Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MAORI EDUCATION POLICY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Political Rationality & Government Mechanisms

This thesis explores the contemporary political rationality and government mechanisms that develop and impact upon educational policy for Maori. In engaging in a critique of political ideology and operational exposition, this thesis examines and discloses the mechanisms and rationalities of government in New Zealand through state policy theory, gender, race and ethnic writings, critical theory and theories of difference. Of significance to this work is the incorporation of Kaupapa Maori theory, which provides a traditional and contemporary insight into Maori views and praxis of emancipation. In realising the central interest and concern of Maori for real and effective intervention to address the crisis of schooling for Maori, analysis in this thesis examines the historical nature of Maori educational policy and critiques the contemporary educational political frameworks of the New Zealand Labour government. Furthermore, this research also examines government officials perspectives in discussing the primary contemporary political mechanisms and rationalities that operate in controlling and developing educational policy for Maori. It is argued, that although these contemporary policy frameworks, rationalities and mechanisms may appear to be vastly different from historical colonisation and assimilation practices, they are informed by the same underlying structures and are intersected by similar tendencies and movements. In disclosing the perpetuating ethos of state Pakeha dominant interests and the absence of structural and cultural reform from within political educational policy development for Maori, this thesis argues that state initiatives in the new millennium, under the guise of transformation, commitment and hope still remain ineffective and oppressive for Maori.
Semantic big data for tax assessment

Semantic Big Data is about the creation of new applications exploiting the richness and flexibility of declarative semantics combined with scalable and highly distributed data management systems. In this work, we present an application scenario in which a domain ontology, Open Refine and the Okkam Entity Name System enable a frictionless and scalable data integration process leading to a knowledge base for tax assessment. Further, we introduce the concept of Entiton as a flexible and efficient data model suitable for large scale data inference and analytic tasks. We successfully tested our data processing pipeline on a real world dataset, supporting ACI Informatica in the investigation for Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) evasion in Aosta Valley region (Italy). Besides useful business intelligence indicators, we implemented a distributed temporal inference engine to unveil VED evasion and circulation ban violations. The results of the integration are presented to the tax agents in a powerful Siren Solution KiBi dashboard, enabling seamless data exploration and business intelligence.
Ftm - Complex Data Structures for Max

This article presents FTM, a shared library and a set of modules extending the Max/MSP environment. It also gives a brief description of additional sets of modules based upon FTM. The article particularly addresses the community of researchers and musicians familiar with Max or Max-like programming environments such as Pure Data. FTM extends the signal and message data flow paradigm of Max permitting the representation and processing of complex data structures such as matrices, sequences or dictionaries as well as tuples, MIDI events or score elements (notes, silences, trills etc.). The consequent integration of references to complex data structures in the Max/MSP data flow opens new possibilities to the user in terms of powerful and efficient data representations and modularization of applications. FTM is the basis of several sets of modules for Max/MSP specialized on score following, sound analysis/re-synthesis, statistical modeling and data bank access. Designed for particular applications in automatic accompaniment, advanced sound processing and gestural analysis, the libraries use a common set of basic FTM data structures. They are perfectly interoperable while smoothly integrating into the modular programming paradigm of the host environment Max/MSP.
Massive Quenched Galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 Retain Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs

The physical mechanisms that quench star formation, turning blue star-forming galaxies into red quiescent galaxies, remain unclear. In this Letter, we investigate the role of gas supply in suppressing star formation by studying the molecular gas content of post-starburst galaxies. Leveraging the wide area of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we identify a sample of massive intermediate-redshift galaxies that have just ended their primary epoch of star formation. We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array CO(2-1) observations of two of these post-starburst galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 with . Their molecular gas reservoirs of and are an order of magnitude larger than comparable-mass galaxies in the local universe. Our observations suggest that quenching does not require the total removal or depletion of molecular gas, as many quenching models suggest. However, further observations are required both to determine if these apparently quiescent objects host highly obscured star formation and to investigate the intrinsic variation in the molecular gas properties of post-starburst galaxies.
Subtleties of Run-Time Virtual Address Stacks

