Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Students as Partners in Redesigning and Delivery of theCurriculum

Student-Staff Partnership (SSP) encapsulates the pedagogy of teaching and learning in various settings through student-staff reciprocal partnership practices in the Higher Education (HE)sector. The application of SSP for successful redesigning and delivery of the curriculum can be traced across various disciplines in a number of pedagogical contexts. This paper narrates a case study of how educators can partner with first year undergraduate students to redesign and deliver an existing module curriculum through co-creation of e-learning materials for teaching and learning. It also exemplifies how readily accessible digital applications can be used in order to develop students’ digital literacy skills and promote inquiry based learning in the process. An action research project was undertaken to assess the benefits of including specific digital applications in the curriculum in order to promote learners’ digital literacy skills. The impact of SSP as an approach for curriculum redesign, delivery and as a facilitator of research and inquiry skills in undergraduate students was also evaluated in the process through the co-creation of e-learning materials. A focus group was conducted to capture participants’ responses and thematic content analysis was undertaken for data analysis. Findings suggests, using digital applications for co-creation of e-learning materials improved learners’ confidence in embracing and using digital applications for learning, communication and dissemination of evidence based information through the process of inquiry and research based learning. Additionally, students found SSP effective as an approach for redesigning the curriculum since it provides a platform to capture students’ expectations of the use of relevant digital applications in the delivery of the curriculum to facilitate learners’ digital literacy skills development processes. Furthermore, through this project a large database of co-created e-learning materials were generated which were integrated into the module for blended learning and future re-purpose in the delivery of the curriculum.
Estimating the Efficiency of Therapy Groups in a College Counseling Center

ABSTRACT College counseling centers are facing rapidly increasing demands for services and are tasked to find efficient ways of providing adequate services while managing limited space. The use of therapy groups has been proposed as a method of managing demand. This brief report examines the clinical time savings of a traditional group therapy program in a college counseling center. The savings were mixed from semester to semester, ranging from 5 individual therapy spots lost to 10 individual therapy spots gained depending on the estimation. Considerations are offered for the use of therapy groups to manage clinical demand based on this report.
O21-6 The effects of occupational pollutants on the respiratory health of female informal street traders in warwick junction, south africa

Background Prolonged exposure to combustion of biomass fuels and other pollutants used in the cooking process has been shown to lead to adverse respiratory outcomes. Combustion of biomass fuels releases a variety of contaminants including particulates carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Informal street trading, particularly informal food preparation, using biomass fuels, is increasing in developing countries. Objectives To compare the respiratory health outcomes among ambient pollutant exposed and non-exposed female informal street traders in Warwick Junction, Durban, South Africa. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 305 female traders selected from exposed and non-exposed areas within the Warwick Junction trading hub. Validated questionnaires, clinical assessments and lung function tests were conducted among all participants. Results Participants were middle aged (mean age 43.6 years), of low socio-economic status and working in the Warwick Junction for average of 14 years. Increased exposure-related risks for key respiratory outcomes were found. Traders in exposed areas showed an increased risk of developing chronic bronchitis (OR = 2.6; CI: 1.5, 4.5) as compared to the non-exposed traders. Decreased lung capacity was observed in exposed traders, FEV1 (−0.2; CI: −0.4, −0.07) and FVC (−0.5; CI: −0.7, −0.3). Traders were also stratified according to trading areas and traders in the traditional herb market were found to have increased risk of developing adverse respiratory outcomes as compared to other trading areas. Conclusion Adverse respiratory outcomes among informal female street traders are likely to be associated with exposure to occupational pollutants, such as biomass fuels, plant extracts and dusty environments.
Drosophila Synaptotagmin 7 negatively regulates synaptic vesicle fusion and replenishment in a dosage-dependent manner

Synchronous neurotransmitter release is triggered by Ca2+ binding to the synaptic vesicle protein Synaptotagmin 1, while asynchronous fusion and short-term facilitation is hypothesized to be mediated by plasma membrane-localized Synaptotagmin 7 (SYT7). We generated mutations in Drosophila Syt7 to determine if it plays a conserved role as the Ca2+ sensor for these processes. Electrophysiology and quantal imaging revealed evoked release was elevated 2-fold. Syt7 mutants also had a larger pool of readily-releasable vesicles, faster recovery following stimulation, and robust facilitation. Syt1/Syt7 double mutants displayed more release than Syt1 mutants alone, indicating SYT7 does not mediate the residual asynchronous release remaining in the absence of SYT1. SYT7 localizes to an internal membrane tubular network within the peri-active zone, but does not enrich at release sites. These findings indicate the two Ca2+ sensor model of SYT1 and SYT7 mediating all phases of neurotransmitter release and facilitation is not applicable at Drosophila synapses.
Clinical profile of patients with pancreatitis

