Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trace elements and human fertility

Methods were developed and validated for the analysis of trace elements in human scalp hair, blood serum, ovarian follicular fluid and seminal plasma by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). An interlaboratory comparison was also undertaken to compare the analysis of biological materials by ICP-MS with instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Preliminary trace element protein speciation experiments were carried out using size exclusion high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with detection by ICP-MS. Developed methods for total trace element analysis were applied to the measurement of trace elements in men and women with specific infertility problems in three separate studies. The first examined twelve trace elements (aluminium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, molybdenum, cadmium and lead) in the scalp hair of men and women with infertility problems, compared to controls. Iron and manganese were found to be significantly higher in infertile women (Student t-test, p< 0.05) and zinc was found to be significantly lower in men with low sperm counts (p< 0.05). The second study examined the trace element concentrations (iron, copper, zinc, selenium, cadmium and lead) in blood serum and follicular fluid from women undergoing In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatment. Several significant differences were observed for blood serum (p < 0.05). Zinc was higher in women who became pregnant after IVF (n = 35), but cadmium was lower, compared to those who did not become pregnant (n = 69) and selenium was higher in women who produced a baby (n = 17) compared to those who became pregnant but did not produce a baby (n = 8). The effects of cigarette smoking, folic acid supplementation and alcohol consumption on trace element concentrations were also reported. The implications of these results are discussed. Lead concentrations in ovarian follicular fluid were reported for the first time (1.46 + 1.18 mug l-1). In the final study, trace element concentrations were measured in the seminal plasma of men from infertile couples. Values compared favourably with those in the scientific literature.
Leveraging Asymmetry and Interdependence to Enhance Social Connectedness in Cooperative Digital Games

Play is a fundamental component of human development and is an important means of forming healthy relationships throughout life. Research has shown that the types of digital games people play, how they play them, and who they play them with can have significant impacts on players’ social and psychological well-being. Playing games with preexisting social relations, such as family and friends, has been shown to help strengthen relationships, but it can be difficult to find games that provide both enriching social interactions and are able to accommodate the wide variety of player types, ability levels, genre preferences, and social roles that each player brings to the group dynamic. Asymmetric cooperative games—games that present their players with sharply contrasting aesthetic experiences in the same shared play space—are a unique but relatively understudied style of game that is well-positioned to tackle this multi-faceted problem by providing different players with different interfaces, challenges, abilities, and information while tightly coupling their interactions through shared goals and feedback. My research focuses on better understanding the design of asymmetric cooperative games and how they can leverage interdependence to enhance players’ perceptions of social connectedness. Based on a review of existing asymmetric cooperative games and related literature, I developed an initial conceptual framework that identified several mechanical forms of asymmetry common to these games. I adopted a “research through design” approach to then apply several forms of mechanical asymmetry to the iterative design of two prototype asymmetric cooperative games, Goombagrams and Beam Me ’Round, Scotty! (BMRS). I then conducted a series of focused player experience studies examining and refining different aspects of the conceptual framework using the most promising of those prototypes, BMRS . The first study established several characteristic dynamics of asymmetric cooperative play including considerations of directional dependence, synchronicity, necessity, leadership and primacy. These insights were used to evolve the BMRS prototype and mount a second study demonstrating that, even when controlling for visual and narrative aesthetic details, asymmetric cooperative play is perceived as more socially engaging than symmetric cooperative play. My third and final study closed the theoretical loop between the mechanical design elements identified in my framework and the socially enriching effects of interdependence by demonstrating how deliberately increasing the mechanical coupling between players could generate corresponding increases in perceptions of social connectedness. Collectively, my research contributions can help both game developers and researchers to design more effective asymmetric cooperative experiences through a better understanding of this uniquely social style of game.
The association of sexual identity, attraction, and behavior with suicidal ideation and attempts among adolescents

