Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Quiet Time on the Sleep Quality of Cardiothoracic Surgery Patients

The purpose of this study was to observe patients' quality of sleep on a cardiothoracic step-down unit before and after institution of an "undisturbed quiet time" policy from eleven o'clock in the evening until five in the morning. It was hypothesized that these patients have improved sleep quality after institution of the Quiet Time protocol. The comparative group, quasi-experimental study utilized the Verran and Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale and Factors Influencing Sleep Questionnaire to measure sleep disturbance, effectiveness, and supplementation. Results demonstrated a decrease in sleep disturbance with initiation of the Quiet Time, but no significant change in sleep effectiveness and supplementation. Factors most disturbing to sleep included pain and discomfort, bed and ventilation system, procedures performed upon the patient, interruptions, and talking. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this manuscript represents the collective encouragement, prayers, and guidance of many people. Most of all, I wish to thank my God for His blessing and leading throughout this project. Thanks to Dr. Holly Gadd for chairing my thesis committee. She has been an unwavering confidence-booster; just knowing that someone believes in you gives the extra strength to keep plodding. Dr. Barbara James has also offered encouragement. Late nights in the nursing building were made easier by knowing that she was still working in her office too. Also thanks to Christine Moniyung for being on my thesis committee. As the developer of "Quiet Time," Laural Rhyne spent many hours putting the new protocol through hospital committees. Once the official paperwork and education were completed, she continued to offer encouragement and suggestions. Her infectious cheerfulness and vast knowledge of cardiothoracic surgery added spark and depth to the project. I wish to thank my family and friends for their untiring prayers and support. Special thanks to my dear roommates for cheerfully living with a sleep-deprived girl, doing extra housework when my schedule was crammed too full, and for always making me laugh no matter how high the stress. The staff at Memorial Hospital was very helpful throughout the study. The nurses on the cardiothoracic step-down unit are such a special group-I will miss you each! Specifically, Sue Mathews and Tammy Jamar helped coordinate the institution of Quiet Time. I also wish to thank the physicians and nurses at Alliance of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgeons for their willingness to participate in the piloting of Quiet Time.
Household Waste Sorting and Engagement in Everyday Life Occupations After Migration—A Scoping Review

The aim of this scoping review was to gain an overview of the current state of the literature on the engagement in waste sorting post migration from an occupational perspective, in the light of two aspects sustainability efforts currently face: Increased human migration and environmental degradation. Both the resource recovery and occupational science literature were reviewed and analyzed. However, despite the current lack on studies on how migrants’ transition into waste sorting schemes at the household level, this scoping review was able to provide a broad picture of the engagement in daily activities that support sustainability, such as household waste sorting. Given the current initiatives to develop efficient resource recovery from waste, such knowledge contributes to efforts to engage households with different cultures and experiences in waste sorting. The results highlight the importance of future research to better understand how people who are new to waste management schemes experience these, and study the way that engagement in waste sorting shifts and transforms. This is because providing such knowledge can contribute to raising awareness of the environmental impact of waste sorting, and inform policies aimed at sustainable waste management.
RICE PRICE STABILIZATION IN BANGLADESH: AN ANALYSIS OF POLICY OPTIONS

MSSD Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and research results, and are circulated prior to a full peer review in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. It is expected that most Discussion Papers will eventually be published in some other form, and that their content may also be revised. This paper is available at http://www.cgiar. org/ifpri/divs/mssd/dp.htm RICE PRICE STABILIZATION IN BANGLADESH: AN ANALYSIS OF POLICY OPTIONS
The impact of corporate social responsibility on earnings management practices: evidence from Saudi Arabia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between earnings management (EM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Saudi Arabia. It is one of only a small number of studies to examine this relationship outside the US market, and the first in the Middle East and Arab region, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses content analysis to extract the CSR disclosure items from annual reports of Saudi firms. A CSR disclosure index was then constructed. For EM, the residuals from Kothari et al.’s (2005) model are considered. Multivariate analysis was performed using pooled OLS-regression models to examine the direct relationship between EM and the CSR index. Findings Using panel data from all Saudi public firms listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) over the 2015-2016 period, the authors find that CSR is positively and significantly related to EM practices as proxied by discretionary accruals. This implies that Saudi firms undertaking CSR actions are more likely to manipulate their earnings. Research limitations/implications The findings of this paper have important policy implications for policy-makers, regulators, auditors and investors in their attempts to constrain EM practices and enhance the quality of financial reporting in Saudi Arabia. Originality/value This paper contributes to the body of accounting literature by providing the first empirical evidence in the Middle East and Arab region on the positive association between EM and CSR in Saudi Arabia.
The role of Anglicisms in the Austrian German youth language

