Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relationship of Original Family Function and Quality of Life among Students

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between family function and quality of life among university students. The me- thod used is descriptive . The sample comprises 317 university students using random cluster sampling. The tools of data collection includes the Family Assessment Device (FAD) and the Quality of Life (SF-36) question- aires. Collected data were analyzed by means of Pearson correla tion coefficient, and stepwise regression analysis. The results show that there is a negative and reverse relationship between disorder in family function and quality of life (r=-0.381).
Exosomes: Origins and Therapeutic Potential for Neurodegenerative Disease

Exosomes, small lipid bilayer vesicles, are part of the transportable cell secretome that can be taken up by nearby recipient cells or can travel through the bloodstream to cells in distant organs. Selected cellular cytoplasm containing proteins, RNAs, and other macromolecules is packaged into secreted exosomes. This cargo has the potential to affect cellular function in either healthy or pathological ways. Exosomal content has been increasingly shown to assist in promoting pathways of neurodegeneration such as β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) accumulation forming amyloid plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, and pathological aggregates of proteins containing α-synuclein in Parkinson's disease transferred to the central nervous system via exosomes. In attempting to address such debilitating neuropathologies, one promising utility of exosomes lies in the development of methodology to use exosomes as natural delivery vehicles for therapeutics. Because exosomes are capable of penetrating the blood-brain barrier, they can be strategically engineered to carry drugs or other treatments, and possess a suitable half-life and stability for this purpose. Overall, analyses of the roles that exosomes play between diverse cellular sites will refine our understanding of how cells communicate. This mini-review introduces the origin and biogenesis of exosomes, their roles in neurodegenerative processes in the central nervous system, and their potential utility to deliver therapeutic drugs to cellular sites.
Putting Constructivist Teaching into Practice in Undergraduate Introductory Science.

The purpose of this study was to examine the process that one instructor of undergraduate introductory science underwent when she attempted to execute constructivist teaching into practice. The instructor had experienced a major conceptual change while enrolled in a summer graduate-level science education course. She worked collaboratively with a mentor during the following fall semester, reflecting weekly while watching a videotape of her teaching. Data were collected in the form of interviews, journal entries, observations and videotapes. The instructor demonstrated that the four criteria for conceptual change (IPDF) had been met. Three critical variables were identified that affected the implementation process: the university context, the instructor's emotional response, and the mentoring relationship. Recommendations were made for facilitating pedagogical conceptual change into constructivist college science teaching practices.
Consistent collective activity recognition with fully connected CRFs

Recognizing collective human activities has gained attention. Collective activities are such as queueing in a line, talking together and waiting by an intersection. It is often hard to differentiate between these activities only by the appearance of the individual. Hence, recent works exploit the contextual information of other people nearby. However, these works do not take enough care of the spacial and temporal consistency in a group (e.g. considering the consistency in only adjacent area). To solve the problem, this paper describes a method to integrate individual recognition result via fully connected CRFs, which assume the relationships among all the people. Unlike previous methods that determine the range of human relations by heuristics, our method describes the “multi-scale” relationships in position, size, movement and time sequence as flexible potentials, so as to handle various types, sizes and shapes of groups. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the art methods.
Haptic control with environment force estimation for telesurgery

Success of telesurgical operations depends on better position tracking ability of the slave device. Improved position tracking of the slave device can lead to safer and less strenuous telesurgical operations. The two-channel force-position control architecture is widely used for better position tracking ability. This architecture requires force sensors for direct force feedback. Force sensors may not be a good choice in the telesurgical environment because of the inherent noise, and limitation in the deployable place and space. Hence, environment force estimation is developed using the concept of the robot function parameter matrix and a recursive least squares method. Simulation results show efficacy of the proposed method. The slave device successfully tracks the position of the master device, and the estimation error quickly becomes negligible.
Leadership and inclusion: a special school perspective

In July 2002, the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) held a ‘Leading Edge’ seminar focused on the contribution that leaders in special schools can make to the development of Inclusive policies and practices. The day gave colleagues working in specialist contexts an opportunity to share examples and experiences of current initiatives and to speculate about future trends and developments in inclusive education. In this article, Robin Attfield and Chris Williams, Assistant Directors in Programmes and Research respectively at the NCSL, explore the context in which the seminar took place and some of the themes and issues that emerged from discussion on the day. At the end of their paper, they summarise the key messages that the special school leaders who attended the seminar wished to communicate to a wider audience and articulate a further role for leaders in special schools in the development of inclusion.
Pregnant smokers’ perceptions of specialist smoking cessation services

