Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecofeminism and Environmental Ethics

This study focuses on ecofeminist ethical theory. A first aim is to clarify ecofeminist views on five central issues in the field of environmental ethics. These issues are: (1) Views of nature, (2) social constructivism and nature, (3) values of nature, (4) ethical contextualism, and (5) ethical pluralism. A second aim is to compare ecofeminist standpoints with certain standpoints within nonfeminist environmental ethical theory. A third aim is to critically discuss some of the main standpoints in ecofeminism. The analysis focuses on the works of Karen Warren, Sallie McFague, Chris Cuomo, and Carolyn Merchant. Other important sources are the environmental philosophers and ethicists J. Baird Callicott, Paul Taylor, Irene Klaver, Bryan G. Norton, Christopher Stone, Eugene Hargrove, Holmes Rolston III, Per Ariansen, Don E. Marietta, and Bruno Latour.The result of this study is that there are no main differences between ecofeminism and nonfeminist environmental ethics regarding the main standpoints on the five issues. Rather, the significant differences are found within these main standpoints. In addition, one important characteristic of ecofeminist ethics is its "double nature," that is, the fact that it is rooted in feminism and environmentalism. The double nature of ecofeminism results in a foundation out of which ecofeminism as an environmental philosophy has a unique potential to handle some of the theoretical tensions that environmental ethics creates.From the perspective that environmental problems consist of complex clusters of natureculture- discourse and that environmental ethical theory ought to be action guiding, it is argued that ecofeminist ethical theory has an advantage compared to nonfeminist environmental ethics. This standpoint is explained by the fact that ecofeminism holds a variety of views of nature, kinds of social constructivism and contextualism, and conceptions of values and of the self, and from the presumption that this variety reflects the reality of environmental problems. However, in order for ecofeminist ethical theory to fulfill its promise as an acceptable environmental ethical theory, its theoretical standpoints ought to be explicated and further clarified.
Hedonic consequences of social comparison: a contrast of happy and unhappy people.

Two studies tested the hypothesis that self-rated unhappy individuals would be more sensitive to social comparison information than would happy ones. Study 1 showed that whereas unhappy students' affect and self-assessments were heavily affected by a peer who solved anagrams either faster or slower, happy students' responses were affected by the presence of a slower peer only. These between-group differences proved to be largely independent of 2 factors associated with happiness, i.e., self-esteem and optimism. Study 2 showed that whereas the unhappy group's responses to feedback about their own teaching performance were heavily influenced by a peer who performed even better or even worse, happy students' responses again were moderated only by information about inferior peer performance. Implications for our appreciation of the link between cognitive processes and "hedonic" consequences are discussed.
Host MHC class I gene control of NK‐cell specificity in the mouse

Summary: The missing self model predicts chat NK cells adapt somatically to the type as well as levels of MHC class I products expressed by their host, Transgenic and gene knock‐out mice have provided conclusive evidence chat MHC class I genes control specificity and tolerance of NK cells. The article describes this control and discusses the POSSIBLE Mechanisms behind it. starting from a genetic model to study how natural resistance to tumors is influenced by MHC class I expression in the host as well as in the target cells. Data on host gene regulation of NK‐cell functional specificity as well as Lγ49 receptor expression are reviewed, leading up to the central question: how does the system develop and maintain “useful” NK cells, while avoiding “harmful” and “useless” ones? The available data can be fitted with in each of two mutually non‐exclusive models: cellular adaptation and clonal selection. Recent studies supporting cellular adaptation bring the focus on different possibilities within this general mechanism, such as energy, receptor calibration and, most importantly, whether the specificity of each NK cell is permanently fixed or subject to continuous regulation.
Use of Services by Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: In Their Own Words

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been a long time societal problem. Social workers have been at the forefront of IPV service provision through such activities as setting up shelters and emotional support to survivors. Social workers may benefit from this study by learning ways to enhance their service delivery. Qualitative research about the experiences of IPV survivors, particularly related to service utilization, is limited. This dissertation study using qualitative methods seeks to enhance the literature about female IPV survivors’ perceptions of service use. Data were collected and analyzed from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 16 heterosexual female IPV survivors to address their perceptions of their IPV experiences and service utilization. The convenience sampling strategy involved recruitment of survivors who were using IPV services in three research sites in two urban counties. Responses from a focus group of service providers were analyzed to enhance the findings. The findings highlight the survivors’ perceptions of the helpfulness and unhelpfulness of their informal and formal support networks as key factors in their help-seeking strategies and service utilization. The findings support three existing theoretical perspectives: Empowerment Theory, Constructivist Self-Development Paradigm, and Shame Resilience Theory/Model. Strategies for enhanced IPV service delivery were developed based on the findings in this study. The societal/practice, theory, and research implications are all referenced as they pertain to victimized women.
Effect of adductor‐canal‐blockade on established, severe post‐operative pain after total knee arthroplasty: a randomised study

