Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Gender Matter?: An Empirical Analysis of the Social Construction of Ecological Metaphon

This thesis investigates the interpretive capacities of the theory of social constructionism as explained by Berger and Luckmann and Alfred Schutz, and the theory of environmental aestheticism proposed by Arnold Berleant, by empirically examining the general, intrinsic, and instrumental values ofa selected sample ofHamilton Harbour watershed residents. We use ecofeminist theory to propose that gender, as a social construct, affects the formation of ecological metaphors. Our primary intention was to determine whether or not men and women valued the environment in different ways. Despite bivariate and multivariate analysis, we found neither sex to have stronger environmental values than the other. However, we found that an increase in education was associated with a pro-environmental ethic. In a further analysis, we found that men are not strongly affected by household income, education, parental status, or residential location, in their constructions ofgeneral, intrinsic or instrumental values. For women, an increase in education is strongly associated with the social construction of proecological metaphors. A central factor in the construction of environmental values appears to be level of formal education. This emerges as an interesting finding which clearly points to ways in which we can promote the emergence ofa community wide appreciation of the environment, therefore leading to its conservation and restoration.
Genieten van landschap en ervoor zorgen

Een onderzoek naar de bewustwording van burgers aan landschap op basis van literatuur en een enquete onder 1.070 burgers die representatief zijn voor de Nederlandse bevolking. Burgers zijn op diverse manieren betrokken en actief voor landschap. Zowel hun motivatie voor een aantrekkelijk landschap als de negatieve beoordeling van ruimtelijke veranderingen spelen hierbij een rol. Verder weten veel burgers niet wat hun gemeente aan landschap doet. A study of the awareness of the general public regarding the landscape, based on literature and a survey of 1,070 people, a sample that is representative of the Dutch population. People are involved with and active within the landscape in various ways. Both their motivation for preserving an attractive landscape and the negative assessment of spatial changes play a role in this. Moreover, many people do not know what their municipal councils are doing with regard to the landscape.
Automatic Assertion of Actor State in Service Oriented Architectures

Documentation of provenance, the process which was taken to create a particular data item, is critical within service oriented architectures where loose coupling between services and clients (actors) is employed. Such a process may involve interaction between multiple services, with each service being managed by a particular actor. The recording of actor state may provide critical contextual information regarding the state of a particular actor at a point during a client-service interaction, but is however typically left undocumented. We discuss the issues that are encountered with the automatic documentation of actor state and the types of resources which may be used to provide it. An architecture which allows monitoring tools to be related to user needs is presented and evaluated against a number of scenarios in a Web Services environment.
Clinical efficacy of nebulized drugs.

There is a mandatory need for effortless drug administration to young children since the prevalence among them of recurrent wheezing is a 15-20%. It is becoming increasingly evident that many of these children respond dramatically well to beta2-agonists and topical steroids; accordingly this sub-group of children should be treated as asthmatics. The dose of topical steroids is critical as opposed to that of beta2-agonists which are often administered in doses well above the minimal effective dose. Budesonide suspension has proven its efficacy in adults in a study of 21 patients with asthma treated with budesonide suspension delivered from a nebulizer activated during inspiration versus metered dose inhalation (MDI) via a large-volume spacer. Nebulized in this manner the suspension exhibited a dose-dependent effect, apparently equipotent to the MDI administration as evaluated from daily peak expiratory flow measurements and symptom scoring. Continuous nebulization of budesonide in 18 schoolchildren with bronchial asthma similarly showed a dose-dependent improvement of lung function and symptom score, though in a 1:2 potency ratio as compared to MDI administration, probably due to loss of nebulized aerosol during expiration. In a subsequent study of 23 young children unresponsive to beta2-agonist therapy, nebulized budesonide was without demonstrable effect. Recently, a study of 31 young children with steroid-dependent asthma demonstrated a significant improvement from continuous nebulization of budesonide 1mg twice daily. In conclusion, the efficacy of nebulized budesonide has been convincingly demonstrated in patients with reversible symptoms of asthma. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Odorant Stimulation Promotes Survival of Rodent Olfactory Receptor Neurons via PI3K/Akt Activation and Bcl-2 Expression