Introduction: Women who continue to smoke during pregnancy are at risk of smoking-related diseases, maternity complications and expose the foetus to risks of perinatal mortality and morbidity. The number of women smoking at the time of delivery is estimated at 13.5% in England and 15.8% in the West Midlands. However, the prevalence can be elevated in certain areas, such as north Solihull. Aims: This research consults past, current and non-users of specialist smoking cessation services and reports pregnant women's views of smoking cessation delivery and potential service developments. Methods: Focus groups were conducted with 19 participants with experience of prenatal smoking. Findings: Data was analysed using thematic analysis. The main themes included: (1) improving access to clear, sensitive information on smoking and pregnancy; (2) perceptions of existing services; (3) improving current services: the right delivery and the right person; and (4) encouraging participation of pregnant smokers. Conclusions: In this area, pregnant smokers wanted easily-accessible, empathetic, non-judgemental and flexible support more than incentives or rewards to quit smoking. They also stated a preference for group cessation support as they believed that peer support would be advantageous.
The application of Quantum Tunneling Compound to sleep actigraphy

The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of material constructed from Quantum Tunneling Compound (QTC) to the problem of detecting and recording movement during sleep. We describe the design and implementation of a pressure sensitive mat (PSM) incorporating QTC technology. Furthermore, we describe the neural fuzzy analysis of actigraphic data.
The physiological role of fat body and muscle tissues in response to cold stress in the tropical cockroach Gromphadorhina coquereliana

Protective mechanisms against cold stress are well studied in terrestrial and polar insects; however, little is known about these mechanisms in tropical insects. In our study, we tested if a tropical cockroach Gromphadorhina coquereliana, possesses any protective mechanisms against cold stress. Based on the results of earlier studies, we examined how short-term (3 h) cold (4°C) influences biochemical parameters, mitochondrial respiration activity, and the level of HSPs and aquaporins expression in the fat body and leg muscles of G. coquereliana. Following cold exposure, we found that the level of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins did not change significantly. Nevertheless, we observed significant changes in mitochondrial respiration activity. The oxygen consumption of resting (state 4) and phosphorylating (state 3) mitochondria was altered following cold exposure. The increase in respiratory rate in state 4 respiration was observed in both tissues. In state 3, oxygen consumption by mitochondria in fat body was significantly lower compared to control insects, whereas there were no changes observed for mitochondria in muscle tissue. Moreover, there were cold-induced changes in UCP protein activity, but the changes in activity differed in fat body and in muscles. Additionally, we detected changes in the level of HSP70 and aquaporins expression. Insects treated with cold had significantly higher levels of HSP70 in fat body and muscles. On the other hand, there were lower levels of aquaporins in both tissues following exposure to cold. These results suggest that fat body play an important role in protecting tropical insects from cold stress.
Implications macroéconomiques des théories microéconomiques modernes

It happens that scientists working on microeconomic theory claim to draw from their results macroeconomic implications, which then are either optimistic or pessimistic. These cannot be more than conjectures, whose interest depends on whether they fit within the analytical framework commonly used in macroeconomics and on whether they are exposed to empirical tests. Two types of market failures concern macroeconomics. Besides those, neither indeterminacy of some equilibria nor non-linearity of some relations necessarily have significance for explaining growth, employment or inflation. Il arrive que des chercheurs se consacrant a la theorie microeconomique pretendent tirer de leurs resultats des implications macroeconomiques, qui sont alors tantot optimistes tantot pessimistes. Il ne peut s’agir que de conjectures dont l’interet suppose qu’elles s’inserent dans les cadres usuels de l’analyse macroeconomique et qu’elles se pretent a des tests empiriques. Deux types de dysfonctionnement concernent la macroeconomie. En dehors d’eux ni l’indetermination de certains equilibres ni la non-linearite de certaines relations n’ont necessairement de portee pour l’explication de la croissance, de l’emploi ou de l’inflation.
Television viewing, computer game playing, and Internet use and self-reported time to bed and time out of bed in secondary-school children.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the presence of a television set, a gaming computer, and/or an Internet connection in the room of adolescents and television viewing, computer game playing, and Internet use on the one hand, and time to bed, time up, time spent in bed, and overall tiredness in first- and fourth-year secondary-school children on the other hand. Methods: A random sample of students from 15 schools in Flanders, Belgium, yielded 2546 children who completed a questionnaire with questions about media presence in bedrooms; volume of television viewing, computer game playing, and Internet use; time to bed and time up on average weekdays and average weekend days; and questions regarding the level of tiredness in the morning, at school, after a day at school, and after the weekend. Results: Children with a television set in their rooms went to bed significantly later on weekdays and weekend days and got up significantly later on weekend days. Overall, they spent less time in bed on weekdays. Children with a gaming computer in their rooms went to bed significantly later on weekdays. On weekdays, they spent significantly less time in bed. Children who watched more television went to bed later on weekdays and weekend days and got up later on weekend days. They spent less time in bed on weekdays. They reported higher overall levels of being tired. Children who spent more time playing computer games went to bed later on weekdays and weekend days and got up later on weekend days. On weekdays, they actually got up significantly earlier. They spent less time in bed on weekdays and reported higher levels of tiredness. Children who spent more time using the Internet went to bed significantly later during the week and during the weekend. They got up later on weekend days. They spent less time in bed during the week and reported higher levels of tiredness. Going out was also significantly related to sleeping later and less. Conclusion: Concerns about media use should not be limited to television. Computer game playing and Internet use are related to sleep behavior as well. Leisure activities that are unstructured seem to be negatively related to good sleep patterns. Imposing more structure (eg, end times) might reduce impact. Citation: Van den Bulck J. Television viewing, computer game playing, and internet use and self-reported time to bed and time out of bed in secondary-school children. SLEEP 2004;27(1):101-4.
The effect of backward training on the speed, agility and power of netball players