The run-time virtual address (VA) stack has some unique properties, which have garnered the attention of researchers. The stack one-dimensionally grows and shrinks at its top, and contains data that is seemingly local/private to one thread, or process. Most prior related research has focused on these properties. However, this article aims to demonstrate how conventional wisdom pertaining to the run-time VA stack fails to capture some critical subtleties and complexities. We first explore two widely established assumptions surrounding the VA stack area: (1) Data accesses can be classified as falling either under VA-stack-area accesses, or non-stack-area accesses, with no aliasing; (2) The VA stack data is completely private and invisible to other threads/processes. Subsequently, we summarize a representative selection of related work that pursued the micro-architectural concept of using run-time VA stacks to extend the general-purpose register file. We then demonstrate why these assumptions are invalid, by using examples from prior work to highlight the potential hazards regarding data consistency, shared memory consistency, and cache coherence. Finally, we suggest safeguards against these hazards. Overall, we explore the function-critical issues that future operating systems and compilers should address to effectively reap all the benefits of using run-time VA stacks.
Dehydroascorbic Acid Attenuates Ischemic Brain Edema and Neurotoxicity in Cerebral Ischemia: An in vivo Study

Ischemic stroke results in the diverse phathophysiologies including blood brain barrier (BBB) disruption, brain edema, neuronal cell death, and synaptic loss in brain. Vitamin C has known as the potent anti-oxidant having multiple functions in various organs, as well as in brain. Dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) as the oxidized form of ascorbic acid (AA) acts as a cellular protector against oxidative stress and easily enters into the brain compared to AA. To determine the role of DHA on edema formation, neuronal cell death, and synaptic dysfunction following cerebral ischemia, we investigated the infarct size of ischemic brain tissue and measured the expression of aquaporin 1 (AQP-1) as the water channel protein. We also examined the expression of claudin 5 for confirming the BBB breakdown, and the expression of bcl 2 associated X protein (Bax), caspase-3, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) for checking the effect of DHA on the neurotoxicity. Finally, we examined postsynaptic density protein-95 (PSD-95) expression to confirm the effect of DHA on synaptic dysfunction following ischemic stroke. Based on our findings, we propose that DHA might alleviate the pathogenesis of ischemic brain injury by attenuating edema, neuronal loss, and by improving synaptic connection.
Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease as a Risk Factor of Arterial Stiffness Measured by the Cardioankle Vascular Index

AbstractNonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The cardioankle vascular index (CAVI), a new measure of arterial stiffness, was recently developed and is independent of blood pressure. We investigated whether NAFLD is associated with arterial stiffness as measured using the CAVI in an apparently healthy population.A total of 2954 subjects without any known liver diseases were enrolled. NAFLD was diagnosed via typical ultrasonography. The clinical characteristics examined included age, sex, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and the levels of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol triglycerides, and glucose. Arterial stiffness was defined using an age- and sex-specific threshold of the upper quartile of the CAVI.NAFLD was found in 1249 (42.3%) of the analyzed subjects. Using an age-, sex-, and BMI-adjusted model, NAFLD was associated with a 42% increase in the risk for arterial stiffness (highest quartile of the CAVI). The risk for arterial stiffness increased according to the severity of NAFLD (adjusted odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 1.27 [1.02 − 1.57] vs 1.78 [1.37 − 2.31], mild vs moderate-to-severe, respectively). When adjusted for other risk factors, including BMI, WC, smoking status, diabetes, and hypertension, these relationships remained statistically significant.Patients with NAFLD are at a high risk for arterial stiffness regardless of classical risk factors. The presence of cardiometabolic risk factors may attenuate the prediction of arterial stiffness by means of NAFLD presence. Thus, physicians should carefully assess subjects with NAFLD for atherosclerosis and associated comorbidities.
Exploring Nurses’ Intention to Use a Computerized Platform in the Resuscitation Unit: Development and Validation of a Questionnaire Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

Background In emergency department resuscitation units, writing down information related to interventions, physical examination, vital signs, investigations, and treatments ordered is a crucial task carried out by nurses. To facilitate this task, a team composed of emergency physicians, nurses, and one computer engineer created a novel electronic platform equipped with a tactile screen that allows systematic collection of critical data. This electronic platform also has medical software (ReaScribe+) that functions as an electronic medical record and a clinical decision support system. Objective To develop and validate a questionnaire that can help evaluate nurses’ intention to use a novel computerized platform in an emergency department resuscitation unit, based on Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB). Methods The sample for this study was composed of 87 nurses who worked in the resuscitation unit of a tertiary trauma center. We held three focus groups with nurses working in the resuscitation unit to identify the salient modal beliefs regarding their intended use of a new electronic medical charting system for the care of trauma patients. The system included a clinical decision support tool. We developed a questionnaire in which salient modal beliefs were used as items to evaluate the TPB constructs. We also added 13 questions to evaluate nurses’ computer literacy. The final questionnaire was composed of 46 questions to be answered on a 7-point Likert scale. All nurses in the resuscitation unit and present during a regular work shift were individually contacted by the principal investigator or a research assistant (phase 1). A subsample of the nurses who completed the questionnaire was invited to complete it a second time 2 weeks later (phase 2). Results In phase 1, we received 62 of the 70 questionnaires administered (89% response rate). Of the 27 questionnaires administered in phase 2 (retest phase), 25 were completed (93% response rate). The questionnaire showed very good internal consistency, as Cronbach alpha was higher than . 7 for all constructs. Temporal stability was acceptable with intraclass correlations between . 41 and . 66. The intention to use the electronic platform to chart the resuscitation of trauma patients was very high among the respondents. In the logistic regression model, the only construct that predicted nurses’ intention to adopt the computerized platform was the professional norm (odds ratio 3.31, 95% confidence interval 1.41–7.78). Conclusions We developed and validated a questionnaire that can now be used in other emergency departments prior to implementation of the computerized platform. The intention to adopt was very high among the respondents, which suggests that the implementation of this innovation could be successful at our institution.
Secure pseudonym-based near field communication protocol for the consumer internet of things