Heutzutage spielt Englisch eine wichtige Rolle und durch soziale Medien, Spiele, Musik, usw. sind wir standig davon umgeben. Englisch ist jedoch nicht nur in englischsprachigen Kontexten prasent, sondern auch in die deutsche Sprache wurden einige englische Worter und Phrasen aufgenommen. Es wird oft behauptet, dass die Jugendsprache an der Vielzahl englischen Wortguts innerhalb der deutschen Sprache schuld sei, weshalb diese Studie darauf abzielt, Jugendliche zu ihrer Einstellung zur Nutzung von Anglizismen zu befragen. Eine quantitative Studie wurde an 80 Jugendlichen zwischen 10 und 30 Jahren, die Mitglieder der ortlichen Pfadfindergruppen sind, durchgefuhrt. Ein Fragebogen sammelte detailierte Informationen zu ihren Einstellungen zur englischen Sprache, zu verschiedenen Aspekten von Anglizismen, und zu Sprechern, die haufig englische Worter und Phrasen in ihre Alltagssprache einbauen. Weiters sollten sie bewerten wie oft Anglizismen von bestimmten Personengruppen und in bestimmten Situationen verwendet werden. Auserdem sollten sie ausgewahlte Worter danach bewerten, ob sie (eher) Englisch oder (eher) Deutsch seien. Der Fragebogen sammelte auch Informationen zum personlichen Hintergrund der Teilnehmer, womit die gesammelten Daten in Zusammenhang gestellt wurden. Die Ergebnisse zeigten vorherrschend positive Einstellungen zur englischen Sprache und zu Anglizismen. Obwohl jungere Teilnehmer haufiger zugaben manche englische Worter, die in den Medien benutzt werden, manchmal nicht zu verstehen, gaben sie haufiger an bewusst englische Worter zu benutzen, weil sie sie lieber mogen. Die Altersgruppe zu der die meisten Teilnehmer gehoren (11-17-Jahrige) wurde als diejenige gewertet, die die meisten Anglizismen benutzt. Weiters konnte gezeigt werden, dass den Teilnehmern die Menge englischer Worter in ihrer Alltagssprache bewusst ist, da sie zahlreiche Beispiele aufzahlen konnten. Auserdem werteten sie die meisten Anglizismen, die ihnen vorgelegt wurden, als ‚eher Englisch‘ oder ‚Englisch‘.
Isolation and Partial Evaluation of a Potential Indigenous Yeast Strain Pichia kudriavzevii from a Traditional Rice Beer—“Gora” Prepared by the Koloi Tribes of Tripura

As per tradition from hundreds of years the Koloi tribes of Tripura are preparing “Gora”-therice based fermented beer which is very good in taste and aroma applying their traditional indigenous brewing techniques. In this study, an attempt has been made to identify the indigenous yeast which is the main causative agent for fermentation and to investigate its fermentation ability with an industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiaes train. After investigation based on culture dependent phenotypic characteristics like-staining and biochemical characterization, primarily the responsible yeast species was determined as Pichia kudriavzevii and further confirmed followed by 18S rRNA ribotyping and the sequences was deposited at Gene bank and NCBI bearing specific accession number. In the comparative analysis, it has been found a significant similarities in all aspects of nutritional and alcohol percentages with the industrial strain in laboratory condition. The alcohol percentage in the rice beer “Gora” measured 6.40 ± 0.008% v/v. The study may be the first scientific investigation of its kind about this indigenous yeast strain isolated from “Gora” of this Indo-Burma biodiversity region and may provide sufficient background and potentiality for promoting these kinds of indigenous alcoholic beverages for small scale commercialization to strengthen the rural livelihood as well as to maintain immaterial cultural heritage.
Understanding, measuring and improving clinical decision-making in urological cancer multidisciplinary team meetings

3 Declaration of originality . 4 List of peer reviewed publications and presentations . 5 Prizes. 5 Peer reviewed publications . 5 Work submitted for publication . 8 Invited talks . 9 International presentations . 10 National Presentations . 12 List of figures . 23 List of tables. 25 Introduction . 29 1.1 Quality in cancer MDT meetings . 29 1.2 Multidisciplinary teams in cancer care . 30 1.2. 1 What is an MDT. 30 1.2. 2 Cancer care before MDT working . 30 1.2. 3 Implementation of MDT working . 31 1.2. 4 The setting of the MDT. 31 1.2. 5 The MDT meeting. 32 1.2. 6 Regulation of MDTs . 33 1.3 Quality and performance in healthcare teams . 33
Point-of-Interest Based Classification of Similar Users by Using Support Vector Machine and Status Homophily

