Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teaching Macro Social Work through Experiential Learning: Student Reflections on Lessons Learned in Building School-Community Partnerships

A faculty-led experiential learning project was implemented with Master of Social Work students at their field placement sites to teach macro practice skills and research methods. As part of a grant-funded school-university partnership, MSW students were placed in school social work field placements, where their practice focused on individual and small group interventions with youth. Ten MSW students participated in asset-based collective family engagement in diverse, low-income communities, using community organizing skills and community-based participatory research methods. To examine student learning, a pilot study gathered narrative data from seven of the students and three supervisors. MSW students’ learning from the project is discussed in the context of CSWE’s 2015 EPAS competencies. Participation in the experiential/service-learning project supported the ability of the MSW students to build a sense of themselves as professionals bringing value to the community, enhanced their understanding of cultural diversity and family engagement, and provided context for vulnerable students’ struggles in school and the families’ difficulties with school engagement. This project illustrates the potential of school-university partnerships involving MSW field students to help bridge the gaps in school-family partnerships, particularly in diverse and low-income communities, and highlights areas where different teaching methods can be used to reinforce competencies learned.
A method of LFSR seed generation for hierarchical BIST

In built-in self-test (BIST), pseudo-random patterns generated by a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) are applied to a circuit under test as test patterns. Since random pattern resistant faults (RPRFs) exist, reseeding is used to detect them. In general, seeds that when expanded by the LFSR will produce test patterns for detecting RPRFs are used for reseeding. So far, we have proposed a one-pass seed generation method for generating such seeds for scan-based BIST. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the one-pass method into seed generation for hierarchical BIST utilizing register-transfer level (RTL) information. The proposed method can identify untestable faults under the BIST environment and guarantees to generate seeds for detectable faults. In our experiments for several RTL benchmark circuits, we show that seeds generated by the proposed method can reduce test application time for RPRFs of the circuits.
Putnam et al's Making democracy work : a re-examination in cross-national perspective

The objective of this article is to provide a critical evaluation of the empirical analysis in Robert Putnam et al’s (2005) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. We propose new measurements of the major concepts and also incorporate information about income inequality as a factor in the determination of institutional and economic performance, all in cross-national perspective. This article has two concerns. Substantively, the research question posed is: what is the impact of the distribution of income on civic community, institutional performance and economic performance? We hypothesize that an equitable distribution of income leads to the development of a civic community, which in turn leads to institutional and socioeconomic performance. Methodologically, we consider the diffi culties that arise examining this hypothesis in cross-national perspective, as well as proposed solutions, especially with regards to data harmonization and measuring the main concepts. The database of the World Values Survey (WVS) was used to test this hypothesis. The sample includes 49 countries that participated in the survey. Our reexamination synthesizes aspects of Putnam et al’s book with the methodology of Knack and Keefer’s (1997) Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A key fi nding is that civism and active participation in organizations and associations, taken individually, have a negative effect on the determination of economic performance and consequently on institutional performance, a fi nding that differs from the results of Putnam et al (2005). The distribution of income had a negative and signifi cant effect on economic performance in the sense that in countries where income inequality is greater, economic performance was proportionally lower. This article proposes an analysis that focused more on economic factors than the analysis proposed by Putnam et al.
The Effects of Creditor Rights and Bank Information Sharing on Borrower Behavior: Theory and Evidence

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of "creditor rights" and "information sharing" throughout over 1.8 million public and private firms in Europe. We show that many of the outcomes associated with greater levels of creditor rights can be obtained with higher information sharing between banks. Both theory and empirics show that creditor rights and information sharing are associated with greater firm leverage, lower profitability, as well as greater distance to default. Moreover, both theory and empirics find that creditor rights and information sharing are robust substitutes. Our analysis suggests that poor creditor rights, which tend to be sticky over time, can be substituted by improved information sharing.
Are target date funds dinosaurs? Failure to adapt can lead to extinction

Investors in Target Date Funds are automatically switched from high risk to low risk assets as their retirements approach. Such funds have become very popular, but our analysis brings into question the rationale for them. Based on both a model with parameters fitted to historical returns and on bootstrap resampling, we find that adaptive investment strategies significantly outperform typical Target Date Fund strategies. This suggests that the vast majority of Target Date Funds are serving investors poorly.
Prevalence of Dysglycemia and Association With Outcomes in Pediatric Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation*

