Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subtle racism amongst undergraduate learners after a decade of democracy

The concept of “race” has been the organising feature of South African society for more than three centuries. More recent social changes in the United States of America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa have lead to more subtle expressions of racism. The present study aimed to explore and describe subtle racism amongst undergraduate psychology learners at a tertiary institution in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in 2004. The Subtle Racism Scale was used to measure anti-Black sentiment among a sample of 286 undergraduate psychology learners, obtained through non–probability, convenience sampling. Multiple regression analysis revealed the independent variables of race, age, and the race-age interaction were significantly associated with subtle racism of the participants. Research results demonstrated that participants’ level of estimated subtle racism varied according to the age and race of the participants, supporting the notion that racism in South Africa did not influence different age and race groups in a uniform manner.
Epidemiologic profile and clinical characteristics of ulcerative colitis in northwest of Iran: a 10-year review.

BACKGROUND AND AIM There are few reports from Iran about the epidemiology and clinical features of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this study, we aimed to determine the epidemiologic profile and clinical features of ulcerative colitis (UC) in Northwest of Iran. METHODS This retrospective study covered the time period from 1998 to 2008 and included all patients of a private gasteroenterology clinic in the northwest of Iran, who had diagnosis of UC at the time of presentation or those whose diagnosis had been made later. In addition to description of epidemiology and clinical feature of disease, an attempt was made to identify factors associated with severity of disease. RESULTS A total of 105 patients including 61 females (58.1%) were evaluated. Mean age of the patients was 33.5 +/- 13.1 years. The median time interval from initiation of symptoms to diagnosis was 9 months. The commonest presentation was proctosigmoiditis. (48.6%). Among extra-intestinal manifestations, sclerosing cholangitis had the highest frequency and was found in 2 (1.9%) patients. Among all evaluated variables, only family income (the higher the income the more severe the disease) and cigarette smoking (inverse association) were find to have significant association with severity of disease. CONCLUSION A case profile of patients with ulcerative colitis from Northwest Iran suggests that the disease is seen most commonly in the third decade of life with a female preponderance. Family income and smoking influenced the course of ulcerative colitis in Iranian patients.
Maintaining the Value of a Midwestern Community College in Kansas from External Stakeholders’ Perspectives and Recommendations

In 2002, the Higher Learning Commission, a regional accrediting agency in the US, placed the community college in this study on academic probation for several criteria and many residents of the community believed that closing doors was the best option for addressing these concerns. This study is designed to ascertain data from external stakeholders of the community college regarding their current perceived value of the community college and suggestions about moving from the present to the future. The main question of the study is: What are external stakeholders’ perceptions of the value of the college to the service area? This qualitative approach is used consisting of interviews, focus groups, surveys, and document review to triangulate stakeholder perspectives. Participants included 176 high school seniors from different counties, four counselors, and four focus groups. The findings from the data are presented in this study are planned to be used by community college officials to incorporate into their strategic plans. They showed that the college needs to consider the value that it brings to the service area including economic benefits, specifically community support; accessibility; and cost of tuition.
Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages

A learner’s linguistic input is more variable if it comes from a greater number of speakers. Higher speaker input variability has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of phonemic boundaries, since data drawn from multiple speakers provides more information about the distribution of phonemes in a speech community. It has also been proposed that speaker input variability may have a systematic influence on individual-level learning of morphology, which can in turn influence the group-level characteristics of a language. Languages spoken by larger groups of people have less complex morphology than those spoken in smaller communities. While a mechanism by which the number of speakers could have such an effect is yet to be convincingly identified, differences in speaker input variability, which is thought to be larger in larger groups, may provide an explanation. By hindering the acquisition, and hence faithful cross-generational transfer, of complex morphology, higher speaker input variability may result in structural simplification. We assess this claim in two experiments which investigate the effect of such variability on language learning, considering its influence on a learner’s ability to segment a continuous speech stream and acquire a morphologically complex miniature language. We ultimately find no evidence to support the proposal that speaker input variability influences language learning and so cannot support the hypothesis that it explains how population size determines the structural properties of language.
Peer Influence on Payout Policies

Using a large sample of US public companies, we find robust evidence that firms' payout policies, i.e., dividends and share repurchases, are significantly influenced by the policies of their industry peers. To overcome endogeneity problems, we employ instrumental variable techniques based on peers' stock price shocks. Peer influence on payouts is more pronounced among firms that face greater product market competition and operate in better information environments. With regards to dividends, firms, especially smaller and younger firms, are more sensitive to industry peers that are similar to them in size and age. However, mimicking repurchases is concentrated among large and mature firms only. Peer influence on dividends, compared to repurchases, seems more stable across firm and industry conditions. Overall, peer influence on dividends, and, to a less extent, on repurchases, is consistent with a rivalry-based theory of imitation, which posits that firms imitate peers' actions to maintain their competitive parity.
Component-based modelling of EV battery chargers

