Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Post-school transitions in Ireland: a case study of Russian-speaking students

ABSTRACT This article examines the post-school pathways of Russian-speaking students in Ireland after completing secondary education; the importance of personal and institutional factors in shaping their transition process, and the role of parents and schools in achieving the post-school goals. The article draws on the qualitative exploratory study of 14 Russian-speaking migrant-origin students, to see how this group progresses beyond secondary schooling in the Irish education system. The study found that all participants had high educational aspirations. Most students achieved their desired first-choice post-school pathway, despite coming from a different linguistic and cultural background. The article points to a range of factors, which affect the post-school transition of migrant young people. The findings are discussed in light of Ireland’s liberal welfare state model with neo-liberal tendencies where those in positions of power can buy into the advantages of the more neo-liberal side of the regime.
Improving Microgrid Frequency Regulation Based on the Virtual Inertia Concept while Considering Communication System Delay

Frequency stability is an important issue for the operation of islanded microgrids. Since the upstream grid does not support the islanded microgrids, the power control and frequency regulation encounter serious problems. By increasing the penetration of the renewable energy sources in microgrids, optimizing the parameters of the load frequency controller plays a great role in frequency stability, which is currently being investigated by researchers. The status of loads and generation sources are received by the control center of a microgrid via a communication system and the control center can regulate the output power of renewable energy sources and/or power storage devices. An inherent delay in the communication system or other parts like sensors sampling rates may lead microgrids to have unstable operation states. Reducing the delay in the communication system, as one of the main delay origins, can play an important role in improving fluctuation mitigation, which on the other hand increases the cost of communication system operation. In addition, application of ultra-capacitor banks, as a virtual inertial tool, can be considered as an effective solution to damp frequency oscillations. However, when the ultra-capacitor size is increased, the virtual inertia also increases, which in turn increases the costs. Therefore, it is essential to use a suitable optimization algorithm to determine the optimum parameters. In this paper, the communication system delay and ultra-capacitor size along with the parameters of the secondary controller are obtained by using a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) algorithm as well as by considering the costs. To cover frequency oscillations and the cost of microgrid operation, two fitness functions are defined. The frequency oscillations of the case study are investigated considering the stochastic behavior of the load and the output of the renewable energy sources.
High-resolution melting analysis for rapid and sensitive MYD88 screening in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

High resolution melting (HRM) assay is a novel technology for the fast, high-throughput, sensitive, post-PCR analysis of genetic mutations. Myeloid differentiation primary response 88 (MYD88) mutations are frequently reported in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and confer a worse prognosis. The objective of the present study was to assess the value of HRM analysis for the rapid screening of MYD88 mutations in patients with CLL. Genomic DNA samples were extracted from the bone marrow of 129 newly diagnosed patients with CLL. A plasmid with an MYD88-L265P mutation was constructed, and the p.L265P substitution, which is the predominant MYD88 mutation in CLL, was detected using HRM analysis and direct sequencing. The plasmid pCMV-MYD88-L265P-Mu was successfully constructed as a positive control, and was verified by direct sequencing. The normalized and shifted melting curves of 6/129 (4.65%) samples were clearly different from those of other patients by HRM analysis. In addition, the 794T>C mutation in MYD88 was identified in 6 (4.65%) patients by direct sequencing. Sensitivity evaluation revealed that the HRM assay had a higher sensitivity (to 1% dilution) than direct sequencing, in addition to being convenient and time-saving. The MYD88 p.L256P mutation has been implicated to be associated with adverse prognosis in CLL. HRM analysis has the potential to be a routine prescreening technique to identify the MYD88 p.L256P mutation and may facilitate the clinical treatment of CLL.
Prefrontal Dysfunction in Girls with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Secondary to Child Sexual Abuse, and Its Relation to Basal Cortisol Levels