Background: Pancreatitis is an inflammatory process leading to abdominal pain, progressive destruction of the exocrine tissue and in some patients a loss of endocrine tissue as well. However owing to the tremendous reserve of pancreatic function, insufficiency may be at subclinical at least in the beginning of the disease. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted which included the patients admitted with pancreatitis. For all the patients, meticulous records will be maintained regarding clinical features, family history of pancreatitis, alcohol intake, dietary habits, and stigmata of alcoholic liver diseases and by performing various investigations. 200 cases admitted, diagnosed to have pancreatitis. Results: The most common diagnosis was acute pancreatitis (48%) followed by chronic pancreatitis (12%), acute pancreatitis and pseudocyst (12%), acute on chronic pancreatitis (12%), necrotizing pancreatitis (8%) and acute pancreatitis with others (8%). Conclusions: Overall acute pancreatitis constituted 76%, chronic pancreatitis 12% and acute on chronic pancreatitis 12%.
A Block Model of Present‐Day Kinematics of Alaska and Western Canada

We present an updated GPS velocity field for Alaska and western Canada and use it to develop the first regionally comprehensive tectonic block model for the area based on modern geodetic data. The greatest tectonic influences along the southern margin are the translation, collision, and flat slab subduction of the Yakutat block and subduction of the Pacific plate. Northward directed velocities surrounding the Yakutat collisional front are consistent with indenter‐related deformation while southcentral Alaska is undergoing a counterclockwise rotation. Westerly velocities in western Alaska and along the Aleutian forearc suggest that crustal material is escaping into the Bering Sea region. The majority of relative plate motion is taken up along major boundary faults, but right‐lateral strike‐slip faults in interior and western Alaska accommodate part of the motion. Escape tectonics in western Alaska extends as far north as the Kaltag fault. We observe significant motion relative to North America in every part of Alaska, including the North Slope. Evidence of localized right‐lateral shear between the Totschunda and Fairweather faults suggests that strain transfer into interior Alaska has moved away from the eastern Denali‐Chatham Strait system to a more direct corridor. Observed deformation in southcentral Alaska indicates that locked portions of the Yakutat flat slab extend further east and north than previously estimated.
Correlation between Colposcopy, Cytology and Histopathology in High-risk Patients for Cervical Cancer in Perimenopausal Women in Himachal Pradesh, India

Objectives: To determine the correlation between cytology, colposcopy and histopathology, individually and in combination, in high-risk patients for detection of early cancer of the cervix. Materials and methods: A total of 200 high-risk patients in the age groups of 35 to 60 years were included in the study. Pap smear, colposcopy and colposcopically directed biopsies were taken from the suspicious area. Results: Sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of Pap smear are 65.2, 96.3 and 89.3% respectively. Correlation between cytology and colposcopy was 81%, between colposcopy and histopathology was 90.6%, between cytology, colposcopy and histopathology was 90.6% and between cytology, colposcopy and histopathology was 87.3%. Conclusion: Combination of various methods increases the diagnostic accuracy over that of each method separately.
TUTURAN PENDERITA AFASIA BROCA PASCA STROKE

Speech sufferers of post-stroke of broca’s aphasia is the language ability of brain injury sufferers. Brain injury or aphasia in stroke sufferers can be in the form of blocked arteries or ischemic and ruptured blood vessels or called hemorrhagic. In this study, focused on hemorrhagic type post-stroke aphasia sufferers. Post-stroke sufferers experience changes in behavior, one of the changes is a change in language or in this study stated by speech when communicating. The field of study of this research is pragmatics, namely pragmatically describing speech of aphasia sufferers after stroke which includes the ability to state the truth (representative), the ability to rule (directive), the ability to say thank you, praise, complain, blame, and congratulate (expressive), the ability to carry out commands (commissive), and the ability to decide, cancel, prohibit, permit, grant, request an explanation (declarative).
Growth of City Regions and Bank Branch Localization