Objectives: To evaluate the relationship between glucose derangement, insulin administration, and mortality among children on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Design: Retrospective cohort. Setting: Tertiary PICU. Patients: Two hundred nine children receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, including 97 neonates. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Hyperglycemia and severe hyperglycemia were defined as a single blood glucose level greater than 15 mmol/L (270 mg/dL) and greater than 20 mmol/L (360 mg/dL), respectively. Hypoglycemia and severe hypoglycemia were defined as any single glucose level less than 3.3 mmol/L (60 mg/dL) and less than 2.2 mmol/L (40 mg/dL), respectively. A total of 15,912 glucose values were recorded. The median number of glucose values was 59 per patient, corresponding to a mean 0.53 ± 0.12 tests per hour. Sixty-nine patients (33.0%) without dysglycemia and who received no insulin were defined as the control group. Eighty-nine (42.6%) and 26 (12.4%) patients developed hyperglycemia and severe hyperglycemia, respectively. Sixty-three (30.1%) and 17 (8.1%) patients developed hypoglycemia and severe hypoglycemia, respectively. Sixty-one patients (29.2%) received IV insulin during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Both hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia were associated with increased mortality on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (46% and 48%, respectively, vs 29% of controls; p = 0.03). However, after adjusting for severity of illness and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation complications, abnormal glucose levels were not independently related to mortality. Conclusions: Dysglycemia in children on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was common but not independently associated with increased mortality. The optimal glucose range for this high-risk population requires further investigation.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: AN ANALYSIS OF IMPACT AND CHALLENGES IN INDIA

India is a developing economy, here Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) play important role in organizations. In Indian industry one can easily notice a paradigm shift from corporate philanthropist to being socially responsible. The importance of CSR is increasing in Indian corporate scenario because organization have realize that ultimate goal is not profit making beside this trust building is viable and assert able with societal relationship. The compulsion of CSR has emerged in last two decades when Indian organization realizes the importance of sustaining in this cutthroat competition era. Before this Indian industries had materialistic culture. In the hue and cry of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) companies were only focused toward profit maximization which led social backwash. To overcome this fashion CSR play an important role in sustainable development which is only possible when there is a balance between profit and lowering social backwash or eradicating it. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining more and more importance day by day. Changing market scenario, globalization, ethical consumerism all are adding heat to the CSR concept. More and more organizations are showing their commitments towards CSR either for enhancing their corporate image or to be in competition.
Analytical and Experimental Evaluation of Wake-Up Receivers Based Protocols

Achieving energy efficient wireless communication is the most pursued goal in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), as energy consumption is typically a major barrier to long term applications. In recent years, ultra-low power Wake-up Receivers (WuRx) have emerged, enabling pure asynchronous wireless communication that eliminates energy waste due to idle listening. However, to achieve a significant increase of energy efficiency compared to traditional duty-cycling approaches, Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols exploiting WuRx must be carefully designed. Therefore, we propose an analytical framework to model MAC protocols, leveraging WuRx or not, which gives an important evaluation of power consumption, latency and reliability. This framework was used to both model a WuRx-based MAC protocol, and to model two other state-of-the art MAC protocols for WSNs not using WuRx. Experimental power consumption and latency measurements were conducted to validate the proposed framework and the MAC protocol leveraging WuRx. Analytical results show the convenience of using WuRx and quantify the benefits of this emerging technology. These results demonstrate that using WuRx achieves up to 135 times lower power consumption and up to 23 times lower latency compared to traditional approaches in typical low throughput WSNs applications.
Information asymmetry and its impact on cost of equity capital : Volkswagen case

Information asymmetry takes place when the information between two parties undertaking a transaction differs. The disclosure of the information creates an impact on the organization's cost of capital (Diamond & Verrecchia, 1991). This paper is investigating the effect of this factor in cost of equity capital by using the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The study will be done through an analysis of the disclosure of positive and negative news for Volkswagen Company.
Feedback based cooperative transmission for multiuser multichannel systems

In this paper, we propose a feedback based cooperative transmission (FBCT) scheme for multiuser multichannel communication systems. We focus on uplink channels and consider a user, say user 1, who has a weak uplink channel. Another user (who is possibly located somewhere between the base station and user 1), say user 2, can be a relay for cooperative transmission. Using the feedback information of a positive acknowledgment (ACK) or negative acknowledgment (NACK) signaling from the base station, the signal from user 1 can be re-relayed by the relay (i.e., user 2) or re-transmitted by the source (i.e., user 1) in the proposed FBCT scheme. The resulting FBCT scheme can be seen as a hybrid of cooperative transmission and automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocol. We show that a mixed strategy of re-relay and re-transmission of the proposed FBCT scheme can perform better than a pure strategy of re-relay or re-transmission.
Murine CXCR1 Is a Functional Receptor for GCP-2/CXCL6 and Interleukin-8/CXCL8*