Child sexual abuse is a stressful event that is often associated with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and such brain structures as the prefrontal cortex, which is related to the executive functions and other higher order processes. Though it has been reported that child sexual abuse survivors with PTSD have higher baseline cortisol levels, and that this is associated with cognitive decline, the relation between it and cognitive performance in victims of child sexual abuse with PTSD is not clear. Therefore, the objective of this research was to determine the relation between basal cortisol levels and the cognitive functions related to the prefrontal cortex in female adolescents with PTSD secondary to child sexual abuse. Twenty 12-15-year-old girls with PTSD secondary to child sexual abuse and 20 control adolescents with no history of abuse were evaluated. The groups were matched according to age, IQ, socioeconomic status and schooling. Cognitive processes related to the prefrontal cortex were evaluated using BANFE-2, BRIEF and the STOP-IT task. Also, three saliva samples were collected from each participant during two consecutive days. Findings show that the PTSD group had lower performance on most of the BANFE-2 tasks, more executive problems according to BRIEF, and higher cortisol levels than the control group. Finally, there was a correlation between basal cortisol levels and the indexes of the test that evaluated prefrontal cognitive functions; thus, it is feasible to suggest that the cognitive deficiencies observed are related to anatomo-functional alterations of the prefrontal cortex, since this structure has a high density of glucocorticoid receptors.
A Robust Fungal Allomelanin Mimic: An Antioxidant and Potent π-Electron Donor with Free-Radical Properties that can be Tuned by Ionic Liquids.

Developing effective strategies to increase the chemical stability and to fine-tune the physico-chemical properties of melanin biopolymers by rational control of π-electron conjugation is an important goal in materials science for biomedical and technological applications. Herein we report that poly-1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene (pDHN), a non-nitrogenous, catechol-free fungal melanin mimic, displays a high degree of structural integrity (from MALDI-MS and CP/MAS 13 C NMR analysis), a strong radical scavenging capacity (DPPH and FRAP assays), and an unusually intense EPR signal (g=2.0030). Morphological and spectral characterization of pDHN, along with deassembly experiments in ionic liquids, indicated amorphous aggregates of small globular structures with an estimated stacking distance of 3.9 Å and broadband absorption throughout the visible range. These results indicate that DHN-based melanins exhibit a high structural integrity and enhanced antioxidant and free-radical properties of potentially greater biomedical and technological relevance than for typical indole-based eumelanins.
RESPONSE OF PEACE LILY (SPATHIPHYLLUM WALLISII REGEL) PLANTS TO FOLIAR SPRAY WITH SOME GROWTH REGULATORS AND MICRO ELEMENTS

Received: 12/12/2018 Accepted: 23/12/2018 ABSTRACT: A pot experiment was conducted during two successive seasons (2016/2017 and 2017/2018) at the greenhouse of the Ornamental Dept., El-Kassasin Res. Station, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of foliar spraying with some growth regulators (gibberellic acid (GA3) at 100 and 200 ppm, kinetin (Kin) at 100 and 200 ppm beside the control treatment) and a microelements mixture at (0, 1, 2 and 3 g/l) on vegetative growth, root system and quality of peace lily (Spathiphyllum wallisii Regel) plant. Results showed that the interaction treatment between spraying peace lily plants with Kin at 100 ppm in addition to the microelements mixture at 2 g/l gave the highest values regarding number of leaves/plant, stem diameter and leaf area, number of roots/plant in both seasons, fresh weight of roots in the 2 season and dry weight of root, fresh and dry weight of shoots, number of both shoots and flowers/plant in both seasons. The interaction treatment between spraying plants with GA3 at 200 ppm and 2 g/l microelements mixture gave the tallest plants in both seasons. However, the interaction treatment between Kin at 100 ppm and spraying plants with 3 g/l microelements mixture was the best interaction treatment for enhancing the concentration of total chlorophyll and total carbohydrates in shoots, in both seasons. Generally, the best interaction treatments for increasing growth, flowering and biochemical constituents was obtained with Kin at 100 ppm and 2 g/l microelements.
INVESTIGATION OF LIPOPHYILIC COMPOUNDS FROM NATIVE SPECIES OF PORTULACA L. (PORTULACEAE) GENUS