Current research in regional science focuses on the relationships between production factors and their impact on the overall product of cities, as well as topics dealing with the contribution of different city sizes to the economic growth. However, the ongoing process of international financialization tightly linked to access to finance gains on importance as the financial sector serves as a conduit for capital transformation in space. This article examines the economic growth of Slovak city regions and estimates the effect of access to finance measured by bank branches availability in these regions, once controlling for the standard impact of production factors. We construct non-overlapping three 5-years periods panel for more than 60 Slovak urban regions and combine it with data on bank branches localization on the county level and for major domestic commercial banks. The standard Cobb-Douglas production function is utilized with regional output calculated for firms with more than 20 employees and measures of physical and quantity and quality of human capital as conditioning variables. The characteristics of individual banks with bank branches located inside the city regions are included in order to investigate quality effect of financialization process. In order to control for time-invariant region-specific effect we use fixed effect panel model. Potential endogeneity issue between regional productivity and bank branch localization is addressed by the use of IV-2SLS estimator.
Prescribed Performance Neuroadaptive Fault-Tolerant Compensation for MIMO Nonlinear Systems Under Extreme Actuator Failures

This article investigates the issue of neuroadaptive tracking control for a family of unknown multi-input multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear uncertain systems subject to extreme actuation failures. Different from most existing methods that are built upon partial loss of actuation effectiveness, here, in this article, we explicitly consider the situation that some actuators at some particular channel completely fail to work, an issue that has not been well addressed. By integrating the neural network approximation technique with two error transformations, a neuroadaptive fault-tolerant control strategy is developed with two attractive features: 1) it is capable of coping with the scenario that some of the actuators suffer from extreme actuation faults without the need for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD)/fault detection and isolation (FDI) or actuator switching and 2) the tracking error is forced to converge to a prescribed residual (symmetric or asymmetric) boundary at a preassignable decay mode within a prechosen finite settling time despite actuator failures and external disturbances. Numerical simulation studies confirm the effectiveness and benefits of the presented control approach.
In-service initial teacher training in post-compulsory education : A phenomenographical investigation into the influence of initial training on professional practice

This thesis investigates the perceptions of former Initial Teacher Training (ITT) trainees in the post-compulsory sector, in an attempt to identify how their ITT influenced their practice as teachers within the sector. It analyses the perceptions of former trainees, gleaned through 21 semi-structured interviews and 35 completed questionnaires; together with semi-structured interviews of 5 managers of teaching staff from the sector, who employ university-led ITT for the development of their staff. The research employed a phenomenographical approach, in that it considered the perspectives and interpretations of the respondents to be wholly paramount. The study has found that initial teacher training in the post-compulsory sector produces teachers who experience perceptions of enhancement in three key ways. The first is that they are more connected with the sector, connected with their institutions and connected with the realities of teaching following their teacher education. The second is that they have a greater sense of self, together with a greater sense of professionalism, and carry more practical and pedagogical skills into the workplace following their teacher education. The third relates to their commitment to continuing professional development, and their ability to identify opportunities and necessities for their own development. The contribution to knowledge involves the creation of a middle range theory of the influence of initial teacher training on professional practice, developed from the three factors alluded to above, and postulated in the form of a model of conceptions demonstrating the influence of post-compulsory teacher training on its trainees. Additionally, it also makes recommendations to policy makers in ITT, including that the current emphasis on subject specialist teaching is reconsidered and clarified; and that the current government’s removal of compulsory completion of ITT for teachers in the sector is dissonant with the concepts of professionalism existing in both academic literature, and the perceptions of the participants in this study.
Realizing an Anticipation: Anticipated Support and Received Support from Children in China

It seems that elderly parents in China receive less support from their adult children than before. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining whether anticipated support from children can be realized in the future. Results from the 2013 and 2015 CHARLS find that although not all elderly parents can receive their anticipated support, the anticipation has a positive effect on their psychological well-being in terms of life satisfaction. Moreover, elderly parents who are co-resident with their children, receiving monetary support from children, and frequently meeting their non-co-resident children are more likely to realize their anticipation.
Engineering behaviour of MICP treated marine clays

Abstract In the present scenario, with much focus on sustainable development worldwide, Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) is a promising biological soil improvement technology. However, only very limited research is reported on the effectiveness of this technique in marine clays. This paper presents the salient features of an experimental study conducted on two typical marine clays stabilised by MICP. Effectiveness of the technique was evaluated through a series of one-dimensional consolidation tests, unconfined compression tests, and index property determinations. It is found that biostimulation approach is not effective in marine clay; bio-augmentation is needed for soil improvement. Bio-augmentation results in the reduction of liquid limit and plasticity index to about 29% and 47%, respectively for the marine clays. A comparable improvement in volume change behaviour is also observed. There is a marked increase in undrained shear strength, upto about 148%, of MICP treated marine clays at toughness limit water content. Curing is also found to have a significant role in soil improvement. The observed transition in the nature of the tested marine clays from that of fat clay to elastic silt suggests the potential of the proposed approach. An empirical equation is also proposed to predict compression index of MICP treated marine clays.
Microwave sintering of ceramic reinforced metal matrix composites and their properties: a review

