Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Networks for Language Learning

Social networks play indispensable roles in fostering second language learning by providing a wide array of authentic materials. The purpose of this review is to consider social networks, such as Facebook, Electronic mail, Computer media which are proven to be effective to increase students’ learning English out of the classes. Social networks facilitate students’ interaction to share their ideas, and provide an opportunity for learners to experience online tools to foster their learning skills. It was realized that these online tools (e.g. Facebook, Email, and Computer media) can be used to improve students’ language skills especially writing skill. Internet tools help the second language learners to accelerate their learning by being up-to-date and self-directed. In this paper, the literatures were reviewed to find positive aspects of using Facebook to improve second language learning. The researchers also pointed out that second language is learned incidentally and directly from second language speakers of different culture via Emails. Students can use e-mail to communicate with their teachers and with second language speakers or native speakers. Computer media are also useful means to guide those learners who are passively focused on English learning. The review would conclude that social interaction via social networks is a kind of stimulus for learners to communicate with others.
The rule of strain in different stratification of the intervertebral disc under physiologic loading

There is a common disease about Lumbar disc herniation in clinical medicine, which causes heavily burden in life and economic of patient. The spine mainly protects and supports the human body. Its primary functions include: 1) supporting the body in various positions, and transferring the load of head and torso to the pelvis; 2) making the trunk move in a wide range; 3) protecting the spinal cord, thoracic, abdominal and pelvic organs. Meanwhile, it is also very easy to hurt while is completing the above functions. There are complex etiological factors of lumbar disc herniation, but it is found that the biomechanical factors are the important reason to cause the disease. Therefore, the experiment was carried out with the lumbar intervertebral disc of pigs, using the digital image correlation technology and other special experimental instruments to further research the stress-strain state of the lumbar intervertebral disc under the different physiological loads, and to prevent the treatment systematical of intervertebral disc herniation. Integrating the analysis results of quantitative and qualitative, firstly, the stratification of annulus fibrosus can be found. Secondly, we can obtain that the outer strain is smaller than the inner strain, and the upper layer strain is larger than the lower strain. Thirdly, we can also found that intervertebral disc in the compression process; annulus fibrosus of stress-strain curve is nonlinear. The experimental knowledge may provide guide for the prevention and treatment of lumbar intervertebral disc disease, repair of lumbar intervertebral disc defect and there is a positive influence on the artificial lumbar intervertebral disc tissue engineering research and development. Moreover, the research can establish experimental data for a more mature finite element model to simulate annulus fibrosus function.
Comparison of Interactive Subjective Methodologies for Light Field Quality Evaluation

The recent advances in light field acquisition and rendering technologies have attracted a lot of interest from the scientific community. Due to their large amount of data, efficient compression of light field content is of paramount importance for storage and delivery. Quality evaluation plays a major role in assessing the impact of compression on visual perception. In particular, subjective methodologies for light field quality assessment must be carefully designed to ensure reliable results. In this paper, we present and compare two different methodologies to evaluate visual quality of light field contents. Both methodologies allow users to interact with the content and to freely decide which viewpoints to visualize. However, in the second methodology a brief animation of the available viewpoints is presented prior to interaction in order to ensure the same experience for all subjects. The time and patterns of interaction of both methods are compared and analyzed through a rigorous analysis. Conclusions provide useful insights for selecting the most appropriate light field evaluation methodology.
Venous Thromboembolism : A Multifactorial Approach to Increase Mechanical and Pharmacological Prophylaxis Compliance

Venous thromboemboli (VTEs) are a clinical and public health problem as they are commonly linked to inpatient experiences, yet frequently occur in the outpatient setting. VTEs place a significant burden on health care organizations and patients alike, as VTEs are costly, require long-term medications, and frequently reoccur. Research has identified risk factors and determined best practices for VTE prevention and prophylaxis, however little consensus exists among health care organizations and the implementation of best practices is varied. This project studied the challenges and opportunities in VTE prevention and prophylaxis at a large metropolitan hospital in California. Environmental changes were made in patient rooms across ten medical surgical units to increase nurses’ compliance with sequential compression device (SCD) orders. New machines were labeled and placed on patient beds, signs were placed on documentation stations, and education sessions were conducted with over 300 medical surgical nurses. Informal interviews with nursing staff, discharge pharmacists, and the hospital’s outpatient clinic staff were conducted to determine obstacles in compliance and gaps in anticoagulant discharge education. The subsequent audits revealed that nurses’ compliance with SCD orders and documentation remain low and that SCD machines continue to be misplaced, transferred between units, and stored incorrectly. Additional observations further indicated that discharge anticoagulation education is inconsistent and a discharge checklist was developed in response. Future work will include increased education about SCD compliance and documentation. Additional research should be conducted to identify new barriers to compliance, interdisciplinary influences, as well as to determine local, state, or national similarities. Furthermore, interdisciplinary processes must be developed to ensure the tracking and return of machines. In addition, an institutional policy, such as the standardization of the discharge
Use of Fruit Beetles, Waxworms Larvae and Tiger Worms in Waste Conditioning for Composting

