Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Type 1 diabetes women's views about preconception care: A qualitative study†

Background: Pregnancy in women with Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is associated with increased complications for both baby and mother; such complications can be reduced with careful pregnancy planning. Preconception care (PCC) enhances pregnancy outcomes by helping women to optimize their glycaemic control, through supportive intervention. However, despite these benefits, the uptake and adherence to PCC is low. This qualitative study aimed to generate a better understanding as to why women may not utilize PCC, by eliciting the views and experiences of women with T1DM in relation to PCC. Methods/sample: A sample of six women of reproductive age with T1DM undertook semi-structured interviews exploring their views on PCC. These interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed (verbatim) and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis to elicit themes that explicated the women's orientation and behaviour in relation to PCC. Results: The analysis identified five key themes: the fear of complications (both for the mother and the baby); the style of communication from health care professionals (HCPs); the support of significant others; personal autonomy; and women's beliefs about PCC. Conclusion: Overall, the findings suggest that women's uptake of, and engagement with, PCC is enhanced when HCPs adopt a supportive and positive approach, which addresses their anxieties in pregnancy preparation and encourages the health behaviours necessary for a good outcome for their baby.
Similarity criteria for modeling the process of pipes pulse pressing into the tube sheet

In the presented article, the phenomena that characterize the essence of the process of fastening pipes to the tube sheet by the method of electropulse pressing are described. The article presents the results relating to methods and means of measurement, testing and operation of products in engineering, including theoretical studies of methods for fastening heat-exchange tubes into a tube sheet. The disadvantages of traditional methods of fastening pipes to the tube sheet are revealed. The analysis of the prospects of pipes electropulse pressing into the tube sheet is conducted. Using the dimensional analysis method, similarity criteria were obtained for the process of electropulse press-fitting of pipes into a tube sheet, which allow extending the results obtained on a reduced-scale model to products of natural dimensions.
A Retrospective Study of Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) Prevalence among Patients in Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre Enugu, Nigeria

A retrospective study aimed at ascertaining the prevalence of Pulmonary TB amongst patients visiting Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre, Enugu State was conducted between September, 2015 and November, 2015. Sputum samples were obtained from one hundred and twenty patients. Samples were smeared on glass slides, stained using Ziehl Neelsen Stain and observed under light (oil immersion) microscopy. Data obtained were analysed using SPSS Statistic Base 17.0, where descriptive analyses such as sum, percent distribution, and mean, were computed. While ChiSquared Goodness of Fit, degree of differences, pvalue in order to statistically determine if any significance between variables such as age groups, sex of subjects, AFB positivity and prevalence existed. The results showed positive results for tuberculosis with prevalence of 42 (35%) out of 120 subjects. The age group 21-30 years had the highest prevalence of 18 (43%) out of 42 of PTB positive subjects. There was no significant difference between sex of subjects with PTB positivity (X: 1.33 at P= 0.12). There was significant difference between age groups of subjects with PTB positivity (X: 33.18 at P= 0.01). It is observed that PTB is still a serious health burden in this part of the world, thus, there is need for improved TB awareness, treatment and control programme.
Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment

Across many new democracies, voters routinely elect candidates associated with violence. Though electoral violence is common, there is little understanding of how it affects voting behaviour. This article examines how electoral violence affects turnout and vote choice. To this end, a vignette experiment is set in a nationally representative survey in Kenya, where electoral violence has been present since the 1990s. In the experiment, voters choose between two rival politicians. The experiment randomizes candidates’ attributes, their rumoured use of electoral violence and their record of reducing poverty. Conjoint analysis is used to isolate the effects of the candidates’ randomized attributes on turnout and vote choice. In contrast to the assumptions made in the literature on electoral violence, voters are less likely to vote for candidates rumoured to have used electoral violence, even when the candidate is a coethnic or a copartisan. This sanctioning effect, however, is not consistent across all voters. Victims of electoral violence and the poorest respondents are less likely to sanction candidates rumoured to have used violence, especially when these candidates have a good record of reducing poverty. The results show that voting turnout decreases when participants are asked to choose between candidates who are rumoured to have used electoral violence. These results are robust to including respondent and interviewer characteristics that might have affected participation in the experiment and how respondents voted. These findings explain why candidates using violence can win elections and why electoral violence has been difficult to eradicate in settings characterized by clientelism and instances of political discourse justifying the use of violence.
Towards a posthumanist institutional ethnography: viscous matterings and gendered bodies

