Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agency and decision-making with advocacy support : a qualitative study of people with dementia living alone

This thesis explores the power of people with dementia who live alone to participate in decision-making processes with advocacy support. Although the benefits of consumer participation in healthcare decisions include improvements in health outcomes, greater emotional well-being and long-term cost savings, people with dementia who live alone are frequently marginalised in the decision-making process. This is significant given that this group is increasing in number and is overrepresented in statistics on early admission to institutional care. This study specifically examined how dementia affected the agency of people living alone, and how a dementia advocacy service influenced their participation in decision-making. The study employed multiple methods to collect qualitative data from nine people with dementia living alone who have used advocacy services, four dementia advocates and twenty-one healthcare professionals involved in meeting careassessment needs and in referring clients to the advocacy service. A critical realist theoretical framework and a process of retroduction were used to develop an explanatory theory. This study found that dementia significantly constrained agency and led to a narrowing of the social world of participants with dementia. Orientations of agency towards the present and future improved power of agency as did a person’s belief in their ability to take action, and advocacy was shown to positively influence these factors. Participation in decision-making was found to be extremely important to participants with dementia but sociocultural factors restricted their participation. Lack of understanding of the variation in decision-making capacity associated with dementia and a strong cultural focus on risk avoidance resulted in low prioritisation of decision-making involvement by healthcare professionals. In contrast, advocacy facilitated participation through trusting relationships, spending time to understand the person’s wishes and promoting the rights of the person with dementia living alone. These findings suggest the need for healthcare services to focus on enhancing agency, to encourage supportive decision-making, and to balance safety and emotional consequences of decisions when working with people with dementia living alone. Further, although advocacy provided benefits in protecting and facilitating participation, future success is contingent upon the establishment of a common understanding of advocacy and the advocate role and a universal approach to capacity and risk assessments.
Models and Tests of Linkage and Association Studies of Quantitative Trait Locus for Multi-Allele Marker Loci

In this paper, we explore models and tests for association and linkage studies of a quantitative trait locus (QTL) linked to a multi-allele marker locus. Based on the difference between an offspring’s conditional trait means of receiving and not receiving an allele from a parent at marker locus, we propose three statistics Tm, Tm,row and Tm,col to test association or linkage disequilibrium between the marker locus and the QTL. These tests are composite tests, and use the offspring marginal sample means including offspring data of both homozygous and heterozygous parents. For the linkage study, we calculate the offspring’s conditional trait mean given the allele transmission status of a heterozygous parent at the marker locus. Based on the difference between the conditional means of a transmitted and a nontransmitted allele from a heterozygous parent, we propose statistics Tparsi, Tsatur, Tgen and Tm,het to perform composite tests of linkage between the marker locus and the quantitative trait locus in the presence of association. These tests only use the offspring data that are related to the heterozygous parents at the marker locus. Tparsi is a parsimonious or allele-wise statistic, Tsatur and Tgen are satured or genotype-wise statistics, and Tm,het compares the row and column sample means for offspring data of heterozygous parents. After comparing the powers and the sample sizes, we conclude that Tparsi has higher power than those of the bi-allele tests, Tsatur, Tgen, and Tm,het. If there is tight linkage between the marker and the trait locus, Tparsi is powerful in detecting linkage between the marker and the trait locus in the presence of association. By investigating the goodness-of-fit of Tparsi, we find that Tsatur does not gain much power compared to that of Tparsi. Moreover, Tparsi takes into account the pattern of the data that is consistent with linkage and linkage disequilibrium. As the number of alleles at the marker locus increases, Tparsi is very conservative, and can be useful even for sparse data. To illustrate the usefulness and the power of the methods proposed in this paper, we analyze the chromosome 6 data of the Oxford asthma data, Genetic Analysis Workshop 12.
Making a digital game active: Examining the responses of students to the adapted active version

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between the responses to the digital and the active version of Angry Birds™. Participants of this study were comprised of 26 secondary school students who enrolled in a state or a private school. The data for the study were collected during the 2012-2013 school years by using a three question semi-structured interview. The responses to the interviews were analyzed with the qualitative method of content analysis. 6 categories and 31 codes were emerged from the responses of the students. According to responses of the students, entertainment was the most cited category and mostly referred to active games. Negative emotions were controllable in the active game play even students found it more challenging. This study has implications to design game based educational programs.
Quantitative Selection of Long-Short Hedge Funds

