Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Barriers and Needs of Online Learners.

This study investigated some specific barriers and needs that online students are facing when learning English through WebEx system. It compared students’ barriers and needs with their background including gender, computer ownership, and monthly allowance. It also investigated the relationship among computer aptitude, barriers and needs of online learners. The samples were 211 undergraduate students enrolled in Fundamental English course. The instrument in this study was a questionnaire. Results indicated that the levels of needs and barriers of online learners in general were moderate. There were no statistically significant differences at . 05 level found in barriers and needs of online learners as classified by gender, computer ownership, and computer aptitude. As hypothesised, there was a negative relationship between computer aptitude and barriers of online learners at . 01 level. Students with high computer aptitude had fewer barriers to learn online than those with low computer aptitude. In addition, there was a positive relationship between barriers and needs of online learners at . 01 levels. Students with more barriers were found to have more needs to help them to learn online than those with few barriers. Teachers and institutions can take the results of this study into consideration when developing online courses.
It Rarely Occurs: Mock Juror Reactions to a Physician's Defense in a Lack of Informed Consent Case.

Three experiments examine how expressions of probability concerning why a risk involved in a medical procedure was not disclosed influence mock juror decisions (e.g., liability, culpability, and damage awards). Across all three experiments, no differences were found in mock juror judgments of liability due to the probability expression used, be it verbal, quantitative, percentage, or frequency. Furthermore, differences in mean damage awards were only found when psychological uncertainty was manipulated using a frequency expression. However, an examination of the median damage awards suggests that some expressions of probability are likely to result in higher damage awards than others. Thus, while the type of probability expression used does not appear to influence whether or not a physician-defendant is found liable, it may have an impact on the size of the damage award. A fourth experiment examines how expressions of probability concerning a non-disclosed risk influence decisions of whether or not a patient should undergo treatment. The results of this experiment indicate that hindsight (i.e., knowledge of the complication occurring during surgery) may have played a role in the results of Experiments 1-3. Implications and recommendations for physicians and lawyers are discussed.
Foreign Accent Syndrome: A Neurolinguistic Analysis

Foreign Accent Syndrome, in het Nederlands ook wel het "buitenlandsaccentsyndroom" genoemd, is een motorische spraakstoornis waardoor patienten hun moedertaal gaan spreken met een accent dat buitenlands klinkt in de oren van luisteraars. In dit proefschrift geven we een duidelijke neurolinguistische beschrijving van drie van de subtypes van het syndroom, namelijk neurogene FAS (die ontstaat na schade aan het centrale zenuwstelsel), FAS op ontwikkelingsbasis en psychogene FAS (FAS in associatie met een psychiatrische stoornis). Op basis van onze analyses, kwamen we tot de conclusie dat 1. de "segmentele" (op niveau van het foneem, een klank die de kleinste distinctieve entiteit vormt) en "suprasegmentele" kenmerken (het niveau boven dat van het foneem, heeft bvb. betrekking op intonatie en ritme) niet volstaan voor eenduidige diagnostische differentiatie tussen de verschillende subtypes: andere (neurologische of psychiatrische) symptomen, evenals symptoomaanvang, evolutie en remissie zijn vaak informatiever in dit opzicht. 2. er mogelijk een vierde variant van FAS bestaat! Bij ons corpusonderzoek vonden we dat FAS ook werd beschreven na kaakchirurgie. We besloten om in dit geval te spreken van een organisch-mechanische FAS. 3. de kleine hersenen (het cerebellum) een niet te onderschatten rol spelen in de pathofysiologie van de aandoening. 4. FAS een stoornis van duale aard is, die zowel kenmerken van een planningsstoornis als executieve stoornis in zich draagt. Eerder werd aangehaald dat FAS een opvallend aantal klinische overeenkomsten vertoont met de spraakapraxie (een planningsstoornis waarbij de patient problemen ondervindt bij het plannen van de klanken en klanksequenties) en de atactische dysartrie (een executieve stoornis waarbij de patient problemen heeft met het uitvoeren van de geplande sequenties via de articulatoren). Toch lijkt de spraak van mensen met voorgaande aandoeningen veel ernstiger verstoord te zijn dan in het geval van FAS. Na een vergelijking van de pathofysiologie en de perceptuele fonetische kenmerken van deze aandoeningen hebben we geconcludeerd dat de overeenkomsten in het klinisch beeld op het neurobiologisch vlak gerelateerd kunnen worden aan (functionele of structurele) schade van de zeer belangrijke cortico-thalamische-striatopallidale verbindingen en voornamelijk de motorische cortex, de insula, de basale ganglia en het cerebellum betreffen.
New Trends in Specialized Discourse Analysis

