Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychomotor development differences between Czech adolescents from orphanages and adolescents from majority society

Background: The results of foreign studies have shown that psychomotor development of adolescents from orphanages falls significantly behind common developmental norms. In the Czech Republic, there is a lack of evidence of this issue despite the fact that some experts emphasize the possible defects of institutional care in the Czech Republic.Objective: The purpose of the study was to compare the level of psychomotor development of 13 year old adolescents from orphanages located in Prague and their counterparts from majority society. Methods: Psychomotor development of adolescents was tested with the complete form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, second edition (BOT-2), which consists of 52 items, divided into 12 dimensions assessing the level of fine motor skills, gross motor skills, coordination and agility. The study sample consisting of 57 adolescents (age 13.47 ± 0.26 years) included a sample of 21 adolescents from orphanages and 36 adolescents from majority society living in the Prague region. Results: Compared to their counterparts from majority society, adolescents from orphanages achieved significantly lower scores only in the fine motor precision dimension (η2 = .13; p = .032). The study showed significant difference between boys from orphanages and boys from majority society in the fine motor precision dimension (η2 = .13; p = .028), boys from majority society achieved significantly higher scores in this dimension. The results did not find significant difference in any BOT-2 dimensions between girls from majority society and girls from orphanages. Adolescents from orphanages achieved higher scores in the dimensions of strength and agility, running speed and agility and strength. Conclusion: Differences in psychomotor development were not confirmed in the observed dimensions of bilateral coordination and balance between the sample of adolescents from orphanages in Prague and their counterparts from majority society. This may be attributed to the specificity of institutional care in the Czech Republic.
Thermodynamic study of the solubility of triclocarban in ethanol + propylene glycol mixtures

By using the van't Hoff and Gibbs equations the apparent thermodynamic functions Gibbs energy, enthalpy, and entropy of solution for triclocarban in ethanol + propylene glycol mixtures were evaluated from solubility data determined at temperatures from (293.15 to 313.15) K. The drug solubility was greatest in the mixture with 0.60 in mass fraction of ethanol and lowest in neat propylene glycol at almost all the temperatures studied. Non-linear enthalpy-entropy compensation is found indicating apparently different mechanisms of the solution process according to the mixtures composition.
Physicochemical characteristics of meat from pantaneiro lambs slaughtered with different of subcutaneous fat thicknesses

Foram utilizadas 24 cordeiras do grupo genetico pantaneiro em delineamento inteiramente casualizado com oito repeticoes, abatidas com 2,0; 3,0 e 4,0 mm de espessura de gordura, avaliadas por ultrassonografia no Longissimus dorsi para aferir o efeito da espessura de gordura subcutânea sobre as caracteristicas fisico-quimicas da carne. Os animais receberam agua a vontade durante todo o periodo experimental e foram alimentados com racao total peletizada, formulada para um ganho de peso diario de 0,300 kg animal-1. Conforme as cordeiras atingiam a espessura de gordura pre-determinada na avaliacao semanal por ultrassonografia, as mesmas eram abatidas no dia seguinte as afericoes, independentemente do peso. O pH 0 hora (6,58); 24 horas (5,50) e perdas por coccao (23,99%) nao diferiram entre os tratamentos. Os ovinos abatidos com 2,00 mm e 3,00 mm apresentaram carne com maior luminosidade e as com 3,00 e 4,00 mm foram superiores para intensidade de vermelho a* e intensidade de amarelo b*. Femeas abatidas com 4,00 mm de espessura de gordura (1,43 kgf) apresentaram carne mais macia que as de 2,00 mm. Cordeiras abatidas com 4,00 mm de espessura de gordura apresentaram maiores valores (1,47? m) para comprimento de sarcomero. A proteina bruta (21,15%) e umidade (72,38%) das amostras do tratamento 2,00 mm foram superiores aos de 4,00 mm. Os lipideos totais (4,84%) na carne dos animais abatidos com 4,00 mm foram superiores aos de 2,00 mm. Recomenda-se o abate de cordeiras com 3,00 mm de espessura de gordura no lombo, pois englobaram maior numero de caracteristicas favoraveis em relacao a composicao quimica da carne, maciez e coloracao.
Maternal risk factors and morbidity pattern of very low birth weight infants: a NICU based study at Eastern Nepal.