We develop a quantitative model to select hedge funds in the long-short equity sector. The selection strategy is verified on a survivorship-bias-free hedge fund database, from January 1990 to September 2002. We focus on the hedge funds acting exclusively in the U.S. market. We identify Fama-French factors and GSCI as the risk factors. Based on the evidence that many hedge funds do not exhibit persistent performance, we believe that persistent alpha is not generated based on publicly available information and opportunistic changes of exposure with respect to the risk factors. Instead we expect moderate exposure funds to be those who establish investment decisions based on special information or proprietary research. A hedge fund selection strategy is introduced and checked with out-of-sample data. A simulation of hedge funds from 1927 to 2002 is conducted. The funds selected according to our strategy demonstrate superior performance persistently.
Vivid: A framework for combining diagrammatic and symbolic reasoning

We introduce Vivid, a domain-independent framework for heterogeneous natural deduction that combines diagrammatic and sentential reasoning. The framework is presented in the form of a family of denotational proof languages (DPLs). Diagrams are represented as possibly partial descriptions of finite system states. This allows us to deal with incomplete information, which we formalize by admitting sets as attribute values. We introduce a notion of attribute interpretations that enables us to interpret first-order signatures into such system states, and develop a formal semantic framework based on Kleene’s strong three-valued logic. We extend the assumption-base semantics of DPLs to accommodate diagrammatic reasoning by introducing general inference mechanisms for the valid extraction of information from diagrams and for the incorporation of sentential information into diagrams. A rigorous big-step operational semantics is given, on the basis of which we prove that our framework is sound.
Heterogeneity of GABAA receptor in goldfish retina

The possibility of GABAA receptor heterogeneity in goldfish retina was studied with immunocytochemical and biochemical approaches: (1) immunoblotted membrane particulates of goldfish retina with mAb 62‐3G1; (2) immunoprecipitation of the detergent‐solubilized membrane proteins with mAb 62‐3G1 followed by the receptor binding assay; (3) photoaffinity labeling of the membrane particulates with 3H‐flunitrazepam (FNZ) and visualization of the labeled receptors by SDS‐PAGE and fluorography; (4) dry autoradiography of 3H‐muscimol and 3H‐FNZ binding sites on frozen sections. Immunoblots showed that 62‐3G1 reacted with 55–57.5 kDa Mr polypeptides, similar to the muscimol‐binding subunit of the receptor complex in bovine brain; while 3H‐FNZ photoaffinity labeled the 52.5 kDa and 41–43 kDa Mr polypeptides. Immunoprecipitated receptors bound only 3H‐muscimol, not 3H‐FNZ. An attempt to precipitate the 3H‐FNZ photolabeled polypeptides failed. Dry autoradiography showed 3H‐PNZ binding only in the inner plexiform layer (IPL); the binding was enhanced with γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) and blocked by clonazepam. In contrast, 3H‐muscimol was bound in both the outer plexiform layer (OPL) and IPL, similar to that observed with 62‐3G1 immunocytochemistry. We suggest that there are two subtypes of GABAA receptor in the goldfish retina: (1) GABAA receptors that are not linked to a benzodiazepine (BZD) receptor are located in the OPL and at amacrine‐to‐amacrine and amacrine‐to‐ganglion cell synapses in the IPL and are recognized by 62‐3G1; (2) GABAA receptors that are linked to a BZD receptor are located only in the IPL, largely at amacrine‐to‐bipolar cell synapses and are not recognized by mAb 62‐3G1. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Participation in health care priority-setting through the eyes of the participants

Objectives: The literature on participation in priority-setting has three key gaps: it focuses on techniques for obtaining public input into priority-setting that are consultative mechanisms and do not involve the public directly in decision-making; it focuses primarily on the public's role in priority-setting, not on all potential participants; and the range of roles that various participants play in a group making priority decisions has not been described. To begin addressing these gaps, we interviewed individuals who participated on two priority-setting committees to identify key insights from participants about participation. Methods: A qualitative study consisting of interviews with decision-makers, including patients and members of the public. Results: Members of the public can contribute directly to important aspects of priority-setting. The participants described six specific priority-setting roles: committee chair, administrator, medical specialist, medical generalist, public representative and patient representative. They also described the contributions of each role to priority-setting. Conclusions: Using the insights from decision-makers, we have described lessons related to direct involvement of members of the public and patients in priority-setting, and have identified six roles and the contributions of each role.
Access, agenda building and information subsidies: Media relations in professional sport

While much research has examined the composition of sport media and those charged with constructing it, namely sport journalists and editors, far less has explored an essential set of actors in the construction of news: sources. This study aimed to explore the construction of the sport media agenda from arguably the most important sport news sources: sport media relations managers. In particular, this paper asked: how do media staff in sports organisations influence the production of news? To answer this question, this paper is based on a qualitative, observational study of a professional Australian Rules football club in Australia, involving interviews, observations and document analysis. Research within a professional Australian Rules football club found that the club delivered high-quality information subsidies that met sports journalists’ newswork requirements. However, media access was almost solely limited to these information subsidies, which are highly subjective and negotiated, which in turn allowed the professional football club to significantly control the subsequent media agenda.
Assessment of depression in veterans across missions: a validity study using Rasch measurement models

