Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterisations of Māori in health professional education programmes

Formal Indigenous health curricula often exist in institutional contexts that tacitly condone racist discourses that are at odds with the goal of developing culturally safe health professionals. Recognition of the impact of informal and hidden curricula on learners has increased, yet few studies have provided empirical evidence about this aspect of health professional education. This study sought to examine characterisations of Māori (Indigenous New Zealanders) in learning environments at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. A cross-sectional study design based on the Stereotype Content Model elicited student perceptions (n = 444) of stereotype content in undergraduate nursing, pharmacy and medical programmes. The Stereotype Content Model identifies interpersonal and intergroup perceptions in relation to warmth and competence. These perceptions are considered fundamental and universal to the impressions people form when meeting one another. Stereotyping is associated with distinct affective and behavioural responses that can lead to discrimination. In this study, students rated perceived warmth and competence characterisations pertaining to four target ethnic groups (Māori, Pacific Nations, Asian and Pākehā/European). Characterisations of Māori warmth were rated lower than Pacific Nations peoples, comparable to Pākehā/European and higher than characterisations of Asian peoples. In reference to competence characterisations, Māori were rated equal to Pacific Nations peoples and lower than both Asian and Pākehā/European peoples. This study’s results highlight a degree of incongruence between the University of Auckland’s formal Māori Health curricula and messages conveyed in the broader institutional context, with implications for educational outcomes and students’ future clinical practice.
On the effective properties of nematic polymer nano-composites

XIAOYU ZHENG: On the Effective Properties of Nematic Polymer Nano-Composites (Under the direction of Professor M. Gregory Forest) Many nano-composites consist of rod-like or platelet macromolecules in a solvent matrix, which are observed to yield large property enhancements at very low volume fraction. These particle suspensions are called liquid crystal polymers because they order at a critical volume fraction. In this dissertation, we study the role of the orientational distribution function of liquid crystal polymers and high aspect ratio particle dispersions in composite properties. Chapter I provides a review of the kinetic theory of flowing rod dispersions. In Chapters II and III, we use homogenization theory to predict volume-averaged effective properties (specifically thermal conductivity and mechanical properties) versus particle volume fraction, aspect ratio and shear rate. The formulas we derive are in terms of second and fourth moments of the orientational distribution function of the inclusions. We close with recent progress on percolation in rod dispersions.
Host plant based ecobiological attributes of a mimetic set of Nymphalids from Taki, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal: A comparative documentation

Nymphalids, the largest lepidopteran family, is represented by altogether 19 species (37% of the total species abundance) from the present study site Taki, West Bengal, India, with multiple habitat profiles exposed to different anthropogenic interventions. Nymphalidae is reported to be with highest occurrence of mimicry, a naturally selected survival tool for lepidopterans. A nymphalid set, including a model [Plain Tiger: Danaus chrysippus (Linnaeus, 1758)] and a mimic component [Danaid Eggfly ♀: Hypolimnus misippus (Linnaeus, 1764)] is selected for studying the specific ecological and functional correlation among them in their natural habitat. Their comparative seasonal and habitat wise distribution shows co-existence, the unpalatable model species outnumbering the mimic, the vulnerable target, corresponding to the Batesian mimicry. The wing morphology pattern is significantly shared, though the larval and adult host plants are exclusive and species specific. The year long field observation indicates the existence of considerable degree of similarity with respect to the ecobiological details, like flight pattern, mudpuddling, resting, basking and alternative resource utilisation activities. Species specific unique foraging attributes is observed. Being potential pollinators, they play key role to maintain the wild floral diversity at landscape level. The study bears conservation value towards these nature’s artwork, acting as the biotope indicator. World Scientific News 119 (2019) 1-26 -2
Do Voters Polarize When Radical Parties Enter Parliament?

Do voters polarize ideologically when radical views gain political legitimacy, or does the rise of radical voices merely reflect societal conflict? We argue that elite polarization as signaled by radical parties' first entrance into parliament leads to voter divergence. Immediately after the election, legitimization and backlash effects mean that voters on both ideological sides move toward the extremes. In the longer term, this polarization is solidified because of radical parties' parliamentary presence. A panel study of Dutch voters shows that the 2002 parliamentary entrance of a radical‐right party indeed led to immediate ideological polarization across the political spectrum. Estimating time‐series cross‐sectional models on Eurobarometer data from 17 countries (1973–2016) shows an additional long‐term impact of radical‐right party entry on polarization. The presence of radical voices on the right has polarizing effects, illustrating how such institutional recognition and legitimization can have a far‐reaching impact on society.
Luminescence as a Sediment Tracer and Provenance Tool