Olfactory stimulation activates multiple signaling cascades in order to mediate activity-driven changes in gene expression that promote neuronal survival. To date, the mechanisms involved in activity-dependent olfactory neuronal survival have yet to be fully elucidated. In the current study, we observed that olfactory sensory stimulation, which caused neuronal activation, promoted activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3′-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway and the expression of Bcl-2, which were responsible for olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) survival. We demonstrated that Bcl-2 expression increased after odorant stimulation both in vivo and in vitro. We also showed that odorant stimulation activated Akt, and that Akt activation was completely blocked by incubation with both a PI3K inhibitor (LY294002) and Akt1 small interfering RNA. Moreover, blocking the PI3K/Akt pathway diminished the odorant-induced Bcl-2 expression, as well as the effects on odorant-induced ORN survival. A temporal difference was noted between the activation of Akt1 and the expression of Bcl-2 following odorant stimulation. Blocking the PI3K/Akt pathway did not affect ORN survival in the time range prior to the increase in Bcl-2 expression, implying that these two events, activation of the PI3K pathway and Bcl-2 induction, were tightly connected to promote post-translational ORN survival. Collectively, our results indicated that olfactory activity activated PI3K/Akt, induced Bcl-2, and promoted long term ORN survival as a result.
New-onset diabetes mellitus after kidney transplantation in Denmark.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES This study aimed to investigate the development of new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) in a prospective study of 97 nondiabetic uremic patients. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Included were 57 kidney recipients (Tx group, age 39 +/- 13 years) and 40 uremic patients remaining on the waiting list for kidney transplantation (uremic controls, age 47 +/- 11 years). All were examined at baseline before possible transplantation and after 12 months. The prevalence of diabetes, prediabetes, insulin sensitivity index (ISI), and insulin secretion index (Isecr) were estimated using an oral glucose tolerance test with measurements of plasma glucose and plasma insulin. RESULTS One year after transplantation NODM was present in 14% (8 of 57) compared with 5% (2 of 40) in the uremic control group (P = 0.01). ISI in the Tx group deteriorated from 6.8 +/- 3.9 before transplantation to 4.9 +/- 2.8 at 12 months after transplantation (P = 0.005), and a slight increase in Isecr from 37 +/- 19 to 46 +/- 22 (P = 0.02) was seen. No significant changes occurred in the uremic controls (ISI was 7.9 +/- 5 and 8.5 +/- 5, and Isecr was 31 +/- 17 and 28 +/- 15). Using multivariate ordinal logistic regression, pre-Tx ISI and age predicted NODM (odds ratios: 0.82, P = 0.01 and 1.06, P = 0.02, respectively). CONCLUSIONS One year after kidney transplantation, NODM was present in 14% of patients. This was mainly caused by an increase in insulin resistance and was observed despite improvement in insulin secretion.
[Clinical study of ultrathin flap LASIK and LASEK for the treatment of high myopia with thin cornea].

OBJECTIVE To explore the efficacy and safety of the ultrathin flap LASIK and LASEK for the treatment of high myopia with central corneal thickness below 500 microm. METHODS Ultrathin flap LASIK and LASEK were randomly selected to treat high myopic patients with corneal thickness between 450 and 500 microm. 39 cases of 23 patients with average spherical equivalent of -7.51D (range from -6.00 to -9.50D) were treated with ultra thin flap LASIK, and 37 cases of 19 patients with average SE of -7.50D (range from -6.00 to -10.75D) were treated with LASEK. The uncorrected visual acuity, best corrected visual acuity, spherical equivalent, intraocular pressure, haze were examined and recorded 1, 3, 6 and 12 months postoperatively. RESULTS Postoperative reaction was mild in LASIK patients, who showed a quick recovery in UCVA, whereas LASEK patients needed average 4 days to re-epithelization. At 1, 3, 6, 12 months postoperatively, the percentage of UCVA above 1.0 was 64.1%, 87.2%, 87.2% and 79.3% in LASIK patients and 37.8%, 75.7%, 67.6% and 71.4% in LASEK patients respectively. The percentage of spherical equivalent between +/- 0.50D was 48.7%, 51.3%, 61.5%, 82.8% in LASIK patients and 51.4%, 45.9%, 45.9%, 57.1% in LASEK respectively. There was no severe complications that implicate the BSCVA occurred in-operation and postoperatively. The main complications in LASIK group was corneal flap striae and overcorrection, regression and mild haze in LASEK group. CONCLUSION Ultrathin flap LASIK had the similar efficacy and safety with LASEK in the treatment of high myopia with thin CCT, but the stability of results and satisfaction from the patients was superior to LASEK.
Partial reconstruction of the microvillus core bundle: characterization of villin as a Ca(++)-dependent, actin-bundling/depolymerizing protein

