Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence

This is a sociolinguistic study of how people create and exchange coherent oral life stories. Linde claims such stories serve a number of psychological and social purposes, including the development and expression of a sense of self and the solidification and definition of relationships and group memberships. She focuses on different coherence systems, including 'common sense' and its peculiarly American nature.
A Proteomic Approach for the Diagnosis of Bacterial Meningitis

Background The discrimination of bacterial meningitis (BM) versus viral meningitis (VM) shapes up as a problem, when laboratory data are not equivocal, in particular, when Gram stain is negative. Methodology/Principal Findings With the aim to determine reliable marker for bacterial or viral meningitis, we subjected cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to a quantitative proteomic screening. By using a recently established 2D-DIGE protocol which was adapted to the individual CSF flow, we compared a small set of patients with proven BM and VM. Thereby, we identified six potential biomarkers out of which Prostaglandin-H2 D-isomerase was already described in BM, showing proof of concept. In the subsequent validation phase on a more comprehensive collective of 80 patients, we could validate that in BM high levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and low levels of soluble amyloid precursor protein alpha/beta (sAPPα/β) are present as possible binding partner of Fibulin-1. Conclusions/Significance We conclude that our CSF flow-adapted 2D-DIGE protocol is valid especially in comparing samples with high differences in total protein and suppose that GFAP and sAPPα/β have a high potential as additional diagnostic markers for differentiation of BM from VM. In the clinical setting, this might lead to an improved early diagnosis and to an individual therapy.
Relationship Between Traditional and Contemporary Dating Styles and Male Commitment Level

This research aimed at discovering a relationship between dating style and male commitment. I hypothesized that traditional dating, where the male plays the initial active role and couples reserve sexual activity for marriage, would better predict male commitment due to effort justification theory and gain-loss theory. However I also acknowledged a counter hypothesis predicting a correlation between contemporary dating, with blurred gender roles and sexual boundaries, and male commitment due to behaviorist theory. Fifty-seven males took a survey assessing dating style and commitment level to find if either of these relationships existed. After data analysis, I found that female initial passivity, couples similarity in values and beliefs, and establishment of sexual boundaries to have a significant relationship with male commitment. 2 DATING STYLE AND PREDICTION OF MALE COMMITMENT LEVEL 3
Evolution of lactate/pyruvate and arterial ketone body ratios in the early course of catecholamine‐treated septic shock

Objectives: To measure arterial lactate/pyruvate (L/P) and arterial ketone body ratios as reflection of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial redox state at different stages of catecholamine‐treated septic shock and compare them with normal and pathologic values obtained in patients in shock who have decreased oxygen transport (cardiogenic shock), and to assess the relationship between the time course of lactate, L/P ratio, and mortality in septic shock. Design: Prospective, observational human study. Setting: A university intensive care unit. Patients: Sixty consecutive adult patients who developed septic shock and lactic acidosis requiring the administration of vasopressors. Twenty patients in the intensive care unit without shock, sepsis, and hypoxia and with normal lactate values and 10 patients with cardiogenic shock were also studied. Measurements: Hemodynamic measurements, arterial and mixed venous blood gases, arterial lactate and pyruvate concentrations, and arterial ketone body ratio were measured within 4 hrs after the introduction of catecholamine and 24 hrs later. Main Results: Fifteen patients (25%) died within the first 24 hrs of septic shock, and these early fatalities had a higher blood lactate (12.2 ± 3 versus 4.6 ± 1.3 mmol/L; p < .01) concentration and a higher L/P ratio (37 ± 4 versus 20 ± 1; p < .01) than those who died later. No difference was found for arterial ketone body ratio (0.41 ± 0.1 versus 0.50 ± 0.06). Forty‐five patients survived >24 hrs including 25 survivors and 20 nonsurvivors. Although there was no difference between survivors and nonsurvivors in initial lactate concentration (4.1 ± 0.4 and 4.6 ± 0.3, respectively), L/P ratio (19 ± 1 and 20 ± 1, respectively), and arterial ketone body ratio (0.5 ± 0.06 and 0.52 ± 0.07, respectively), blood lactate and L/P ratio significantly decreased during the first 24 hrs in the survivors (2.8 ± 0.4 and 14 ± 1, respectively; p < .05). and were stable in the nonsurvivors (4 ± 0.3 and 22 ± 1, respectively) Although returning to normal values after 24 hrs in survivors and nonsurvivors, arterial ketone body ratio was higher in survivors (1.72 ± 0.17 versus 1.09 ± 0.15; p < .05). Lactate and L/P ratio were closely correlated (r2 = .8, p < .0001). In the cardiogenic shock group, lactate concentration was 4 ± 1 mmol/L, L/P ratio was 40 ± 6, and arterial ketone body ratio was 0.2 ± 0.05. The mortality rate was 60%. Conclusions: The main result of the present study is that hemodynamically unstable patients with sepsis needing catecholamine therapy had a lactic acidosis with an elevated L/P ratio and a decreased arterial ketone body ratio, suggesting a decrease in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial redox state. The duration of lactic acidosis is associated with the development of multiple organ failure and death.
Reasoning about edits to feature models