In this proof‐of‐concept study, we investigated the effect of the predominantly sensory adductor‐canal‐blockade on established pain in the early post‐operative period after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We hypothesised that the adductor‐canal‐blockade would reduce pain during flexion of the knee (primary end point) and at rest, as well as reducing morphine consumption and morphine‐related side effects (secondary outcomes) compared with placebo.
Adapting a Semantic Question Answering System to the Web

This paper describes how a question answering (QA) system developed for small-sized document collections of several million sentences was modified in order to work with a monolingual subset of the web. The basic QA system relies on complete sentence parsing, inferences, and semantic representation matching. The extensions and modifications needed for useful and quick answers from web documents are discussed. The main extension is a two-level approach that first accesses a web search engine and downloads some of its document hits and then works similar to the basic QA system. Most modifications are restrictions like a maximal number of documents and a maximal length of investigated document parts; they ensure acceptable answer times. The resulting web QA system is evaluated on the German test collection from QA@CLEF 2004. Several parameter settings and strategies for accessing the web search engine are investigated. The main results are: precision-oriented extensions and experimentally derived parameter settings are needed to achieve similar performance on the web as on small-sized document collections that show higher homogeneity and quality of the contained texts; adapting a semantic QA system to the web is feasible, but answering a question is still expensive in terms of bandwidth and CPU time.
Parental perception of their children's weight status, and its association with their nutrition and obesity knowledge.

BACKGROUND Worldwide the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children is escalating. Parents' recognition of overweight or obesity in their own children is very important for a successful intervention in these children. This study examined parental perception of their children's weight status, and its association with their knowledge on nutrition and obesity. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross sectional study of parents with children aged 9 to 12 years, in a primary school of Kuala Lumpur. Parents responded to a self-administered questionnaire which contains parental perception of their child weight status as well as knowledge on nutrition and obesity. The parents' perception of the children's weight status was then compared with the actual measured weight status. RESULTS There were 204 parents who participated in the study. Parents were found to underestimate their child weight status and 38.2% were inaccurate in their perception. The mean score of knowledge on nutrition and obesity was 78.5+/-14.4; and this did not associate with the accuracy of their perception on the child weight status. Parents showed inadequate knowledge in food pyramid and preparation of low fat meals. CONCLUSION The Malaysian Health Campaigns had resulted in overall good knowledge on nutrition and obesity in the parents except in few domains. However, this was insufficient to make the parents recognize the growing overweight and obesity problem in their children.
Online Sensor Activation for Detectability of Discrete Event Systems

In this paper, we investigate online sensor activation to ensure detectability of discrete event systems. Detectability requires that states of a system can be determined or certain pairs of states can be distinguished by an external observer eventually or periodically. Since minimal sensor activation policies for detectability may not exist, two new concepts are introduced: 1) <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$k$</tex></formula>-step distinguishability is introduced for strong detectability and 2) information-preserving is introduced for strong periodic detectability. The online sensor activation is then proposed and is based on the best state estimate available at the time of decision making. Three algorithms are developed for online sensor activation. The first two algorithms are for strong detectability. They minimize sensor activation while preserving <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$k$</tex> </formula>-step distinguishability. The third algorithm deals with strong periodic detectability. It minimizes sensor activation while preserving state information.
SCOR: a Structural Classification of RNA database

The Structural Classification of RNA (SCOR) database provides a survey of the three-dimensional motifs contained in 259 NMR and X-ray RNA structures. In one classification, the structures are grouped according to function. The RNA motifs, including internal and external loops, are also organized in a hierarchical classification. The 259 database entries contain 223 internal and 203 external loops; 52 entries consist of fully complementary duplexes. A classification of the well-characterized tertiary interactions found in the larger RNA structures is also included along with examples. The SCOR database is accessible at http://scor.lbl. gov.
The association between waist circumference and risk of mortality considering body mass index in 65- to 74-year-olds: a meta-analysis of 29 cohorts involving more than 58 000 elderly persons.