The species of Portulaca genus are little known, studied and are not used in Romania for therapy or food purposes. In the world, though, Portulaca oleracea is known for its therapeutic and nutritive value. This research aimed the investigation of some lipophilic compounds from two Romanian native species, P. oleracea and P. grandiflora. The analysis of volatile compounds was carried out by GC-MS and the total carotenoids were spectrophotometrically assayed. In P. oleracea 17 volatile compounds were identified, among which the most important were linalool (33.18%) and salicylaldehyde (21.23%). Their presence might justify the use of the species in the therapy of diabetes and its complications, as well as in inflammatory states. The total carotenoid content was higher for P. oleracea (between 281.3 361.9 mg carotene per 100 grams of dried herbal product) than for P. grandiflora (between 6.4 6.6). The results are in agreement with the antioxidant activity reported for the herbal product in the literature.
CM RELATIONS IN FIBERED POWERS OF ELLIPTIC FAMILIES

Let $E_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}$ be the Legendre family of elliptic curves. Given $n$ points $P_{1},\ldots ,P_{n}\in E_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D706})})$ , linearly independent over $\mathbb{Z}$ , we prove that there are at most finitely many complex numbers $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{0}$ such that $E_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{0}}$ has complex multiplication and $P_{1}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{0}),\ldots ,P_{n}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{0})$ are linearly dependent over End $(E_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{0}})$ . This implies a positive answer to a question of Bertrand and, combined with a previous work in collaboration with Capuano, proves the Zilber–Pink conjecture for a curve in a fibered power of an elliptic scheme when everything is defined over $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$ .
Implementing Project Work in Teaching English at High School: The Case of Vietnamese Teachers’ Challenges

Research on using project work in teaching various disciplines has pointed out a number of challenges facing teachers. Similar research in the EFL classroom, however, has been under-researched. This study aimed to fill the gap with a report on the Vietnamese high school teachers’ challenges in implementing project-based learning in the setting of curricular innovation in English instruction nationwide. The participants of the study were thirty-three EFL teachers from sixteen high schools in both rural and urban areas of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. With a questionnaire and an in-depth interview, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Data analysis indicated that the teachers faced major challenges in time management, adaptation of project activities, student support, and project assessment. These results provide useful implications for how innovative approaches can be successfully implemented, especially with respect to the kind of support EFL teachers need to make project-based learning more feasible in the Vietnamese educational context and similar ones.
Salsa and the City: A Case Study on a Glaswegian 'Community'.

‘Globalisation has led to the global export of salsa as a leisure pursuit’ (Skinner, 2007, p. 495), with salsa classes, clubs and congresses taking place ‘from Gothenberg (Sweden) to Sacramento’ (Skinner, 2007, p. 486). However, as Hannerz (1996) argues, cultural life continues to be heterogeneous despite the impact of globalisation, and with particular reference to social salsa dancing, ‘local particularities and individual reactions’ (Skinner, 2007, p. 485) give particular distinctions to ‘salsa communities’. Recent ethnographic case studies have interrogated the salsa scenes in London (Urquía, 2005), Los Angeles (García, 2013) and Belfast (Skinner, 2008). This paper interrogates the distinct nature of the ‘salsa community’ in the heart of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Erving Goffman’s (1959/1990) model of dramaturgy is utilised to frame qualitative data gathered through observations and interviews, to ask: How may this ‘salsa community’, a product of globalisation, be considered as having a distinct identity?
Can tax enforcement affect misstatements? From the perspective of tax account and non-tax account misstatements

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between tax enforcement and accounting misstatements in China and investigates whether the effect of tax enforcement on tax account misstatement (TAM) and non-tax account misstatement (NTAM) differs. We find evidence that stricter tax enforcement by tax authorities reduces the incidence of accounting misstatements and, more importantly, this effect is the same for TAM and NTAM. However, we find that as tax enforcement increases, firms are less (more) likely to misstate tax accounts for income-increasing (income-decreasing) misstatements than non-tax accounts. Overall, our evidence is consistent with tax authorities disciplining earnings management, and more importantly, the disciplining occurs in both the tax and non-tax related accounts.
Semi-Free Actions with Manifold Orbit Spaces