Functional interleuin-8 (IL-8) receptors (IL-8RA and IL-8RB: CXCR1 and CXCR2, respectively) have been described in human, monkey, dog, rabbit, and guinea pig. Although three IL-8R homologues have been found in rat, only one of these, rat CXCR2, appears to be functional based on responsiveness to ligands. Similarly, CXC chemokines induce biological responses through the murine homolog of CXCR2, but the identification of functional rodent CXCR1 homologues has remained elusive. We have identified and characterized the mouse CXCR1 homologue (mCXCR1). Murine CXCR1 shares 68 and 88% amino acid identity with its human and rat counterparts, respectively. Similar to the tissue distribution pattern of rat CXCR1, we found murine CXCR1 mRNA expression predominantly in lung, stomach, bone marrow, and leukocyte-rich tissues. In contrast to previous reports, we determined that mCXCR1 is a functional receptor. We show predominant engagement of this receptor by mouse GCP-2/CXCL6, human GCP-2, and IL-8/CXCL8 by binding, stimulation of GTPγS exchange, and chemotaxis of mCXCR1-transfected cells. Furthermore, murine CXCR1 is not responsive to the human CXCR2 ligands ENA-78/CXCL5, NAP-2/CXCL7, GRO-α, -β, -γ/CXCL1–3, or rat CINC-1–3. In addition, we show concomitant elevation of mCXCR1 and its proposed major ligand, GCP-2, positively correlated with paw swelling in murine collagen-induced arthritis. This report represents the first description of a functional CXCR1-like receptor in rodents.
Successful treatment of platelet transfusion refractoriness: the use of platelet transfusions matched for both human leucocyte antigens (HLA) and human platelet alloantigens (HPA) in alloimmunized patients with leukaemia

Six patients, 4 with acute myeloid leukaemia and 2 with a myelodysplasia syndrome who were refractory to random donor platelet transfusions and alloimmunized to human leucocyte antigens (HLA) and human platelet alloantigens (HPA), were treated with HLA‐and HPA‐matched platelet transfusions. In all the patients refractoriness and alloantibodies to HLA as well as HPA‐1b or HPA‐5b were detected simultaneously. Sixty‐seven transfusions (445 units) of HLA‐and HPA‐matched platelets were given and responses to them were, in general, satisfactory in all the patients. No major spontaneous bleeding occurred. Four patients underwent bone marrow transplantation despite alloimmunization. The percentages of platelet transfusion days with a platelet nadir below 20×109/l were 88% for the last 3 random donor platelet transfusions and 39% for the first 3 HLA‐and HPA‐matched platelet transfusions, respectively (p=0.009, Fisher's exact test). Four patients received also HLA‐matched platelets, but responses to them were poor. The small number of transfusions with HLA‐matched platelets precluded comparisons to either the random donor or HLA‐and HPA‐matched platelet transfusions. It seems that HLA‐and HPA‐alloimmunized patients can be successfully supported with HLA‐and HPA‐matched platelet concentrates.
African histoplasmosis: new clinical and microbiological insights

African histoplasmosis is defined as the fungal infection caused by Histoplasma capsulatum var. duboisii (Hcd). Studies focused on distinguishing Hcd and H. capsulatum var. capsulatum (Hcc), which coexist in Africa, are scarce or outdated, and African strains are continuously underrepresented. In this work, 13 cases of African patients with histoplasmosis diagnosed in the Spanish Mycology Reference Laboratory have been reviewed showing that 77% had disseminated disease and AIDS as underlying disease although Hcd infection has been classically considered a rare presentation in AIDS patients. Strains isolated from these patients and other clinical and reference strains were studied by assessing classical identification methods and performing a three-loci multi-locus sequence analysis (MLSA). Classical identification methods based on biochemical tests and measurement of yeast size proved to be useless in distinguishing both varieties. The MLSA defined an African cluster, with a strong statistical support, that included all strains with African origin. Finally, mating type was also determined by using molecular methods revealing an unequal mating type distribution in African strains. In conclusion, historical statements and classical identification methods were useless to distinguish between varieties, whereas molecular analyses revealed that all strains with African origin grouped together suggesting that traditional classification should be revised. Further investigation is required in order to unravel traditional concepts about Hcd infection and support results obtained in this work.
Turnstile Careers Between Academia and Practice

This reflection on the academic and practice careers—my own and some notable health promotion professors’—supports my suggestions about what makes good teaching and research faculty members in professional schools seeking to prepare next generations of practitioners for health education and health promotion careers. From the perspective of pedagogy in health promotion, the preparation of students for their roles in practice—in whatever blend of policy, planning, management, delivery, or evaluation of programs—should emanate, where possible, from field experience and reality-tested theoretical and evidence-based precepts. Just as usable evidence-based practices need to include practice-based evidence, so too must usable pedagogy for practitioners be built on periodic exposure and experience of instructors in contemporary practice. The concept of “turnstile careers” is introduced to address this need for periodic immersion of faculty in practice positions with responsibility for programs.
Cross-Comparison of Surface Plasmon Resonance-Based Optical Fiber Sensors With Different Coating Structures