ABSTRACT This article makes the case for Posthumanist Institutional Ethnography (PIE). In doing so, it builds on and diverges from Dorothy E. Smith’s post-structural work on Institutional Ethnography (IE), and speaks into recent discussions on the contested nature of ethnography. Drawing on the work of Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and Jane Bennet, and on empirical data from two recent projects, the article argues that PIE, in contesting human exceptionalism, places the human in relation to other-than-human objects, bodies and materialities, and thereby radically recasts ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Six features of PIE are identified. These features are put to work via an analysis of material moments which illuminate how gendered inequalities are produced, enacted and materialised in complex institutional ecologies. The article’s theoretical and methodological contributions provide new insights into the fluid, ephemeral and affective materialisation of gendered politics in institutions.
Facilitating second-language learners' access to expository texts: teachers’ understanding of the challenges involved

Many second-language learners (SLLs) struggle with comprehending texts in their second language. However, teachers have reported feeling incompetent when it comes to teaching SLLs. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ understanding of the challenges involved in facilitating SLLs’ access to expository texts. Data were collected through interviews with nine teachers of 10 – 12-year-olds. The findings show that the teachers understood text challenges to be found at the word and text levels. Further, the teachers recognis ed SLLs’ need for text -comprehension support, which they seemed to understand mainly as providing explanations for words and texts. However, they questioned the effectiveness of their adapted teaching. The findings suggest that the t eachers’ understanding of the issue may unintentionally restrict SLLs’ academic -language development and their opportunities to learn from texts. Hence there may be a need for a change in the teachers’ understanding of what it means to give access to texts in order to empower SLLs for future participation in society.
Growth of Care Characters in the Lisambil Discussion of Student in Smp Negeri 21 Pekanbaru

The character of caring for students environment is still low. The study aims to evaluate the growth of environmental care character of students, at SMP Negeri 21 Pekanbaru. The parameters of research were the perception of teachers, principals, students and the growth of environmentally conscious character aspects of the action of growing brothers caring for the environment and environmental cleanliness after the action. The results of the study shows the teacher perceptions with average of 4.44 (88%) in the good category. The school principals is 4.69 (94%) in the good category and student score is 4.24 (79%) in the good category. Students perception of habituation aspects before KBM averaged a score of 1.90 (63%) enough category. The act of growing character cares for the environment with an average of 69% (good), in the aspect of implementation of the class picket the average is 56% (enough). Environmental hygiene in the class average of 77% (good), in terms of cleaning activities before KBM averaged 60% (enough). Environmental cleanliness with an average of 28.7% (less). The growth of students environmental care character from caring actions is showing in the good category and environmental cleanliness in the classroom category is sufficient and outside the classroom category is lacking.
Nutrient Addition to Low pH Base Wines (L. cv. Riesling) during Yeast Acclimatization for Sparkling Wine: Its Influence on Yeast Cell Growth, Sugar Consumption and Nitrogen Usage

