Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two-step curve fitting combined with a two-layered tissue model to quantify intrinsic fluorescence of cervical mucosal tissue in vivo

Fluorescence spectroscopy (FS) has been used to characterize tissue fluorophores in vivo for the diagnosis of precancers in the uterine cervix. In this study, a two-step curve fitting process is established to extract the intrinsic fluorescence intensity and spectrum of fluorophores including NADH and FAD in the epithelium and collagen crosslinks in the stroma. Forward Monte Carlo (MC) models of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and FS are replaced by artificial neuron networks to improve the computation speed. First, absorption and scattering coefficients of the two tissue layers and the epithelial thickness are estimated from DRS data. Second, the genetic algorithm is used to find the best set of intrinsic fluorescence parameters of the three fluorophores that best fit measured FS data. Results suggest that the two-layered tissue model outperforms conventional homogeneous tissue models in extracted tissue optical properties. Intrinsic fluorescence parameters are extracted from in-vivo spectra measured on 31 subjects.
A NOTE ON THE ASYMMETRIC EFFECT OF SHOCKS ON MARKET RETURN VOLATILITY: THE PHILIPPINE CASE

This paper extends the research on stock return volatility in the Philippines. It presents evidence on the asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks on the volatility of market returns in the Philippines. The empirical findings of the study provide additional support to the so-called leverage effect at the aggregate level. A drop in security returns lowers market value of equity and increases the leverage of firms. The change in financial leverage raises the risk and is reflected in increased volatility.
Hyperphosphorylation of RyR 2 and Causing CaMKII-Dependent α by Targeting PP 2 A Regulatory Subunit B 56 Release and Promotes Cardiac Arrhythmogenesis 2 + Overexpression Enhances

MicroRNAs are small endogenous noncoding RNAs that regulate protein expression by hybridization to imprecise complementary sequences of target mRNAs. Changes in abundance of muscle-specific microRNA, miR-1, have been implicated in cardiac disease, including arrhythmia and heart failure. However, the specific molecular targets and cellular mechanisms involved in the action of miR-1 in the heart are only beginning to emerge. In this study we investigated the effects of increased expression of miR-1 on excitation–contraction coupling and Ca cycling in rat ventricular myocytes using methods of electrophysiology, Ca imaging and quantitative immunoblotting. Adenoviral-mediated overexpression of miR-1 in myocytes resulted in a marked increase in the amplitude of the inward Ca current, flattening of Ca transients voltage dependence, and enhanced frequency of spontaneous Ca sparks while reducing the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca content as compared with control. In the presence of isoproterenol, rhythmically paced, miR-1–overexpressing myocytes exhibited spontaneous arrhythmogenic oscillations of intracellular Ca , events that occurred rarely in control myocytes under the same conditions. The effects of miR-1 were completely reversed by the CaMKII inhibitor KN93. Although phosphorylation of phospholamban was not altered, miR-1 overexpression increased phosphorylation of the ryanodine receptor (RyR2) at S2814 (Ca /calmodulin-dependent protein kinase) but not at S2808 (protein kinase A). Overexpression of miR-1 was accompanied by a selective decrease in expression of the protein phosphatase PP2A regulatory subunit B56 involved in PP2A targeting to specialized subcellular domains. We conclude that miR-1 enhances cardiac excitation–contraction coupling by selectively increasing phosphorylation of the L-type and RyR2 channels via disrupting localization of PP2A activity to these channels. (Circ Res. 2009;104:514-521.)
Why Workers Hesitate to Report Their Work-Related Musculoskeletal Symptoms: A Survey at a Korean Semiconductor Company

Underreporting work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) has been an issue in South Korea. The purpose of this survey was to figure out how many employees of a semiconductor and liquid crystal display company in South Korea experience WRMSDs and what the possible obstacles in reporting to the company are. A survey was developed with demographic questions, perceived WRMSD symptoms, and reasons for reporting or not reporting WRMSD. The survey was distributed via the company’s intranet to all employees (24,380) whose employee identification number ended with an odd number. A total of 2862 employees completed the survey and the response rate was 11.7%. A total of 55.2% of respondents had felt at least one musculoskeletal symptom during the past year. More than 40% of workers who had experienced pain or discomfort during the past year thought their symptoms were more than 50%. work-related. More than one-fourth of respondents answered that they did not report their symptoms to the company more than once. The open-ended answers for not reporting WRMSD were categorized into seven common reasons. The reasons for not reporting WRMSD in previous studies show a combination of personal, organizational, socioeconomical, and cultural factors. To encourage and manage WRMSD effectively, seven recommendations of authors are described.
K-12 ESL Writing Instruction: A Review of Research on Pedagogical Challenges and Strategies