Luminescence holds unique potential as a sediment tracer and provenance method. The tracer application of luminescence has key advantages including ease of measurement, relatively low cost, and applicability to geologically ubiquitous quartz and feldspar sand and silt. These advantages can help answer fundamental questions about geomorphology, sediment transport, sediment production, and the tectonic/climatic controls on source‐to‐sink sedimentary systems. There is a notable body of research on luminescence as a sediment tracer. These tracer methods range from identifying source locations based on unique luminescence characteristics, to observing changes in luminescence characteristics with transport, to using residual luminescence to infer rates of transport. Previous applications of luminescence include provenance and quantification of fluvial transport rate, tracing of coastal longshore drift, estimations of mixing rates in soil or sediment, and provenance of wind‐blown deposits. The few studies that compare luminescence methods with nonluminescence tracer methods show good agreement. However, more work is needed to test the application of luminescence tracers in sediments. Future research directions should focus on comparing luminescence‐based with nonluminescence tracer methods. Furthermore, research is needed on the effects of specific geomorphic processes on luminescence characteristics and residual doses. While there is significant potential for future research, luminescence is already a useful sediment tracer and provenance tool applicable to a wide range of geomorphic environments.
Exploring Convolutional Neural Networks on the ρ-VEX architecture

As machine learning algorithms play an ever increasing role in today's technology, more demands are placed on computational hardware to run these algorithms efficiently. In recent years, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have become an important part of machine learning applications in areas such as object recognition and detection. In this thesis we will explore how we can implement CNNs on the ρ-VEX processor and what can be done to optimize the performance. The ρ-VEX processor is a VLIW processor that was developed at the Delft University of Technology and that can be reconfigured during runtime to take advantage of Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP) and Thread Level Parallelism (TLP) in an application. In this work we have developed a streaming pipeline in a simulator consisting of multiple 8-issue ρ-VEX cores connected with memory buffers. This pipeline was designed to execute CNN inference and take advantage of the overlapped execution to increase throughput. Furthermore, as each ρ-VEX core can be configured to operate in a one core, two core or four core mode based on available ILP and TLP, we can adapt the processor based on the current operation being executed and the amount of parallelism that is available. By generating the required code from a high-level description of the CNN, it becomes straightforward to test multiple configurations of the pipeline and determine which creates the best performance. The implementation was subsequently tested using a simple network trained on the MNIST dataset. By dividing the workload of the convolutional layers over multiple contexts to take advantage of data-level parallelism, we improved the latency by 3.03x and the throughput by 3.14x in simulation. By creating a pipeline of six cores in a single context configuration in the simulator, we achieved a throughput increase of 1.77x. A hardware implementation of the pipeline was also synthesized for a Virtex-6 FPGA, consisting of four 2-issue ρ-VEX cores at a clock speed of 200 MHz. We subsequently propose several optimizations to increase performance of CNN inference on the ρ-VEX architecture.
An end to the wild west of social media research: a response to Axel Bruns

ABSTRACT Current models of data access in social media research offer clear benefits, but are also fraught in a number of ways, including by posing risks to user privacy, being constrained in terms of reliability and reproducibility of results, and incentivizing questionable and in some cases unethical research practices. I argue that partnerships between academics and industry represent one potential option for improving this situation. While no panacea, such arrangements may be able to contribute to a more rules-based and less anarchic situation in social media research, placing greater emphasis on preserving user privacy and the reproducibility of results, rather than mainly on compiling large data sets. Due to a number of recent shifts, not just in research, but in the public discourse surrounding social media platforms and user data, we are entering an era of increased institutionalization and standardization in the study of online communication. This new environment appears poised to replace the ‘Wild West of social media research’ that we have witnessed in the past, in which academics compile huge troughs of data with few constraints, not always acting in the public’s best interest.
Measuring tourists’ meal experience by mining online user generated content about restaurants

ABSTRACT Understanding restaurant customer satisfaction has been uneasy, especially in a Nordic tourism scenario. Fortunately, the availability of online user generated content, as well as text mining techniques, has offered a chance to complement traditional measurement scales or interview approaches. Against this background, this study uncovers and compares the satisfaction of restaurant tourist customers travelling in four Nordic countries by means of investigating their online ratings and reviews. Findings suggest that tourist diners discuss more about feeling, price, food, place, time, and service when commenting on their meal experience. Moreover, four factors have been identified as satisfactory to Nordic travellers, whereas other nine factors have been the opposite. Methodologically, user generated content analysis has been proved to be a cost-effective and meaningful supplement to existing meal experience measurement tools. Moreover, the approach is transferable from catering and tourism to other service or product industry to generate greater business insight.
Validating CloudSat-CPR retrievals for the estimation of snow accumulation in the Canadian Arctic

