adopt a surface approach or a reproducing orientation towards their academic work. Three explanations for this are: that mature students are more motivated by intrinsic goals; that younger students acquire a surface approach to learning in the final years of secondary education; and that the prior life experience of mature students promotes a deep approach towards studying in higher education.
Natural Scenes Are Indeed Preferred, but Image Quality Might Have the Last Word

Numerous studies have shown that people prefer natural scenes over human-made scenes. Evolutionarily and neurologically based explanations for this preference have been proposed. This study examined the impact that image quality has on the preference for natural scenes. The authors also explored the influence of image quality on familiarity ratings and on how scenes are classified in a rapid, twoalternative, forced-choice task. Finally, the authors propose a framework for conceptualizing the nature of different image manipulation procedures, and how they influence aesthetic experiences.
The impact of televised football on stadium attendances in English and Spanish league football

Since the early 1990s, sports broadcasting has emerged to become an important part of the sports industry. This is particularly important in the case of European football because revenues generated from the sport broadcast market tend to dominate those generated from gate attendance, which has traditionally been the main source of income for football clubs and leagues. In this article, we examine the broadcast regimes of the English Premier League and the Spanish Primera Liga (Liga de Primera Division) and examine the impacts that televising games from these leagues have had on their respective match‐day attendances. We find that, although stadium attendances in both leagues respond to a series of factors in a similar manner, the effects of broadcasting on match‐day attendance vary across the two leagues. We examine the economics issues and policy implications of these findings.
Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation in Adult Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) was introduced as a treatment for terminal leukemic relapse more than 40 years ago. For childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) the role of ABMT is well defined. Some studies suggest that it is also beneficial for adult patients with high-risk factors or with relapse. However, these inferences are based on a relatively small number of patients with short follow-up. Nevertheless patients with high-risk ALL are candidates for ABMT if no histocompatible sibling is available. Similarly patients in second or later complete remission (CR) in the absence of a histocompatible donor may derive benefit from ABMT. The different conditioning regimens used by the treatment centers are associated with different toxicities but none has been proven to be superior than others. In the majority of studies the marrow has been purged of leukemic cells, but this maneuver has never been evaluated in a randomized comparative trial. Transplant related mortality rate of ABMT is low compared to allogeneic transplantation. The GvL effect, which is important to eliminate malignant cells in acute and chronic myelocytic leukemia, has not been definitively demonstrated in ALL. The tyrosine-kinase inhibitor STI 571 offers new perspectives for patients with the Phl/bcr/abl translocation. It may be especially useful for treating minimal residual disease (MRD) before and/or after ABMT.
Behavioral Rhythmicity, Age, Division of Labor and period Expression in the Honey Bee Brain

Young adult honey bees work inside the beehive “nursing” brood around the clock with no circadian rhythms; older bees forage for nectar and pollen outside with strong circadian rhythms. Previous research has shown that the development of an endogenous rhythm of activity is also seen in the laboratory in a constant environment. Newly emerging bees maintained in isolation are typically arrhythmic during the first few days of adult life and develop strong circadian rhythms by about a few days of age. In addition, average daily levels of period (per) mRNA in the brain are higher in foragers or forager-age bees (> 21 days of age) relative to young nest bees (~ 7 days of age). The authors used social manipulations to uncouple behavioral rhythmicity, age, and task to determine the relationship between these factors and per. There was no obligate link between average daily levels of per brain mRNA and either behavioral rhythmicity or age. There also were no differences in per brain mRNA levels between nurse bees and foragers in social environments that promote precocious or reversed behavioral development. Nurses and other hive-age bees can have high or low levels of per mRNAlevels in the brain, depending on the social environment, while foragers and foraging-age bees always have high levels. These findings suggest a link between honey bee foraging behavior and per up-regulation. Results also suggest task-related differences in the amplitude of per mRNA oscillation in the brain, with foragers having larger diurnal fluctuation in per than nurses, regardless of age. Taken together, these results suggest that social factors may exert potent influences on the regulation of clock genes.
Gender, ‘bias’, assessment and feedback: analyzing the written assessment of undergraduate history essays

This paper reports on findings relating to a project on gender and essay assessment in HE. It focuses on one aspect of the study: the assessment of and feedback given to two sample essays by 50 historians based at universities in England and Wales. We found considerable variation both as to the classification awarded to the essays and to positive and negative comments made about their quality, supporting the argument that the ‘quality’ of a piece of writing for assessment is ultimately constructed by the reader of the essay and cannot be objectively ascertained. Gender issues emerging from the data are explored in the paper, relating to lecturers’ perceptions of the essays’ qualities; views concerning the way feedback should be presented; and the content and style of feedback given by lecturers on the sample essays. We found that gender constructions were manifested more in presentation than practice. These findings on the situated practice of assessment have implications for the conception of the ‘reliability’ of essay assessment in HE.
Multi-stream synchronization for 3D tele-immersive and collaborative environment

The 3D tele-immersive and collaborative environment provides a virtual space for the interaction of remotely dispersed users. To achieve multi-perspective rendering and realistic 3D visual effect, it is needed to transmit multiple semantically correlated 3D video streams from the source to the destination with stringent synchronization requirement. In this paper we discuss the issue of multi-stream synchronization from the general context of the multicast routing with delay and delay variation constraints, which was proved as an NP-complete problem. Then we propose a heuristic to construct a multicast network on an overlay content dissemination architecture for the solution, and show that our algorithm is asymptotically more advanced in the time complexity than existing ones. Empirical studies further verify the performance of our algorithm regarding to the temporal efficiency in various sizes of input data.
A conceptual model for understanding the process of self-leadership development and action-steps to promote personal leadership development

