Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Translating policies into practice: the role of middle-level administrators in language curriculum implementation

This study explores middle-level administrators' perceptions of the implementation of English as a foreign language curriculum policies in the Chinese tertiary context. Drawing on data collected from interviews with the department heads of six universities in a north-western city in China, the article examines their perspectives on the national language policies and their roles in ensuring the implementation of these policies. The findings revealed a discrepancy between policy-makers' intentions and administrators' implementation. Policy-makers designed general, open-ended and abstract policies to offer local universities some flexibility and autonomy in their delivery. However, administrators as intermediary individuals interpreted the open-endedness of the curriculum policies in a different way than the policy-makers had intended. Instead of using the built-in flexibility to tailor methods of helping students to gain proficiency, they placed their emphasis on only one outcome – students' good scores on the national English test. The findings of this study point to the critical role that the department heads as middle-level administrators must play in translating policies into practice, as well as underscoring the need for them to provide the necessary motivation and resources for the implementation to occur. These findings are relevant not only in the Chinese context, but also in other educational systems, as language curricula share commonalities in other ESL and EFL countries, which can learn useful lessons from the current study.
Satisfactions and stresses in the sorting of mail

Abstract The effects of two types of letter-sorting technology on job stress and satisfaction were compared. Manual sorting, which uses the traditional method of assigning letters to classified pigeon-holes, was judged to provide elements of discretion, autonomy, and social interaction which are largely absent in coding-desk work, in which a keyboard is used to enter postcodes. Between and within-subject methodology was used in the analysis of data from those engaged in sorting (n = 160). In addition, these groups were compared with supervisors (n = 36) and engineers (n = 26) also working in the sorting area. The key findings were: (a) higher levels of satisfaction were found amongst manual sorters and those spending 50–75% of their time in code-sorting; (b) stress is closely related to satisfaction in the code-sort group but not in the manual group; (c) in manual groups and in supervisors stress was manifested in fatigue, but in the code-sort group stress took the form of anxiety. The results are discuss.
ANTIDIARRHEAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF HYDROALCOHOLIC EXTRACTS OF SALVIA SCHIMPERI BENTH FROM ETHIOPIA

In Ethiopian folk medicine, aqueous decoction of the leaves of Salvia schimperi is used for treatments of various ailments including diarrhea, however, to date, there appear to have been no reports on the phytochemistry, the antidiarrhoeal and the antimicrobial activity of the plant. In this study, the hydroalcoholic extract of the leaves of S. schimperi was evaluated for its antidiarrheal and antibacterial activities against castor oil induced diarrhoea in mice and six clinically isolated enteric bacterial pathogens using standard agar diffusion methods, respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the extracts were also determined using microdilution method. The extract exerted significant and dose related antidiarrhoeal activity when compared to the control and the standard drug, loperamide.The extract displayed highest antidiarroeal activity at a dose of 400 mg/kg which is comparable with that of the standard drug loperamide. The extract also showed moderate antibacterial effects against most of the test microorganisms except S. typhimurium. Phytochemical analysis of the extract reaveled the presence of polyphenoic compounds such as flavonoids and tannins among others. The present study supports the folkloric use of the plant for the treatment of diarrhoeal diseases INTRODUCTION: Diarrhea is an alteration in the normal bowel movement, characterized by increased frequency of bowel sound and movement, wet stool, and abdominal pain. Clinically, it is used to describe increased liquidity of stool, usually associated with increased stool weight and frequency. Regardless of the understanding causes, treatment and prevention of diarrheal diseases, an estimated 4.6 million people, with 2.5 million children, die from diarrhea every year, particularly in developing countries. QUICK RESPONSE CODE DOI: 10.13040/IJPSR.0975-8232.IJP. 2(6). 290-95 Article can be accessed online on: www.ijpjournal. com DOI link: http://dx.doi. org/10.13040/IJPSR.0975-8232.IJP. 2(6). 290-95 Diarrhea, may be acute orchronic. Acute diarrhea being the most common, is usually caused by an infectious agent, even though drugs, poisons or acute inflammatory reactions can contribute a lot. Now a days, rotavirus is the major causative agent for infectious diarrhea, particularly in young children, however, other viral (adenovirus, enterovirus and norovirus), bacterial (Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp., Shigella sp., Camphylobacter and Vibrio cholerae) and parasitic (Cryptosporidium and Giardia) agents are important pathogens 1-3 . Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is considered life-saving in the management diarrhea specially in children, although it does not reduce the volume or duration of diarrhea. Likely, antibiotics and gut motility suppressing agents bid the other treatment
The time-resolved and extreme conditions XAS (TEXAS) facility at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility: the general-purpose EXAFS bending-magnet beamline BM23