Online social networks (OSN) are becoming an indispensable part of everyday life. Apart from allowing various users to perform a vast amount of conventional sharing per second, the networks also provide location-based services, like sharing of location, traveling activities, and performing check-ins. These new dimensions changed the traditional OSN into location-based social networks (LBSN). This paper proposes a novel approach for finding similar users, based on check-ins or points-of-interest (POI) as the key feature and by building a model using a support vector machine (SVM) and status homophily. Furthermore, the performance of the approach and the accuracy of grouping are analyzed in the result analysis section.
Fault Modeling and Simulation of Memristor based Gas Sensors

Memristors are an attractive option for use in future architectures due to their non-volatility, high density and low power operation. Gas sensing is one of the proposed application of memristive devices. In spite of these advantages, memristors are susceptible to defect densities due to the nondeterministic nature of nano-scale fabrication. In this paper, a novel spice memristor model incorporating fault models that emulates the gas sensing behaviour with/without faults is developed for simulation and integration with design automation tools. Our simulation results show that the proposed non-linear model detects the presence of the oxidising/reducing gas and analyses the defects/faults affecting the functionality of the sensor.
The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine

Stem cells could be the key that unlocks cures to scores of diseases and illnesses. Their story is at once compelling, controversial, and remarkable. Part detective story, part medical history, The Proteus Effect recounts the events leading up to the discovery of stem cells and their incredible potential for the future of medicine. What exactly are these biological wonders a " these things called stem cells? They may be tiny, but their impact is earth shaking, generating excitement among medical researchers a " and outright turmoil in political circles. They are reported to be nothing short of miraculous. But they have also incited fear and mistrust in many. Indeed, recent research on stem cells raises important questions as rapidly as it generates new discoveries. The power of stem cells rests in their unspecialized but marvelously flexible nature. They are the clay of life waiting for the cellular signal that will coax them into taking on the shape of the beating cells of the heart muscle or the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. With a wave of our medical magic wand, ita (TM)s possible that stem cells could be used to effectively treat (even cure) diseases such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and even baldness. But should scientists be allowed to pick apart four-day-old embryos in order to retrieve stem cells? And when stem cells whisper to us of immortality a " they can divide and perpetuate new cells indefinitely a " how do we respond? Stem cells are forcing us to not only reexamine how we define the beginning of life but how we come to terms with the end of life as well. Meticulously researched, artfully balanced, and engagingly told, Ann Parson chronicles a scientific discovery in progress, exploring the ethical debates, describing the current research, and hinting of a spectacular new era in medicine. The Proteus Effect is as timely as it is riveting.
Information systems and actionable knowledge creation in rice-farming systems in Northern Ghana

ABSTRACT Rice farmers in the Kumbungu District in Northern Ghana interact with information systems. Of interest here is the degree to which knowledge derived from such interaction is actionable. The paper addresses the overall question: what information systems are currently providing agricultural information to rice farmers, and to what extent does this result in actionable knowledge creation? Findings revealed that Farmer-to-Farmer systems contribute most to actionable knowledge creation. We conclude that systems integration and local actor participation are essential for actionable knowledge creation in information systems.
The role of myocardial membrane proteins and myocardial oedema in postoperative myocardial dysfunction

In studying AQPs in the setting of LCOS, we sought to refine the characterisation of AQP expression in the hearts of mammals. We focused on the species relevant to the planned initial animal models – rats and sheep, with reference to mice and keeping in mind the basic relevance of human expression. We focused on the AQPs that had been previously described in the myocardium – AQP1 and AQP4. Immunohistochemistry, Western blot, semi-quantitative and quantitative RT-PCR were conducted on whole cell preparations and subcellular fractions to define more precisely the expression and localisation of AQPs in the myocardium. Additionally a trial of in vitro ischaemia was undertaken to determine if there was a change in AQP expression with ischaemia in rat myocardium. Ambiguities in expression were resolved through use of AQP knockout mouse tissue. An osmotic equilibrium study using myocardial membrane vesicles was performed to determine the functional contribution of AQPs in mouse myocardium. AQP1, AQP4, AQP7 and AQP11 mRNA were present in myocardium from mouse, rats and humans. Sheep myocardium contained AQP1 and AQP4 as well as AQP0, AQP3 and AQP9. AQP1 protein was expressed in the endothelium of myocardial vessels in rat and sheep. Myocellular expression of AQP1 on immunohistochemistry was supported by expression in rat cardiomyocytes which had negligible endothelial tissue present. AQP4 mRNA was found in rat, sheep, mouse and human heart. AQP4 protein was present in mouse and sheep heart on Western blot, although immunohistochemistry in sheep myocardium revealed non-specific nuclear staining. Western blots of rat myocardium revealed a protein of expected size, although only non-specific staining was present on immunohistochemistry. A trial of in vitro ischaemia, using quantitative RT-PCR demonstrated a six fold increase in AQP4 compared to baseline, but baseline levels of AQP4 were negligible. There was no change in AQP1. Western blot comparison of
Self-Adaptive Memory Approximation: A Formal Control Theory Approach