BACKGROUND For the elderly, the association between waist circumference (WC) and mortality considering body mass index (BMI) remains unclear, and thereby also the evidence base for using these anthropometric measures in clinical practice. This meta-analysis examined the association between WC categories and (cause-specific) mortality within BMI categories. Furthermore, the association of continuous WC with lowest and increased mortality risks was examined. METHODS Age- and smoking-adjusted relative risks (RRs) of mortality associated with WC-BMI categories and continuous WC (including WC and WC(2)) were calculated by the investigators and pooled by means of random-effects models. RESULTS During a 5-year-follow-up of 32 678 men and 25 931 women, we ascertained 3318 and 1480 deaths, respectively. A large WC (men: ≥102 cm, women: ≥88 cm) was associated with increased all-cause mortality RRs for those in the 'healthy' weight {1.7 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.2-2.2], 1.7 (95% CI: 1.3-2.3)}, overweight [1.1(95% CI: 1.0-1.3), 1.4 (95%: 1.1-1.7)] and obese [1.1 (95% CI: 1.0-1.3), 1.6 (95% CI: 1.3-1.9)] BMI category compared with the 'healthy' weight (20-24.9 kg/m(2)) and a small WC (<94 cm, men; <80 cm, women) category. Underweight was associated with highest all-cause mortality RRs in men [2.2 (95% CI: 1.8-2.8)] and women [2.3 (95% CI: 1.8-3.1]. We found a J-shaped association for continuous WC with all-cause, cardiovascular (CVD) and cancer, and a U-shaped association with respiratory disease mortality (P < 0.05). An all-cause (CVD) mortality RR of 2.0 was associated with a WC of 132 cm (123 cm) in men and 116 cm (105 cm) in women. CONCLUSIONS Our results showed increased mortality risks for elderly people with an increased WC-even across BMI categories- and for those who were classified as 'underweight' using BMI. The results provide a solid basis for re-evaluation of WC cut-points in ageing populations.
Ethnic variations in self‐perceived sensitive skin: epidemiological survey

To examine possible ethnic variations in perception of sensitive skin, an epidemiological survey was performed in the San Francisco area. Approximately 800 telephone interviews were conducted with women from four different ethnic groups (Afro‐Americans, Asians, Euro‐Americans, Hispanics; approximately 200 women per group). In addition to sensitive facial skin assessments, age and other general skin condition data were collected. 52% of the subjects identified themselves as having sensitive facial skin. There was no statistical difference between the ethnic groups in terms of sensitive skin prevalence. Nevertheless, some differences were noted between ethnic subgroups of sensitive skin. Euro‐Americans were characterized by a higher skin reactivity to wind and tended to be less reactive to cosmetics. Afro‐Americans presented diminished skin reactivity to most environmental factors and a lower frequency of recurring facial redness. Asians appeared to have greater skin reactivity to spicy food, to sudden changes in temperature and to wind, and tended to suffer from itching more frequently. Hispanics presented a lower incidence of skin reactivity to alcohol. The differences in skin sensitivity between ethnic groups concerned mostly factors of skin reactivity and, to a lesser extent, its symptomatology. But, taken together, we note the similarities in comparing how women of varying ethnic backgrounds perceive the sensitive skin condition.
Managing QoS Acceptability for Service Selection: A Probabilistic Description Logics Based Approach

Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees are usually regulated in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between provider and consumer of services. Such guarantees are often violated, it may however be the case where the available services do not match exactly all required QoS, leading the system to grind to a halt. It would be better to look for an approximation for acceptable QoS and avoid the complete stopping of the running services. This paper aims at making dynamic QoS acceptability easy for service selection. The proposed model is based on an extension of existing probabilistic description logics reacting to QoS variations. The contributions made are twofold (1) a query description language to express the required QoS by means of a probabilistic description logic (2) a reasoning algorithm for decision making about the acceptability of QoS w.r. t the probabilistic description.
The effect of proline on the network structure of major ampullate silks as inferred from their mechanical and optical properties

SUMMARY The silk that orb-weaving spiders produce for use as dragline and for the frame of the web is spun from the major ampullate (MA) glands, and it is renowned for its exceptional toughness. The fibroins that make up MA silk have previously been organized into two major groupings, spidroin-1 and spidroin-2, based largely on differences in amino acid sequence. The most apparent difference between spidroin-1 and spidroin-2 fibroins is the lack of proline in spidroin-1. The MA silk of Araneus diadematus comprises two spidroin-2 fibroins, and is therefore proline-rich, whereas spidroin-1 is preferentially expressed in Nephila clavipes MA silk, and so this silk is proline deficient. Together, these two silks provide a system for testing the consequences of proline-rich and proline-deficient fibroin networks. This study measures the mechanical and optical properties of dry and hydrated Araneus and Nephila MA silks. Since proline acts to disrupt secondary structure, it is hypothesized that the fibroin network of Araneus MA silk will contain less secondary structure than the network of Nephila MA silk. Mechanical and optical studies clearly support this hypothesis. Although the dry properties of these two silks are indistinguishable, there are large differences between the hydrated silks. Nephila silk does not swell upon hydration to the same degree as Araneus silk. In addition, upon hydration, Nephila MA silk retains more of its initial dry stiffness, and retains more molecular order, as indicated by birefringence measurements.
Weave Now or Weave Later: A Test Driven Development Perspective on Aspect-oriented Deployment Models