This volume brings together a selection of contributions presented at the 15th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, held at the University of Bergamo (Italy) from 29 August to 2 September 2005. The conference title, « New Trends in Specialized Discourse, reflects the emphasis given to recent orientations in research, coming from established as well as new authors in the field. As suggested by the title of this volume, the analysis of specialized discourse calls for a specialized discourse analysis. When applied linguists deal with vocational discourses, they are faced with a double challenge: on the one hand, an understanding of textualisations often alien to the general language; on the other hand, the use of analytical tools designed specifically for their investigation. The studies presented in this volume position themselves somewhere along this continuum, focusing alternatively on converging/diverging features of texts and discourses.
Anti-Mullerian hormone before and after uterine artery embolisation in reproductive-age women seeking treatment for symptomatic fibroids

Background. Uterine fibroids are the most common of the benign gynaecological tumours, the definitive traditional treatment for which is either myomectomy or hysterectomy. Uterine artery embolisation (UAE) offers an alternative non-invasive option for treatment. There remain concerns as to the effects of UAE on ovarian reserve in women desirous of preserving ovarian function. Objectives. To determine the effect of UAE on ovarian reserve, as assessed by anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) measured before and after embolisation, and to assess the trend in serum AMH in the medium term, up to 12 months post UAE. Methods. A cohort study between October 2012 and May 2015 recruited 40 women with symptomatic uterine fibroids. Serum AMH was measured prior to embolisation and post embolisation, at 2 weeks, 6 months and 12 months. Using descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis, pre-embolisation and post-embolisation AMH concentrations were compared. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results. The median participant age was 38.5 years (range 31 - 45). Of the women recruited, 47.5% (19) were nulliparous, and 72.5% (29 women) of the total desired a pregnancy in the future. The median (standard deviation) AMH immediately prior to embolisation was 1.3 ng/mL (1.53), and post embolisation at 2 weeks, 0.9 ng/mL (1.98); at 6 months, 2.2 ng/mL (2.63); and 12 months, 3.5 ng/mL (1.54) ( p = 0.96). Conclusion. In the short to medium term, UAE for treatment of symptomatic fibroids was not found to be detrimental to ovarian reserve. There is a need for longer-term studies evaluating its effects on fecundity, considering that most women in the present study had a strong desire to maintain their fertility.
Inherited thrombophilia and obstetric complications

Inherited thrombophilia can be detected in at least 40% of patients with venous thromboembolism. More recently, inherited thrombophilia has been reported to be associated with an increased risk for obstetric complications, including fetal loss, preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) , abruptio placentae, those latter likely due to inadequate placental perfusion. The estimate of risk largely depends on the type of thrombophilic trait analyzed and on the criteria applied for the selection of the patients, producing in some cases contradictory results. Convincing evidence is available that deficiency of antithrombin (AT), protein C (PC), or protein S (PS), is a risk factor for late fetal loss. Factor V Leiden and prothrombin G20210A are associated with a doubled risk for unexplained recurrent early fetal loss and for non-recurrent late fetal loss. The association of inherited thrombophilia with preeclampsia is much more uncertain, being perhaps restricted to factor V Leiden and to more severe cases. Less data are available for IUGR and abruptio placentae. Treatment with s.c. low-molecular weight heparin for preventing recurrence of fetal loss among women with thombophilia is under investigation.
Exploiting Concurrency for Opportunistic Forwarding in Duty-Cycled IoT Networks