This paper reviews typical circuit topologies and control algorithms for on-board unidirectional single-phase electric vehicle battery chargers (EVBCs) and provides simple yet reasonably accurate component-based models for their representation for power system analysis. The accuracy of the developed models is validated against measurements of actual EVBCs, for both ideal voltage supply conditions and typically distorted voltage supply waveforms. The paper also provides exponential and polynomial EVBC model interpretations, as well as some discussion of the further use of the presented models for the analysis of existing networks and future smart grids with high penetration levels of EVBCs.
Selecting among three basic fitness landscape models: additive, multiplicative and stickbreaking

Fitness landscapes map genotypes to organismal fitness. Their topography depends on how mutational effects interact–epistasis–and is important for understanding evolutionary processes such as speciation, the rate of adaptation, the advantage of recombination, and predictability versus stochasticity of evolution. The growing amount of empirical data has made it possible to better test landscape models empirically. We argue that this endeavor will benefit from the development and use of meaningful null models against which to compare more complex models. Here we develop statistical and computational methods for fitting fitness data from mutation combinatorial networks to three simple models: additive, multiplicative and stickbreaking. We employ a Bayesian framework for doing model selection. Using simulations, we demonstrate that our methods work and we explore their statistical performance: bias, error, and the power to discriminate among models. We then illustrate our approach and its flexibility by analyzing several previously published datasets. An R-package that implements our methods is available in the CRAN repository under the name Stickbreaker.
EFFECT OF NICARDIPINE TREATMENT ON THE EXPRESSION OF NEUROFILAMENT 200 KDa IMMUNOREACTIVITY IN THE BRAIN OF SPONTANEOUSLY HYPERTENSIVE RATS

Neurofilaments (NFP) are components of neuronal cytoskeleton involved primarily in axonal transport and in the regulation of dynamic activities of nerve cells. NFP consist of three subunits denominated high- (200 kDa, NFP–H), intermediate- (160 kDa, NFP-I), and low-molecular weight (68 kDa, NFP–L) neurofilament proteins. Their function and polymerization depends on phosphorylation status, and is regulated by Ca2+ influx. Ca2+ overload enhances degradation of NFP and may compromise axonal transport. An increased susceptibility to ischemia occurs in hypertension, which is also a cause of brain damage. In this study, the expression of phosphorylated NFP (P–NFP) was investigated in the brain of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) using immunohistochemical techniques with antibodies against the phosphorylated epitope of NFP RT–97. Microanatomical analysis included frontal cortex, occipital cortex, hippocampus and cerebellar cortex. The effect of long-term treatment with the dihydropyridine-type Ca2+ antagonist nicardipine on the expression of P–NFP was investigated as well. In hypertension a decreased P–NFP immunoreactivity was observed in frontal and occipital cortex, in the CA1 subfield of hippocampus and in the dentate gyrus, but not in the CA3 subfield of hippocampus or in the cerebellar cortex. Treatment with a daily dose of 3 mg/kg of nicardipine and 10 mg/kg of hydralazine significantly reduced systolic pressure in SHR. The above dose of nicardipine and to a lesser extent a non-hypotensive dose of the compound (0.1 mg/kg/day), but not hydralazine, increased P–NFP immunoreactivity in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, except the CA3 subfield. The possibility that rescued P–NFP immunoreactivity by treatment with nicardipine depends on improved brain perfusion caused by the compound and/or by countering neuronal Ca2+ overload is discussed.
Global Precedence, Spatial Frequency Channels, and the Statistics of Natural Images