BM23 is the general-purpose EXAFS bending-magnet beamline at the ESRF, replacing the former BM29 beamline in the framework of the ESRF upgrade. Its mission is to serve the whole XAS user community by providing access to a basic service in addition to the many specialized instruments available at the ESRF. BM23 offers high-signal-to-noise ratio EXAFS in a large energy range (5–75 keV), continuous energy scanning for quick-EXAFS on the second timescale and a micro-XAS station delivering a spot size of 4 µm × 4 µm FWHM.
Experimental Models in Liver Surgery

Ischemia-Reperfusion (I/R) injury is an important cause of liver damage occurring during surgical procedures including hepatic resections and liver transplantation (LT) [1-3]. The shortage of organs has led centers to expand their criteria for the acceptance of marginal grafts that exhibit poor tolerance to I/R [4]. Some of these include the use of organs from old‐ er donors and grafts such as small-for-size or steatotic livers. However, I/R injury is the un‐ derlying cause of graft dysfunction in marginal organs [4]. Indeed, the use of steatotic livers for transplantation is associated with an increased risk of primary nonfunction or dysfunc‐ tion after surgery [5]. In addition, the occurrence of postoperative liver failure after hepatic resection in a steatotic liver exposed to normothermic ischemia has been reported [6]. A large number of factors and mediators play a part in liver I/R injury. The relationships be‐ tween the signalling pathways involved are highly complex and it is not yet possible to de‐ scribe, with absolute certainty, the events that occur between the beginning of reperfusion and the final outcome of either poor function or a non-functional liver graft. We will show that the mechanisms responsible for hepatic I/R injury depends on the experimental model used, who are valuable tool for understanding the physiopathology of hepatic I/R injury and discovering novel therapeutic targets and drugs. Several strategies to protect the liver from I/R injury have been developed in animal models and, some of these, might find their way into clinical practice. The species used for experimental investigation of hepatic I/R injury range from mice to pigs. The book chapter will discuss the numerous experimental models used to study the complexity of hepatic I/R injury, data reported in choice of the animal model, when selecting an animal species, the age, the sex, the degree of steatosis.etc. Thus, the different strengths and limitations of the different experimental models will be dis‐ cussed. Also the standardized experimental conditions, such as anesthetic and analgesic procedures will be described. We also attempt to highlight the fact that the types of ischemia (cold and warm ischemia) play an important role in experimental liver surgery. The most
IWEBCARE: AN ONTOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR FRAUD DETECTION IN THE HEALTHCARE DOMAIN

Abstract: The European iWebCare project (FP6-2004-IST-4-028055) aims at designing and developing a flexible fraud detection web services platform, which will be able to serve e-government processes of fraud detection and prevention, in order to ensure quality and accuracy and minimize loss of health care funds. This paper discusses the approach this project adopts and which involves the introduction of a fraud detection methodology combining business process modelling and knowledge engineering as well as the development of an integrated fraud detection platform combining an ontology-based rule engine and a self-learning module based on data mining. Key words: e-Government, e-Health, Knowledge-based systems, Fraud detection 1. INTRODUCTION Fraud is an issue with psychological, economic and legal ramifications for both the public and private sector spanning geographic regions. The last EHFCN (European Healthcare Fraud and Corruption Network) 1 conference produced agreement among members on a common definition of fraud: “Civil fraud is the use or presentation of false, incorrect or incomplete statements and/or documents, or the non-disclosure of information in violation of a legally enforceable obligation to
The genome of M. acetivorans reveals extensive metabolic and physiological diversity.

Methanogenesis, the biological production of methane, plays a pivotal role in the global carbon cycle and contributes significantly to global warming. The majority of methane in nature is derived from acetate. Here we report the complete genome sequence of an acetate-utilizing methanogen, Methanosarcina acetivorans C2A. Methanosarcineae are the most metabolically diverse methanogens, thrive in a broad range of environments, and are unique among the Archaea in forming complex multicellular structures. This diversity is reflected in the genome of M. acetivorans. At 5,751,492 base pairs it is by far the largest known archaeal genome. The 4524 open reading frames code for a strikingly wide and unanticipated variety of metabolic and cellular capabilities. The presence of novel methyltransferases indicates the likelihood of undiscovered natural energy sources for methanogenesis, whereas the presence of single-subunit carbon monoxide dehydrogenases raises the possibility of nonmethanogenic growth. Although motility has not been observed in any Methanosarcineae, a flagellin gene cluster and two complete chemotaxis gene clusters were identified. The availability of genetic methods, coupled with its physiological and metabolic diversity, makes M. acetivorans a powerful model organism for the study of archaeal biology. [Sequence, data, annotations and analyses are available at http://www-genome.wi. mit.edu/. ]
FRANTIC: A Fast Reference-based Algorithm for Network Tomography via compressive sensing