Features express the variabilities and commonalities among programs in a software product line (SPL). A feature model defines the valid combinations of features, where each combination corresponds to a program in an SPL. SPLs and their feature models evolve over time. We classify the evolution of a feature model via modifications as refactorings, specializations, generalizations, or arbitrary edits. We present an algorithm to reason about feature model edits to help designers determine how the program membership of an SPL has changed. Our algorithm takes two feature models as input (before and after edit versions), where the set of features in both models are not necessarily the same, and it automatically computes the change classification. Our algorithm is able to give examples of added or deleted products and efficiently classifies edits to even large models that have thousands of features.
Pthreads for Dynamic Parallelism

Abstract : Expressing a large number of lightweight, parallel threads in a shared address space significantly eases the task of writing a parallel program. Threads can be dynamically created to execute individual parallel tasks; the implementation schedules these threads onto the processors and effectively balances the load. However, unless the threads scheduler is designed carefully, such a parallel program may suffer poor space and time performance. Th this paper, we evaluate the performance of a native, lightweight POSIX threads (Pthreads) library on a shared memory machine using a set of parallel benchmarks that dynamically create a large number of threads. By studying the performance of one of the benchmarks, matrix multiply, we show how simple, yet provably good modifications to the library can result in significantly improved space and time performance. With the modified Pthreads library, each of the parallel benchmarks performs as well as its coarse-grained, hand-partitioned counterpart. These results demonstrate that, provided we use a good scheduler, the rich functionality and standard API of Pthreads can be combined with the advantages of dynamic, lightweight threads to result in high performance.
Sociolinguistic inference and intercultural coorientation : A bayesian model of communicative competence in intercultural interaction

We present a model that examines the effects of cultural differences on coorientation (the ability of communicators to accurately encode and interpret the referential and relational meanings of messages). Intercultural coorientation is made problematic by the absence of certain shared communication system knowledge, which in same-culture interactions is used in the dynamic sociolinguistic negotiation of relational rights and obligations. We propose that the process of sociolinguistic negotiation of meanings relies fundamentally on probabilistic inference and have constructed a model based on Bayes' theorem. The model predicts the effects of the communication situation, communicator stereotypes and prejudice, and some other-culture speaker errors on conclusions the receiver draws about the message. Using the model, we distinguish between the ethnocentric error of interpreting a communication in terms of one's own culture and the error of not seeing the communication as diagnostic. Among our predictions are: (a) the less diagnostic the communication, the more impact cultural stereotypes will have on attributions; (b) although evidence of sociolinguistic incompetence sometimes causes misunderstanding, it sometimes prevents misunderstanding; (c) multiple consistent features make intentions clearer than would a single cue, but multiple features violating co-occurrence norms often lead to the attribution of incompetence.
A Biological Evaluation of DNA Damage Detected by Comet Assay in Healthy Populations Residing in Areas that Differ in Lung Cancer Incidence

The comet assay was performed to evaluate the effect of environmental exposure between human populations residing in two areas that differ in lung cancer incidence, Saraphi (n = 91) and Chom Thong (n = 94). Three parameters, the tail length, tail intensity, and tail moment, were used to detect DNA damage in peripheral blood and stimulated lymphocytes with and without the DNA repair inhibitor, aphidicolin. Internal standards, cryopreserved isolated lymphocytes, and isolated lymphocytes irradiated with 2 Gy gamma rays, were used to correct the interexperimental variability. Results revealed a significant difference between two populations only when the tail length was used to measure DNA damage. The evaluation of various potential confounding factors, such as gender, pesticide exposure, smoking, alcohol drinking, and fermented tea leaf or betel nut chewing, indicated no significant influence in DNA damage. In conclusion, significant difference in DNA damage, detected only by tail length between the two populations residing in the areas with different incidence of lung cancer, may reflect a nonhazardous level of exposure to toxic substances. The authors thank all of the blood donors for their samples, time, and interest in this project. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. Günter Speit, Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ulm, Federal Republic of Germany, for providing the laboratory and analysis facilities and his valuable comment on the articles. The present work was supported by grants PHD/069/2543 and BGJ/40/2543 from the Royal Golden Jubilee PhD Program, Thailand Research Fund, and grant A/02/09887 from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany.
Corporate Portfolio Analysis Tools Revisited: Assessing Causes that May Explain Their Scholarly Disdain