Near Field Communication (NFC) has been used for short range communications in a number of applications for consumer electronics devices. Specifically, NFC has been used in electronic payment systems. To ensure secure communications, security protocols for various NFC applications have been proposed. Recently, a conditional privacy preserving security protocol was introduced. However this paper demonstrates that the protocol is vulnerable to two impersonations attacks and then proposes a new secure pseudonym-based NFC protocol that eliminates vulnerabilities of the previous security protocol. Security and performance analysis results confirm that the proposed protocol could solve security problems of the previously introduced NFC security protocol with a marginal computational cost increase1.
Monitoring Processes in Analytic and Summary Writing

This study examines the monitoring strategies eleventh-grade students employ in analytic and summary writing. Ten high and ten average ability writers each took part in two composing-aloud sessions, writing one analytic, thesis/support essay and one chronological summary essay based upon their reading of history passages. Students' composing-aloud protocols were broken down into individual communication units, which were examined for the kinds of monitoring, self-regulatory behaviors students engaged in to guide themselves through the composing process. The study analyzed students' monitoring at different points in the composing process and for the process as a whole. Multivariate analysis of variance procedures were used to study results of the protocol analyses. The study found that, while writing analyses, students devoted considerable attention to figuring out the demands of the writing task, to examining their own understanding of the topic and its significance, and to assessing the effectiveness of their own writing strategies. However, while writing summaries, students did far less monitoring of their composing processes and reflecting about their subject matter, spending most of their time mainly paraphrasing the readings. Results suggest that both high and average ability student writers employ a wide range of metacognitive strategies in writing, and that students vary those strategies both across writing tasks and at different points within the writing process.
Sliding Mode Variable Structure Control of Networked Control System

A novel method for the stabilization of a class of networked control system (NCS) with communication delays has been presented. By constructing a sliding manifold that can compensates delay, a sliding mode variable structure control scheme that has exponentially approaching characteristic is proposed. System stability under the control law is then analyzed, and maximum allowed network-induced delay is obtained. A numerical example has been considered to illustrate the main results.
A Modified Torque Ripple Minimization Technique for BLDC Motor Drive using Synthesized Current Phase Compensation

This paper proposes a novel technique of torque ripple minimization of brushless dc motor. The stator current has been synthesised based on sector selection and a novel switching technique by modifying the three phase supply currents of the BLDC motor drive. The trajectory of the modified current vector has been determined by vector approach in stationary plane. The commutation judgement determines the normal conduction period and commutation period by tracking the mode of operation according to the speed. Based on this analysis, the calculated optimal phase angle compensates the current commutation error. The performance of the proposed drive with phase compensation of synthesized currents ensures to minimize the torque ripple. The effectiveness of proposed strategy is validated by experimental results.
Modulation of the firing activity of female dorsal raphe nucleus serotonergic neurons by neuroactive steroids.