In this paper, optical fiber sensors, based on both surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and localized SPR (LSPR) approaches, have been successfully developed and cross-compared. The SPR sensor has been constructed by coating a thin layer of gold film on a piece of an optical fiber with the cladding having first been removed. Several LSPR sensors, however, have been configured in a slightly different way through coating several unclad fibers, each with a thin layer of gold-nanorods (GNRs) with a different aspect ratio. Subsequently, both SPR and LSPR sensors are exposed to solutions with different refractive index and their corresponding plasmon resonance wavelength shifts have been recorded and cross-compared. The experimental results obtained confirm that the SPR sensor has demonstrated a much higher sensitivity than that of any of the LSPR sensors, irrespective of the variation of the aspect ratio of GNRs coated. The LSPR sensors, however, have demonstrated a much better linearity compared to that of the SPR sensor.
Evaluation of antibodies to hepatitis C virus in a study of transfusion-associated hepatitis.

BACKGROUND The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is now known to be the chief cause of transfusion-associated non-A, non-B hepatitis, but the prevalence of HCV among blood donors and the frequency of transmission by blood transfusion are unknown. METHODS To assess the sensitivity and specificity of a test for antibody to HCV, we tested serum samples from participants in a large study of transfusion-associated hepatitis. Samples were obtained prospectively from consecutive adults undergoing open-heart surgery in Spain, but were tested retrospectively, after the antibody enzyme immunoassay for anti-HCV became available. RESULTS Of 280 transfusion recipients given a total of 1109 units of blood, 27 (9.6 percent) had transfusion-associated non-A, non-B hepatitis (mean follow-up, 52 weeks) and 24 of the 27 seroconverted to anti-HCV-positive, whereas only 2 (0.8 percent) of the remaining transfusion recipients seroconverted. Among the 1044 donor specimens available for testing, 16 (1.5 percent) had anti-HCV antibody. Only 1 additional seropositive donor was found when 44 implicated donors who had been seronegative were retested 9 to 12 months later. Of the 16 recipients of anti-HCV-positive blood, 14 (88 percent) had transfusion-associated hepatitis and seroconverted to anti-HCV-positive. The remaining two recipients had neither hepatitis nor anti-HCV antibody. Among 25 patients with non-A, non-B hepatitis for whom all transfused blood was tested, 14 had received blood positive for anti-HCV. CONCLUSIONS About 90 percent of blood donors with antibody to HCV have infectious virus in their blood. The screening of blood donors for anti-HCV antibody should prevent about half the cases of transfusion-associated hepatitis, but the donors with infectious virus who are anti-HCV-negative may remain seronegative for prolonged periods.
Consensus recommendations and review by an International Expert Panel on Interventions in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (EPOIHCC)

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) presents with a high burden of disease in East Asian countries. Intermediate‐stage HCC as defined by the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) staging system poses a clinical challenge as it includes a heterogeneous population of patients that can vary widely in terms of tumour burden, liver function and disease aetiology. Intermediate HCC patients often have unsatisfactory clinical outcomes with repeated transarterial chemoembolization (TACE, due to non‐response of the target tumour or the development of further metastasis indicating progressive disease. In September 2011, an Expert Panel Opinion on Interventions in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (EPOIHCC) was convened in HK in an attempt to provide a consensus on the practice of TACE. To that end, current clinical practice throughout Asia was reviewed in detail including safety and efficacy data on TACE alone as well as in combination with targeted systemic therapies. This review summarises the evidence discussed at the meeting and provides expert recommendation regarding the available therapeutic options for unresectable intermediate stage HCC. A key consensus of the Expert Panel was that in order to improve patient outcomes and long‐term survival, the possibility of using TACE in combination with targeted agents given systemically should be explored. While the currently available clinical data is promising, the expected completion of several pivotal phase II and III RCTs will provide further evidence in support of the rationale for combination therapy regimens.
[Microwave treatment of ethmoidal nerve under nasal endoscopy in the patients with allergic rhinitis].

OBJECTIVE To study the effect of microwave treatment of ethmoidal nerve on allergic rhinitis. METHOD 106 cases of allergic rhinitis patients were treated with ethmoidal nerve microwave under nasal endoscope. RESULT It showed marked effect in 89 cases(84.0%), immprovement in 12 cases(11.3%) and failed in 5 cases (4.7%) in one year follow-up. The overall effective rate was 95.3%. CONCLUSION This result indicated that the microwave tissue coagulation in treating allergic rhinitis unde nasal endoscope is a good method for clinical treatment.