This study investigated the effect of a backward training programme on the speed, agility and power of well-trained netball players. Seventeen women club netball players (aged 19 – 20 years) were divided into an experimental (n=10) and a control group (n=7) and participated in a six-week backward (BW) and forward (FW) training programme after the competitive season. Before and after the intervention, all the subjects completed the following tests: agility-505 test, agility-T, ladder-test, sprint test (5, 10 and 20 meters) and a vertical jump test. The experimental group showed a statistically significant improvement in the agility-505 test, both for the right leg (p=0.03) and left leg (p=0.03), the agility-T test (p=0.01), as well as the ladder-test (p=0.001). No statistically significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups with regards to straight-line speed and leg power. Although it is not uncommon for coaches to include backward running exercises in the conditioning programmes of team sport players, the actual value of this type of training may have been underestimated in the past. Our findings suggest that netball specific exercises, performed backwards, can be successfully included in the conditioning and skills training programmes of team sport players.
Stacks or File-Registers in Cellular Computing?

Stack oriented architectures are compared with register file oriented architectures in order to decide what is the best for building cellular programmable machines. Area & power vs. computing performance are investigated considering two kind of "users" (i) a compiler, which is another machine, and (ii) a human mind, writing hand coded programs.
Kt/V Is the Best Dialysis Dose Parameter

The term uremia was coined more than 150 years ago by Piorry [1] to indicate ‘urine in the blood’. It has long been known that gross contamination of body water with retained waste solutes is the chemical hallmark of the uremic syndrome. This pathophysiologic aspect of uremia has long stimulated efforts to remove retained uremic solutes by dialysis in the hopes of removing ‘the uremic toxin(s)’. The first effective medical treatment of uremia by dialysis was repoted in 1944 by Kolff and Berk and coworkers [2]. They reported complete recovery from uremic coma using an extracorporeal blood dialyzer which had thick membranes capable of removing only lowmolecular-weight solutes ranging from electrolytes to glucose in size. Kolff and Berk wrote ‘urea is at the utmost only partly co-responsible for the clinical symptoms of uremia, but nevertheless we chose it as a measure for the results of the dialyses. Smaller molecules will dialyze more rapidly and bigger ones less so. ’ This statement described with great clarity the molecular size discriminatory nature of solute removal by dialysis and the concept of using urea as a marker solute to quantify the dose of dialysis. The Kolff-Berk paper provided the first evidence after 150 years of biochemical investigations that retained low-molecular-weight solutes play a critical role in the clinical manifestations of uremia. This observation was repeatedly confirmed in the 1950s with treatment of acute renal failure and in 1960 with the advent of maintenance dialysis for end-stage renal disease [3]. The renal and dialyzer mechanisms of waste solute removal are very similar in that removal is directly proportional to solute concentration. In the steady state when the body inventory or mass of solute is constant, the generation and removal rates must be equal which can be represented by the simple mass balance expression:
An Intelligent Estimator for Reactor Switching Studies