Due to limited energy supply of Internet of Things (Zhao et al. 2018) (IoT) devices, asynchronous duty cycle radio management is widely adopted to save energy. Since the sleep schedules of nodes are unsynchronized, a sender has to repeatedly send frames to coordinate with its receiver or keep sleeping until the receiver’s wake-up time will come according to receiver’s sleep-wake schedule. In such contexts, opportunistic forwarding, which takes the earliest forwarding opportunity instead of a deterministic forwarder, shows great advantage in utilizing channel resource for duty-cycled IoT networks. The multiple forwarding choices with temporal and spatial diversity increase the chance of collision tolerance in opportunistic forwarding, potentially enhancing the overall performance of duty-cycled multi-hop networks. However, since the current channel contention mechanisms mainly focus on collision avoidance, it is too conservative to exploit concurrency. To address this problem, in this article, we propose COF to fully exploit the potential Concurrency for Opportunistic Forwarding in duty-cycled IoT networks. COF achieves concurrent transmission by: (i) measuring conditional link quality under the interference of on-going transmissions, and then (ii) further modeling the benefit of potential concurrency opportunities. According to the expected benefit of concurrency, COF decides whether or not to transmit in concurrent way. COF also adopts concurrency flag and signal features to avoid data collision caused by disordered concurrent transmissions and enhance the accuracy of conditional link quality estimation. COF can be easily integrated into the conventional unsynchronized and duty-cycled protocols. We have implemented COF and evaluated its performance on a 40-node testbed. The results show that COF can effectively exploit potential concurrency in opportunistic forwarding and COF outperforms the state-of-art protocols under diverse traffic load and network density.
Beneficial Effects of Non-Conventional Feedstuffs on Carcass Characteristics And Ileal Mucosal Morphology of Finisher Pigs

This study investigated differences in carcass characteristics and ileal mucosal morphology in pigs offered 4 isocaloric grower-finisher diets formulated using non-conventional feedstuffs from 99-180 days of age upon which barrows were slaughtered. The diets consisted of a basal maize-soybean meal diet, a 20% cold-pressed canola meal diet, 20% rice polishing diet and 20% rice bran diet. The 20% rice polishing diet resulted in a higher (p≤0.05) average daily gain compared to pigs on the basal diet. Rice polishing diet resulted in an increase in killing-out percent, 24.5% increase in loin eye area which implied better lean tissue deposition and a 19.3% decrease in villous height, and noted increases were significantly different (p ≤ 0.05). The 20% rice bran diet resulted in a higher (p≤0.05) average daily gain compared to pigs on the basal diet and larger loin eye size (p ≤ 0.05) implying better lean tissue deposition. Ileal villi were significantly longer (p ≤ 0.05) in in pigs fed rice bran diet and was attributed to higher dietary fibre. The 20% Canola meal diet increased (p ≤ 0.05) back-fat thickness and an increase (p ≤ 0.05) in ileal crypt depth. The study concludes that high NDF rice bran has reduces backfat and increases gut surface area thereby improving utilisation of dietary fibre. Low protein non-conventional feedstuff in finisher pigs had beneficial effects on ileal epithilia. Further studies on the role of dietary lipids and glycosinolates commonly present in Canola meal on changes in intestinal epithelial morphology should be done.
miRNA Analysis by Next-Generation Sequencing and its Prognostic Importance in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with an estimated 1.8 million new cases diagnosed each year. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the predominant histological type, accounting for approximately 85% of all lung cancers. Despite significant advances in smoking cessation, early detection and genetic understanding of the disease, the 5-year overall survival has remained at ~15% over the past few decades. Post-surgical chemotherapy has been shown to improve the survival of some early-stage NSCLC patients, but the overall benefit is modest. To optimize the toxicity/benefit ratio, better diagnostic tools are needed to identify lowrisk individuals who can be spared from unnecessary intervention, while avoiding undertreating high-risk patients. Over the past decade, a multitude of prognostic gene signatures has been published, however, none are currently used in the clinical setting to guide therapeutic decisionmaking. It is hypothesized that the integration of multidimensional high-throughput molecular data may better capture the molecular heterogeneity of lung cancer patients, resulting in more robust biomarkers for patient classification. To aid in the prediction of patient outcome using multidimensional molecular data, I have worked on different stages of the process of biomarker development with respect to microRNAs (miRNA) and their potential added prognostic value to gene signatures. First, I conducted a comprehensive comparison of miRNA profiling technologies, including next-generation sequencing, a microarray platform and the NanoString nCounter System. Next, data preprocessing methods were evaluated to develop a standardized pipeline for the preprocessing of small RNA-seq data, with the end-goal of retrieving miRNA count abundance profiles. Finally, miRNA profiling was performed on tumour specimen resected from early-stage NSCLC patients and combined with gene expression profiling data for iii the development of an integrated miRNA-mRNA risk classifier for predicting prognosis. The knowledge gained from these studies provides technical insights for the analysis of miRNAs and biological insights for the development of more robust prognostic classifiers.
Predictors of hand-foot syndrome (HFS) in randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of pyridoxine for prevention of capecitabine induced HFS.

