Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serote's Poems of Healing, Leadership, and Transformation: “There Will be a Better Time Made by Us”

Summary Liberating South Africa from more than three centuries of colonial oppression required enormous vision and self-empowerment, to advance a struggle that was not only counter-hegemonic but also transformative. Wally Serote, one of the most influential and enduring poet-activists, drew on African music, spirituality, oral literature and history of the struggle to develop and articulate his calling as a liberator and healer. Written in exile, his prescient poems invoke faith in African popular resources to illustrate and teach the importance of challenging oppression. Beyond offering incisive representations of African subject positions, the poems invoke the creative energies needed to generate the psychological, social and cultural healing required for transformation. Against the background of the subjugation and decimation of African cultures and resources and the forced exile of thousands of citizens, Serote's attentiveness to the development of engaged and liberated African voices in the medium of English helped alert fellow activists and poet-activists to the value of integrating the roles of historian, healer, social conscience and critic (as in various African oral traditions). In the light of such exile, Serote's objective of overcoming the limitations imposed by colonial and apartheid power was crucial. By focusing on thinking beyond the binaries of colonialism-apartheid, Serote was able to advance a culture of popular-democratic engagement, agency and mobilisation. The poems articulate an ethos more recently recognised as a combination of transformative learning and transformational leadership, and anticipate the leadership skills that would later be valued in Nelson Mandela. This study draws on the approaches of critical theory, critical social theory and critical pedagogy.
New results in the theory of identification via channels

The identification capacity is the maximal iterated logarithm of the number of messages divided by the blocklength that can be reliably transmitted when the receiver is only interested in deciding whether a specific message was transmitted or not. The identification coding theorem of R. Ahlswede and G. Dueck (1989) for single-user discrete memoryless channels states that the identification capacity is equal to the Shannon capacity. A novel method to prove the converse to the identification coding theorem is shown to achieve the strong version of the result. Identification plus transmission (IT) coding, a variant of the original problem of identification via channels, is proposed in the context of a common problem in point-to-multipoint communication, where a central station wishes to transmit information reliably to one of N terminals, whose identity is not predetermined. The authors show that as long as log log N is smaller than the number of bits to be transmitted, IT codes allow information transmission at channel capacity. >
Teaching Economics to Business Students through the Lens of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Corporate “social-issues management” courses are often taught without in-depth reference to economics, but they afford an opportunity both to review ground-level microeconomics issues including pricing and profit maximization under different market structures and to introduce more advanced topics such as externalities, introductory game theory, information asymmetry, antitrust law, and network and innovation economics. In a corporate social-issues management course grounded in economics, these concepts can be taught hand-in-glove with their relevance to the practice of corporate citizenship and sustainability.
A Design by Example Regular Strcture Generator

This paper investigates technical issues concerning the automated generation of highly regular VLSI circuit layouts (e.g. RAMs, PLAs, systolic arrays) that are crucial to the designability and realizability of large VLSI systems. The key is to determine the most profitable level of abstraction for the designer, which is accomplished by the introduction of macro abstraction, interface inheritance, delayed binding, and the complete decoupling of procedural and graphical design information. These abstraction mechanisms are implemented in the Regular Structure Generator, an operational layout generator with significant advantages over first generation layout tools. Its advantages are demonstrated by a pipelined array multiplier layout example.
Eine Skala zur Erfassung der Ekelsensitivität (SEE)

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Die Personlichkeitseigenschaft Ekelsensitivitat beschreibt die Neigung einer Person, Ekelerlebnisse als negativ und unkontrollierbar zu bewerten. Fragestellung: Entwicklung einer deutschsprachigen Skala zur Erfassung der Ekelsensitivitat (SEE). Methode: Zur Entwicklung (exploratorische, konfirmatorische Faktorenanalyse) und Validierung der SEE diente eine Gesamtstichprobe von 1072 Personen. Ergebnisse: Die neu entwickelte Skala mit guter interner Konsistenz (Cronbachs α = 0.85) besteht aus sieben Items. Die SEE korreliert moderat positiv mit der Neigung Ekel zu erleben (Ekelempfindlichkeit, r = .35), mit spritzenphobischen (r = .20) sowie sozialphobischen Tendenzen (r = .28). Der Zusammenhang zwischen Ekelsensitivitat und Phobieneigungen ist unabhangig vom Ausmas der Ekelempfindlichkeit. Schlussfolgerung: Die SEE ist eine reliable, okonomische Skala zur Erfassung der Ekelsensitivitat, deren spezifischer Zusammenhang mit bestimmten Phobietypen (Spritzen-, Sozialp.
Do The Bsri and Paq Measure the Same or Different Concepts?