In this paper, we study smooth, semi-free actions on closed, smooth, simply connected manifolds, such that the orbit space is a smoothable manifold. We show that the only simply connected $5$-manifolds admitting a smooth, semi-free circle action with fixed-point components of codimension $4$ are connected sums of $S^3$-bundles over $S^2$. Furthermore, the Betti numbers of the $5$-manifolds and of the quotient $4$-manifolds are related by a simple formula involving the number of fixed-point components. We also investigate semi-free $S^3$ actions on simply connected $8$-manifolds with quotient a $5$-manifold and show, in particular, that the Pontrjagin classes, the $\hat{A}$-genus and the signature of the $8$-manifold must all necessarily vanish.
Genetic Determinants of Empathy. Research perspectives derived from a comprehensive research review and from the analysis of a study associating dispositional emotional empathy with a common oxytocin receptor polymorphism

HINTERGRUND Diese Arbeit beschreibt die Ergebnisse einer Literaturstudie zur aktuellen genetischen Empathieforschung sowie die Ergebnisse einer eigenen empirischen Untersuchung zur Assoziation zwischen einem gangigen Polymorphismus des Oxytocin Rezeptor (OXTR) Gens mit dem Personlichkeitsmerkmal der Empathiefahigkeit. Die Ergebnisse der Literaturstudie wurden zur Analyse der eigenen Studie herangezogen und dienten der Ableitung von Perspektiven fur die kunftige genetische Empathieforschung METHODEN Die Literaturstudie basiert auf einer strukturierten Suche in den NCBI Datenbanken PubMed, Gene und dbSNP. Fur die empirische Studie wurden 421 gesunde Blutspender am Institut fur Transfusionsmedizin der Universitatsklinik Essen rekrutiert (231 Manner, 190 Frauen, Alter zwischen 18 und 74 Jahren). Die Probanden fullten die deutsche Version des Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), eines haufig verwendeten Empathie-Fragebogens aus. Sodann erfolgte die Genotypisierung nach dem OXTR rs53576 Polymorphismus. ERGEBNISSE In der Literaturstudie fanden sich Evidenzen fur neuronale Korrelate der im IRI gemessenen Subskalen der Empathiefahigkeit. Da der Grosteil der genetischen Empathieforschung sich auf OXTR Polymorphismen konzentriert, wurde dieser Forschungsschwerpunkt im Kontext einer polygenetischen Determinierung der Empathiefahigkeit mit erheblichen Einflussen von Gen x Gen- sowie Gen x Umwelt- Interaktionen perspektiviert. In der Studie war die Empathiefahigkeit signifikant mit dem rs53576 Polymorphismus assoziiert (p = 0.01), wobei die Mediane entsprechend der Allel-Dosis von AA zu GA anstiegen. Dieser Haupteffekt wurde explorativ in einer spezifischen Assoziation des Polymorphismus mit der emotionalen ‘empathic concern’ Skala des IRI verortet (p = 0.02). Eine geschlechtsspezifische Analyse ergab nur in der Gruppe der Frauen (p = 0.04), nicht jedoch in der Gruppe der Manner (p = 0.20) einen signifikanten Zusammenhang. Diese Tatsache wurde als Hinweis auf einen moglichen Geschlechterdimorphismus diskutiert. Bei der Analyse der Studie stellte sich die Anwendung von nicht-parametrischer Statistik Auswertung diskontinuierlicher Genotyp-Effekte als uberlegen heraus. Ferner zeigte sich die Notwendigkeit, nach Storvariablen wie Geschlechterstereotypen uber Empathie zu kontrollieren. Aufgrund der kleinen Effektstarken einzelner Polymorphismen wurde eine Power-Analyse durchgefuhrt, um erforderliche Stichprobengrosen fur die Detektion dieser kleinen Effekte und fur den Nachweis signifikanter Geschlechterunterschiede zu errechnen. FAZIT Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit sprechen fur eine Erweiterung des Fokus der genetischen Empathieforschung uber das Oxytocin-System hinaus. Die Arbeit leistet ferner einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung einer konsistenten Strategie zur Datenerhebung und statistischen Analyse in der genetischen Empathieforschung.
Retroposon Insertions within a Multispecies Coalescent Framework Suggest that Ratite Phylogeny is not in the ‘Anomaly Zone’