9596 Background: Hand-foot syndrome (HFS)is a common side effect of capecitabine, although East Asian patients appear to have better tolerability. Methods: This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of grade ≥ 2 HFS in patients receiving pyridoxine versus placebo (primary objective), compare the time to onset of grade ≥ 2 HFS, and identify biomarkers predictive of HFS, including baseline folate and vitamin B12 levels, plus genetic polymorphisms (secondary objectives). Patients starting capecitabine single-agent chemotherapy for breast, colorectal and other cancers in National Cancer Centre Singapore were randomized to receive concurrent pyridoxine (200mg) or placebo daily for a maximum of 8 cycles of capecitabine, with stratification by gender and use in adjuvant/neoadjuvant versus palliative setting. Patients were withdrawn from the study upon development of grade ≥ 2 HFS or cessation of capecitabine. Results: The trial was terminated before reaching the original target of 296 patients due to slow accrua.
Dual-Polarized Spatial–Temporal Propagation Measurement and Modeling in UMa O2I Scenario at 3.5 GHz

Outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) coverage in urban areas by using the sub-6 GHz (sub-6G) band is important in the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system. The spatial-temporal propagation characteristics in different polarizations in the 5G spectrum are crucial for the network coverage. In this paper, we measured the urban macrocell (UMa) O2I channels at 3.5 GHz in the space, time, and polarization domains simultaneously. The channel sounder utilized two ±45° polarized antenna arrays. The transmitter (TX) was placed on the rooftop of a five-storey building to emulate a base station and the receiver (RX) was moved in the corridors on different floors in another building to emulate user equipments (UEs). We obtained the small-scale parameters of excess delay, power, and azimuth/elevation of arrival (AoA/EoA) of individual multipath components (MPCs), the propagation profiles of azimuth/elevation power spectrum (APS/EPS) and power delay profile (PDP), and the large-scale parameters including azimuth/elevation spread of arrival (ASA/ESA) and delay spread (DS). Based on the measurement results, we propose the lifted-superposed Laplace distribution (LS-Laplace) function and lifted-superposed normal distribution (LS-Normal) function to model the APS and EPS, respectively, and a three-phase model for the PDP. We find that the ASA and ESA follow the lognormal distribution and the DS has a Rayleigh distribution. We also reveal the impact of surrounding environments and polarization on the channel propagation profiles and statistical characteristics. The measurement results and channel models in this paper provide reference for the design and deployment of the 5G system to exploit the spatial and polarization diversities in the UMa O2I scenario.
Self-Medication for Oral Health Problems among Dental Outpatients at a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

