Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
God Betrayed Us: How Trauma affects the Deconversion of Syrian Refugees in The Netherlands

How can trauma affect our belief system? Based on in-depth interviews with 12 former Muslim Syrian refugees, this article tries to understand narratives of deconversion, associated with Islamic tradition through analytical sociology approach. The narrative data presented in this article depicts a potential reaction when Muslim believers are exposed to acute, war-related trauma, exacerbated when religion is a tool for torture. The findings suggest that a conscious rejection of faith after war comes from the emotional shock when a loss of God's support during trauma is felt, followed by thoughtful reflection on Islam. The negative role of religion and Muslim clerics paired with an Islamic weakness in disaster situation coping mechanisms force “de-converts” to explore their existence amidst newfound freedom of thought in the light of who they once were.
Lunar alignments in Mesoamerican architecture

Systematic archaeoastronomical research recently conducted in several regions of Mesoamerica has revealed the existence of architectural orientations corresponding to major and minor extremes of the Moon (also known as standstill positions) on the horizon. Particularly indicative are the results of quantitative analyses of alignment data from the Maya Lowlands, disclosing a prominent group of orientations that can be convincingly related to the major lunar extremes. The astronomically-motivated intentionality of these alignments is additionally supported by contextual evidence, particularly significant being the fact that most of them are concentrated along the northeast coast of the Yucatán peninsula, where the lunar cult is known to have been important. Since the lunar orientations are regularly associated with those corresponding to the solstitial positions of the Sun, it is very likely that particular attention was paid to the full Moon extremes. This contribution also presents some independent evidence that sheds light on the cultural significance of lunar orientations.
Endobronchial Carcinoid Tumours – A Case Series and review of Literature

Bronchial carcinoid tumors are neuroendocrine neoplasms. The spectrum can range from low-grade typical carcinoids to more aggressive atypical carcinoids. Most bronchial carcinoids are located in central airways, hence clinical features and radiologic findings are usually related to bronchial obstruction. The aim of the present study was to describe the presenting clinical features, radiological findings, histological features, treatment modalities and outcome in pulmonary carcinoid tumours diagnosed in a tertiary care institute in Kerala, South India. This was a retrospective observational study of all cases of pulmonary carcinoids that presented to the Pulmonary Medicine department of our institute between August 2015 to July 2018. The clinical presentation, radiological features, stage of disease, histology, treatment instituted and survival was noted from the electronic medical case records.8 cases of lung carcinoid tumours were encountered during the study period. The mean age of study subjects was 50.6 years. Equal sex predilection was noted. Lower lobes were involved most frequently and right side was affected commoner than the left. Hemoptysis, recurrent respiratory infections and lobar / segmental collapse were the common clinical presentations. All patients had their diagnosis established by bronchoscopic biopsy. Carcinoid tumors accounted for 0.33 percent of pulmonary admissions in the present study. Most of the lesions were central. Symptoms of airway involvement dominated the clinical and radiological presentation. All except one case was subjected to surgical resection with no mortality noted during the study period and follow up.
An exploratory study of upper secondary school students perception towards librarianship as a career

This study was carried out to explore the perceptions of upper secondary students towards librarianship as a career, concerning their level of awareness, the nature of the job and educational qualifications of a professional librarian. The study was also designed to find out factors that motivate or discourage students to choose librarianship as a career. The survey method, in the form of questionnaires modified from studies done by Genoni and Greeve (1997), Bloch and Bloch (1981) and Baruchson-Arbib and Mendelovitz (2004), were administered to randomly selected Form Five and Form Six students in twelve secondary schools in Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya, Selangor. The response rate was 91.58%. The results of the findings reveal that the respondents had a very low level of awareness toward a career in librarianship. 49.84% were aware of a career in librarianship, but only 12% of the respondents would give a thought to be a librarian. 88.3% of the respondents were unaware of the existence of Public Higher Learning Institutions offering LIS programs. The respondents were also unaware of many job opportunities available in a broad range of places. They associated the place of employment with Higher Learning Institutions (78.0%), Schools (73.5%); and Museum and Archives (56.7%) only. "Check in and check out materials" and "Shelves and re-shelves books" were the two most recognized repetitive functions that were believed to be performed by a librarian. 64.9% underestimated the starting salary of librarian. A majority (83.1%) were also ignorant about the level of education demanded to work as a librarian. The librarians were rated the lowest among ten occupation included in the study. "Reading and love of books"(71.6Â°/0) and "Love interaction with public" (70.5%) remained the main reasons for being attracted to librarianship. "Other Career Chosen" (91.4%) and "Boring" (56.9%) were two perceived reasons of not considering librarianship as a career. The results of this study can be used by leaders in the profession and recruiters to develop strategies and help school leavers perceive librarianship in a more positive way. Expanding the informational sources about librarianship can facilitate the recruitment process. The future of this profession rests largely on the success of attracting better people into the profession, thus the profession should take into consideration the views of the generation of future professionals.
One-dimensional simulation of the pressurized motoring method: friction, blow-by, temperatures and heat transfer analysis