Writing is an important early literacy skill for English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ academic success, underlining the importance of effective ESL writing instruction at the K-12 level. However, there is little empirical research on ESL writing instruction in school settings. The goal of this systematic literature review is to examine the extant empirical evidence of the challenges teachers encounter in teaching ESL writing and the strategies that can be adopted to help teachers overcome the challenges. Our search yielded 49 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters published between 2010-2019. A content analysis (Stan, 2009) of these materials indicated that teachers encounter the following challenges in teaching K-12 ESL writing: (a) lack of pre-service training in ESL writing, (b) lack of writing pedagogy skills, (c) lack of time, (d) lack of professional development opportunities, (e) standardized tests, and (f) unique L1 influences on L2 students’ text production. The content analysis also revealed the following strategies that can be recommended for addressing these challenges: (a) incorporating an ESL writing course into teacher education programs, (b) creating opportunities for writing pedagogy support by mentor teachers and researchers, (c) incorporating integrated skills development in the writing classroom, (d) providing students with opportunities to write more, (e) adopting explicit writing instruction, and (f) creating professional development opportunities for teachers. Based on our findings, we discuss implications and recommendations for ESL writing instruction in K-12 schools.
National pride and identification with national symbols in a divided society: the case of South Africa

ABSTRACT The article investigates national pride, identification with national symbols and predictors of national pride some 20 years after South Africa’s political transformation. The results of a questionnaire survey involving a countrywide probability sample of 3 608 respondents are compared with those of a 1998 study. Compared to the 1998 study, there was a decline in national pride, while identification with national symbols increased. Particularly noteworthy were increases among Afrikaans-speaking Whites who dis-identified with national symbols in 1998. Significant group differences were found for all variables and group membership was indicated as the most important predictor of national pride. The national anthem was the most important symbol predicting national pride. Indications are that symbols reflecting various cultural legacies have a better chance of being widely accepted in heterogeneous societies.
Age effects in autobiographical memory depend on the measure

Studies examining age effects in autobiographical memory have produced inconsistent results. This study examined whether a set of typical autobiographical memory measures produced equivalent results in a single participant sample. Five memory tests (everyday memory, autobiographical memory from the past year, autobiographical memory from age 11–17, word-cued autobiographical memory, and word-list recall) were administered in a single sample of young and older adults. There was significant variance in the tests’ sensitivity to age: word-cued autobiographical memory produced the largest deficit in older adults, similar in magnitude to word-list recall. In contrast, older adults performed comparatively well on the other measures. The pattern of findings was broadly consistent with the results of previous investigations, suggesting that (1) the results of the different AM tasks are reliable, and (2) variable age effects in the autobiographical memory literature are at least partly due to the use of different tasks, which cannot be considered interchangeable measures of autobiographical memory ability. The results are also consistent with recent work dissociating measures of specificity and detail in autobiographical memory, and suggest that specificity is particularly sensitive to ageing. In contrast, detail is less sensitive to ageing, but is influenced by retention interval and event type. The extent to which retention interval and event type interact with age remains unclear; further research using specially designed autobiographical memory tasks could resolve this issue.
Chapter 1

Currently, there are over 27 million rural-to-urban migrant children in China who have migrated from rural villages to urban areas with their parent(s) or relatives without attaining permanent urban residency for the restricted household registration (―Hukou‖) system. The educational issues among migrant children in urban areas have attracted more and more attention from the government and society. This chapter is organized into four sections to review the history, special issues and situation, challenges and recommendations for the schooling of rural migrant children in China. The first section describes the historical aspects of migrant children‘s schooling, including original development, official documents promulgated for education of migrant children, the progress of compulsory education and the efficiency of schooling for migrant children since the 1990s. The second section aims to present some special issues and situations regarding migrant children‘s schooling, which comprises several aspects, such as mobility, family environment, schooling situations of migrant children in public schools and characteristics and conditions of migrant children schools (MCS). The third section summarizes barriers and challenges in the schooling of migrant children by using the existing literature and official reports to describe the inequality of educational opportunity, the challenges of educational placement and the challenges of educational advancement. The final section discusses some practical and policy recommendations to improve the schooling of migrant children, which include reforming the household registration system; implementing policies on educational advancement; strengthening the acceptance of public schools; advancing the schooling enrollment management system; and enhancing regulatory oversight and supports for MCS, thus eliminating stigma and improving parenting skills. * E-mail address: danhualin@bnu.edu. cn Shaobing Su, Cheuk Chi Tam, Lihua Chen et al. 250 1. HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF MIGRANT CHILDREN’S SCHOOLING IN CHINA
Can language modulate perceptual narrowing for faces? Other-race face recognition in infants is modulated by language experience