In traditional method sparkling wine production, to carry out a successful second alcoholic fermentation, yeast are acclimatized to stressful base wine conditions. Base wines typically have low pH, low nutrient concentrations, high acid concentrations, contain sulfur dioxide (SO2), and high ethanol concentrations. Supplementing yeast during the acclimatization stages prior to second alcoholic fermentation with different nutrient sources was assessed to determine the impact on yeast growth, sugar consumption and nitrogen usage. Four treatments were tested with Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain EC1118: the control (T1) with no additives; addition of diammonium phosphate (DAP) during acclimatization, (T2); Go-Ferm® inclusion during yeast rehydration (GF), (T3); and DAP + GF (T4). Results (n = 4) indicated that supplementing with DAP, GF or DAP + GF increased both the rate of sugar consumption and the concentration of viable cells during the yeast acclimatization phase in comparison to the control. Treatments supplemented with DAP + GF or DAP alone resulted in yeast consuming 228 and 220 mg N/L during the acclimatization phase, respectively. Yeast treated only with GF consumed 94 mg N/L in comparison to the control, which consumed 23 mg N/L. The time required to reach the target specific gravity (1.010) during acclimatization was significantly reduced to 57 h for yeast treated with DAP and GF, 69 h for yeast treated with DAP only and 81 h for yeast rehydrated with GF in comparison to 105 h for the control. Our results suggest that nutrients used during yeast acclimatization could have an important impact on the kinetics of second alcoholic fermentation.
Derived ecological niches of indoor microbes are crucial for asthma symptoms in university dormitories

Increasing evidences from home environment indicate that microbiome community is associated with asthma. However, indoor microbiome composition can be highly diverse and dynamic, and thus current studies fail to produce consistent association. Chinese university dormitories are special high-density dwellings with a standard built environment and personal characteristics for occupants, which can be used to disentangle the complex interactions between microbes, environmental characteristics and asthma. Settled air dust and floor dust was collected from 87 dormitory rooms in Shanxi University. Bacterial community was characterized by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Students (n = 357) were surveyed for asthma symptoms. Asthma symptoms were not associated with the overall bacterial richness, but associated with different phylogenetic classes. Taxa richness and abundance in Clostridia and Bacteroidia were positively associated with asthma (p < 0.05), and these taxa were mainly derived from human gut. Taxa richness (p < 0.1) and abundance (p < 0.05) in Alphaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria were protectively associated with asthma, and these taxa were mainly derived from outdoor environment. Building age, floor and curtain cleaning frequency shaped the overall bacterial community of air dust (p < 0.05). Frequent curtain cleaning increased the relative abundance of 10 protective genera (p < 0.05), and old buildings had mix effects to protective genera (p < 0.05). Our data shows that taxa from different phylogenetic classes and ecological niches have different health effects, indicating the importance of incorporating evolutionary and ecological concepts in revealing general patterns in the microbiome asthma association analysis.
Klasifikasi Topik Ayat Al-Qur’an Terjemahan Berbahasa Inggris Menggunakan Metode Support Vector Machine Berbasis Vector Space Model dan Word2Vec