A great deal of evidence suggests that early in processing, retinal images are filtered by parallel, spatial frequency selective channels. We attempt to incorporate this view of early vision with the principle of global precedence, which holds that Gestalt-like processes sensitive to global image configurations tend to dominate local feature processing in human pattern perception. Global precedence is inferred from the pattern of reaction times observed when visual patterns contain multiple cues at different levels of spatial scale. Specifically, it is frequently observed that global processing times are largely unaffected by conflicting local cues, but local processing times are substantially lengthened by conflicting global cues. The asymmetry of these effects suggests the dominant role of global configurations. Since global spatial information is effectively represented by low spatial frequencies, global precedence potentially implies a low frequency dominance. The thesis is that low spatial frequencies tend to be available before information carried by higher frequency bands, producing a coarse-to-fine temporal order in visual spatial perception. It is suggested that a variety of factors contribute to the prior entry of low frequency information, including the high contrast gain of the magnocellular pathway, the amplitude spectra typical of natural images, and inhibitory interactions between the parallel frequency-tuned channels. Evidence suggesting a close relationship between global precedence and spatial frequency channels is provided by observations that the essential features of the global precedence effect are obtained using patterns consisting of low and high frequency sinusoids. The hypothesis that these asymmetric interference effects are due to interactions between parallel spatial channels is supported by an analysis of reaction times (RTs), which shows that RTs to redundant low and high frequency cues produce less facilitation than predictions that assume the channels are independent. In view of previous work showing that global precedence depends upon the low frequency content of the stimuli, we suggest that low spatial frequencies represent the sine qua non for the dominance of configurational cues in human pattern perception, and that this configurational dominance reflects the microgenesis of visual pattern perception. This general view of the temporal dynamics of visual pattern recognition is discussed, is considered from an evolutionary perspective, and is related to certain statistical regularities in natural scenes. Potential adaptive advantages of an interactive parallel architecture that confers an initial processing advantage to low resolution information are explored.
Distributed Gaussian mixture model for monitoring multimode plant-wide process

For large-scale plant-wide processes with multiple operating conditions, a distributed Gaussian mixture modeling and monitoring mechanism is proposed. To overcome the deficient prior modeling knowledge for complex process, a two-dimensional probabilistic topic model based technique named Bayesian co-clustering method is developed to simultaneously conduct the sub-block division and operating mode recognition. With the obtained sub-blocks and operating modes, a global Gaussian mixture model is first built and then several local Gaussian mixture models are extracted and applied for distributed monitoring of plant-wide processes. By conducting distributed modeling and monitoring, both global and local process changes can be reflected and the fault region can be localized more easily for further analyses. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through the Tennessee Eastman benchmark process.
Mutator activity induced by microRNA-155 (miR-155) links inflammation and cancer

Infection-driven inflammation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ~15–20% of human tumors. Expression of microRNA-155 (miR-155) is elevated during innate immune response and autoimmune disorders as well as in various malignancies. However, the molecular mechanisms providing miR-155 with its oncogenic properties remain unclear. We examined the effects of miR-155 overexpression and proinflammatory environment on the frequency of spontaneous hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) mutations that can be detected based on the resistance to 6-thioguanine. Both miR-155 overexpression and inflammatory environment increased the frequency of HPRT mutations and down-regulated WEE1 (WEE1 homolog-S. pombe), a kinase that blocks cell-cycle progression. The increased frequency of HPRT mutation was only modestly attributable to defects in mismatch repair machinery. This result suggests that miR-155 enhances the mutation rate by simultaneously targeting different genes that suppress mutations and decreasing the efficiency of DNA safeguard mechanisms by targeting of cell-cycle regulators such as WEE1. By simultaneously targeting tumor suppressor genes and inducing a mutator phenotype, miR-155 may allow the selection of gene alterations required for tumor development and progression. Hence, we anticipate that the development of drugs reducing endogenous miR-155 levels might be key in the treatment of inflammation-related cancers.
Game Theoretic Analyses of the United States-Canada Softwood Lumber Trade

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Induction of M2 Regulatory Macrophages through the β2-Adrenergic Receptor with Protection during Endotoxemia and Acute Lung Injury

The main drivers of acute inflammation are macrophages, which are known to have receptors for catecholamines. Based on their function, macrophages are broadly categorized as having either M1 (proinflammatory) or M2 phenotypes (anti-inflammatory). In this study, we investigated catecholamine-induced alterations in the phenotype of activated macrophages. In the presence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), mouse peritoneal macrophages acquired an M1 phenotype. However, the copresence of LPS and either epinephrine or norepinephrine resulted in a strong M2 phenotype including high levels of arginase-1 and interleukin-10, and a reduced expression of M1 markers. Furthermore, epinephrine enhanced macrophage phagocytosis and promoted type 2 T-cell responses in vitro, which are known features of M2 macrophages. Analysis of M2 subtype-specific markers indicated that LPS and catecholamine-cotreated macrophages were not alternatively activated but were rather of the regulatory macrophage subtype. Interestingly, catecholamines signaled through the β2-adrenergic receptor but not the canonical cAMP/protein kinase A signaling pathway. Instead, the M2 pathway required an intact phosphoinositol 3-kinase pathway. Blockade of the β2-adrenergic receptor reduced survival and enhanced injury in mouse models of endotoxemia and LPS-induced acute lung injury, respectively. These results demonstrate a role for the β2-adrenergic receptor in promoting the M2 macrophage phenotype.
A clinical score predicting a brief and uneventful course of newly diagnosed idiopathic trombocytopenic purpura in children