Mechanical friction in internal combustion engines is nowadays largely optimized as a result of long years of research in this field. The ever increasing demand for better performance and less emissions however still puts mechanical friction as one of the areas in which further improvements can be done. This requirement calls for more accurate one-dimensional simulation models, along with reliable and robust experimental data to support such models. At University of Malta, a Pressurized Motoring test rig was developed and reported in SAE paper 2018-01-0121. Such method has proved to be relatively accurate in determining the mechanical friction of an internal combustion engine. As compared to the conventional Indicating technique, Morse test and Breakdown test, the Pressurized Motoring method offers the robustness that the uncertainty in the FMEP, as a result of error propagation is kept low. Furthermore, amendments to the traditional Pressurized Motoring technique were also done and presented in SAE paper 2019-01-0930, where Argon was used in place of Air to raise the bulk in-cylinder peak temperature to a value similar to what is found in a fired engine. In this proposal for publication, the authors now discuss a simple one-dimensional simulation model whose results are compared with those obtained and reported in SAE paper 2019-24-0141. Such work is aimed to test traditional friction and heat transfer models in one-dimensional software whilst identifying potential optimizations that can be done to the developed Pressurized Motoring test rig for its data to be more appealing to the one-dimensional researcher.
Developing Best Practice in Intranet Evaluation: A Comparison of Evaluation Models for Usability and Acceptance

Usability is an important element of why users accept an information system. Heuristic evaluation is a common method of usability evaluation often performed by independent consultants in the assessment of organisational intranets. However, there are other usability models which offer valuable analysis in the evaluation process. This paper empirically compares the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Hedonic/Utilitarian (HED/UT) scale versus a heuristic evaluation model as additional measures of intranet usability. As such this paper attempts to develop best practice in Intranet evaluation by assessing the strength of traditional heuristic evaluation constructs and those proposed by the TAM and HED/UT models. A unified evaluation toolset is proposed by the authors for practitioner use.
Rapid communication Event-related potentials and EMDR treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder

Ten patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a severe traumatic event, were assessed with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in a modified oddball paradigm containing auditory standard, target, and novel tones. ERPs were assessed before and after a treatment session using the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing method. Compared to a control group that underwent sham treatment, ERPs of the patients showed a reduction of the P3a component in the post-treatment recording, suggesting a reduced orienting to novel stimuli and reduced arousal level after the treatment. Moreover, psychometric assessment revealed a marked improvement of the PTSD symptoms after treatment.
H ∞ State Feedback Control for Generalized Continuous/Discrete Time Delay System

In this paper, we consider the problem of designing H^∞ state feedback controller for the generalized time delay systems with delayed states and control inputs in continuous and discrete time cases, respectively. The generalized time delay system problems are solved on the basis of LMI(linear matrix inequality) technique considering time delays. The sufficient condition for the existence of controller and H^∞ state feedback controller design methods are presented. Also, using some changes of variables and Schur complements, the obtained sufficient condition can be rewritten as a LMI form in terms of transformed variables. The proposed controller design method can be extended into the problem of robust H^∞ state feedback controller design method easily.
Microglia: The breakthrough to treat neovascularization and repair blood-retinal barrier in retinopathy

Microglia are the primary resident retinal macrophages that monitor neuronal activity in real-time and facilitate angiogenesis during retinal development. In certain retinal diseases, the activated microglia promote retinal angiogenesis in hypoxia stress through neurovascular coupling and guide neovascularization to avascular areas (e.g., the outer nuclear layer and macula lutea). Furthermore, continuously activated microglia secrete inflammatory factors and expedite the loss of the blood-retinal barrier which causes irreversible damage to the secondary death of neurons. In this review, we support microglia can be a potential cellular therapeutic target in retinopathy. We briefly describe the relevance of microglia to the retinal vasculature and blood-retinal barrier. Then we discuss the signaling pathway related to how microglia move to their destinations and regulate vascular regeneration. We summarize the properties of microglia in different retinal disease models and propose that reducing the number of pro-inflammatory microglial death and conversing microglial phenotypes from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory are feasible for treating retinal neovascularization and the damaged blood-retinal barrier (BRB). Finally, we suppose that the unique properties of microglia may aid in the vascularization of retinal organoids.
Using fNIRS to evaluate ADHD medication effects on neuronal activity: A systematic literature review