Snow is a critical contributor to our global water and energy budget, with profound impacts for water resource availability, snow albedo feedback and flooding in cold regions. The vast size and remote nature of the Arctic present serious logistical and financial challenges to measuring snow over extended time periods. Satellite observations provided by the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) instrument—installed on the NASA satellite CloudSat— allow the retrieval of snowfall rates in high latitude regions, which have been used to estimate surface snow accumulation. In this study, a validation of CloudSat-derived terrestrial snow estimates is presented at four Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) weather stations situated in the Arctic for the common period 2007-2015. Comparisons of monthly climatological snow accumulation show mean biases of less than 1.5 mm SWE annually. Monthly time series exhibit correlations above 0.5 and RMSE below 10 mm SWE at the two highest latitude stations (Eureka and Resolute Bay) with correlations falling below 0.5 south of 70° N. CloudSat was also found to underestimate annual mean snow accumulation at the majority of sites, suggesting a potential negative bias in CloudSat’s snowfall estimates, or underestimation related to sampling. These results imply that CloudSat can provide reliable estimates of snow accumulation across similar high latitude regions above 70° N. Accurate space-based snowfall measurements provide new important observational perspectives of Arctic snow accumulation, which is a critical region for environmental monitoring in an era of global change.
Experimental studies of heat transfer and flow regimes during flow boiling of water and alumina nanofluids at different heat and mass fluxes

The flow boiling heat transfer in a vertical pipe of inner diameter 7.5 mm was investigated with pure water and Al2O3/water nanofluid as working fluids. The main heater section was made up of borosilicate glass for better visualization of flow regime. For this study, particle concentrations of 0.001%, 0.005% and 0.01% were considered. The influence of mass flux and heat flux, on flow boiling heat transfer was analysed. From the results, it is observed that boiling heat transfer coefficient is increasing with mass flux for both water and nanofluids. Use of nanofluid decreases wall superheat. The average reduction of wall superheat, as compared to water, at mass flux of 905.42 kg/s-m2 for 0.001%, 0.005% and 0.01% nanofluids is 10.8%, 21.34% and 26.79% respectively. It is also observed that heat transfer coefficient increases with particle concentration due to the changed heater surface characteristics and amendment in bubble formation mechanism. The average enhancement in heat transfer coefficient, as compared to water, for the particle concentrations of 0.001%, 0.005% and 0.01% at a mass flux of 905.42 kg/s-m2 is found to be 12.11%, 21.75% and 27.97%, respectively. Flow visualization study was also done to differentiate flow patterns of water and nanofluids. Churn flow regime was observed for water at moderate heat fluxes. However, in case of nanofluids, churn flow was not observed. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient is observed to be high for the nanofluids compared to water. An effort has been made to explain the heat transfer mechanism, based on the existing flow boiling regime under the given conditions.
The Economic Opportunity Cost for the Arab Spring Countries

This article examines the effect of political instability on countries caught in such a situation and also by their location. Using an interrupted time series model and an unrestricted error correction model, the indirect economic costs of political unrest are estimated for Tunisia, as an example of the Arab spring countries. Foreign direct investment fell by 17% in Arab countries. Indeed, the Arab Spring countries are the most affected countries in terms of investment as the fall of FDI for Tunisia by 21%. In the same direction, Egypt lost 92% of its FDI since it records $ 0.5 billion in 2011 against $ 6.4 billion in 2010 and also Libya 87% and 65% in Syria . This substantial loss is a warning sign that should be seriously taken into account by politicians and economists from the Middle East and the Arab Union, especially for countries whose resources are already limited.
Understanding International Engineering Doctoral Students’ Sense of Belonging Through Their Interpersonal Interactions in the Academic Community

Eunsil Lee is a Ph.D. student in Engineering Education Systems and Design program at Arizona State University (ASU) in the Fulton Schools of Engineering, The Polytechnic School. She earned a B.S. and M.S. in Clothing and Textiles from Yonsei University (South Korea) with the concentration area of Nanomaterials and Biomaterials in Textiles. She began her Ph.D. study in Textile Engineering but shifted her path toward Engineering Education a year later. Her research interests currently focuses on engineering doctoral students in underserved populations such as women and international students.
CLIL and elitism: myth or reality?