Sexual orientation is a multi-dimensional construct, including sexual identity, attraction, and behavior. Adopting this multidimensional perspective, this thesis is structured in two manuscripts that investigate adolescent sexual orientation among a community sample of students from 14 high schools in Montreal, Quebec. Study I examined sexual orientation and youth suicidality. Study II assessed factors related to concordance versus discordance of sexual identity, attraction and behavior. Students were surveyed anonymously. The survey included items assessing sexual orientation, health risk behaviors, suicidality, demographics, and social attitudes towards homosexuality. Multiple logistic regression models were used in both studies. Study I found that compared to youth with heterosexual identity, attraction and behavior, adolescents with GLB and unsure identities were at greater risk of suicidality. However, youth who reported same-sex attraction or behavior, but a heterosexual identity, were not at elevated risk. Study II found that compared with heterosexual-identified students, students with GLB identities were more likely to be older and to report that school homosexual attitudes were ridiculed, accepted, or appreciated versus tolerated or ignored. Overall, results highlighted the potential importance of social environment in sexual minority youth mental health outcomes and identity development. %%%%L'orientation sexuelle est une construction mentale multidimensionnelle qui inclut l'identite sexuelle, l'attirance physique et le comportement sexuel. Cette these adopte la perspective multidimensionnelle et etudie l'orientation sexuelle chez un echantillon d'etudiants adolescents dans 14 ecoles secondaires a Montreal, Quebec. La these est divisee en deux manuscrits. La premiere etude examine l'orientation sexuelle et la suicidalite chez les jeunes. La deuxieme etude examine les facteurs relies a la concordance ou discordance de l'identite sexuelle, l'attirance physique et le comportement sexuel. Des etudiants etaient interroges anonymement. Le questionnaire incluait des points qui evaluaient l'orientation sexuelle, les comportements de sante a risques, la suicidalite, les donnees demographiques et les attitudes sociales envers l'homosexualite. Les deux etudes ont utilise des modeles de regression logistiques multiples. La premiere etude a trouve que les jeunes avec une identite Gay-lesbienne-bisexuel(le)s (GLB) et « incertaines » etaient plus a risque pour la suicidalite comparer aux jeunes avec une identite, une attirance et un comportement heterosexuel. Cependant, les jeunes qui ont mentionne avoir des attirances physiques ou des comportements sexuels avec le meme sexe mais une identite heterosexuelles n'etaient pas plus a risque. La deuxieme etude a trouve que, compare aux etudiants avec une identite heterosexuelle, les etudiants avec une identite GLB etaient plus vieux et plus porte a mentionne que l'attitude de leur ecole envers l'homosexualite etait ridiculise, accepte, ou apprecie au lieu de tolere ou ignore. …
Sociological and Criminological Explanations of Terrorism

Theories are essential for scientific advances, allowing researchers to test assumptions and to dispel superstitions and prejudices. Early theories of terrorism however were often the byproduct of thought pieces, and have since been derided by esteemed scholars for dubiously mischaracterizing terrorism. In recent years both sociological and criminological theories have been advanced to motivate a host of research that has supplanted earlier intuitive but inaccurate theories of terrorism. Testing these theories with the benefit of analytic advances and more comprehensive datasets has revealed numerous insights that have guided more effective counterterrorism strategies. This work has also provided compelling evidence that sociology and criminology have much to offer our understanding of terrorism. This chapter documents some of these major theoretical contributions for understanding terrorists’ motives and for informing efforts to prevent terrorism, while highlighting the existing strengths and gaps in this burgeoning research.
Agency as a Mechanism of Change in Psychotherapy

Study 1: Therapeutic Agency Inventory: Development and Psychometric Validation of a Patient Self-Report Objectives: Therapeutic agency is defined as a patient’s intentional influence over the process of psychotherapeutic change. However, there is a lack of conceptually sound self-report measure with adequate psychometric properties. The aim of this study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate the patient-rated Therapeutic Agency Inventory (TAI). Method: Based on the literature, we developed items related to therapeutic agency and investigated their psychometric properties in a naturalistic study with a sample of 334 psychotherapy participants. We assessed changes in TAI scores in a subsample of 58 patients over the course of inpatient psychotherapy and related TAI scores to therapeutic improvement. Results: The TAI consists of 15 items. We performed exploratory factor analyses, and the following three factors were extracted: in-session activity, therapy-related processing, and therapist-oriented passivity. Internal consistency was . 84 for the total score and ranged between . 73 and . 80 for each of the factors. The TAI was significantly associated with other psychotherapy process factors, self-efficacy expectations, control beliefs, lower overall psychological distress, and lower depression scores. Changes in agency during psychotherapy predicted therapy outcome, even after controlling for baseline distress. Conclusions: The TAI is a reliable, valid, and change-sensitive self-report instrument that can be used to assess agency in psychotherapy. Study 2: Therapeutic Agency, In-Session Behavior, and Patient-Therapist Interaction Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate associations between patients’ subjective agency, their observable in-session behavior, and the patient-therapist interaction during the early phase of psychotherapy. Method: The sample included 52 depressed patients in psychodynamic psychotherapy. After session 5, the patients’ agency and the quality of the therapeutic alliance were assessed. Based on session recordings, two independent observers rated the patients’ involvement, their interpersonal behavior, and the therapists’ directiveness. Results: Higher agency was associated with stronger therapeutic alliances. Patients who indicated higher agency in their therapy participated more actively in the session and showed less hostile impact messages. Patients’ agency was not related to therapists’ directiveness. Conclusions: Patients’ sense of agency in psychotherapy was associated with more active involvement and affiliative interaction. The findings support the idea that patients need to feel capable of acting within and having influence on their therapy in order to benefit from it. Study 3: Agency and Alliance as Mechanisms of Change in Psychotherapy Objective: This study examined the reciprocal effects between changes in therapeutic agency, working alliance, and symptoms during psychotherapy. We aimed to predict symptom improvement by previous changes in either agency…
Is the United States an Outlier in Public Mass Shootings? A Comment on Adam Lankford