The brush border, isolated from chicken intestine epithelial cells, contains the 95,000 relative molecular mass (M(r)) polypeptide, villin. This report describes the purification and characterization of villin as a Ca(++)-dependent, actin bundling/depolymerizing protein. Then 100,000 g supernatant from a Ca(++) extract of isolated brush borders is composed of three polypeptides of 95,000 (villin), 68,000 (fimbrin), and 42,000 M(r) (actin). Villin, following purification from this extract by differential ammonium sulfate precipitation and ion-exchange chromatography, was mixed with skeletal muscle F-actin. Electron microscopy of negatively stained preparations of these villin-actin mixtures showed that filament bundles were present. This viscosity, sedimentability, and ultrastructural morphology of filament bundles are dependent on the villin:actin molar ratio, the pH, and the free Ca(++) concentration in solution. At low free Ca(++) (less than 10(-6) M), the amount of protein in bundles, when measured by sedimentation, increased as the villin: actin molar ratio increased and reached a plateau at approximately a 4:10 ratio. This behavior correlates with the conversion of single actin filaments into filament bundles as detected in the electron microscope. At high free Ca(++) (more than 10(-6) M), there was a decrease in the apparent viscosity in the villin-actin mixtures to a level measured for the buffer. Furthermore, these Ca(++) effects were correlated with the loss of protein sedimented, the disappearance of filament bundles, and the appearance of short fragments of filaments. Bundle formation is also pH-sensitive, being favored at mildly acidic pH. A decrease in the pH from 7.6 to 6.6 results in an increase in sedimentable protein and also a transformation of loosly associated actin filaments into compact actin bundles. These results are consistent with the suggestions that villin is a bundling protein in the microvillus and is responsible for the Ca(++)-sensitive disassembly of the microvillar cytoskeleton. Thus villin may function in the cytoplasm as a major cytoskeletal element regulating microvillar shape.
Study Approach of Antioxidant Properties in Foods: Update and Considerations

The assessment of interactions between natural antioxidants and other food matrix components represents the main step in the investigation of total antioxidant properties, in terms of potential health benefits. The diversity of chemical structures of natural compounds, besides their possible interactions, as well as the biological role and different modes of action makes it difficult to assess a single and reliable procedure for the evaluation of antioxidant activity. Today, much attention is given to the distinction between extractable and non-extractable antioxidants as a key tool in the description of the nutritional and healthy properties of food matrices. The starting point for the investigation of antioxidant effects of food extracts is the analysis of antioxidant properties of pure compounds and their interactions. Another complementary approach could be represented by the study of how different biologically active compound-rich extracts contribute to the total antioxidant capacity.
Evolution of Sleep: Contents

1. Introduction Patrick McNamara, Charles L. Nunn and Robert A. Barton 2. Ecological constraints on mammalian sleep architecture Isabella Capellini, Brian T. Preston, Patrick McNamara, Robert A. Barton and Charles L. Nunn 3. Sleep in insects Kristyna M. Hartse 4. Schooling by continuously-active fishes: clues to sleep's ultimate function J. Lee Kavanau 5. What exactly is it that sleeps? : the evolution, regulation and organization of an emergent network property James M. Krueger 6. Evolutionary medicine of sleep disorders: toward a science of sleep duration Patrick McNamara and Sanford Auerbach 7. Primate sleep in phylogenetic perspective Charles N. Nunn, Patrick McNamara, Isabella Capellini, Brian T. Preston and Robert Barton 8. A bird's eye view on the function of sleep Niels C. Rattenborg and Charles J. Amlaner 9. The evolution of wakefulness: from reptiles to mammals Ruben V. Rial, Mourad Akaarir, Antoni Gamundi, M. Cristina Nicolau and Susana Esteban 10. Evolution of REM sleep Mahesh M. Thakkar and Subimal Datta 11. Towards the understanding of the function of sleep: new insights from mouse genetics Valter Tucci and Patrick M. Nolan 12. Fishing for sleep Irina V. Zhdanova.
Valeurs et perception stéréotypée des groupes