Background Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a relatively non-invasive and inexpensive functional neuroimaging technique that has shown promise as a method for understanding the differences in neuronal activity associated with various neurodevelopmental conditions, including ADHD. Additionally, fNIRS has been suggested as a possible tool to understand the impact of psychotropic medications on brain activity in individuals with ADHD, but this approach is still in its infancy. Objective The purpose of this systematic literature review was to synthesize the extant research literature on the use of fNIRS to assess the effects of ADHD medications on brain activity in children and adolescents with ADHD. Methods A literature search following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was conducted for peer-reviewed articles related to ADHD, medication, and fNIRS in PsychInfo, Scopus, and PubMed electronic databases. Results The search yielded 23 published studies meeting inclusion criteria. There was a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of the research methodology and procedures, which is explained in part by the distinct goals and approaches of the studies reviewed. However, there was also relative consistency in outcomes among a select group of studies that demonstrated a similar research focus. Conclusion Although fNIRS has great potential to further our understanding of the effects of ADHD medications on the neuronal activity of children and adolescents with ADHD, the current research base is still relatively small and there are limitations and methodological inconsistencies that should be addressed in future studies.
Rank-Reduction of Large MIMO Channels

Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems are capable of delivering substantially higher throughput under favorable circumstances, at the cost of complexity in terms of the number of parameters that must be estimated and processed. Our results are directed toward lowering this computational complexity through reduction of channel information required at the transmitter. Specifically, we examine the case when only the number of degrees of freedom supporting a threshold SNR is known at the transmitter. We show capacity is maximized in this case with a rank-reduced MIMO channel and an equal power distribution over all available antennas. The number of indepen- dent sequences to transmit, i.e. the amount of rank-reduction, is computed by defining the problem such that the optimal number of active data sequences is a capacity maximization problem solvable at the receiver whose results are used at the transmitter. It is shown that in the absence of channel state information, the received SNR for each potential sub-channel is sufficient to determine the optimal number of independent data sequences to transmit. I. INTRODUCTION When the complex multiple-input-multiple-output MIMO channel response is known at the transmitter, unequal transmit power and/or rate distributions over space and time may be used to maximize instantaneous throughput. The power/rate distribution that maximizes capacity is the solution to the water-filling problem in both space and time, see for example (1), (2), (9). We examine the case when the transmitter has no knowledge of the channel response and therefore can not apply water-filling or other methods that require additional a priori information of the channel response. We constrain the problem of achieving capacity such that matching the dimensionality of the transmitted waveform to the channel is an optimization problem that can be solved at the receiver. The results are consumed at the transmitter, matching the number of independent signals to the number of usable sub-channels in the system. Analytical and simulated results for large systems show that the received SNR is the only parameter required to compute the optimal number of independent channels for the transmitter to use over a rank-reduced MIMO channel. Numerical results are presented as achievable capacity versus the number of independent sequences used over correlated channels. The importance of optimizing the number of transmitted sequences is particularly noticeable for poor quality channels, whether the high error rates are due to low SNR or high correlation.
E-Business Innovation and Firm Performance

Companies develop e-business initiatives to improve communications with customers and suppliers. However, one of the challenges for information systems managers is to determine whether such investment generates any value with respect to firm performance. By extending previous research done by Shin (2004), this research empirically examines the relationship between e-business innovation and firm performance. It employs the Information Week’s annual data set on innovative users of IT for two years: 2000 and 2001. The measure of e-business innovation is constructed by combining the categories of e-business strategy and customer knowledge available from the data set. This study attempts to show how firms can improve their performance with e-business innovation by providing empirical evidence for the economic payoffs generated from e-business innovation.
High Speed Decoding of Serial Concatenated Codes