Summary coalescence methods were developed to address the negative impacts of incomplete lineage sorting on species tree estimation with concatenation. Coalescence methods are statistically consistent if certain requirements are met including no intralocus recombination, neutral evolution, and no gene tree reconstruction error. However, the assumption of no intralocus recombination may not hold for many DNA sequence data sets, and neutral evolution is not the rule for genetic markers that are commonly employed in phylogenomic coalescence analyses. Most importantly, the assumption of no gene tree reconstruction error is routinely violated, especially for rapid radiations that are deep in the Tree of Life. With the sequencing of complete genomes and novel pipelines, phylogenetic analysis of retroposon insertions has emerged as a valuable alternative to sequence-based phylogenetic analysis. Retroposon insertions avoid or reduce several problems that beset analysis of sequence data with summary coalescence methods: 1) intralocus recombination is avoided because retroposon insertions are singular evolutionary events, 2) neutral evolution is approximated in many cases, and 3) gene tree reconstruction errors are rare because retroposons have low rates of homoplasy. However, the analysis of retroposons within a multispecies coalescent framework has not been realized. Here, we propose a simple workaround in which a retroposon insertion matrix is first transformed into a series of incompletely resolved gene trees. Next, the program ASTRAL is used to estimate a species tree in the statistically consistent framework of the multispecies coalescent. The inferred species tree includes support scores at all nodes and internal branch lengths in coalescent units. As a test case, we analyzed a retroposon dataset for palaeognath birds (ratites and tinamous) with ASTRAL and compared the resulting species tree to an MP-EST species tree for the same clade derived from thousands of sequence-based gene trees. The MP-EST species tree suggests an empirical case of the ‘anomaly zone’ with three very short internal branches at the base of Palaeognathae, and as predicted for anomaly zone conditions, the MP-EST species tree differs from the most common gene tree. Although identical in topology to the MP-EST tree, the ASTRAL species tree based on retroposons shows branch lengths that are much longer and incompatible with anomaly zone conditions. Simulation of gene trees from the retroposon-based species tree reveals that the most common gene tree matches the species tree. We contend that the wide discrepancies in branch lengths between sequence-based and retroposon-based species trees are explained by the greater accuracy of retroposon gene trees (bipartitions) relative to sequence-based gene trees. Coalescence analysis of retroposon data provides a promising alternative to the status quo by reducing gene tree reconstruction error that can have large impacts on both branch length estimates and evolutionary interpretations.
Crowd characteristics and crowd wisdom: Evidence from an online investment community

Fueled by the explosive growth of Web 2.0 and social media, online investment communities have become a popular venue for individual investors to interact with each other. Investor opinions extracted from online investment communities capture “crowd wisdom” and have begun to play an important role in financial markets. Existing research confirms the importance of crowd wisdom in stock predictions, but fails to investigate factors influencing crowd performance (that is, crowd prediction accuracy). In order to help improve crowd performance, our research strives to investigate the impact of crowd characteristics on crowd performance. We conduct an empirical study using a large data set collected from a popular online investment community, StockTwits. Our findings show that experience diversity, participant independence, and network decentralization are all positively related to crowd performance. Furthermore, crowd size moderates the influence of crowd characteristics on crowd performance. From a theoretical perspective, our work enriches extant literature by empirically testing the relationship between crowd characteristics and crowd performance. From a practical perspective, our findings help investors better evaluate social sensors embedded in user‐generated stock predictions, based upon which they can make better investment decisions.