The present article assesses Frable's (1989) contention that the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) measures only desirable instrumental and expressive characteristics, whereas the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) measures gender schema and related gender concepts. Comparison of the two instruments indicates, first, that they are similar in content and that the parallel M and F scales are substantially correlated. Further, the results obtained with the two instruments in three areas (self-esteem, sex-role attitudes, and gender-schematic processing) suggest that both are valid measures of desirable instrumental and expressive traits. Sex-role attitudes, however, tend to have small and typically nonsignificant relationships with both sets of scales, whereas few studies of gender schematic processing have produced replicable results even with the BSRI. However, Bem and her associates have reported positive results using other designs that have yet to be replicated using either the BSRI or the PAQ. Thus, in response to Frable's (1989) assertion, it seems at best premature to come to any conclusion about whether one, both, or neither of the questionnaires measure broad gender constructs.
Dose-response relationships of lymphocytic choriomeningitis viruses in mice and L cell tube cultures

SUMMARY The dose—response relationships between two strains of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (WE3 and Armstrong) and two hosts (mice and L cell tube cultures) were determined. The statistical analysis showed that, if infection was regarded as the response, and in the case of Armstrong virus in mice also death, the shapes of the empirical dose—response curves did not deviate from expectation which was based on the zero term of the Poisson distribution. Hence, the hypothesis that individual infectious units are capable of initiating infection and that co-operation is not required, was not contradicted. Furthermore, the units of assay were found to be equally susceptible under the experimental conditions applied. By way of contrast, the relationship between WE3 virus and mice dying after intracerebral inoculations was found to be more complex. In this case the empirical curve did not run the expected sigmoid course at all, but rather was bell-shaped with a maximum of mortality (92%) at approximately 50 ID 50. The work was supported by a research grant from the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft.
Complexity in the European party space: Exploring dimensionality with experts

Does the n-issue space in domestic European polities reduce to one, two, or more dimensions? How do these dimensions relate to each other? More broadly, how does dimensionality vary across countries? We attempt to advance our understanding of political contestation in Europe by mapping the dimensionality of the political space across 24 countries using Chapel Hill expert survey (CHES) data. We test how well different models of the European political space fit the CHES data and find that three-dimensional models best fit the data in all countries. However, there is considerable cross-national variation in how the three dimensions relate to one another. Given this, we present a new measure of dimensional complexity that captures the degree to which these three dimensions are related. In so doing, we improve our understanding of the complexity of the political space in European countries.
The role of infant nutrition in the global epidemic of non-communicable disease

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) and atherosclerotic CVD in particular, are the most important health problems of the 21st century. Already in every world region except Africa, NCD account for greater mortality than communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions combined. Although modifiable lifestyle factors in adults are the main determinants, substantial evidence now suggests that factors in early life also have a major role in the development of NCD; commonly referred to as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis. Factors in utero, early postnatal life and throughout childhood, have been shown to affect NCD by influencing risk factors for CVD such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidaemia. Infant nutrition (e.g. breastfeeding rather than bottle feeding) and a slower pattern of infant weight gain have been shown to be particularly protective against later risk of obesity and CVD in both low- and high-income countries. The mechanisms involved are poorly understood, but include epigenetic changes; effects on endocrine systems regulating body weight, food intake and fat deposition; and changes in appetite regulation. As a consequence, strategies to optimise early life nutrition could make a major contribution to stemming the current global epidemic of NCD. This review will consider the role of early life factors in the development of NCD, focusing on the impact of infant nutrition/growth on obesity and CVD. The review will highlight the experimental (randomised) evidence where available, briefly summarise the underlying mechanisms involved and consider the implications for public health.
Statistical online model quality monitoring for closed-loop control system

The performance of model-based control system depends a lot on the model fidelity. The mismatch between the model and the true plant plays an important role in poor control quality of the closed-loop control system. In this paper, a new statistical online model quality monitoring method for closed-loop systems is presented, which monitors model quality only requiring the real-time routine operation data. The proposed method adopts the moving window method to online update model evaluation index which is obtained from the closed-loop input/output data. Then the statistical process control (SPC) technique is used to monitor model quality by Shewhart control chart. The approximate statistical distribution of the model evaluation index can be obtained by adaptive Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) method. The simulated examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed monitoring method.
The Effects of an Environmental Education Program on Students, Parents, and Community