ABSTRACT Background: Depression is a common psychopathological outcome following military deployment. Previous studies have reported differing rates of post-deployment depression, indicating that the toll of war differs across missions. However, it is unclear to what degree the varying prevalence is due methodological differences. Studies comparing rates of depression across cohorts using the same methodology and ensuring measurement invariance are rare, leaving us with limited knowledge on the actual depression prevalence variance across missions. Objective: Applying Rasch models (RM), we aim to validate a measure of depression distributed to all personnel deployed with the Danish Defense since 1998. The main focus was establishing a sufficient sum score and measurement invariance relative to deployment cohort. Method: Two cohorts of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 (ISAF7, N = 265) and 2013 (ISAF15, N = 271) were included. Participants filled out a questionnaire concerning their Psychological Reactions to International Missions (PRIM) approximately seven months after home-coming. The questionnaire included a 10-item scale of depression symptoms (PRIM-Depression). The validity of the PRIM-Depression was tested using RM with specific focus on differential item functioning (DIF) across the two cohorts. Results: The PRIM-Depression scale displayed excellent overall consistency and showed no problems with monotonicity or homogeneity. However, the full PRIM-Depression scale did not fit a pure RM. We therefore tested the fit of items to a graphical log-linear RM and found evidence of DIF for two items relative to cohort. We proceeded without these two items and tested the resulting 8-item version which fitted a pure RM without DIF on any of the exogenous variables. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the 10-item PRIM-Depression scale should be used to compare cohorts only with appropriate score equation. The 8-item version provides a sufficient statistic and can as such be applied using the raw score.
Training Affects Variability in Training Performance Both Within and Across Jobs

A partial test of a model of training performance variability was conducted. The current study examined variability in cognitive ability and training performance in job‐specific training. Several studies have found mean score differences in cognitive ability across jobs. Further, the variability in training outcomes among individuals within a job has been shown to vary across jobs. Reduced variability in training outcomes is a measure of training effectiveness. For this study data were grouped by job over several years. Participants were 116,310 enlistees enrolled in 108 US Air Force training specialties. Aptitude was measured by a verbal/math composite derived from the US military enlistment test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Training performance was assessed by written tests of job‐related knowledge content. Predictive validity of the verbal/math composite ranged from . 124 to . 836 across jobs with a mean weighted value of 0.691. Substantial differences were observed for mean and variability of aptitude across jobs. Trainees in jobs with high aptitude requirements had higher mean aptitude and were less variable on aptitude than those in jobs with lower aptitude requirements. Further, trainees in high aptitude jobs had higher mean training performance scores and were less variable on performance than those in jobs with lower aptitude requirements. Finally, training performance was much less variable than aptitude. Training had the effect of reducing variability among trainees within jobs. This has the effect of producing a more homogenous set of trainees on trained content, which is beneficial to on‐the‐job training. Support was found for a part of the model.
A Hybrid Approach to Features Representation for Fine-grained Arabic Named Entity Recognition

Despite considerable research on the topic of Arabic Named Entity Recognition (NER), almost all efforts focus on a traditional set of semantic classes, features and token representations. In this work, we advance previous research in a systematic manner and devise a novel method to represent these features, relying on a dependency-based structure to capture further evidence within the sentence. Moreover, the work also describes an evaluation of the method involving the capture of global features and employing the clustering of unannotated textual data. To meet this set of goals, we conducted a series of evaluations to evaluate different aspects that demonstrate great improvement when compared with the baseline model.
On Measuring Political Violence: Northern Ireland, 1969 to 1980

L'A. s'interroge sur la fiabilite des donnees relatives a la violence politique et compare des donnees publiees dans le New York Times et des donnees provenant d'une autre source (Irish Information Partnership) s'agissant de la violence politique en Irlande du Nord, comparaison necessaire a la recherche des causes de la violence politique.
Response variability to glucose facilitation of cognitive enhancement