We study the problem of link and node delay estimation in undirected networks when at most k out of n links or nodes in the network are congested. Our approach relies on end-to-end measurements of path delays across pre-specified paths in the network. We present a class of algorithms that we call FRANTIC. The FRANTIC algorithms are motivated by compressive sensing; however, unlike traditional compressive sensing, the measurement design here is constrained by the network topology and the matrix entries are constrained to be positive integers. A key component of our design is a new compressive sensing algorithm SHO-FA-INT that is related to the SHO-FA algorithm [1] for compressive sensing, but unlike SHO-FA, the matrix entries here are drawn from the set of integers {0, 1, . ,M}. We show that O(k log n/log M) measurements suffice both for SHO-FA-INT and FRANTIC. Further, we show that the computational complexity of decoding is also O(k log n/log M) for each of these algorithms. Finally, we look at efficient constructions of the measurement operations through Steiner Trees.
Toward a definition of the appropriateness of dental treatment.

AN IMPORTANT ASPECT of the quality of dental care is the appropriateness of the treatment delivered. Decisions related to the choice of treatment are complex, inadequately defined, and directly related to the costs of care. Unlike technical quality of single procedures, few criteria or systems have been developed for evaluation of the appropriateness of the overall treatment strategy. The consensus among the experts is that many factors are involved, including economic and psychological as well as physiological considerations, but that few objective rules exist to guide what is generally classified as a matter of professional judgment. Dental educators agree that treatment planning is one of the weakest areas of the curriculum. Not enough clinical research has been done to provide empirical bases for selections among many treatment alternatives. Thus, if it were possible to better define the relative benefits of altemative approaches to treatment of dental conditions, two benefits would result. First, such a definition would ensure prescription of better treatment. Second, it would be helpful in the evaluation of the cost effectiveness of alternative treatment plans. My purpose here is to review the literature related to the evaluation of the appropriateness of dental treatment in order to demonstrate where we are and where we need to go toward a better definition. The topics reviewed and my reasons for including them are as follows:
Relacionamentos pessoais e sociais: amizade em adultos

La amistad es un relacionamiento importante para el desarrollo social, emocional y cognitivo, pero la mayor parte de los estudios trata de la amistad en la ninez y en la adolescencia, habiendo poca enfasis en la investigacion con adultos. El estudio en cuestion presenta una revision de la literatura sobre relacionamentos de amistad en la edad adulta, buscando describir criticamente la produccion cientifica en el area. Estudios brasilenos indican que relacionamientos de amistad en ese pais pueden ser comparados a los de otras culturas y discutidos en base a los modelos teoricos existentes. Sin embargo, hay algunas diferencias que requieren mas estudio incluso para averiguar si los modelos internacionales actuales son satisfactorios para explicar adecuadamente relaciones de amistad entre adultos en la cultura brasilena.
The TadV Protein of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans Is a Novel Aspartic Acid Prepilin Peptidase Required for Maturation of the Flp1 Pilin and TadE and TadF Pseudopilins

ABSTRACT The tad locus of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans encodes genes for the biogenesis of Flp pili, which allow the bacterium to adhere tenaciously to surfaces and form strong biofilms. Although tad (tight adherence) loci are widespread among bacterial and archaeal species, very little is known about the functions of the individual components of the Tad secretion apparatus. Here we characterize the mechanism by which the pre-Flp1 prepilin is processed to the mature pilus subunit. We demonstrate that the tadV gene encodes a prepilin peptidase that is both necessary and sufficient for proteolytic maturation of Flp1. TadV was also found to be required for maturation of the TadE and TadF pilin-like proteins, which we term pseudopilins. Using site-directed mutagenesis, we show that processing of pre-Flp1, pre-TadE, and pre-TadF is required for biofilm formation. Mutation of a highly conserved glutamic acid residue at position +5 of Flp1, relative to the cleavage site, resulted in a processed pilin that was blocked in assembly. In contrast, identical mutations in TadE or TadF had no effect on biofilm formation, indicating that the mechanisms by which Flp1 pilin and the pseudopilins function are distinct. We also determined that two conserved aspartic acid residues in TadV are critical for function of the prepilin peptidase. Together, our results indicate that the A. actinomycetemcomitans TadV protein is a member of a novel subclass of nonmethylating aspartic acid prepilin peptidases.
Situation-Aware Approach to Improve Context-based Recommender System