This paper proposes a code design method for a particular class of serial concatenated codes named Systematic with Serially Concatenated Parity (S-SCP) codes. Using a par- ticular family of S-SCP codes based on quasi cyclic code, we propose a code design taking into account both implementation and performance requirements. This design enables a particular scheduling of the decoding process enabling the reduction of the number of parallelized processes required to meet a target throughput. I. INTRODUCTION Turbo-like codes including Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) and concatenated convolutional codes, have raised a significant interest in the past few year. Hybrid concatenated codes like Hybrid Concatenated Convolutional (HCC) codes, which were first introduced in (1), represent a new class of code construction. A particularly interesting family of code construction from the concatenation of three codes is described in (2) and is labelled Systematic with Serially Concatenated Parity (S-SCP) codes. In this paper we propose to define a sub class of S-SCP codes based on quasi cyclic constituent codes which have interesting properties from the implementation point of view. Scheduling strategies for decoding are then in- vestigated, which aim to optimize throughput while accounting for implementation requirements, such as memory conflicts and pipeline processing. Finally we illustrate the advantages of this code construction through a code design example. II. S-SCP CODES A. Definition S-SCP codes can be viewed either as serially concatenated convolutional codes or structured LDPC codes. This S-SCP structure intends to combine advantages of both Turbo and LDPC codes. The S-SCP structure is built from the concatenation of an outer code, an interleaver and an Inner Parity Generator (IPG) as depicted on Figure 1. The inner parity generator is obtained
REM WORKING PAPER SERIES Accuracy of European Stock Target Prices

Equity researches are conducted by professionals, who also provide buy/hold/sell recommendations to investors. Nowadays, target prices determined by financial analysts are publicly available to investors, who may decide to use them for investment purposes. Studying the accuracy of such analysts’ forecasts is, thus, of paramount importance. Based upon empirical data on 50 of the biggest (larger capitalisation) European stocks over a 15–year period, from 2004 to 2019 and using a panel data approach, this is the first study looking at overall accuracy in European stock markets. We find that Bloomberg’s 12-month consensus target prices have no predictive over future market prices. Panel results are robust to company fixed effects and sub-period analysis. These results are in line with the (mostly US-based) evidence in the literature. Extending common practice, we perform a comparative accuracy analysis, comparing the accuracy of target prices with that of simple capitalisations of current prices. It turns out target prices are not better in forecasting, than simple capitalisations. More interestingly, by analysing also the relationship between both measures – target prices and capitalised prices – we find evidence that capitalised prices partially explain how target prices are determined. Even when considering individual regressions, accuracy is still very low, but varies considerably across stocks.
Prescribing patterns of ADHD medication in children under the age of eighteen years in the Western Cape

A concise and factual abstract of no more than 250 words is required. The abstract should state briefly the background, purpose of the research, methodology, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, nonstandard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
The perceptions of nurses, patients and family members regarding nurses' empathetic behaviours towards patients suffering from cancer: a descriptive qualitative study

Background Although evidence suggests that empathic behaviour is an essential component in nursing care that affects the psychological distress experienced by cancer patients, it remains a neglected issue in nursing in Iran. Methods: This study was conducted on 33 participants selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and were then analysed using qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach. Findings: Three categories of data thus emerged, comprising: (a) empathetic attention; (b) empathetic presence; and (c) the facilitators of empathetic behaviour. Conclusions: The findings can help oncology nurses provide more empathetic care to patients and their family members.
Altered dynamic functional architecture in type 2 diabetes mellitus

Introduction Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) can accelerate cognitive decline and even dementia so that the underlying mechanism deserves further exploration. In the resting state, brain function is still changing dynamically. At present, it is still unknown whether the dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) between various brain regions is in a stable state. It is necessary to interpret brain changes from a new perspective, that is, the stability of brain architecture. Methods In this study, we used a fixed dynamic time scale to explore the stability of dynamic functional architecture in T2DM, then the dynamic effective connectivity (dEC) was used to further explain how information flows through dynamically fluctuating brain architecture in T2DM. Result Two brain regions with decreased stability were found including the right supra-marginal gyrus (SMG) and the right median cingulate gyrus (MCG) in T2DM subjects. The dEC variation has increased between the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the right MCG. The direction of causal flow is from the right MCG to the left IFG. Conclusion The combination of stability and dEC can not only show the stability of dynamic functional architecture in brain but also reflect the fluidity of brain information, which is an innovative and interesting attempt in the field of neuroimaging. The changes of dynamic architecture in T2DM patients may present an innovative perspective and explanation for their cognitive decline.