Between 6 and 9 months, while infant’s ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group is maintained, discrimination of faces within other-race groups declines to a point where 9-month-old infants fail to discriminate other-race faces. Such face perception narrowing can be overcome in various ways at 9 or 12 months of age, such as presenting faces with emotional expressions. Can language itself modulate face narrowing? Many adult studies suggest that language has an impact on the recognition of individuals. For example, adults remember faces previously paired with their native language more accurately than faces paired with a non-native language. We have previously found that from 9 months of age, own-race faces associated with the native language can be learned and recognized whereas own-race faces associated with a non-native language cannot. Based on the language familiarity effect, we hypothesized that the native language could restore recognition of other-race faces after perceptual narrowing has happened. We tested 9- and 12-month-old Caucasian infants. During a familiarization phase, infants were shown still photographs of an Asian face while audio was played either in the native or in the non-native language. Immediately after the familiarization, the familiar face and a novel one were displayed side-by-side for the recognition test. We compared the proportional looking time to the new face to the chance level. Both 9- and 12-month-old infants exhibited recognition memory for the other-race face when familiarized with non-native speech, but not with their native speech. Native language did not facilitate recognition of other-race faces after 9 months of age but a non-native language did, suggesting that 9- and 12-month-olds already have expectations about which language an individual should talk (or at least not talk). Our results confirm the strong links between face and speech processing during infancy.
Approaches toward Community Participation Enhancement in Ecotourism

A vast majority of scholarship share a similar view that collective participation of different stakeholders serves as a prerequisite for ecotourism sustainable development. Local community participation is considered to be an important pillar of ecotourism development as local communities are capable of influencing success or failure of ecotourism development projects. Socio-economic and socio-cultural well-being of local communities are crucial ingredients for maintaining rapport amongst stakeholders and sustaining ecotourism development. Despite being promulgated as a central pillar of ecotourism development, literature reveals that local communities have not been actively participating in planning and decision-making processes regarding ecotourism development. Adoption of Western-centric oriented participation frameworks by numerous state authorities coupled with lacking necessary skills have been identified as the main factors that hinder active participation of local communities in ecotourism development initiatives. It has therefore, been suggested that ecotourism destinations need to adopt and implement participatory approaches that suit their specific contexts and promote bottom-up ecotourism development procedures. Based on its potential for influencing review and amendment of existing tourism-related policies, a local community participation improvement model has been developed. The model is aimed at facilitating inclusive and active participation of all stakeholders in ecotourism development processes.
The Impact of Participative Decision-Making on Organizational Commitment: A Study among Employees of Mobile Telecom Companies in Yemen

Purpose: The study aimed at examining the relationship between participative decision-making and organizational commitment among employees working in mobile telecom companies in Yemen. Approach/Methodology/Design: This study is descriptive-analytical. The study population comprised the employees working at the four mobile telecom companies in Sana'a, Yemen's capital city (Yemen Mobile, Sabafon, MTN and Y-Telecom). One hundred twenty questionnaires were collected and were valid for the data analysis. Different statistical tools, including regression analysis and correlation coefficients, were applied, and data were analyzed using SPSS. Findings: The regression analysis output shows a significant positive relationship between participative decision-making and affective commitment (β = 0.48, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the regression analysis shows a significant positive relationship between participative decision making and continuance commitment (β = 0.59, p < 0.001). In addition, the significance of regression analysis tested using the regression coefficients shows a significant positive relationship between participative decision-making and normative commitment (β = 0.72, p < 0.001). Practical Implications: The study recommends that the companies managers need to motivate and inspire their employees to actively participate in the decision-making process to enhance their level of organizational commitment. Originality/value: The study presents evidence from a new setting where insufficient analysis has been performed to investigate the direct relationship between the variables tested.
A semantic embedding methodology for motor vehicle crash records: A case study of traffic safety in Manhattan Borough of New York City

Abstract This study introduces a hybrid Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to excavate hidden crash patterns from the large-scale crash dataset. External semantic descriptions have been attached to raw GPS coordinates of crash events. The K-means clustering algorithm is first applied to determine land use characteristics of crash points by grouping surrounding Points of Interests (POIs). Then, each crash record is transformed into a formalized label consisting of land use, Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), and time stamps, allowing the analysis of massive traffic crash data as document corpora. Finally, a data-driven modeling approach based on the LDA is conducted to discover hidden crash patterns from traffic crash records combining the external semantic information. The approach is verified using motor vehicle crash data in Manhattan County of New York City. The novel semantic analysis of crash records provides an effective method to investigate the hidden information in traffic crashes. Identifying spatial-temporal patterns on motor vehicle crashes would provide insights into underlying traffic behaviors for intelligent policy-making and resource allocation.
Analysis of the Related Party Transactions in terms of managerial and financial issues for the Kenyan Savings and Credit Cooperatives