In 2016 Adam Lankford published a widely propagated article purporting to show that during a 47-year period the United States represented 31 percent of worldwide public mass shooters, and claiming that the outsized U.S. percentage is a result of gun prevalence. We examined the data from 1998 to 2012 and found that, although the U.S. has 4.5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. represents less than three percent of worldwide mass shooting incidents or mass shooting deaths and less than one percent of mass shooters. What explains this incredible difference? While Lankford claims he is using the conventional definitions of public mass shootings from the FBI and NYPD, it turns out that Lankford’s 31-percent claim is an artifact of his having stripped out much from conventional definitions of ‘public mass shooter,’ notably excluding almost all incidents of terrorism outside the U.S. and most of the cases where more than one shooter is involved. We compare U.S. and non-U.S. public mass shootings using the official definitions from the FBI and NYPD that Lankford claims he is using. We also suggest a reasonable explanation for the fact that, while the U.S. has a relatively large number of lone-wolf shooters compared to the rest of the world, it does not have a relatively large number of public mass shooters.
Relationships Between APRN State Practice Authority, Perceived Autonomy, Professionalism, and Interprofessional Team Function Among A National Sample Of APRNs In the U.S.

Healthcare that includes high performing interprofessional clinical teams (IPTs) is one recommended strategy to provide optimal quality and cost-effective care delivery. Highly functional IPTs are characterized by effective communication, trust, respect, collaboration, information-sharing, and conflict resolution and are more efficient than individual providers working alone. Internally, IPT members’ relationships and understanding of both one’s own professional identity and others’ role and responsibilities are crucial to team functionality and effectiveness. Externally, factors including regulatory practice environments might influence the effectiveness and performance of both individual team members and the team overall. Inconsistencies between states’ practice authority (SPA) for advanced practice nurses (APRNs) provides an opportunity to study the effects on IPT function. This study examined relationships between APRN SPA, with perceived autonomy, professionalism, and IPT function in a national sample APRNs (N =222) from across the U.S who worked in IPTs within the past year for at least six months. APRNs in this study perceived a high level of autonomy
Unspoken: exploring the constitution of masculinities in Swedish physical education classes through body movements

ABSTRACT Background: Masculinities are fluid and socially constructed. Physical education is one means by which masculinities are constituted. Some masculinities may be limited through content, activities, and pedagogy of physical education that shape the way students come to know gender. The purpose of this study was to explore how movements contribute to the discursive construction of masculinities in secondary school physical education; specifically, how body movements constitute masculinities. Methodology: This study uses a poststructural theoretical framework to explore how masculinities are constituted through body movements. The methodology is also informed by knowledge production from bodily practices known as embodied knowledge. Video recordings of physical education classes from eight Swedish secondary schools were observed. The body movements of students were noted and analyzed through discourse analysis. Results: Masculinities were constituted in the moments between formal teaching and activities within the classrooms. Five themes were constructed from the visual observations of students’ movements from all lessons including: 1) Movements of energy, 2) Movements of playfulness and bonding, 3) Swaggering movements, 4) Dividing movements, and 5) Regulating movements. These different movements are the ways boys come to know masculinities. Conclusion: This study highlights how embodied knowledge and movements of boys constitute masculinities. It is recommended that pedagogical practices that examine, challenge, and disrupt limiting gender performativity are developed in physical education teaching.
The construal of English as a global language in Korean EFL textbooks for primary school children