I Common development practice: make small changes to code, re-compile, run unit tests to verify the changes I Aspect-oriented approaches offer several deployment models: static (compile-time), load-time, and run-time I Static deployment typically induces longer (re-)compile times I Load-time deployment typically induces longer execution times I The impact of the deployment model on the edit+compile+test cycle is not understood: when should you weave?
Fault Tolerance in Wireless Sensor Networks using Stiffed Delaunay Triangulation

In this chapter, we introduce fault tolerance in Wireless Sensor Networks. Firstly, we start with a short description of sensor networks, fault tolerance and its different techniques. Then we discuss the different phases of fault tolerance (fault models, fault detection and identification at five levels of abstractions (physical, hardware, middleware, system software and applications) and four scopes (components of individual nodes, individual node, network and the distributed system). The technical cores of the chapter covered various coverage strategies to make the system fault tolerant. We conclude the chapter with a brief survey of the future directions for fault tolerance in Wireless Sensor Networks.
The Dysfunctional Attitude Scale: A Validation Study

In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The dissertation that follows is the product of several years and many persons' efforts. Neither space nor language allows an adequate accounting of all who made significant contributions to my development and to the completion of this study. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Aaron T. Beck whose early and continuous interest and support provided the basis for this dissertation. The assistance and suggestions of Dr. who served on my committee, are also acknowledged. The frustrations of data collection were eased greatly by Drs. who typed the final manuscript. I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the support and encouragement afforded me by my family and friends. Finally this dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Julia E. Grossman, my grandmother, who provided a constant source of encouragement and taught me that it is always necessary to do what is right and to do it well. iii Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
GABRA2 markers moderate the subjective effects of alcohol

Individual differences in subjective responses (SRs) to alcohol are moderated by genetic variants and may be risk factors for the development of alcohol use disorders. Variation in the GABAAα2 receptor subunit gene (GABRA2) has been associated with alcohol dependence (AD). Therefore, we examined whether individual differences in SRs, which reflect sensitivity to the effects of alcohol, are associated with variation in GABRA2. Sixty‐nine healthy subjects (21–30 years) underwent a laboratory‐based within‐session cumulative oral alcohol dosing procedure, achieving a mean peak blood alcohol level of 100.4 mg/dl (standard error = 2.5). Subjective assessments were obtained throughout the session, including ascending and descending limbs of the alcohol curve. We genotyped single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the chromosome 4 region spanning GABRA2 and analyzed the effect of genotype and haplotypes on subjective responses to alcohol. Population substructure was characterized through the use of ancestry informative markers. Individual SNP analysis demonstrated that carriers of the minor alleles for SNPs rs279858, rs279844, rs279845, rs279826, rs279828 and rs279836 had lower ‘Negative’ alcohol effects scores than individuals homozygous for the common allele at each SNP (P = 0.0060, P = 0.0035, P = 0.0045, P = 0.0043, P = 0.0037 and P = 0.0061, respectively). Haplotype effects of block 1 showed concordant results with SNPs in this block (P = 0.0492 and P = 0.0150 for haplotypes 1 and 4, respectively). The minor alleles for several of these SNPs have previously been associated with AD. Our findings provide further evidence that variation within GABRA2 is associated with attenuated negative responses to alcohol, a known risk factor for vulnerability to alcohol use disorders.
Distributed method for cracking WPA/WPA2‐PSK on multi‐core CPU and GPU architecture

To overcome the limitations of the existing brute force cracking method of Wi‐Fi Protected Access/Wi‐Fi Protected Access II (WPA/WPA2)‐pre‐shared key (PSK) based on single core CPU or one core of a multi‐core CPU, a new distributed multi‐core CPU and GPU parallel cracking method (DMCG) was first proposed. Colored Petri nets was used to validate the four‐way handshake protocol and proved that DMCG could successfully crack WPA/WPA2‐PSK. In DMCG, the PSK list was distributed to each PC reasonably using distributed technology. Multiple computing cores were made up of multi‐core CPU and GPU on single PC to crack in parallel. GPU contributed to the cracking speed improvement due to the strong computing power for intensive parallel tasks. Experimental results showed that DMCG improved the cracking speed by two orders of magnitude and would exhibit more notable advantages with high‐performance distributed system as the cracking speed improved by three or four orders of magnitude, compared with the computing power of one CPU core. An improved Amdahl's law was first proposed, by which the upper bound of the cracking speedup was analyzed. Aiming to the DMCG expansion of cloud computing based on GPU, a lightweight framework called Dandelion computing model was first proposed. Moreover, the analysis of the influences of the graphics card parameters on the cracking speed was processed, and accordingly, the decision support for choosing graphics card in DMCG based on analytic hierarchy process was provided. Finally, the performance optimization of DMCG was processed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.