The Nordic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura study data showed that morbidity occurred mainly in children with thrombocytopenia lasting >3 months, whereas, the risk period with platelet counts <20 × 109/l was short and the number of bleeding events low in children with shorter disease duration. These brief, uneventful courses were predicted by developing a scoring system based on six clinical features: abrupt onset (weight 5), age <10 years (3), preceding infection (2), platelet count <5 × 109/l, wet purpura (1) and male gender (1). The score was derived and validated in two different cohorts of children. High scores (10–14) clearly identified low‐risk patients. The score provides valid prognostic information and may be useful in clinical decision‐making.
Value at Risk Method for Asset Management of Power Transmission Systems

The value at risk (VaR) is a popular method in financial world. VaR measures the worst expected loss over a given horizon under normal market conditions at a given confidence level. This procedure summarizes objectively the exposure to market risk and the probability of adverse move. So VaR measurement can be applied as benchmark of different portfolio, as control instrument for asset owners and as regulation instrument for asset management. The simplicity and objectivity of VaR concludes to the idea, to apply this method for power systems risk management. Basing on the simple example concerning transmission network, a VaR derivation model for power transmission and distribution systems is presented. The discussion concerning advantages of this model in relationship to the conventional reliability methods is closing the paper.
Juvenile amphibians do not avoid potentially lethal levels of urea on soil substrate

We examined the effects of a forest fertilizer (urea) on newly metamorphosed terrestrial amphibians (Western toads, Bufo boreas; Cascades frogs, Rana cascadae; long‐toed salamanders, Ambystoma macrodactylum; and roughskin newts, Taricha granulosa). We examined avoidance behavior of Western toads and Cascades frogs on both paper towel and soil substrates dosed with urea (control and 100 kg N/ha and an additional treatment of 50 kg N/ha for Western toads on soil substrate) and avoidance behavior of long‐toed salamanders on soil substrate dosed with urea. We further examined the survival and feeding behavior of all four species exposed to urea on soil substrate (100 kg N/ha) for 5 d. Juvenile Western toads and Cascades frogs avoided paper towels dosed with urea but did not avoid urea‐dosed soil substrate. However, Western toads and Cascades frogs both suffered significant mortality when exposed to urea on a soil substrate for 5 d. Furthermore, after adjusting for weight, we found that urea‐exposed juvenile Western toads and Cascades frogs consumed significantly fewer prey items (crickets) compared with nonexposed control animals. Long‐toed salamanders did not discriminate against soil substrate dosed with urea, and neither long‐toed salamanders nor roughskin newts died or reduced prey consumption as a result of urea exposure. Juvenile amphibians may not be able to detect and avoid harmful levels of urea fertilizer on a natural substrate. Furthermore, anthropogenic stressors such as urea fertilizer can significantly reduce the survival and prey consumption of juvenile amphibians. These effects are important to consider in light of possible threats to the conservation status of many amphibian species.
Aspects regarding solar battery charge controllers

Recent concerns about environmental issues led to global energy policies oriented to new energy sources less polluting and cheaper. Energy produced by photovoltaic technology is clean and renewable. The actual problem is that currently the price of photovoltaic systems is relatively high. Research in this field is now focused on improving the efficiency of electricity production using photovoltaic technology. For this each component of a photovoltaic system must enroll on this course. Solar battery chargers are an important component of photovoltaic systems that could bring significant efficiency improvements through technology. The paper proposes a study on the types of solar battery chargers from the simplest to the most cutting edge technology, chargers searching for the MPP (maximum power point). An MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) charger plays an important role in photovoltaic systems because it maximizes the power output of the photovoltaic panel array for different levels of irradiation and panel temperature leading to more energy harvested.
A 60-GHz push-push InGaP HBT VCO with dynamic frequency divider

We present a 60-GHz push-push voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with dynamic frequency divider, which is implemented in an InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor technology. A common-base inductive feedback topology is used in the push-push VCO, which generates a pair of 30GHz differential outputs and a single-ended 60GHz push-push output. The 30GHz differential outputs are followed by the proposed dynamic frequency divider. The proposed dynamic frequency divider incorporates active loads with inductive peaking to achieve the higher bandwidth. The maximum operating frequency of the divider was found to be much higher than f/sub T//2 of transistor. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating the extended bandwidth performance of the dynamic frequency divider with active loads and inductive peaking.