While prominent corporate portfolio analysis tools such as the BCG Growth-Share Matrix took centre stage in the field of strategic management from the 1960s to the mid‐1980s, this review of the literature shows that they have since then largely disappeared from the academic agenda, despite their practical relevance and widespread application. There may be two independent reasons for this apparent scholarly disdain: corporate portfolio analysis tools (a) may have been recognized as unsuitable owing to inherent flaws or superior alternative concepts or (b) may have become obsolete because of proof that corporate diversification is inferior to market diversification. Thus, this assessment is based on an extensive review of the most relevant academic literature on corporate portfolio analysis tools and on the constitutive diversification – performance link published in leading management journals over the past five decades. The review reveals that research to date has not produced advanced tools based on an objective criticism of the original matrices, nor has corporate diversification – as a precondition for corporate portfolio analysis – proved to be inferior to market‐based co‐ordination mechanisms. Thus, this literature review constitutes a call for further academic research in the field of corporate portfolio analysis tools as well as corporate diversification.
Who Punishes? Personality Traits Predict Individual Variation in Punitive Sentiment

Cross-culturally, participants in public goods games reward participants and punish defectors to a degree beyond that warranted by rational, profit-maximizing considerations. Costly punishment, where individuals impose costs on defectors at a cost to themselves, is thought to promote the maintenance of cooperation. However, despite substantial variation in the extent to which people punish, little is known about why some individuals, and not others, choose to pay these costs. Here, we test whether personality traits might contribute to variation in helping and punishment behavior. We first replicate a previous study using public goods scenarios to investigate effects of sex, relatedness and likelihood of future interaction on willingness to help a group member or to punish a transgressor. As in the previous study, we find that individuals are more willing to help related than unrelated needy others and that women are more likely to express desire to help than men. Desire to help was higher if the probability of future interaction is high, at least among women. In contrast, among these variables, only participant sex predicted some measures of punitive sentiment. Extending the replication, we found that punitive sentiment, but not willingness to help, was predicted by personality traits. Most notably, participants scoring lower on Agreeableness expressed more anger towards and greater desire to punish a transgressor, and were more willing to engage in costly punishment, at least in our scenario. Our results suggest that some personality traits may contribute to underpinning individual variation in social enforcement of cooperation.
Gendering in political journalism in the framework of other “ing-s” : Russian and Swedish political journalists about gender, ethnicity and sexual identity as politicians’ characteristics and political categories

This paper explores gendering in political journalism – the perceived imprint of gender on the media portrayal of politics and politicians, as well as the processes whereby gendered media representations materialize. Gendering here is understood as an ambiguous process, which can be either discriminatory or promoting, depending on its manifestations (e.g. gender stereotypes or counter-stereotypes, gender-spotlighting or gender-aware story). Moreover, this paper suggests to study this phenomena from intersectionality perspective (Davis 2008, McCall 2005) in order to understand gendering in the framework of other discriminatory and promoting mechanisms in political news.The paper is based on forty semi-structured interviews with political journalists working for the quality press in Russia and Sweden. The choice of the countries is driven by the wish to explore the difficulties and similarities of the journalists’ conceptualizations of gendering in two very different political and cultural contexts. The paper shows that the journalists in both countries highlight the importance of not only gender mainstreaming, but diversity in the content in general as a democratic value, where gender stands in the same row with other difference-making categories (such as ethnicity, sexuality etc.). The paper highlights the difficulties and contradictions the Russian and Swedish political journalists face trying to achieve their diversity ideal. As such, the paper discusses the reasons for the “double othering” of foreign women politicians in the Russian press and the ridiculing of Russian male politicians in the Swedish press, the attempts of the Russian journalists to remain gender-neutral in the current homophobic context and their Swedish colleagues’ striving for keeping gender as an issue on the media agenda when it is being replaced from the political agenda by the discussions of race and ethnicity issues.
NUTRACEUTICAL PROPERTIES OF LOW α-LINOLENIC SOYBEANS GROWN IN MARYLAND

Title of Document: NUTRACEUTICAL PROPERTIES OF LOW α-LINOLENIC SOYBEANS GROWN IN MARYLAND Monica Whent, M.S., 2009 Directed By: Dr. Liangli Yu, Nutrition and Food Science Department Eight soybean genotypes grown in Maryland were analyzed for total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant capacity, isoflavone composition, lutein content, tocopherol composition, and fatty acid profile. The soybean samples consisted of seven low α-linolenic (18:3n-3) experimental lines and one non-modified cultivar for comparison. 18:3n-3 levels were negatively correlated with oleic acid (18:1n-9). The isoflavones daidzein and genistein were positively correlated with 18:3n-3 levels. αTocopherol, γ-tocopherol, and total tocopherols were negatively correlated with 18:3n-3. Two of the reduced 18:3n-3 lines contained significantly higher lutein levels than the ordinary cultivar. All low α-linolenic lines contained similar antioxidant capacity to the non-modified genotype. The results of this study show that the Maryland-grown low 18:3n-3 soybeans are sources of antioxidants and isoflavones and may be consumed for health benefits. Specific genotypes may be selected for food production to obtain the most desirable combination of nutritional, nutraceutical, and chemical properties. NUTRACEUTICAL PROPERTIES OF LOW α-LINOLENIC SOYBEANS GROWN IN MARYLAND
THE PATHOLOGY OF JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS. A REVIEW.