In many countries, cow dung is used as farm manure and for biogas production. Several bacterial strains associated with cow dung such as Campylobacter, Salmonella sp. and Escherichia coli cause serious human diseases. The objective of the present study was to investigate the use of insect larvae including fruit beetle, waxworms and tiger worms to improve the breakdown of agricultural wastes and reduce their pathogen loads. Fresh cow faeces were collected from a cattle farm and distributed into plastic boxes (100 g/box). Each box was provided with 10 larvae of fruit beetle, Waxworms and Tiger worms, respectively. There were 3 replicates in each treatment including the control. Bacteria were isolated weekly from both control and cow faeces to which larvae were added to determine the bacterial populations. Results revealed that the bacterial load was higher in the cow faeces treated with fruit beetles than in the control, while the bacterial load was lower in the cow faeces treated with waxworms and tiger worms than in the control. The activities of the fruit beetle larvae led to the cow faeces being liquefied which provided a more conducive growing media for bacteria. Therefore, higher bacterial load in the cow faeces treated with fruit beetle might be attributed to the liquefaction of cow faeces. Keywords—Fruit beetle, waxworms, tiger worms, waste conditioning, composting.
Experimental evidence that microbial activity lowers the albedo of glaciers

doi: 10.7185/geochemlet.1611 Darkening of glacier and ice sheet surfaces is an important positive feedback to increasing global temperatures. Deposition of impurities on glaciers is primarily believed to reduce surface albedo, resulting in greater melt and mass loss. However, no study has yet included the effects of biological activity in albedo reduction models. Here, we provide the first experimental evidence that microbial activity can significantly decrease glacier surface albedo. Indeed, the addition of nutrients at ice meltwater concentrations to microbe-impurity mixtures resulted in extensive microbial organic carbon fixation and accumulation in Green land Ice Sheet surface debris. Accumulated organic carbon, over the period of a melt season, darkened the glacial debris in our experiments from 31.1 % to 15.6 % surface reflectivity (used as an analogue for albedo in our calculations), generating a strongly absorbing surface. Our experiments are the first to quantify the microbially-induced potential melt increase for the Greenland Ice Sheet (up to an average of 17.3 ± 2.5 Gt yr-1 at present and up to ~85 Gt yr-1 by 2100, based on our first order calculations). Mass loss from glaciers will conceivably intensify through enhanced microbial activity, resulting from longer melt seasons and fertilisation from anthropogenic sources.
Salivary TNF-α andAlkaline Phosphatase in Relation to Gingival Health Condition According to Nutritional Status among a Group of School Children

This study was planned to determine gingival health condition among children in relation to the salivary ALP and TNF-α. The sample consisted of (103) healthy school children aged 6-8 years from Baghdad city, those children were divided according to their nutritional status and their gingival health condition was inspected using plaque index (PlI) and gingival index (GI). Unstimulated salivary sample was taken from a subsample selected randomly to determine the level of AlP and TNF-α. The results showed that 43 children were overweight whereas those who had normal weight were 60 children. Most of the study sample had mild type of gingivitis, however, comparison of plaque index and gingival index in different nutritional status groups revealed no significant difference. Although correlation of PlI with TNF-α reveled negative weak non-significant relation in the normal weight group, a positive weak nonsignificant relation in the overweight group was present. On the other hand, correlation of the PlI with alkaline phosphatase revealed negative weak non-significant relation in both normal weight and overweight children. On conclusion: there were non-significant relation among the gingival health condition with TNF-α and AlP among different nutritional status groups of children.
Determinants of cerebral palsy among under-5 children

Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the leading causes of childhood disability worldwide, with the greatest burden found in the developing countries of the world. This hospital based case-control study was conducted from January 2010 to June 2010 to find out the determinants of cerebral palsy among under-5 children. The study was conducted among 76 diagnosed cerebral palsy cases with 76 children considered as control group from the same institute. Study suggested that, children with male sex were four times more likely to have cerebral palsy than the female child. There were more than 2.5 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy among the parents who had consanguineous marriage. In case of home delivery there were 2.25 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy than those had the hospital delivery. Among the mothers of the cases who were suffering from problem during delivery, 47.5% had prolong labour during delivery, 25.0% had premature rupture of membrane and 20.0% had breech presentation.There were 33 times more risk of developing cerebral palsy among the premature baby than the term birth. There were 12.5 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy among the low birth weight child than the of normal weight child. This study concluded that, greater knowledge and understanding on cerebral palsy is required to enhance decision-making processes about the affected children. Bangladesh Med J. 2015 Jan; 44 (1): 3-7
Title Identification of a Dual Inhibitor of SRPK1 and CK2 that Attenuates Pathological Angiogenesis of Macular Degeneration

Excessive angiogenesis contributes to numerous diseases, including cancer and blinding retinopathy. Antibodies against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) have been approved and are widely used in clinical treatment. Our previous studies using SRPIN340, a small molecule inhibitor of SRPK1 (serinearginine protein kinase 1), demonstrated that SRPK1 is a potential target for the development of antiangiogenic drugs. In this study, we solved the structure of SRPK1 bound to SRPIN340 by X-ray crystallography. Using pharmacophore docking models followed by in vitro kinase assays, we screened a large-scale chemical library, and thus identified a new inhibitor of SRPK1. This inhibitor, SRPIN803, prevented VEGF production more effectively than SRPIN340 owing to the dual inhibition of SRPK1 and CK2 (casein kinase 2). In a mouse model of agerelated macular degeneration, topical administration of eye ointment containing SRPIN803 significantly inhibited choroidal neovascularization, suggesting a clinical potential of SRPIN803 as a topical ointment for ocular neovascularization. Thus SRPIN803 merits further investigation as a novel inhibitor of VEGF.
Toward Individualized Real-time Sensor-based Affective Modeling with Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Human tutors do not simply deliver content; they pay attention to the cognitive and affective states of the instructed learners and use this knowledge to adjust their instructional strategies. Thus, a key component of human tutoring is the ability to recognize affect in a learner, and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) which recognize and classify emotion from data collected on a group of students are prevalent in the literature. However, AI-based software systems that use group-based affective modeling face challenges -models trained and evaluated with data from groups of students may not be effective for individual learners. An alternative to this approach is individualized models – highly customized models specific to each individual learner, continuously modified over time based on individual observations. This paper examines individualized modeling techniques for affective state recognition. It reports results from an initial evaluation of individualized modeling techniques using data from WestPoint cadets interacting with a serious game for combat casualty care training.
Hepatoprotective effect of basil ( Ocimum basilicum L . ) on CCl 4-induced liver fibrosis in rats

The hepatoprotective effect of basil (Ocimum basilicum) extract against liver fibrosis-induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) was studied in rats. Rats were allocated into five groups: Group I (control group); Group II [CCl4 group; rats were injected subcutaneously with CCl4 (1 ml/kg b.w.) twice weekly for 4 weeks (phenobarbital, 350 mg/L, was added to the drinking water throughout the experiment)]; Group III received daily oral doses of basil extract of 200 mg/kg b.w. along with CCl4 and phenobarbital for 6 weeks; Groups IV and V rats were treated with phenobarbital and CCl4 for 6 weeks then treated daily with oral dose of 200 mg/kg b.w basil extract, or by 300 mg/kg b.w dimethyl diphenyl bicarboxylate (DDB), respectively for 6 weeks. Basil-treatment significantly reduced the liver content of hydroxyproline and significantly increased the activity of hyaluronidase (HAase). The hepatic activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) was stimulated while the lipid peroxidation was significantly reduced by the effect of basil extract. Treatment with CCl4 significantly increased the activities of transaminases [aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT)], and alkaline phosphatase (ALP). These activities were significantly decreased by basil extract. The higher levels of serum urea and creatinine in CCl4 group were significantly guarded by the protection of basil.
Investment without Democracy: Ruling-Party Institutionalization and Credible Commitment in Autocracies

What explains private investment in autocracies, where institutions that discourage expropriation in democracies are absent? We argue that institutionalized ruling parties allow autocrats to make credible commitments to investors. Such parties promote investment by solving collective-action problems among a designated group, who invest with the expectation that the autocrat will not attempt their expropriation. We derive conditions under which autocrats want to create such parties, and we predict that private investment and governance will be stronger in their presence. We illustrate the model by examining the institutionalization of the Chinese Communist Party.
Are Survey Expectations Theory-Consistent? The Role of Central Bank Communication and News