Background: Preterm deliveries of babies weighing less than 1500 grams (VLBW, very low birth weight) are of major concern because of maximum perinatal morbidity and mortality found in this group. VLBW babies overload the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and their mortality contributes significantly to neonatal and infant mortality. Objectives: To study the common maternal risk factors associated with VLBW births. To study the morbidity and mortality patterns of VLBW babies. Methods: This was a hospital based retrospective study done in NICU of BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences. Data were collected from medical records of VLBW babies admitted in NICU over a period of three years (13 April 2005 to 12 April 2008). Data were analyzed with SPSS 10.0 software. Results: Data of 140 VLBW babies were analyzed. Mean birth weight was 1188.9 (±212.78), 10.7% were home deliveries, 24.3% were twins, 31.4% required active resuscitation at birth and 46.4% were exposed to antenatal steroid. Common maternal risk factors associated with premature deliveries were inadequate antenatal check up (ANC) visits (95.7%), twin pregnancy (24.3%), antepartum hemorrhage (APH, 28.6%), premature rupture of membrane (23.6%), pregnancy induced hypertension (12.9%), bad obstetric history (12.9%) and maternal age less than 20 years (8.6%). Common morbidities among VLBW babies were clinical sepsis (77.1%), non physiological hyperbilirubinemia (73.6%), apnea (48.6%), shock (42.9%), hypoglycemia(39.3%), anemia (29.3%), hyaline membrane disease (HMD, 21.4%), patent ductus arteriosus (15.0%), severe hypothermia (12.1%), culture proven sepsis (15.7%), retinopathy of prematurity (5.7%), and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (3.6%). Overall survival was 54.3% and major causes of death were HMD (51.0%) and sepsis (34.7%). Median durations of hospital stay were 17.5 days for survivors and five days for expired cases. Conclusion: Increasing the coverage of ANC visits, early diagnosis and treatment of APH and pregnancy induced hypertension, discouraging the childbirth at too young age, early diagnosis and treatment of acute infections and chronic medical diseases in mothers are important measures to decrease the burden of VLBW births. Common morbidities in VLBW babies are sepsis, HMD, apnea, hyperbilirubinemia, patent ductus arteriosus, shock, anemia, hypoglycemia, hypothermia and hypocalcemia. Common causes death of VLBW babies are HMD and sepsis. Overall survival of VLBW babies in our settings is less. More numbers of well equipped NICUs and services like surfactant therapy are needed to improve survival of VLBW infants in our set up. Key words: Maternal risk factors, Morbidity, Mortality, Very low birth weight. doi: 10.3126/jnps.v29i2. 2040 J. Nepal Paediatr. Soc. Vol 29, No. 2, pp.59-66
Follow the Leader or Follow Anyone - Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

In a fundraising field experiment we show that individuals are not only conditionally cooperative, but that they are also more prone to donate to a homeless individual when the previous donor has a higher social status. We trailed a homeless person asking for donations within Cologne's metro trains for two weeks. Thereby we systematically varied the status of the first giver in the train. In the control treatment we did not intervene. In the low status treatment the first giver was always a (poor looking) low status person from our team and correspondingly in the high status treatment a (rich looking) high status person. In our experiment the probability to receive a donation in a train is 65% higher in the low status treatment than in the control treatment. Additionally, in comparison to the low status treatment, the probability increases by 22% in the high status treatment. To our best knowledge this is the first study providing field evidence for the particular influence of high status individuals on others' economic activities.
Masculine Gender Role Stress and Shame Proneness as Serial Mediators in the Relation Between Intimate Partner Aggression Victimization and Psychological Symptom Status in Men

The current study examined the indirect effect of male intimate partner aggression victimization on psychological symptom status through masculine gender role stress (MGRS) and shame proneness operating as serial mediators. Male college students (N = 74) completed self-report measures of intimate partner aggression, psychological symptoms, MGRS, and shame proneness. Results indicated a significant indirect effect of physical victimization on psychological symptom status through MGRS and shame proneness operating in sequence; results showed no significant indirect effect for psychological victimization. These results suggest that, perhaps, physical victimization creates increased MGRS, which, in turn, leads to greater shame proneness, which, likewise, produces increased psychological symptoms. Possible interpretations of differential findings for physical and psychological victimization are discussed in relation to differential threat to masculinity. Additionally, exploratory analyses for specific psychological symptom clusters (i.e., depression, anxiety, and hostility) are presented and discussed.
Beyond the Hazard: The Role of Beliefs in Health Risk Perception

ABSTRACT This article addresses how beliefs about health risks cluster and how these relate to perceptions of risk among Canadians. A principal components analysis conducted on items reflecting various beliefs from the Canadian National Health Risk Perception Survey extracted four underlying dimensions: Cancer Dread, Trust in Regulators, Environmental Concern, and Personal Agency. Factor scores were then used to investigate relationships between belief factors and the perceived health risk of various hazards with gender, education, income, and province of residence as covariates. Environmental and Therapeutic health risk perceptions were significantly higher in respondents with high Cancer Dread and high Environmental Concern, but lower in respondents with high Trust in Regulators. Environmental health risk perceptions were lower in respondents with high Personal Agency, whereas Social health risk perceptions were higher in respondents with high Cancer Dread and Personal Agency. Results suggest that information about health risk–related beliefs can be useful in improving our understanding of the public's perceived risk of health hazards.
Post-Apartheid South Africa: Poverty and Distribution Trends in an Era of Globalization