Memory approximation enables trading off quality/accuracy for performance or energy gains. Traditionally, application programmers are burdened with the difficult task of setting memory approximation knobs to achieve the desired quality of service (QoS). Our self-adaptive approach for memory approximation eases the programmer’s burden: simply specify the desired quality as a goal, with the system deploying a formal control-theoretic approach to tune the memory approximation knobs and deliver a guaranteed QoS. We model quality configuration tracking as a formal quality control problem, and outline a system identification technique that captures memory approximation effects with variations in application input and system architecture. Preliminary results show that we can alleviate the programmer’s burden of manual knob tuning for on-chip memory approximation. When compared with a manual calibration scheme we achieve <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> improvement in average settling time and up to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> improvement in best case settling time.
Consumer perceptions of dairy welfare and production: a role for vets in public education?

Interview questionnaires were administered to the general public in central Scotland and Northern England during summer 2007 to investigate consumer awareness of UK dairy production methods, welfare issues, dairy product purchasing and recognition of 'quality assurance' product logos. Fifty percent of respondents gave UK dairy animal welfare a positive rating. Recognition of individual quality assurance logos was poor, with 75% of respondents stating that they did not intentionally seek to buy products with any of the logos. Respondents' perceptions of good dairy welfare included: appropriate feeding, good stockmanship, plenty of space, freedom to roam/free range and environmental cleanliness. Half of respondents felt they were poorly informed about food production and the majority of respondents (68%) would like more information on food production. Respondents believed that information on animal welfare provided by vets and farmers would be reliable. Most respondents (93%) said they would pay more for good dairy welfare. This study found that the general public are interested in animal welfare but could be better informed on dairy animal production and welfare. Vets and farmers may have a potentially important role in providing this information with increasing demand for higher welfare provenance products potentially helping to improve animal welfare
Mg ∕ Ca and δ18O in living planktic foraminifers from the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits

Abstract. Past ocean temperatures and salinities can be approximated from combined stable oxygen isotopes (δ18O) and Mg ∕ Ca measurements in fossil foraminiferal tests with varying success. To further refine this approach, we collected living planktic foraminifers by net sampling and pumping of sea surface water from the Caribbean Sea, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits. Analyses of δ18O and Mg ∕ Ca in eight living planktic species (Globigerinoides sacculifer, Orbulina universa, Neogloboquadrina dutertrei, Pulleniatina obliquiloculata, Globorotalia menardii, Globorotalia ungulata, Globorotalia truncatulinoides and Globorotalia tumida) were compared to measured in situ properties of the ambient seawater (temperature, salinity and δ18Oseawater) and fossil tests of underlying surface sediments. “Vital effects” such as symbiont activity and test growth cause δ18O disequilibria with respect to the ambient seawater and a large scatter in foraminiferal Mg ∕ Ca. Overall, ocean temperature is the most prominent environmental influence on δ18Ocalcite and Mg ∕ Ca. Enrichment of the heavier 18O isotope in living specimens below the mixed layer and in fossil tests is clearly related to lowered in situ temperatures and gametogenic calcification. Mg ∕ Ca-based temperature estimates of G. sacculifer indicate seasonal maximum accumulation rates on the seafloor in early spring (March) at Caribbean stations and later in the year (May) in the Florida Straits, related to the respective mixed layer temperatures of ∼26 ∘C. Notably, G. sacculifer reveals a weak positive linear relationship between foraminiferal derived δ18Oseawater estimates and both measured in situ δ18Oseawater and salinity. Our results affirm the applicability of existing δ18O and Mg ∕ Ca calibrations for the reconstruction of past ocean temperatures and δ18Oseawater reflecting salinity due to the convincing accordance of proxy data in both living and fossil foraminifers, and in situ environmental parameters. Large vital effects and seasonally varying proxy signals, however, need to be taken into account.
The role of Planning Support Systems in national policy transfer and policy translation in secondary cities

ABSTRACT Rwanda has developed a National Urbanization Policy (NUP) that identifies six secondary citieswhere efforts to promote urbanization and economic growth should focus. To implement it, a Spatial Development Framework (SDF) was developed, that makes use of Planning Support Systems (PSS) to communicate the goals to the local level. PSS present opportunities for stakeholders to understand and translate national policies to their local planning contexts. This paper questions how the SDF’s PSS tools can be used in the NUP’s transfer and translation to the local level. It focuses on potential users of the SDF. Results suggest that SDF’s PSS tools and outcomes can promote better spatial understanding, and communicate planning needs, strengthening regional competition andeconomic development among the secondary cities and in line with NUP. We conclude that the national government can use vertical transfer and horizontal translation to transfer the SDF’S PSS tools and outcomes to secondary cities.