In this paper, we introduce a novel situation aware approach to improve a context based recommender system. To build situation aware user profiles, we rely on evidence issued from retrieval situations. A retrieval situation refers to the social spatio temporal context of the user when he interacts with the recommender system. A situation is represented as a combination of social spatio temporal concepts inferred from ontological knowledge given social group, location and time information. User's interests are inferred from past user's interaction with the recommender system related to the identified situations. They are represented using concepts issued from a domain ontology. We also propose a method to dynamically adapt the system to the user's interest's evolution.
Experiential Learning in Occupational Therapy

This mixed method study examined the effectiveness of experiential learning opportunities near the end of the occupational therapy students’ didactic education. A pretest/posttest design with a gain score approach was used to determine whether there was a significant improvement in the occupational therapy students’ self-perception of their ability to perform a multitude of occupational-therapy-related skills. Qualitative measures were used to explain the impact of experiential learning opportunities on the students’ ability to understand and apply occupational therapy knowledge to clinical practice. The results of this study suggest that experiential learning is an effective method to (a) enhance the understanding and application of course material, (b) improve the personal and professional attributes and skills needed to be an effective clinician, and (c) improve clinical reasoning skills. The author’s initial bias was that this experience would enhance clinical reasoning skills. Results indicated that it had a more profound impact.
A Novel Cryptoprocessor Architecture for the McEliece Public-Key Cryptosystem

The McEliece public-key cryptosystem relies on the NP-hard decoding problem, and therefore, is regarded as a solution for postquantum cryptography. Though early known, this cryptosystem was not employed so far because of efficiency questions regarding performance and communication overhead. This paper presents a novel processor architecture as a high-performance platform to execute key generation, encryption, and decryption according to this cryptosystem. A prototype of this processor is realized on a reconfigurable device and tested via a dedicated software interface. A comparison with a similar software solution highlights the performance advantage of the proposed hardware solution.
From Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web

A key to the Web's success is the power of search. The elegant way in which search results are returned is usually remarkably effective. However, for exploratory search in which users need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics, there is substantial room for improvement. Human computer interaction researchers and web browser designers have developed novel strategies to improve Web search by enabling users to conveniently visualize, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. This monograph offers fresh ways to think about search-related cognitive processes and describes innovative design approaches to browsers and related tools. For instance, while key word search presents users with results for specific information (e.g., what is the capitol of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (related or previous work, conflicting information), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (group legal decisions by lead attorney). We also consider the both traditional and novel ways in which these strategies have been evaluated. From our review of cognitive processes, browser design, and evaluations, we reflect on the future opportunities and new paradigms for exploring and interacting with Web search results.
Conflict-free coloring for intervals: from offline to online

This paper studies deterministic algorithms for a frequency assignment problem in cellular networks. A cellular network consists of fixed-position base stations and moving agents. Each base station operates at a fixed frequency, and this allows an agent tuned at this frequency to communicate with the base station. Each agent has a specific range of communication (described as a geometric shape, e.g., a disc) that may contain one or several base stations. To avoid interference, the goal is to assign frequencies to base stations such that for any range, there exists a base station in the range with a frequency that is not reused by some other base station in the range. The base station with this unique (in the range) frequency serves the aforementioned range. Since using many frequencies is expensive, the optimization goal is to use as few frequencies as possible. The problem can be modeled as a special coloring problem for hypergraphs. Base stations are the vertices, ranges are the hyperedges, and colors (frequencies) must be assigned to vertices following the conflict-free property: In every hyperedge there is a color that occurs exactly once.We concentrate on the special case where the n base stations lie on the real line and ranges are the n(n+1)/2 nonempty subsets of consecutive points. This problem is called conflict-free coloring for intervals. We introduce a hierarchy of four models for the above problem: (i) the static model, where the complete hypergraph is given and all vertices are colored simultaneously, (ii) the dynamic offline model, where the vertices appear in some order and the conflict-free property has to be maintained at all times, (iii) the online absolute positions model where the order is revealed in an online fashion and the final hypergraph and positions are known, and (iv) the online relative positions model where there is no knowledge about the final hypergraph and the final positions of vertices.In the case of intervals, the hierarchy is strict. In the dynamic offline model, we give a deterministic algorithm that uses at most log3/2 n+1 colors and exhibit inputs that force any algorithm to use at least 2 log3 n + 1 colors. For the online absolute positions model, we give two deterministic algorithms that use at most 2⌊log2(n + 1)⌋ and 3⌈log3 n⌉ colors, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first O(log n) deterministic online algorithms, in a non-trivial model. In the online relative positions model, we resolve an open problem by showing a tight analysis on the number of colors used by the natural greedy online algorithm, that at each step uses the smallest color possible. In the case of conflict-free coloring only with respect to intervals that contain either of the two extreme points, we show a strong separation between static and dynamic models and we provide tight bounds for all four models up to an additive term of two.