Glucose facilitation of cognitive function has been widely reported in previous studies (including our own). However, several studies have also failed to detect glucose facilitation. There is sparsity of research examining the factors that modify the effect of glucose on cognition. The aims of the present study were to (1) demonstrate the previously observed enhancement of cognition through glucose administration and (2) investigate some of the factors that may exert moderating roles on the behavioural response to glucose, including glucose regulation, body composition (BC) and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis response. A total of twenty-four participants took part in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised, repeated-measures study, which examined the effect of 25 and 60 g glucose compared with placebo on cognitive function. At 1 week before the study commencement, all participants underwent an oral glucose tolerance test. Glucose facilitated performance on tasks of numeric and spatial working memory, verbal declarative memory and speed of recognition. Moderating variables were examined using several indices of glucoregulation and BC. Poorer glucoregulation predicted improved immediate word recall accuracy following the administration of 25 g glucose compared with placebo. Those with better glucoregulation showed performance decrements on word recall accuracy following the administration of 25 g glucose compared with placebo. These findings are in line with accumulating evidence that glucose load may preferentially enhance cognition in those with poorer glucoregulation. Furthermore, the finding that individuals with better glucoregulation may suffer impaired performance following a glucose load is novel and requires further substantiation.
Field Emission Characteristics of Carbon Nanotube Films Fabricated by Different Methods

In order to improve the performance of field emitters nowadays, carbon nanotubes are used instead of conventional materials such as silicon and metals. In this paper, field emission characteristics of three different multi-wall carbon nanotube films have been compared, which are fabricated by different methods, including direct growth, evaporation coating and flow assembly. The field emission current-voltage property of each film has been characterized experimentally, and the electric field enhancement factor has been analyzed using Fowler-Nordheim theory. Moreover, emission stability of each film has been measured too. It can be concluded that the direct-grown vertical multi-wall carbon nanotube array has turn-on field of 0.603 V/mum and current density fluctuation less than 5%, which is much lower than the other films by post-treatment processes.
CoNLL-X Shared Task on Multilingual Dependency Parsing

Each year the Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL) features a shared task, in which participants train and test their systems on exactly the same data sets, in order to better compare systems. The tenth CoNLL (CoNLL-X) saw a shared task on Multilingual Dependency Parsing. In this paper, we describe how treebanks for 13 languages were converted into the same dependency format and how parsing performance was measured. We also give an overview of the parsing approaches that participants took and the results that they achieved. Finally, we try to draw general conclusions about multi-lingual parsing: What makes a particular language, treebank or annotation scheme easier or harder to parse and which phenomena are challenging for any dependency parser?
Intracranial Effects of Long‐standing Decompression of the Brain in Children with Hydrocephalus and Meningomyelocele

IN the past 10 years we have done necropsies on some 200 children with hydrocephalus and meningomyelocele, and during this period an increasing number have had various forms of decompression. The introduction of the Holter valve in 1958 (MacNab 1959) ushered in a new era in the treatment of hydrocephalus, and in the past two years we have examined the brains of over 60 children who have been treated with the ventriculo-atrial shunt for periods up to five years, including one who died at the age of 33 years and another at 5 years, after having their ventricles drained by Holter valves for almost their whole extrauterine life and dying of renal or other disease outside the skull. It would be instructive to compare the brains of the treated children with those of untreated children of the same age, or with normal children, but the variability of brains included under the heading of ‘Hydrocephalus associated with the ArnoldChiari deformity’ makes this impracticable. Treatment has permitted a selected group to survive to an older age, and a comparison with superficially similarly diseased surviving children would not be valid and would be subject to the same criticism as the surveys of Lawrence (1958) and Merrill et al. (1962). No attempt will be made here to assess the clinical benefit of brain decompression, but attention must be drawn to a number of secondary changes that occur within the skull as they may be important from the point of view of the handling of other children under similar treatment.
HER1 R497K and HER2 I655V Polymorphisms Are Linked to Development of Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND: Polymorphism of the genes of Human Epidermal growth factor receptor1 (HER1) and receptor2 (HER2) have been reported to be linked to pathogenesis of several malignant tumors but still there is contradiction regarding their association with breast cancer. OBJECTIVE: In this case control study we aimed to analyze the frequency of HER1 R497K (rs 11543848) and HER2 I655V (rs 1136201) Polymorphisms in breast cancer. SUBJECT AND METHOD: The frequency of HER1 Arg(R) 497Lys (K) and HER2 Ile (I) 655Val (V) polymorphisms were tested in 64 breast cancer patients and 86 normal control by polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction fragment polymorphism detection. Immunohistochemical analysis was done for HER2 protein on the available 18 malignant tissue samples. RESULTS: HER1 497K and HER2 655V variant had significantly increased breast cancer risk (OR=2.6, 95% CI 1.6–4.2, OR=2.2, 95% CI 1.2–4.1, p< 0.05) respectively. Moreover, combined HER1 K497 and HER2 V655 variant was detected in 26.6% malignant in comparison to 8.14% of control group (OR=4.1, 95% CI 1.58–10.57), but, no significant association was noticed between both Polymorphisms and clinicopathological features of the disease. As regard HER2 immunohistochemical expression no significant correlation was revealed with HER2 655V polymorphism. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that HER1 497K and HER2 655V polymorphisms are potential risk factor for development of breast cancer.