ABSTRACT This article aims to shed light on the question of elitism in CLIL by exploring empirical evidence taken from a large-scale longitudinal investigation based in Spain. To this end, it reports on a quantitative study into the effects of CLIL programmes on the English language attainment of primary and secondary education students in monolingual contexts. The study uses a sample of 2024 students from twelve monolingual provinces in Spain; has guaranteed the homogeneity of bilingual and non-bilingual groups; and has factored in several intervening variables. It approaches the topic from a three-pronged perspective: by determining whether the most motivated, intelligent, and linguistically proficient students are in fact found in CLIL groups; by analysing the possible differential effect of socio-economic variables on L2 attainment; and by examining whether CLIL has the potential to work even in disadvantaged contexts. The results suggest that, while certain variables impact on language education in both CLIL and non-CLIL settings, others do not have such a substantial effect in CLIL scenarios as in non-bilingual settings. Thus the broader take-away is that commonly harboured beliefs vis-à-vis the elitism of bilingual programmes need to be re-examined and a possible future research agenda is suggested to continue advancing in this area.
An Assessment of Multiple Drivers Determining Woody Species Composition and Structure: A Case Study from the Kalahari, Botswana

Savannas are extremely important socio-economic landscapes, with pastoralist societies relying on these ecosystems to sustain their livelihoods and economy. Globally, there is an increase of woody vegetation in these ecosystems, degrading the potential of these multi-functional landscapes to sustain societies and wildlife. Several mechanisms have been invoked to explain the processes responsible for woody vegetation composition; however, these are often investigated separately at scales not best suited to land-managers, thereby impeding the evaluation of their relative importance. We ran six transects at 15 sites along the Kalahari transect, collecting data on species identity, diversity, and abundance. We used Poisson and Tobit regression models to investigate the relationship among woody vegetation, precipitation, grazing, borehole density, and fire. We identified 44 species across 78 transects, with the highest species richness and abundance occurring at Kuke (middle of the rainfall gradient). Precipitation was the most important environmental variable across all species and various morphological groups, while increased borehole density and livestock resulted in lower bipinnate species abundance, contradicting the consensus that these managed features increase the presence of such species. Rotating cattle between boreholes subsequently reduces the impact of trampling and grazing on the soil and maintains and/or reduces woody vegetation abundance.
Socioeconomic and indigeneity determinants of the consumption of non-timber forest products in Vietnam’s Bu Gia Map National Park

ABSTRACT Conservation of protected areas requires understanding of the consumption of forest products by rural people who live near protected forests. Socioeconomic factors such as a better education, income, land holding size, have been used to understand the patterns of consumption of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Ethnicity, and especially whether or not people are indigenous to the forested areas, may also change consumption patterns. In this study we analysed the socioeconomic factors, indigeneity and geographical locations of people living in the buffer zones of Vietnam’s Bu Gia Map National Park to better understand the key determinants of the consumption of NTFPs. We conducted 121 interviews with local households and found that indigeneity, education, family size, and the area of land used were statistically significant in explaining the amount of NTFPs consumed, while indigeneity and area of land used by local people had positive relationships with the diversity (measured in number of categories) of NTFPs consumed by local people. Interestingly, there were statistically significant effects of interactions between the area of land used and indigeneity on the consumption of NTFPs. The amount of these products is important for indigenous people who belong to the groups using small and medium areas of land. The medium land use group consumed significantly fewer categories of NTFPs than the small and large land use groups. This data may help local managers to develop interventions that support biodiversity conservation, promote sustainability of these important resources and improve the social welfare of marginal groups.
Understanding the wine consumption behaviour of Generation Y in Italy

◦Purpose The study aims to gain a better understanding of the wine consumption behaviour by the Italian Generation Y. The theory of planned behaviour as formulated by Ajzen (1991) is applied to evaluate the cognitive factors determining the decision-making process in wine choice. Four research hypotheses are tested and positively confirmed. The study advances in the knowledge of wine drinking behaviour, because it includes the psychological construct of perceived behavioural control in the model. ◦Design/methodology/approach The analysis was divided into two phases: an exploratory phase and a phase of survey by questionnaire. The questionnaire was online submitted by 140 young people from Veneto and Tuscany, two of the main traditional Italian wine producing regions. ◦Findings The TPB framework showed a good correlation between behaviour and behavioural intention. Attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control influence the intention to consume wine with almost equal power. The favourable predisposition towards wine comes from its healthy, hedonistic, relaxing and cultural connotations rather than from fun, celebrations, food matching or production process. The family contexts and the partner company generate positive situations, and young consumers partially perceive difficulties in wine choice, without being able to identify the causes. ◦Practical implications The results of this study allow for the identification of the psychological traits to be actioned by wineries to improve the communication with young individuals. The deepening of the cognitive dynamics of young individuals in the decision-making process can provide educators and public decision-makers with helpful information to counter high-risk alcoholic beverage consumption patterns.