Les valeurs sont un element central de la vie sociale, elles sont des guides, et permettent aussi de justifier les situations. Les deux etudes presentees ici s’interessent a la question de l’impact de valeurs (d’apres Schwartz) sur la perception stereotypee (ici, la perception d’entitativite) des groupes. La premiere etude montre que l’impact des valeurs depend de leur type : des valeurs d’Affirmation de Soi ont un impact different des valeurs de Transcendance de Soi, et ce, probablement parce qu’elles mettent davantage la personne en position de juger. L’impact depend aussi du groupe cible du jugement. La seconde etude montre que l’impact des valeurs depend du fait qu’elles sont ou non consciemment activees. L’amorcage de valeurs (mais pas leur activation consciente) a un impact different selon leur type, ce qui renvoie a la question du controle ou du non-controle des determinants des jugements. Globalement ces etudes montrent que l’entitativite percue et les valeurs d’Affirmation de soi sont liees. En outre elles confirment experimentalement que les valeurs, quand elles sont activees, sont un des determinants de la perception stereotypee des groupes humains.
AN ECHO CANCELLER USING SMOOTHED-COEFFICIENT FILTER WITH ADAPTIVE TIME CONSTANT CONTROLLED BY HIGH-PASS ERRORS

This paper proposes a double-talk-robust echo canceller using a smoothed-coefficient filter (SCF). The SCF’s tap coefficients are obtained by smoothing those of a pilot adaptive filter (PAF) for better accuracy and stability. The smoothing time constant is controlled by comparing mean squared high-pass errors of the SCF and the PAF. The high-pass filters enable precise control of the SCF by eliminating low frequency components of the near-end signal which cause comparison errors. Simulation results in a hands-free talk scenario demonstrate that the proposed echo canceller achieves robust echo cancellation even in severe double-talk periods.
On Rank Aggregation of Multiple Orderings in Network Design

In the classic rank aggregation (RA) problem, we are given input lists with potentially inconsistent orders of elements; our goal is to find a single order of all elements that minimizes the total number of disagreements with the given orders. The problem is well known to be NP-hard, already for . We consider a generalization of RA, where each list is associated with a set of orderings, and our goal is to choose one ordering per list and to find a permutation of the elements that minimizes the total disagreements with the chosen orderings. For the case in which the lists completely overlap, i.e. each list contains all elements, we show that a simple Greedy algorithm yields a -approximation for generalized RA. The case in which the lists only partially overlap, i.e. each list contains a subset of the elements, is much harder to approximate. In fact, we show that RA with multiple orderings per list and partial overlaps cannot be approximated within any bounded ratio.
Morphology and kinematics of HI in dust-lane elliptical galaxies

We present the results of the HI observations of four dust-lane ellipticals. The HI detected is regularly distributed in disks or rings. Moreover, in three of the four objects we have detected a very large amount of neutral hydrogen with values of M_HI/L_B that are at the end of the distribution characteristic of ellipticals and similar to what typically found in spiral galaxies. Thus, these dust-lane ellipticals may represent the results of major mergers as seen at a late stage of the evolution. The regular HI distribution and kinematics has allowed to derive values of M/L_B~20 at distances of ~5 R_e from the centre. Evidence for an increase of the dark matter contribution at larger radii can also be derived from the flat rotation curves observed in some of the observed galaxies.
2014 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease: executive summary: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines.