ABSTRACT By developing the applications of metal matrix composites (MMCs), employing more efficient fabrication methods seems necessary. Within the two last decades, microwave (MW) sintering was introduced as a competitive nomination for sintering metal composites. This method leads to homogenous rapid heating which warms up the compacted powders volumetrically. Therefore, time and energy will be saved in a great deal compared with conventional methods; additionally, superior properties will be obtained. In this paper the principals of MW heating have been discussed initially and compared with the conventional sintering method; thereafter, the physical and mechanical properties of MW sintered MMCs reinforced by ceramic particles have been studied in three main categories of lightweight, superhard, and other metal matrices. According to the results, almost in all cases, MW sintered products revealed better mechanical properties than conventional, hot pressed, and vacuum sintered samples. In addition, several novel research studies showed MW processing of MMCs could be carried out to construct biomedical and electronic parts. Furthermore, it seems the future of composite materials industries will be influenced by MW heating remarkably.
A Note on the Relationship of the Shannon Entropy Procedure and the Jensen–Shannon Divergence in Cognitive Diagnostic Computerized Adaptive Testing

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the Shannon entropy procedure and the Jensen–Shannon divergence (JSD) that are used as item selection criteria in cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT). Because the JSD itself is defined by the Shannon entropy, we apply the well-known relationship between the JSD and Shannon entropy to establish a relationship between the item selection criteria that are based on these two measures. To understand the relationship between these two item selection criteria better, an alternative way is also provided. Theoretical derivations and empirical examples have shown that the Shannon entropy procedure and the JSD in CD-CAT have a linear relation under cognitive diagnostic models. Consistent with our theoretical conclusions, simulation results have shown that two item selection criteria behaved quite similarly in terms of attribute-level and pattern recovery rates under all conditions and they selected the same set of items for each examinee from an item bank with item parameters drawn from a uniform distribution U(0.1, 0.3) under post hoc simulations. We provide some suggestions for future studies and a discussion of relationship between the modified posterior-weighted Kullback–Leibler index and the G-DINA (generalized deterministic inputs, noisy “and” gate) discrimination index.
ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF ROBUSTA COFFEE (COFFEA CANEPHORA L.) LEAVES TO STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS AND ESCHERICHIA COLI

Objective: This research aims to analyze the ability of robusta coffee leaves fraction extract to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli and also determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Methods: Antibacterial activity evaluated by the disc diffusion method observed in four types of fraction of extract robusta coffee leaves (n-hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol, and water). Each extract divided into three various concentrations, 5%, 10%, and 15%. Determination of antimicrobial activity in vitro by the disk diffusion method. Results: Ethyl acetate fraction of coffee leaves extract produced the largest diameter zone of inhibition of bacterial growth compared to other extraction fractions of 17.28 mm in E. coli and 18.58 mm in S. aureus. The MIC of coffee leaves extract fraction water, ethyl acetate, and n-hexane on E. coli and S. aureus is 5%, while the fraction ethanol MIC is 10%. Conclusion: The antibacterial effect of ethyl acetate fraction of coffee leaves extract showed an antibacterial effect that was better than the fraction of n-hexane, ethanol, and water.
Unified SVPWM Algorithm and Optimization for Single-Phase Three-Level NPC Converters

The high-order harmonics caused by the modulation strategy can deteriorate power quality. The harmonic characteristics of the carrier-based pulsewidth modulation are relatively fixed and difficult to optimize, while space vector pulsewidth modulation (SVPWM) has more flexibility. The unified SVPWM design method for single-phase three-level neutral-point clamped (NPC) converters is fully presented in this article. Based on the proposed unified SVPWM method, two existing traditional vector sequences are designed first, and then several advanced multisegment SVPWM algorithms are proposed. According to the particularity of the three-level NPC topology, two hybrid SVPWM algorithms are proposed to optimize harmonic performance. Moreover, the high-order harmonic characteristics and the number of switching actions are analyzed in detail for all SVPWM algorithm modes. In addition, these SVPWM algorithms are associated and unified by introducing weight coefficients of the redundant vectors. Simulation and experimental results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed SVPWM algorithms, which show that the proposed methods can optimize high-order harmonic distribution and reduce the line current harmonics.