Related party transactions are a key factor to the sustainability of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs). In view of this fact, loans to directors and staff are viewed as a factor which can greatly influence savings and credit cooperatives into either falling into financial distress or helping them to remain a float and become financially stable entities. The stakeholder theory holds that entities should be managed a manner that will satisfy every stakeholder. The stewardship theory reiterates that managers have the organisation at heart and can it to profitability as if it were their own. However approval of loans and other transactions to managers and staff, may not positively impact the entity. This study was designed to establish the effect of related party transactions on the relationship between board characteristics and financial distress of deposit taking SACCOs in Nairobi County. We applied Descriptive research design on Deposit taking SACCOs in Nairobi County which was identified purposively while a census was conceded for all deposit taking SACCOs in the county. We obtained secondary data from SASRA using a data collection sheet after which we performed panel data analysis by use of STATA software. Findings were presented using tables. The study concluded that related party transactions influenced the relationship between board characteristics and financial distress of Deposit Taking SACCOs in Nairobi County. Related party transactions can be an avenue of causing financial distress and should be kept as low as possible. The regulator should come up with a tool based on Altman’s Z score models to predict financial distress in SACCOs in order to offer timely advice to alleviate more distress and consequent bankruptcy which may lead to closure of SACCOs. Another research may be carried out to establish other factors causing financial distress and how to turn around the SACCOs already in distress.
A fully-coupled 3D model of a large Greenlandic outlet glacier with evolving subglacial hydrology, frontal plume melting and calving

Abstract We present the first fully coupled 3D full-Stokes model of a tidewater glacier, incorporating ice flow, subglacial hydrology, plume-induced frontal melting and calving. We apply the model to Store Glacier (Sermeq Kujalleq) in west Greenland to simulate a year of high melt (2012) and one of low melt (2017). In terms of modelled hydrology, we find perennial channels extending 5 km inland from the terminus and up to 41 and 29 km inland in summer 2012 and 2017, respectively. We also report a hydrodynamic feedback that suppresses channel growth under thicker ice inland and allows water to be stored in the distributed system. At the terminus, we find hydrodynamic feedbacks exert a major control on calving through their impact on velocity. We show that 2012 marked a year in which Store Glacier developed a fully channelised drainage system, unlike 2017, where it remained only partially developed. This contrast in modelled behaviour indicates that tidewater glaciers can experience a strong hydrological, as well as oceanic, control, which is consistent with observations showing glaciers switching between types of behaviour. The fully coupled nature of the model allows us to demonstrate the likely lack of any hydrological or ice-dynamic memory at Store Glacier.
Better Network Modeling For Link Prediction In Protein-Protein Interaction Networks

Background: Protein-protein interaction (PPI) data is an important type of data used in functional genomics. However, inaccuracies in high-throughput experiments often result in incomplete PPI data. Computational techniques are thus used to infer missing data and to evaluate confidence scores, with link prediction being one such approach that uses the structure of the network of PPIs known so far to find good candidates for missing PPIs. Recently, a new idea called the L3 principle introduced biological motivation into PPI link predictions, yielding predictors that are superior to general-purpose link predictors for complex networks. However, the previously developed L3 principle-based link predictors are only an approximate implementation of the L3 principle. As such, not only is the full potential of the L3 principle not realized, they may even lead to candidate PPIs that otherwise fit the L3 principle being penalized. Result: In this article, we propose a formulation of link predictors without approximation that we call ExactL3 (L3E) by addressing missing elements within L3 predictors in the perspective of network modeling. Through statistical and biological metrics, we show that in general, L3E predictors perform better than the previously proposed methods on seven datasets across two organisms (human and yeast) using a reasonable amount of computation time. In addition to L3E being able to rank the PPIs more accurately, we also found that L3-based predictors, including L3E, predicted a different pool of real PPIs than the general-purpose link predictors. This suggests that different types of PPIs can be predicted based on different topological assumptions and that even better PPI link predictors may be obtained in the future by improved network modeling.
IUCN Red List protects avian genetic diversity

Published in: Ecography DOI: 10.1111/ecog.05895 Publication date: 2021 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document license: CC BY Citation for published version (APA): Canteri, E. , Fordham, D. A. , Li, S. , Hosner, P. A. , Rahbek, C. , & Nogués-Bravo, D. (2021). IUCN Red List protects avian genetic diversity. Ecography, 44(12), 1808-1811. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05895