ABSTRACT Reflecting the continued rise of English as a global language, English as a foreign language (EFL) has become a compulsory primary school subject across many non-English-speaking countries. This trend has been accompanied by publishers’ investment in the development of EFL teaching materials for young learners. Such materials rely heavily on images, with relatively sparse writing in English and the children’s first language. This study examines EFL textbooks for the year in which EFL is first introduced as a compulsory primary school subject in South Korea. Specifically, we analyse whether and how the multimodal resources used in five EFL textbooks approved by the South Korean government for use in Grade 3 address the curriculum requirement to present English as an important bridge connecting different countries. The critical multimodal content analysis of textbook characters and their interactions suggests that a general western bias and implicit support of native-speakerism are still existent in Korean EFL textbooks.
Walkability vs. walking: assessing outcomes of walkability at Southeast False Creek, Vancouver, Canada

ABSTRACT If a neighbourhood is designed and built according to best practices for walkable neighbourhood design, will people respond and walk in the public realm? This was a narrowly focused case study of a brownfield redevelopment in Vancouver, Canada, intentionally designed to be highly walkable. Methods included a Walk Score® analysis, both in-person and video observational studies of people using three public spaces over a nine-month period, supplemented with questionnaires. Observational studies and questionnaires revealed high numbers of people using the public spaces for walking and active mobility throughout the year in all weather conditions, validating a very high Walk Score®. However, the study also uncovered unexpected patterns of walking and motivations for walking, which reveals the value of post-occupancy observational and survey studies to fully understand how specific attributes of the neighbourhood landscape may significantly change what people value and how they use the public realm.
Medicine as Message: Caregiving, Illness Deception, and the Cultural Evolution of Harmful Treatments 2018

Why did harmful medical treatments like bloodletting persist for centuries? We propose the following solution to this important cultural evolution question: Illness or injury often leaves people incapacitated for long periods. Caregiving the provision of food, shelter etc. is an important medical practice that enables ill or injured people and their dependents to survive these periods. However, caregiving is vulnerable to exploitation via illness deception whereby people feign illness in order to gain access to care. Harmful treatments helped to solve the problem of illness deception because only individuals who stand to gain substantially from care will accept the treatment. To investigate the plausibility of this theory we develop a mathematical model using evolutionary game theory and invasion analysis. We show that decreasing the benefit of caregiving via aversive and unpleasant medical treatments can counter-intuitively increase the range of conditions where caregiving is evolutionarily viable. Thus poisoning, cannibalism, emetics, bloodletting and other such treatments may be solutions to the problem of allocation of resources to people with unclear need.
Media Credibility and the Base Rate Fallacy

The base rate fallacy describes how people rely on exemplars more than on base rates, when making judgments about a population. We provide a test of the base rate fallacy, considering the critiques of the research on the base rate fallacy on theoretical grounds. It is proposed that while trustworthy media outlets will allow readers to believe in anecdotal evidence found in news stories, readers will rely instead on base rates when presented with less trusted sources. Findings indicate that media credibility moderates the use of exemplars, although only among those with high trust in mass media.
Challenges and Lifelines: What Was Important to Family Carers of People With Dementia Accessing the Admiral Nurse Services, a Specialist Family-Centered Dementia Support?

Admiral Nurses (ANs), specialists in dementia, provide care management to families affected by dementia. A survey was designed to explore family carers’ views on the care received. A mixed-method survey questionnaire was distributed to all carers in receipt of AN services, or those recently discharged. This article presents the qualitative findings. Three overarching themes emerged from the data: “value of bio-medical, practical, psychosocial, and local expertise”; “transformative impact on carers”; and “availability/responsiveness. ” Difficulties included navigating the system, unlocking resources and support, fragile service provision, understanding/coping with dementia, isolation, and guilt. Respondents highly rated the support provided by ANs, with outcomes affirmative for “positive experience of care and support” and “enhanced quality of life for carers” domains of National Health Service (NHS) Outcome Framework for England and Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework. While results suggest ANs successfully facilitated continuity of care, carers still felt exposed to potential cuts to services.
Age-related changes in episodic memory.

Memory changes are common in aging, even for older adults unaffected by dementia. Memory impairments are most notable within episodic memory , which is the ability to consciously encode and retrieve details and associa-tions that allow us to distinguish one event from another. We discuss the neural factors that contribute to older adults’ memory impairments in the first section. We then describe how these factors explain the relative preservation of older adults’ emotional memories. In the third section, we discuss recent methods that should provide new insights into age-related memory changes. We conclude by noting the memory benefits to be gained by staying mentally and physically active in old age. Figure 4.1 depicts our conceptualization of age-related changes in episodic memory