Important gender differences in mood disorders result in a greater susceptibility for women. Accumulating evidence suggests a reciprocal modulation between the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) system and neuroactive steroids. Previous data from our laboratory have shown that during pregnancy, the firing activity of 5-HT neurons increases in parallel with progesterone levels. This study was undertaken to evaluate the putative modulation of the 5-HT neuronal firing activity by different neurosteroids. Female rats received i.c. v. for 7 days a dose of 50 micro g/kg per day of one of the following steroids: progesterone, pregnenolone, 5beta-pregnane-3,20-dione (5beta-DHP), 5beta-pregnan-3alpha-ol,20-one, 5beta-pregnan-3beta-ol,20-one, 5alpha-pregnane-3,20-dione, 5alpha-pregnan-3alpha-ol,20-one (allopregnanolone, 3alpha,5alpha-THP), 5alpha-pregnane-3beta-ol,20-one and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). 5beta-DHP and DHEA were also administered for 14 and 21 days (50 micro g/kg per day, i.c.v.) as well as concomitantly with the selective sigma 1 (sigma1) receptor antagonist NE-100. In vivo, extracellular unitary recording of 5-HT neurons performed in the dorsal raphe nucleus of these rats revealed that DHEA, 5beta-DHP and 3alpha,5alpha-THP significantly increased the firing activity of the 5-HT neurons. Interestingly, 5beta-DHP and DHEA showed different time-frames for their effects with 5beta-DHP having its greatest effect after 7 days to return to control values after 21 days, whereas DHEA demonstrated a sustained effect over the 21 day period. NE-100 prevented the effect of DHEA but not of 5beta-DHP, thus indicating that its sigma1 receptors mediate the effect of DHEA but not that of 5beta-DHP. In conclusion, our results offer a cellular basis for potential antidepressant effects of neurosteroids, which may prove important particularly for women with affective disorders.
Synergistic Computation of Planar Maxima and Convex Hull

Refinements of the worst case complexity over instances of fixed input size consider the input order or the input structure, but rarely both at the same time. Barbay et al. [2016] described ``synergistic'' solutions on multisets, which take advantage of the input order and the input structure, such as to asymptotically outperform any comparable solution which takes advantage only of one of those features. We consider the extension of their results to the computation of the \textsc{Maxima Set} and the \textsc{Convex Hull} of a set of planar points. After revisiting and improving previous approaches taking advantage only of the input order or of the input structure, we describe synergistic solutions taking optimally advantage of various notions of the input order and input structure in the plane. As intermediate results, we describe and analyze the first adaptive algorithms for \textsc{Merging Maxima} and \textsc{Merging Convex Hulls}.
Developing Competency‐assessment Tools to Measure the Family Physician's Ability to Respond to the Needs of the Community

There has been an increase in the emphasis placed on the importance of primary care and the way primary care services are delivered worldwide. Systems for delivery of primary health care must provide reliable, timely, comprehensive care to defined groups of people based upon their needs. The Institute of Medicine defines primary care as ‘‘The provision of integrated, accessible health care services by clinicians who are accountable for addressing a large majority of personal health care needs, developing a sustained partnership with patients, and practicing in the context of family and community. ’’ 2 In Canada, two of the four principles upon which family physicians should model their practices are (1) family medicine is community-based, and (2) a family physician is a resource to a defined practice population. Despite the recognition that community should play a larger role in the work of physicians, there is little agreement on how this should be done and, thus, how it should be taught. Medical schools have a unique purpose of selecting and educating competent, caring physicians capable of meeting society’s expectations. They must accept some responsibility for the health of defined communities related to health care reform. Family medicine training programs must ensure that residents learn to recognize community-oriented issues, including the needs of the communities, and must develop ways to measure residents’ competence. Examination methods can greatly influence the approach to teaching and learning within the medical profession. Thus, one of the driving forces that can help change the training of family physicians is the development of community-oriented competency-assessment tools. The Residency Program Accreditation and Certification Manual from the College of Family Physicians of Canada states: ‘‘Residents in family medicine must learn how to identify and respond effectively to the needs of communities. ’’ This learning objective was tested in this study, recognizing that doctor–patient interactions provide family physicians opportunities to identify and respond to health issues that are reflective of a larger community. In this pilot study, community was defined as any group, population, or cluster of people sharing at least one common characteristic such as geographic location, illness, ethnicity, or housing condition. For example, in the case of a child with new-onset peanut allergy, the role of the family physician was to ensure that the mother informed the school community of the child’s peanut allergy and that she investigated the school’s policies for prevention and treatment of anaphylaxis. In all cases within the present study, clearly defined communities were identified, and the family physicians were given the opportunity to respond to health issues that were reflective of a larger community. The purpose of the pilot study was to develop valid and reliable evaluation tools to measure community-responsive competencies of family physicians. The specific objectives of the study were:
Three-phase isolated DCM SEPIC converter for high voltage applications

The analysis of an isolated single-stage three-phase ac-dc converter with high power factor, based on the modularity of dc-dc SEPIC converters operating in discontinuous conduction mode is presented in this paper. The ac input is star-connected while the output of the modules are series connected. Doing so, the converter can provide a high step-up ratio and, consequently, besides high output voltage, a natural unity power factor is achieved. A review of the PFC three-phase SEPIC converters is performed, and discussion regarding to the advantages and drawbacks of the proposed connection when compared to previous solutions is made. Additionally, experimental results for a 4 kW, 380 V line-to-line input voltage and 1200 V output voltage laboratory prototype are presented in order to validate the analysis.