Abstract This study evaluated the impact of an environmental education program on students, parents, and the community. The program, in place for 5 years in 5th and 6th grade classes, was designed to help learners take an in-depth look at environmental issues in their community, make data-based decisions about those issues, and participate in resolving those issues. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed (including student, parent, school personnel, and community member interviews). The authors discuss program connections to students' critical thinking, environmental literacy, and participation in the community; reading, writing, and speaking skills; student and teacher characteristics; and parent and community viewpoints.
The czech speech and prosody database both for ASR and TTS purposes

This paper describes a preparation of the first large Czech prosodic database which should be useful both in automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis. In the area of ASR we intend to use it for an automatic punctuation annotation, in the area of TTS for building a prosodic module for the Czech high-quality synthesis. The database is based on the Czech Radio&TV Broadcast News Corpus (UWB_B02) recorded at the University of West Bohemia. The configuration of the database includes recorded speech, raw and stylized F0 values, frame level energy values, a word- and phoneme-level time alignment, and a linguistically motivated description of the prosodic data. A technique of prosodic data acquisition and stylization is described. A new tagset for a linguistical annotation of the Czech prosody is proposed and used.
National Cultural Autonomy and International Minority Rights Norms

Abstract Debates about the treatment of ethnocultural minorities are a familiar feature of the domestic political life of many countries in Central and Eastern Europe. But these debates are not solely domestic. The international community plays an increasingly important role in shaping these debates, endorsing some models of the accommodation of ethnocultural diversity while discouraging others. The long-term prospects for national-cultural autonomy (NCA), therefore, may depend on whether it is endorsed by influential international organizations, either as a “best practice” or “minimum standard”. This article examines the attitudes of European organizations towards NCA. While NCA has not played an important role to date in the thinking of these organizations, some important actors have called for more systematic study of its potential benefits and risks. Whether European organizations adopt norms and standards promoting NCA will depend on the prior question of which minorities are seen as the intended beneficiaries of these norms and standards, and this in turn depends on unresolved questions about the underlying motivations and goals for formulating international minority rights norms in the first place.
Global Restructuring in the World Economy and Migration: The Globalization of Migration Dynamics

The author describes changes in global migration patterns. "My focus will be on international migration within and from the South--in what are often called the less developed areas or the periphery of the world economy. I will argue that migration flows have been transformed in two ways by globalization. First the flows are much greater than before because globalization has increased the number of conditions prompting migration and the number of geographical areas subject to those conditions.Second globalization has led to modifications in the character of migration flows. " (EXCERPT)
Genomewide investigation into DNA elements and ABC transporters involved in imazalil resistance in Penicillium digitatum.

Penicillium digitatum, causing citrus green mold, is one of the most devastating pathogenic fungi for postharvest fruits. The disease control is becoming less efficient because of the dispersal of fungicide-resistant strains. However, genome-scale analyses of its resistance mechanism are scarce. In this work, we sequenced the whole genome of the R1 genotype strain Pd01-ZJU and investigated the genes and DNA elements highly associated with drug resistance. Variation in DNA elements related to drug resistance between P. digitatum strains was revealed in both copy number and chromosomal location, indicating that their recent and frequent translocation might have contributed to environmental adaptation. In addition, ABC transporter proteins in Pd01-ZJU were characterized, and the roles of typical subfamilies (ABCG, ABCC, and ABCB) in imazalil resistance were explored using real-time PCR. Seven ABC proteins, including the previously characterized PMR1 and PMR5, were induced by imazalil, which suggests a role in drug resistance. In summary, this work presents genome information of the R1 genotype P. digitatum and systematically investigates DNA elements and ABC proteins associated with imazalil resistance for the first time, which would be indicative for studying resistant mechanisms in other pathogenic fungi.
The Psychobiology of Sexual Addiction

Abstract Sexual addictions may be systematically studied using operationalized diagnostic criteria in a variety of studies employing conventional research methodologies such as is being done in the investigations of a variety of Axis I disorders. Although descriptive investigations into the sexual addictions were on par with that of other major mental disorders in the last century, further investigations did not keep pace with that of other mental disorders. Programmatic research into the sexual addictions is poised to be guided by understanding both neurobiological mechanisms involved in sexual behaviors and multicausal, biopsychosocial approaches. A comprehensive understanding of sexual addiction would involve addressing issues in the areas of nosology, epidemiology, family studies, diagnostic criteria, genetics, neurobiology, comorbidity, and empirically based treatments. The authors suggest current research questions and priorities that, when addressed, can contribute to significant advances in the understanding and treatment of sexual additions.
Serum concentrations of cytokines in patients with active tuberculosis (TB) and after treatment