In this paper an intelligent approach is proposed to evaluate switching overvoltages caused by shunt reactor energization by applying analytical rules. In a small power system that appears in an early stage of a black start of a power system, an overvoltage could be caused by core saturation on the energization of a reactor with residual flux. An artificial neural network (ANN) has been used to estimate the overvoltages due to shunt reactor energization. Three learning algorithms, delta-bar-delta (DBD), extended delta-bar-delta (EDBD) and directed random search (DRS), were used to train the ANNs. Equivalent circuit parameters of network have been used as ANN inputs; thus developed ANN is applicable to every studied system. The developed ANN is trained with the worst case of the switching angle and remanent flux, and tested for typical cases. The simulated results for a partial of 39-bus New England test system show that the proposed technique can measure the peak values and duration of switching overvoltages with good accuracy and EDBD algorithm presents best performance.
THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL: GLOBALIZATION IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT

This article sets the stage for this Journal of Sport & Social Issues special issue on sport and globalism. As a preface to the more detailed treatments that follow, the author considers the development of inquiry on sport and globalization in the social sciences. Key definitional terms such as modernization, cultural imperialism, and cultural hegemony are framed in the context of debates over Americanization and globalization. Refinements in recent scholarly developments in sport and globalization are linked to the collected efforts found on the pages that follow in this issue.
Decidability for a temporal logic used in discrete-event system analysis

The type of plant considered is one that can be modelled by a non-deterministic finite state machine P. The regulator is a deterministic finite state machine R. The closed loop system is formed by connecting P and R in a 'regulator configuration'. Formulae in a propositional temporal language are used to describe the behaviour of the closed-loop system. It is shown that there is a mechanical procedure which, for a given P and R, and a temporal formula Ψ, will determine in a finite number of steps whether or not Ψ must be true. This ‘decidability’ result could be proven using other known results on temporal logic. The proof given here shows that the behaviour of the closed-loop system may safely be assumed to be ultimately periodic. Formulae of a given complexity, say n, will be true in all possible 'runs' of the system just in case they are true in all ultimately periodic runs, with the period and the onset of periodicity bounded by a certain function of n. A ‘synthesis’ result follows immediately from th.
Stable association of activated pp60src with two tyrosine-phosphorylated cellular proteins

We have identified two phosphotyrosine-containing cellular proteins with relative molecular masses of 130,000 (pp130) and 110,000 (pp110) daltons in chicken embryo cells that coimmunoprecipitated with pp60v-src and activated forms of chicken pp60c-src (pp60(527)F). Most if not all of the tyrosine-phosphorylated forms of pp130 and pp110 could be immunoprecipitated from lysates with any of several src protein-specific monoclonal antibodies directed against at least three spatially distinct epitopes. Consequently, of the more than 15 prominent phosphoproteins detected on immunoblots with phosphotyrosine-specific antibodies, pp130 and pp110 were selectively removed by src protein-specific immunoprecipitation, and their presence in the immunoprecipitates appears to have been due to a direct interaction with activated src proteins. src protein variants that induce different morphological phenotypes were altered in their ability to form detergent-stable complexes with pp130 and pp110 or with pp110 alone. Mutant src proteins, defective for myristylation, showed increased tyrosine phosphorylation of and association with pp110. Expression of src variants with mutations in the A box (pp60dl92/527F) or B box (pp60dl155/527F) of the src homology region induced differences in phosphorylation of pp130 and pp110, as well as changes in their association with variant src proteins. Sequences within the B-box region appeared to be necessary for stable complex formation with pp130 and pp110 and may be involved in the interaction of activated src proteins with cellular substrates.
Answering the Sustainability Question: A 3 Year Follow-up Report on a Wallace Foundation Training Grant Program and What Did Participants See as Important?

In July 2008, Riverbend Public Schools (RPS) in Western Michigan and Grand Valley State University (GVSU) received a grant from the Wallace Foundation that supported the development of a specialized educational leadership program. The project was designed to customize an existing degree program in the university’s College of Education, focusing on leadership skill sets for urban school leaders. The project, titled the “Aspiring Leaders Program,” allowed 34 urban teachers and new principals to obtain a master’s degree in educational leadership or an educational specialist degree in educational leadership with special expertise in urban schools. The program ran from November 2008 through the fall semester of 2009. In the late fall of 2009 and again in 2012, follow-up studies were conducted to determine if this customized program had benefited the participants and if they continued to use the skill sets they had been taught. This study describes the 2012 three-year followup study and discusses its results.
Changes in outlook following disaster: The preliminary development of a measure to assess positive and negative responses

Although the introduction of PTSD (APA, 1980, 1987) has fueled much interest into the psychological sequelae of disaster, little attention has been paid to the more existential changes in outlook many survivors report. Preliminary work on the development of a measure to assess both positive and negative responses to disaster is presented.