In this paper we analyze whether central bank communication can facilitate the understanding of key economic concepts. Using survey data for consumers and professionals, we calculate how many of them have expectations consistent with the Fisher Equation, the Taylor rule and the Phillips curve and test, by accounting for three different communication channels, whether central banks can influence those. A substantial share of participants has expectations consistent with the Fisher equation, followed by the Taylor rule and the Phillips curve. We show that having theory-consistent expectations is beneficial, as it improves the forecast accuracy. Furthermore, consistency is time varying. Exploring this time variation, we provide evidence that central bank communication as well as news on monetary policy can facilitate the understanding of those concepts and thereby improve the efficacy of monetary policy.
The toroidal moment in condensed-matter physics and its relation to the magnetoelectric effect

The concept of toroidal moments in condensed-matter physics and their long-range ordering in a so-called ferrotoroidic state is reviewed. We show that ferrotoroidicity as a form of primary ferroic order can be understood both from microscopic (multipole expansion) and macroscopic (symmetry-based expansion of the free energy) points of view. The definition of the local toroidal moment and its transformation properties under the space-inversion and time reversal operations are highlighted and the extension to periodic bulk systems is discussed. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the toroidal moment and the antisymmetric magnetoelectric effect and to limitations of the magnetoelectric response in ferrotoroidic systems and ferroic materials in general. Experimental access to the ferrotoroidic state by magnetoelectric susceptibility measurements, x-ray diffraction and optical techniques or direct measurement of the bulk toroidization is discussed. We outline the pertinent questions that should be clarified for continued advancement of the field and mention some potential applications of ferrotoroidic materials.
Experimental and simulation validation and characterisation of flexural modes in unimorph ultrasound transducers

Two unimorph flexural transducer designs are proposed and tested with regard to mode shapes and frequencies. The transducers consist of a passive metal cap structure, and a thin piezoelectric disc rigidly bonded to the inside. Extensive finite element modelling, and experimental 2D, time-resolved displacement measurements were done to characterise the transducers flexural properties, and to compare them to the analytical solutions of thin vibrating plates. Emphasis was put on characterising the passive layer of the unimorph structure, before bonding the piezoelectric element, to understand how the active element affects the behaviour of the flexing plate. A high power Nd:YAG laser was used to actuate the metal plate (non-contact), and the frequency content of the resulting displacement signal was analysed to identify the flexural modes. The non-axisymmetric modes, which are conventionally disregarded because of their unfavourable acoustic properties, were also taken into account. There was excellent agreement between the experimental results and the FE simulation data. There was good agreement with the analytical edge clamped plate model, but with some notable deviations, which have not previously been identified or commented upon. Specifically, the second axisymmetric mode is split into three separate modes, which is not explained by the traditional theory of plates. The analysis is similar to that of contemporary pMUT research, but with the proposed macroscopic dimensions and passive metal layer making the transducer industrially robust, cheap and easy to manufacture, and more suitable for a different range of applications where these aspects are of importance.
Effect of follicle wave synchronization and gonadotropin treatments on the number and quality of cumulus-oocyte complex obtained by ultrasound-guided ovum pick-up in beef cattle

Four experiments were designed to evaluate the effect of different hormonal treatments on the number and quality of cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) recovered by ovum pick-up (OPU) in beef cattle. Experiment 1 compared the synchronization of follicle wave emergence with 2 mg estradiol benzoate (EB) and 50 mg progesterone (P4) given intramuscularly (i.m.) 6 days before OPU versus a control group in which donors did not receive any treatment. Experiment 2 evaluated the use of equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG) and prostaglandin F2α prior to OPU. Experiment 3 compared the effect of dominant follicle removal (DFR) by ultrasound guided follicle aspiration or EB+P4 to control follicular wave emergence, and treatment with eCG or FSH to superstimulate follicle growth. Experiment 4 evaluated the effect of inserting a progesterone releasing device (CIDR) during the superstimulation treatment. In experiment 1, treatment with EB+P4 resulted in more (P 0.1) the number of COCs (4.5 ± 1.0) recovered compared to the controls (4.7 ± 0.7). In experiment 3, there were no differences (P > 0.1) between DFR and EB+P4; however, treatment with FSH resulted in more (P < 0.05) COCs recovered than eCG (6.8 ± 0.6 vs. 3.7 ± 0.6). In experiment 4, insertion of a CIDR device did not affect the number of COCs recovered compared to the controls (6.3 ± 0.7 vs. 5.8 ± 0.7, respectively). In conclusion, the use of treatments that synchronize follicle wave emergence, prostaglandin F2α to avoid the presence CL at the time of OPU and superstimulation with FSH were useful to improve the number of COCs recovered in beef cattle. Conversely, the insertion of a CIDR device during the superstimulation treatment prior to OPU did not improve the number of COCs recovered nor their quality.