During TB cytokines play a role in host defence. To determine the cytokine pattern during various disease stages of TB, serum levels of IL‐12, interferon‐gamma (IFN‐γ), IL‐4, IL‐6 and IL‐10 were measured in 81 patients with active TB, 15 patients during therapy and 26 patients after anti‐tuberculous therapy as well as in 16 persons who had been in close contact with smear‐positive TB and in 17 healthy controls. IFN‐γ was elevated during active TB when compared with healthy controls, declining during and after treatment. IL‐12 (p40 and p70) serum levels were not significantly higher in patients with active TB compared with any of the other groups. IL‐4 levels were low in all groups. IL‐6 and IL‐10 serum levels were elevated in patients with active TB and during treatment. In patients with active TB serum levels of IFN‐γ and IL‐6 were higher in patients with fever, anorexia and malaise. IL‐12 levels were higher in patients with a positive smear. Cytokine levels did not correlate with localization of TB (pulmonary versus extrapulmonary), or skin test positivity. Cytokines directing a Th1 response (IL‐12) or a Th2 response (IL‐4) were not elevated in sera of this large group of patients with pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB. In patients with active TB, cytokines that were elevated in serum were IFN‐γ, IL‐6 and IL‐10.
Empirical Performance Evaluation of the Zereal Massively Multiplayer Online Game Simulator

Cyberspace plays an increasingly important role in people’s life due to its plentiful offering of services and information, e.g. the Word Wide Web, the Mobile Web and Online Games. However, the usability of cyberspace services is frequently reduced by its lack of customization according to individual needs and preferences.In this thesis we address the cyberspace customization issue by focusing on methods for user representation and prediction. Examples of cyberspace customization include delegation of user data and tasks to software agents, automatic pre-fetching, or pre-processing of service content based on predictions. The cyberspace service types primarily investigated are Mobile Commerce (e.g. news, finance and games) and Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). First a conceptual software agent architecture for supporting users of mobile commerce services will be presented, including a peer-to-peer based collaborative filtering extension to support product and service recommendations.In order to examine the scalability of the proposed conceptual software agent architecture a simulator for MMOGs is developed. Due to their size and complexity, MMOGs can provide an estimated “upper bound” for the performance requirements of other cyberspace services using similar agent architectures.Prediction of cyberspace user behaviour is considered to be a classification problem, and because of the large and continuously changing nature of cyberspace services there is a need for scalable classifiers. This is handled by proposed classifiers that are incrementally trainable, support a large number of classes, and supports efficient decremental untraining of outdated classification knowledge, and are efficiently parallelized in order to scale well.Finally the incremental classifier is empirically compared with existing classifiers on: 1) general classification data sets, 2) user clickstreams from an actual web usage log, and 3) a synthetic game usage log from the developed MMOG simulator. The proposed incremental classifier is shown to an order of magnitude faster than the other classifiers, significantly more accurate than the naive bayes classifier on the selected data sets, and with insignificantly different accuracy from the other classifiers.The papers leading to this thesis have combined been cited more than 50 times in book, journal, magazine, conference, workshop, thesis, whitepaper and technical report publications at research events and universities in 20 countries. 2 of the papers have been applied in educational settings for university courses in Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and USA.
A new wideband single-fed circularly polarized antenna

A novel wideband single-fed circularly polarized antenna is designed based on crossed magneto-electric dipoles. By adjusting the shapes and dimensions of the crossed electric dipoles and magnetic dipoles carefully, circularly polarized radiation can be inspired across a wide operation band. Measurements on an antenna prototype reveal that the proposed design achieves a wide impedance bandwidth of 73.3% for SWR≤2 and 46.6% for SWR≤1.5. A 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 47.7% and a gain of 6.8±1.8dBi are covered by the SWR≤1.5 band. Moreover, radiation patterns exhibit good unidirectional radiation characteristic over the whole operating frequency band.
A Comparative Study on the Use of an Ensemble of Feature Extractors for the Automatic Design of Local Image Descriptors

The use of an ensemble of feature spaces trained with distance metric learning methods has been empirically shown to be useful for the task of automatically designing local image descriptors. In this paper, we present a quantitative analysis which shows that in general, nonlinear distance metric learning methods provide better results than linear methods for automatically designing local image descriptors. In addition, we show that the learned feature spaces present better results than state of- the-art hand designed features in benchmark quantitative comparisons. We discuss the results and suggest relevant problems for further investigation.