Purpose – The goal of the leadership development process is to enable the individual to learn how to become a self-leader and for any organization to develop leaders. Self-leadership represents an individual's ability to exercise control (self-efficacy) over his or her choice of situations in which to participate in and to provide intrinsic rewards that are usually associated with achieving goals. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study presents and describes a conceptual model that will help us to understand the critical dimensions (e.g. self-esteem) associated with self-leadership and the interrelatedness of these dimensions. Findings – The conceptual model that the author describes in this paper provides a comprehensive overview of self-leadership that extends Neck and Manz's (2010) conceptual model. It does so by identifying all the critical super ordinate mediators referred to by Deci et al. (1981) as internal states (referred to in this study as “dimensions”).
Activation of the Nrf2 Pathway by Inorganic Arsenic in Human Hepatocytes and the Role of Transcriptional Repressor Bach1

Previous studies have proved that the environmental toxicant, inorganic arsenic, activates nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway in many different cell types. This study tried to explore the hepatic Nrf2 pathway upon arsenic treatment comprehensively, since liver is one of the major target organs of arsenical toxicity. Our results showed that inorganic arsenic significantly induced Nrf2 protein and mRNA expression in Chang human hepatocytes. We also observed a dose-dependent increase of antioxidant response element- (ARE-) luciferase activity. Both the mRNA and protein levels of NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) were all upregulated dramatically. On the other hand, entry and accumulation of Nrf2 protein in the nucleus, while exportting the transcriptional repressor BTB and CNC homology 1 (Bach1) from nucleus to cytoplasm, were also confirmed by western blot and immunofluorescence assay. Our results therefore confirmed the arsenic-induced Nrf2 pathway activation in hepatocytes and also suggested that the translocation of Bach1 was associated with the regulation of Nrf2 pathway by arsenic. Hepatic Nrf2 pathway plays indispensable roles for cellular defenses against arsenic hepatotoxicity, and the interplay of Bach1 and Nrf2 may be helpful to understand the self-defensive responses and the diverse biological effects of arsenicals.
Secondary glaucoma in uveitis: comparison of the optic nerve head morphology among a nonmydriatic fundus camera, HRT, and SD-OCT

Purpose: To assess the correlation between the disc damage likelihood scale (DDLS) objectively measured by a nonmydriatic fundus camera, confocal laser scanning ophthalmoscopy (HRT3), and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in uveitic glaucoma. Methods: A total of 59 patients with uveitic glaucoma (21 female, 38 male; mean age 56.8 ± 18.7 years) were included in this prospective cross-sectional study. All patients were measured by the Kowa Nonmyd WX 3D camera (2D/3D nonmydriatic retinal camera, Kowa Company), the HRT3 (Heidelberg Engineering), and SD-OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec) by one examiner on the same day. All 3 devices graded the optic disc topography. Statistical data were calculated using SPSS (v 20.0, SPSS). Results: In patients showing borderline results in one of the modalities (n = 45), the DDLS showed a significant correlation with the retinal nerve fiber layer (p = 0.016), while Moorfields regression analysis (p = 0.550) and glaucoma probability score (p = 0.629) did not correlate significantly. The highest predictive power was demonstrated by the objectively measured DDLS (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.445-0.588), compared to R. Burk (0.149-0.375) and F.S. Mikelberg (0.033-0.450) coefficients considering HRT and optical coherence tomography. Conclusions: In this study cohort, the objective DDLS showed the highest predictive power and thus is a reliable tool in diagnosing uveitic glaucoma. These 3 devices cannot be used interchangeably. As diagnosis and follow-ups are challenging in uveitis patients, the stereophotography is additionally a valuable tool.
Endophthalmitis in patients with disseminated fungal disease.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Fungal endophthalmitis caused by dissemination from extraocular fungal infections has been reported to vary between 9% and 45%. However, recent clinical experience disagrees with that. This study is an investigation of patients in an inner city teaching hospital, the risks associated with endogenous fungal endophthalmitis, and this incidence. METHODS All ophthalmology consultations between February 1995 and August 2000 that might be associated with disseminated fungal infection were examined in a prospective manner. Patients were excluded if there was no evidence of a positive fungal culture from any site at any time. Visual symptoms were recorded along with ophthalmologic and systemic examination features. Information was gathered, including the identity of cultured organisms, the sites from which the organisms were obtained, and the patients' disposition. RESULTS During this interval, 170 consultation requests contained the words "endophthalmitis" or "retinitis" and/or indicated concern about disseminated fungal infections. Extraocular fungal infections were found in 114 patients, but only 82 of them had evidence of systemic dissemination. Some patients had more than one organism. The following are listed in decreasing frequency of occurrence: Candida albicans, Torulopsis glabrata, Candida tropicalis, Candida parapsilosis, Candida krusei, Aspergillus niger, and others. Only two patients had evidence of chorioretinitis and progressed to fungal endophthalmitis. CONCLUSIONS Endophthalmitis was rare among these patients with known fungal infections. Less than 2% had any related ophthalmic manifestations. Nevertheless, since treatment can save vision, evidence of intraocular infection should be sought as eagerly as before.