Abstrak Tujuan diturunkannya Al-Qur’an adalah sebagai petunjuk hidup bagi umat manusia. Al-Qu’an memiliki kandungan makna dan hikmah disetiap ayatnya. Didalam Al-Qur’an terdapat ayat-ayat yang memiliki makna yang tersirat. Al-Qur’an mengandung beberapa topik yang antar surat Al-Qur’an dapat memiliki kemiripan topik dengan surat Al-Qur’an yang lainnya. Pada penelitian ini, dilakukan implementasi metode Support Vector Machine dan Word2vec pada terjemahan ayat Al-Qur’an berbahasa Inggris yang digunakan untuk pengklasifikasian berdasarkan topik. Kategori topik Al-Qur’an yang digunakan pada penelitian ini dibagi menjadi tiga yaitu perintah, larangan, dan lainnya. Dokumen tersebut diubah kedalam bentuk vektor dengan tf-idf weighting dan Word2vec. Vektor-vektor kata tersebut dipemetakan berdasarkan nilai kedekatan vektor antar kata pada dokumen. Selanjutnya metode Support Vector Machine digunakan untuk mengklasifikasikan topik Al-Qur’an dengan memberikan hyperplane pada tiap kategori. Hasil pengujian dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa penerapan Word2vec dan Support Vector Machine mendapatkan nilai akurasi tertinggi sebesar 0.64 dengan jumlah data training sebesar 70% dari keseluruhan dataset. Kata kunci : Topik Al-Qur’an, Klasifikasi, Support Vector Machine, Word2vec Abstract The purpose of the Qur'an is as a guide for human’s life. Al-Qu’an has meaning and wisdom in every verse. In the Qur'an there are verses that have implied meaning. Al-Qur’an contains several topics which among the Surahs of the Qur'an can have a similarity to the topic of other Al-Qur’an's surah. In this research, the implementation of the Support Vector Machine and Word2vec method is used to classify based on topics in the English translation of Al-Qur’an verses. The used topic categories in this study are divided into three namely commands, prohibitions, and others. The document is converted into vector with tf-idf weighting and Word2vec. Then the word vectors are mapped based on the value of the proximity of the vectors between words in the document. Then Support Vector Machine method is used to classify the topic of the Qur'an by giving hyperplane in each category. The test results of this study showed that the implementation of Word2vec and Support Vector Machine has the highest accuracy results of 0.64 with the amount of training data is 70% of the entire dataset. Keywords: Topics of Al-Qur’an, Classification, Support Vector Machine, Word2vec
Evolution of the Insecticide Target Rdl in African Anopheles Is Driven by Interspecific and Interkaryotypic Introgression

The evolution of insecticide resistance mechanisms in natural populations of Anopheles malaria vectors is a major public health concern across Africa. Using genome sequence data, we study the evolution of resistance mutations in the resistance to dieldrin locus (Rdl), a GABA receptor targeted by several insecticides, but most notably by the long-discontinued cyclodiene, dieldrin. The two Rdl resistance mutations (296G and 296S) spread across West and Central African Anopheles via two independent hard selective sweeps that included likely compensatory nearby mutations, and were followed by a rare combination of introgression across species (from A. gambiae and A. arabiensis to A. coluzzii) and across non-concordant karyotypes of the 2La chromosomal inversion. Rdl resistance evolved in the 1950s as the first known adaptation to a large-scale insecticide-based intervention, but the evolutionary lessons from this system highlight contemporary and future dangers for management strategies designed to combat development of resistance in malaria vectors.
Scalable interconnect strategies for neuro-glia networks using Networks-on-Chip

Hardware has become more prone to faults, due to wear-out and faults caused during the manufacturing process. The reliability of hardware is becoming more dependent on the ability to continually adapt to faults and current fault tolerant approaches are susceptible to faults. A computational model of biological self-repair in the brain, derived from observing the distributed role of astrocytes (a glial cell found in the mammalian brain), has captured self-repair within neural networks; these are known as neuro-glia networks. Astrocytes have been shown to facilitate biological self-repair in silent or near silent neurons in the brain by increasing the Probability of Release (PR) in healthy synapses. Astrocytes modulate synaptic activity, which leads to increased or decreased PR. To date, this has been proven with computational modelling and therefore, the next step is to replicate this self-repair process in hardware to provide self-repairing electronic information processing systems. A key challenge for hardware neuro-glia networks implementation is the facilitation of scalable communication between interacting neurons and astrocyte cells. There are large volumes of neurons/ astrocytes with different communication patterns and this network is viewed as a two-tiered network: 1. High speed temporal spike event (neural network) 2. Low speed numerical inositol trisphosphate information exchange (astrocyte network). This thesis addresses the key challenge of providing scalable communication for a neuroglia network with low-level Networks-on-Chip (NoC) topologies. This network supports astrocyte to neuron/synapse communication at a local level and astrocyte communication at a global level i.e. the astrocyte network. The astrocyte process is inherently slow, thus a ring topology exploits this slow change and sacrifices high throughput for a low area overhead, this is analogous to the astrocyte process. This astrocyte was applied in hardware and results demonstrate that novel ring topology provides a trade-off between low area/interconnect wiring overhead whilst supporting realistic communication speeds for both the slow-changing data between astrocytes and the higher throughput neuron networks. NOTE ON ACCESS TO CONTENTS I hereby declare that with effect from the date on which the thesis is deposited in Research Office of the Ulster University, I permit 1. The Librarian of the University to allow the thesis to be copied in whole or in part without reference to me on the understanding that such authority applies to the provision of single copies made for study purposes or for inclusion within the stock of another library. 2. The thesis to be made available through the Ulster Institutional Repository and/or EThOS under the terms of the Ulster eTheses Deposit Agreement which I have signed. IT IS A CONDITION OF USE OF THIS THESIS THAT ANYONE WHO CONSULTS IT MUST RECOGNISE THAT THE COPYRIGHT RESTS WITH THE AUTHOR AND THAT NO QUOTATION FROM THE THESIS AND NO INFORMATION DERIVED FROM IT MAY BE PUBLISHED UNLESS THE SOURCE IS PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGED.
From Modulated Noise to Natural Speech: the Effect of Stimulus Parameters on the Frequency Following Response