South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994 created new possibilities for economic policy. Economic liberalization brought sustained, if unspectacular, growth that reversed the long decline in per capita incomes, but left its scars in much job shedding associated with business becoming internationally competitive. This accords with international evidence that trade liberalization takes time to realize positive employment effects. Disappointing employment growth in the face of an expanding labourforce fed rising unemployment. However, using poverty estimates from a combination of sources, this study demonstrates that poverty nevertheless declined quite substantially after the turn of the century. Poverty dominance testing shows this conclusion to be insensitive to the selection of poverty line or measure. But empirical analysis does not allow strong conclusions to be drawn on causal relationships between globalization and poverty trends.
Participatory learning materials for health promotion in Ghana—a case study

The Kumasi Health Education Project was established in 1991. It also set up an operational research program to study the use of participatory education materials including flip charts story with a gap three pile sorting cards and discussion posters. This was followed by the in-service training of 138 primary and 229 junior secondary school teachers all 157 public health workers (EHOs) and all Community Health Nurses. All personnel participated in an intensive 3-day workshop on how to use selected participatory health education materials. At the workshop the learner-centered approach to health education and the advantages and disadvantages of this methodology was introduced. A simple random sample of 262 participants was taken 6 months later who were asked to complete a self-reporting questionnaire to evaluate the materials. The data obtained were compared with the responses of the communities themselves. The random sample population consisted of 25% (63) of the schools included in the in-service training all five polyclinics in the Kumasi district and a stratified random sample of five communities from each of the four sub-district areas covered by EHOs who had received training. Focus group discussions were used for data collection from the target groups. Each school in the sample population was visited and a convenience sample was taken from each of the secondary classes 1 2 and 3 and from the primary school classes 3 4 5 and 6. During the workshops all agents readily accepted that health education was their responsibility. However only 37% of primary school children and 55% of secondary school children reported having seen materials being used by their teachers. A total of 133 people were interviewed in the five polyclinics. Two of the clinics were actively using the materials with the exception of the three pile sorting cards; two were occasionally using the materials; and one had never used the materials.
On the Effect of Geomagnetic Storms on Relativistic Electrons in the Outer Radiation Belt: Van Allen Probes Observations

Using Van Allen Probes Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma‐Relativistic Electron‐Proton Telescope (ECT‐REPT) observations, we performed a statistical study on the effect of geomagnetic storms on relativistic electrons fluxes in the outer radiation belt for 78 storms between September 2012 and June 2016. We found that the probability of enhancement, depletion, and no change in flux values depends strongly on L and energy. Enhancement events are more common for ∼2 MeV electrons at L ∼ 5, and the number of enhancement events decreases with increasing energy at any given L shell. However, considering the percentage of occurrence of each kind of event, enhancements are more probable at higher energies, and the probability of enhancement tends to increases with increasing L shell. Depletion are more probable for 4–5 MeV electrons at the heart of the outer radiation belt, and no‐change events are more frequent at L < 3.5 for E ∼ 3 MeV particles. Moreover, for L > 4.5 the probability of enhancement, depletion, or no‐change response presents little variation for all energies. Because these probabilities remain relatively constant as a function of radial distance in the outer radiation belt, measurements obtained at geosynchronous orbit may be used as a proxy to monitor E≥1.8 MeV electrons in the outer belt.
MEXICAN MIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES: FACTORS INFLUENCING EARNINGS, REMITTANCES, AND RETURNING TO THE MOTHERLAND

by Jose Luis Collazo, Jr., Ph.D. Washington State University December 2017 Chair: Julie A. Kmec This dissertation includes three journal-length articles with introductory and conclusory chapters. These articles examine the effect U.S. immigration policy periods, particularly the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) period (1987–1996) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) period (1997–2015), have had on Mexican migrants. The first study examines the effect the Mexican migrants’ unauthorized status, U.S. destination, and the immigration policy periods (pre-IRCA [1965–1986], IRCA [1987–1996], and IIRIRA [1997–2015]) have had on their likelihood of returning to Mexico during their first and last U.S. trips. Compared to authorized migrants, the unauthorized migrants’ probability in returning was higher throughout the immigration policy periods. There was no evidence that the migrants’ US. destination increased their probability in returning to Mexico. The second study examines the IIRIRA period’s effect on male Mexican migrants’ hourly earnings and on the gains brought by human capital and social capital during their last U.S. trip. When the immigration policy periods (pre-IRCA [1965–1986], IRCA [1987–1996] and IIRIRA [1997–2015]) were compared, the unauthorized migrants earned less during the IRCA period
Improved Matrix Uncertainty Selector