Jeffrey L. Anderson, MD, FACC, FAHA, Chair , Jonathan L. Halperin, MD, FACC, FAHA, Chair-Elect , Nancy M. Albert, PhD, CCNS, CCRN, FAHA, Biykem Bozkurt, MD, PhD, FACC, FAHA, Ralph G. Brindis, MD, MPH, MACC, Mark A. Creager, MD, FACC, FAHA[§§][1], Lesley H. Curtis, PhD, FAHA, David DeMets, PhD,
Sensor Placement for Activity Detection Using Wearable Accelerometers

Activities of daily living are important for assessing changes in physical and behavioural profiles of the general population over time, particularly for the elderly and patients with chronic diseases. Although accelerometers are widely integrated with wearable sensors for activity classification, the positioning of the sensors and the selection of relevant features for different activity groups still pose interesting research challenges. This paper investigates wearable sensor placement at different body positions and aims to provide a framework that can answer the following questions: (i) What is the ideal sensor location for a given group of activities? (ii) Of the different time-frequency features that can be extracted from wearable accelerometers, which ones are most relevant for discriminating different activity types?
Relation of infant feeding to adult serum cholesterol concentration and death from ischaemic heart disease.

OBJECTIVE--To examine whether method of infant feeding is associated with adult serum lipid concentrations and mortality from ischaemic heart disease. DESIGN--Follow up study of men born during 1911-30. SETTING--Hertfordshire, England. SUBJECTS--5718 men, for 5471 of whom information on infant feeding had been recorded by health visitors and 1314 of whom had died. 485 of the men born during 1920-30 and still living in Hertfordshire who had blood lipid measurements. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Death from ischaemic heart disease; serum cholesterol and apolipoprotein concentrations. RESULTS--474 men had died from ischaemic heart disease. Standardised mortality ratios were 97 (95% confidence interval 81 to 115) in men who had been breast fed and had not been weaned at 1 year, 79 (69 to 90) in breast fed men who had been weaned at 1 year, and 73 (59 to 89) in men who had been breast and bottle fed. Compared with men weaned before one year men not weaned had higher mean serum concentrations of total cholesterol (6.9 (not weaned) v 6.6 (weaned) mmol/l), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (5.0 v 4.6 mmol/l) and apolipoprotein B (1.14 v 1.08 g/l). Men who had been bottle fed also had a high standardised mortality ratio for ischaemic heart disease (95; 68 to 130) and high mean serum concentrations of total cholesterol (7.0 mmol/l), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (5.1 mmol/l), and apolipoprotein B (1.14 g/l). In all feeding groups serum apolipoprotein B concentrations were lower in men with higher birth weight and weight at 1 year. CONCLUSIONS--Age of weaning and method of infant feeding may influence adult serum low density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations and mortality from ischaemic heart disease. Adult serum apolipoprotein B concentrations are related to growth in fetal life and infancy.
ScaleUPC: a UPC compiler for multi-core systems

Since multi-core computers began to dominate the market, enormous efforts have been spent on developing parallel programming languages and/or their compilers to target this architecture. Although Unified Parallel C (UPC), a parallel extension to ANSI C, was originally designed for large scale parallel computers and cluster environments, its partitioned global address space programming model makes it a natural choice for a single multi-core machine, where the main memory is physically shared. This paper builds a case for UPC as a feasible language for multi-core programming by providing an optimizing compiler, called ScaleUPC, which outperforms other UPC compilers targeting SMPs. As the communication cost for remote accesses is removed because all accesses are physically local in a multi-core, we find that the overhead of pointer arithmetic on shared data accesses becomes a prominent bottleneck. The reason is that directly mapping the UPC logical memory layout to physical memory, as used in most of the existing UPC compilers, incurs prohibitive address calculation overhead. This paper presents an alternative memory layout, which effectively eliminates the overhead without sacrificing the UPC memory semantics. Our research also reveals that the compiler for multi-core systems needs to pay special attention to the memory system. We demonstrate how the compiler can enforce static process/thread binding to improve cache performance.
Comparing speech assessments: The usefulness of the DEAP as compared to the GFTA-2

This study seeks to evaluate whether the DEAP, a new speech assessment that assesses vowels in addition to consonants, is as effective with children who are deaf and hard of hearing as an older, more established speech assessment, the GFTA-2. Pitts ii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, Christine Gustus, for all of her dedication and guidance in helping me to complete this study. I would also like to thank my secondary reader, Dr . Heather Hayes, for giving of her time and effort throughout this project.