Frequency following responses (FFRs) can be evoked by a wide range of auditory stimuli, but for many stimulus parameters the effect on FFR strength is not fully understood. This complicates the comparison of earlier studies and the design of new studies. Furthermore, the most optimal stimulus parameters are unknown. To help resolve this issue, we investigated the effects of four important stimulus parameters and their interactions on the FFR. FFRs were measured in 16 normal hearing subjects evoked by stimuli with four levels of stimulus complexity (amplitude modulated noise, artificial vowels, natural vowels and nonsense words), three frequencies (around 105 Hz, 185 Hz and 245 Hz), three frequency contours (upward sweeping, downward sweeping and flat) and three vowels (Flemish /a:/, /u:/, and /i:/). We found that FFRs evoked by artificial vowels were on average 4 to 6 dB SNR larger than responses evoked by the other stimulus complexities, probably because of (unnaturally) strong higher harmonics. Moreover, response amplitude decreased with stimulus frequency but response SNR did not. Thirdly, frequency variation within the stimulus did not impact FFR strength, but only when rate of change remained low (e.g. not the case for sweeping natural vowels). Finally, the vowel /i:/ appeared to evoke larger response amplitudes compared to /a:/ and /u:/, but analysis power was too small to confirm this statistically. Differences in response strength between evoking vowels have been suggested to stem from destructive interference between response components. We show how a model of the auditory periphery can simulate these interference patterns and predict response strength. Altogether, the results of this study can guide stimulus choice for future FFR research and practical applications.
Socialiai globojamų vyresnio amžiaus asmenų įgalinimo aspektai

Geresnis įgalinimo ypatumų globos įstaigos aplinkoje supratimas padeda modeliuoti socialinio darbo metodus taip, kad jie prisidėtų tiek prie socialinių darbuotojų veiklos pasitenkinimo ir efektyvumo, tiek prie aukštesnės socialiai globojamų vyresnio amžiaus asmenų gyvenimo kokybės. Globos įstaigų darbuotojų ir gyventojų įgalinimo ypatumai straipsnyje analizuojami Ryan ir Deci (2000) apsisprendimo teorijos perspektyvoje.
Synthesis of 1,3-Oxazoles via Van Leusen Reaction in a Pressure Reactor and Preliminary Studies of Cations Recognition

Six 1,3-oxazoles were synthetized in moderate to good yields by Van Leusen reaction in a pressure reactor. The methodology allowed to decrease the reaction times reported in the literature from hours to 20 min. In addition, preliminary qualitative recognition of cations with some synthetized oxazoles such as Hg2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Ag+, Cu2+, Pb2+ was done and a “turn off” effect was observed with Ni2+. Finally, the 1,3-oxazoles could be of biological relevance because they are considered privileged nucleus in medicinal chemistry and therefore will be useful to obtain pharmacophoric hybrid molecules.