We consider the regression model with observation error in the design: y = Xµ ⁄ + »; Z = X + ¥: Here the random vector y 2R n and the random n£p matrix Z are observed, the n £ p matrix X is unknown, ¥ is an n £ p random noise matrix, » 2 R n is a random noise vector, and µ ⁄ is a vector of unknown parameters to be estimated. We consider the setting where the dimension p can be much larger than the sample size n and µ ⁄ is sparse. Because of the presence of the noise matrix ¥, the commonly used Lasso and Dantzig selector are unstable. An alternative procedure called the Matrix Uncertainty (MU) selector has been proposed in Rosenbaum and Tsybakov (2010) in order to account for the noise. The properties of the MU selector have been studied in Rosenbaum and Tsybakov (2010) for sparse µ ⁄ under the assumption that the noise matrix ¥ is deterministic and its values are small. In this paper, we propose a modiflcation of the MU selector when ¥ is a random matrix with zero-mean entries having the variances that can be estimated. This is, for example, the case in the model where the entries of X are missing at random. We show both theoretically and numerically that, under these conditions, the new estimator called the Compensated MU selector achieves better accuracy of estimation than the original MU selector.
Using Statistical Bias Description for Multiobjective Calibration of a Lake Water Quality Model

Models of environmental systems are simplified representations of reality. For this reason, their results are affected by systematic errors. This bias makes it difficult to get reliable uncertainty estimates of model parameters and predictions. We were faced with that difficulty when applying the lake model BELAMO to data from three Swiss lakes. This model combines the description of biogeochemical and ecological processes in lakes. Considering bias in the model output, lead to a description of system observations as the sum of the output of the deterministic model, bias and observation error. The identifiability problem between model output and bias was addressed by specifying informative priors for the standard deviations of the observation errors and choosing means of zero for the observation error and the bias. The resulting multi-objective calibration problem was solved by using the prior of the bias to specify how much model error we are willing to accept for which output variable. To avoid the very high computational demand of conventional Bayesian numerical techniques, the maximum of the posterior was calculated and a local Gaussian approximation was used to estimate parameter and model prediction uncertainty. Parameter estimations for 9 to 20 years until 1995 were conducted. The remaining 10 years of data were used for model validation and to compare with estimated prediction uncertainty. The results show the large influence of the bias for the model output. The results for the validation period indicate the large uncertainty in model prediction, but also the ability to estimate the role of model bias with the suggested technique.
Community-Based Water Governance under Integrated Water Resources Management Reform in Contemporary Rural China

Studying water governance at multiple levels can link national or regional objectives with local development priorities. Improving water governance requires rethinking water issues through multiple perspectives, and strategic uses of cooperative partnerships and deliberative processes. Understanding community-based water governance (CBWG) has a critical role to play in constructing a broad pluralistic approach to successful water governance, which starts from the lowest level of local water users’ groups; and involves networks and linkages across different levels. This paper takes an empirical focus on CBWG processes and outcomes under China’s powerful enforcement of integrated water resources management (IWRM). It shows that CBWG combined with poorly developed policies and lack of multi-level cooperation can reinforce destructive practices in collective forms which are more dangerous, costly and difficult to detect. It concludes that communities have an important role to play in global water governance especially in constructing localized and polycentric frameworks for successful water governance, however community-based water governance per se like market-based or centralized governance as a panacea is insufficient. Approaches are needed that enable in-depth understanding of multi-level institutions in polycentric policy development and implementation, whilst incorporating flexibility to account for physical, socio-economic and political specificities.
Art in the field: harvesting visual narratives in the dispersed city

This post presents a project that engaged designers and citizens in the creation of representations – visual narratives, or films – documenting and interpreting urban conditions in the city of Winnipeg, Canada. The intention of the project was that these stories would articulate problems in the city (both physical and social); that the involvement of different groups would contribute to a dialogue about these problems; and that the existence of the films would help develop a shared, if contested, imagination of the city’s potential future, including its urban design. A range of works were created; each fits on a spectrum between urban documentary and storytelling. All share something with urban activist approaches like “photovoice”: contributing to the social understanding of the city, and to our imagination of it. This post takes a critical look at the methods and results of the project, writes Lawrence Bird.