In his review of pathological studies on Japanese encephalitis conducted in Japan over the past 40 years, the author first discusses the findings obtained from post-mortem examinations of persons who had died of the disease, and, secondly, summarizes experimental research carried out on monkeys, horses and mice. He stresses that, although a great deal has been learned from these studies, much research is still needed, in which modern laboratory techniques give good hopes of success.This review suggests that before the Second World War the histopathological findings in Japanese encephalitis resembled those of eastern equine encephalitis but that since the war they have been more like those of western equine encephalitis, although no definitive explanation of this phenomenon can yet be offered.
On the role of the proform-conformation for processing and intracellular sorting of human cathepsin G.

The serine protease cathepsin G is synthesized during the promyelomonocytic stage of neutrophil and monocyte differentiation. After processing, including removal of an amino-terminal propeptide from the catalytically inactive proform, the active protease acquires a mature conformation and is stored in azurophil granules. To investigate the importance of the proform-conformation for targeting to granules, a cDNA encoding a double-mutant form of human preprocathepsin G lacking functional catalytic site and amino-terminal prodipeptide (CatG/Gly201/triangle upGly19Glu20) was constructed, because we were not able to stably express a mutant lacking only the propeptide. Transfection of the cDNA to the rat basophilic leukemia RBL-1 and the murine myeloblast-like 32D cl3 cell lines resulted in stable, protein-expressing clones. In contrast to wild-type proenzyme, CatG/Gly201/triangle upGly19Glu20 adopted a mature conformation cotranslationally, as judged by the early acquisition of affinity to the serine protease inhibitor aprotinin, appearing before the carboxyl-terminal processing and also in the presence of the Golgi-disrupting agent brefeldin A. The presence of a mature amino-terminus was confirmed by amino-terminal radiosequencing. As with wild-type proenzyme, CatG/Gly201/triangle upGly19Glu20 was proteolytically processed carboxyl-terminally and glycosylated with asparagine-linked carbohydrates that were converted into complex forms. Furthermore, it was targeted to granules, as determined by subcellular fractionation. Our results show that the initial proform-conformation is not critical for intracellular sorting of human cathepsin G. Moreover, we demonstrate that double-mutant cathepsin G can achieve a mature conformation before carboxyl-terminal processing of the proform.
Beam switching support to resolve link-blockage problem in 60 GHz WPANs

In this paper, we propose a solution to resolve link blockage problem in 60 GHz WPANs. Line-of-Sight (LOS) link is easily blocked by a moving person, which is concerned as one of the severe problems in 60 GHz systems. Beamforming is a feasible technique to resolve link blockage by switching the beam path from LOS link to a Non-LOS (NLOS) link. We propose and evaluate two kinds of Beam Switching (BS) mechanisms: instant decision based BS and environment learning based BS. We examine these mechanisms in a typical indoor WPAN scenario. Extensive simulations have been carried out, and our results reveal that combining angle-of-arrival with the received signal to noise ratio could make better decision for beam switching. Our work provides valuable observations for beam switching during point-to-point communication using 60 GHz radio.
Environmental Attributes Influencing the Distribution of Burkholderia pseudomallei in Northern Australia

Factors responsible for the spatial and temporal clustering of Burkholderia pseudomallei in the environment remain to be elucidated. Whilst laboratory based experiments have been performed to analyse survival of the organism in various soil types, such approaches are strongly influenced by alterations to the soil micro ecology during soil sanitisation and translocation. During the monsoonal season in Townsville, Australia, B. pseudomallei is discharged from Castle Hill (an area with a very high soil prevalence of the organism) by groundwater seeps and is washed through a nearby area where intensive sampling in the dry season has been unable to detect the organism. We undertook environmental sampling and soil and plant characterisation in both areas to ascertain physiochemical and macro-floral differences between the two sites that may affect the prevalence of B. pseudomallei. In contrast to previous studies, the presence of B. pseudomallei was correlated with a low gravimetric water content and low nutrient availability (nitrogen and sulphur) and higher exchangeable potassium in soils favouring recovery. Relatively low levels of copper, iron and zinc favoured survival. The prevalence of the organism was found to be highest under the grasses Aristida sp. and Heteropogon contortus and to a lesser extent under Melinis repens. The findings of this study indicate that a greater variety of factors influence the endemicity of melioidosis than has previously been reported, and suggest that biogeographical boundaries to the organisms’ distribution involve complex interactions.