Background: Self-medication is the inappropriate use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms. Even though Self-medication has benefits as it enhances better use of clinical skills and increases access to medication; it is also associated with risks such as adverse drug reactions and antibiotics resistance. Objectives: To determine prevalence of self-medication practices among dental out-patients, triggering factors that influence self-medication practice and common source of drugs. Materials and methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the Clinic of the Department of Preventive Dentistry, Lagos University Teaching Hospital over a period of 6 months using self-administered questionnaires adapted from previous studies. Data obtained was analysed and expressed as frequencies and percentages. Test of associations was done using chi-square (p < 0.05). Results: Age of respondents ranged from 16 to 78 years (32.24 ± 13.47). M:F was 1:1. Prevalence of self-medication was 45.5%; toothache was the most prevalent reason for self-medication (71%). The frequently used drugs for self-medication were analgesics (65%) while the most common source for the drugs was the pharmacy (60%). Educational status (X2 = 12.85, P < 0.05), gender (X2 = 6.42, P < 0.05) and likelihood of recommending drugs to family and friends (X2 = 10.38, P < 0.05) were significantly associated with self-medication. Conclusion: This study revealed high prevalence of self-medication with toothache as the predominant trigger and pharmacy, the most common source.
Diffusion-weighted MR imaging of intracerebral hemorrhage

Objective To observe the DWI features of intracerehral hemorrhage(ICH)at different evolving stages.Meth- ods Twenty-two patients with ICH underwent DWI.According to the time interva[ between symptom onset and initial MRI,five stages were categorized,i.e.hyperacute(n=3);acute(n=3),early subacute(n=5),late subacute(n=7)and chronic(n=4). T1 and T2 weighted imaging of these cases were reviewed.Results Hematomas were hyperintense at the hyperacute and late subaeute stages,and hypointense at the acute,early subaeute and chronic stages on DWI.Focal hypoin- tensity was observed invariably within a hyperacute hematoma.At the hyperaeute,acute and early subaeute stages,hyperin- tense rims surrounding the hematoma were present.Conclusion ICH has different characteristic DWI features at different stages.DWI can be helpful to the differentiation of hemorrhage from isehemia.
Investigating pre-service teachers’ acceptance of Web 2.0 technologies in their future teaching: a Chinese perspective

ABSTRACT In recent years, there has been an exponential growth of the explorations around the pedagogical use of Web 2.0 technologies in China. This study offers an alternate perspective by examining predictors of pre-service teachers’ uptake of Web 2.0 technologies for teaching purposes. On the basis of prior related research focusing on the pedagogical use of ICT, an eight-factor research model was hypothesised. Data were collected from two universities in China through a questionnaire (N = 464). Structural equation modelling analysis results suggested that perceived usefulness, perceive enjoyment, subjective norm, technological pedagogical and content knowledge, and facilitating conditions had statistically significant direct effects on intention to use Web 2.0 technologies. The findings can help stakeholders in China (e.g. teacher educators, school leaders, and education policy makers) develop a better understanding of the realities of teachers’ pedagogical use Web 2.0 technologies in China.
Evaluating Effects of Character Appearance on Ownership and Learning in Virtual Applications

Virtual applications are now a dominant commercial and social platform. Sixty-seven percent of households own a gaming device [4], and eighty-one percent of the United States population has a social media profile [81]. Now, virtual reality appears to be the next technological frontier that will take over mainstream markets. New, low-cost devices for virtual reality or mixed reality such as the Oculus Rift, Sony’s PlayStation VR, or Samsung’s Gear VR are already available or have been announced and might even outperform previous high-cost systems [94]. With the prevalence of this technology, it is important to know how it influences us. One common factor that has remained popular in virtual applications throughout its evolution are characters. How does the appearance of characters affect us in virtual applications and virtual reality? Towards understanding these effects, this research presents findings on results when character model appearance is altered in an educational application and in self-representative avatars. Results from our experiments show that allowing character customization in an educational software results in higher learning outcomes for participants. We also find that when controlling self-avatars, some participants can feel that they own any virtual hand model given to them in virtual reality. In addition, we find that participants generally feel the strongest ownership for virtual hands that appear human-like. Finally, we find that participants experience stronger feelings of ownership and realism when they are able to control virtual hands directly rather than with a hand-held device, and that the virtual reality task must first be considered to determine which modality and hand size are the most applicable. These results contribute to knowledge for how to best create characters for users in virtual applications and environments.