Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
You are your words: Modeling Students' Vocabulary Knowledge with Natural Language Processing Techniques

The current study investigates the degree to which the lexical properties of students’ essays can inform stealth assessments of their vocabulary knowledge. In particular, we used indices calculated with the natural language processing tool, TAALES, to predict students’ performance on a measure of vocabulary knowledge. To this end, two corpora were collected which contained essays from early college and high school students, respectively. The lexical properties of these essays were then calculated using TAALES. The results of this study indicated that two of the linguistic indices were able to account for 44% of the variance in the college students’ vocabulary knowledge scores. Additionally, the significant indices from this first corpus analysis were able to account for a significant portion of the variance in the high school students’ vocabulary scores. Overall, these results suggest that natural language processing techniques can inform stealth assessments and help to improve student models within computer-based learning environments.
Creating an entrepreneurial frame of mind.

CREATING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL FRAME OF MIND Robert F. Sinclair May 11,2012 This dissertation is comprised of three essays that address the question: what specific cognitions lead to the formation of entrepreneurial intentions? Essay 1, "Explaining and Predicting Entrepreneurial Intentions," investigates currently theorized antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions to determine the degree to which they predict entrepreneurial intentions. Findings suggest that proximal cognitions such as feelings, desires, emotions, and attitudes predict intention formation, albeit limited to situations where entrepreneurial behavior is imminent. Additionally, distal cognitions, such as biases, heuristics, scripts and maps, although useful in explaining intentions, are of little predictive value except when predicting the distal intention to become an entrepreneur in those with no entrepreneurial experience. Overall, results indicate that the antecedents used to explain entrepreneurial intentions are of limited predictive value. Essay 2, "The Role of Cognitions in the Formation of an Entrepreneurial Mindset," examines which specific core-level antecedents act to form entrepreneurial mindset and how these cognitions relate to the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. It posits that core-level cognitions related to "the self' (entity-schema, possible-self, and
The Quick-Read C-Reactive Protein Test for the Prediction of Bacterial Gastroenteritis in the Pediatric Emergency Department

Objective: To determine the clinical usefulness of the bedside Quick-Read (QR) C-reactive protein (CRP) test for predicting bacterial gastroenteritis in the pediatric emergency department. Study design: We tested for CRP in 44 children who presented to the emergency department with gastroenteritis and underwent blood tests and stool culture. C-reactive protein was measured in leftover blood or serum (0.2 mL) using the immunoturbidimetric QR-CRP test kit. Background and outcome data were collected from the files. Pearson correlation, analysis of variance, and logistic regression were used to determine the diagnostic ability of CRP. Results: Stool culture was positive for bacteria in 8 patients. High CRP levels correlated with a greater likelihood of a positive culture; the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was 0.9427. The CRP values of 95 mg/L or higher had a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 91.7% for predicting culture-confirmed bacterial gastroenteritis. Conclusions: The QR-CRP test seems to be a useful predictor of bacterial gastroenteritis in children. It is amenable for use in the emergency department, making it a promising tool for infection control and for aiding physicians in decisions regarding antibiotic treatment. The CRP levels of 95 mg/L or higher during the first 48 hours are suggestive of bacterial disease.
Three Essential Ribonucleases—RNase Y, J1, and III—Control the Abundance of a Majority of Bacillus subtilis mRNAs

Bacillus subtilis possesses three essential enzymes thought to be involved in mRNA decay to varying degrees, namely RNase Y, RNase J1, and RNase III. Using recently developed high-resolution tiling arrays, we examined the effect of depletion of each of these enzymes on RNA abundance over the whole genome. The data are consistent with a model in which the degradation of a significant number of transcripts is dependent on endonucleolytic cleavage by RNase Y, followed by degradation of the downstream fragment by the 5′–3′ exoribonuclease RNase J1. However, many full-size transcripts also accumulate under conditions of RNase J1 insufficiency, compatible with a model whereby RNase J1 degrades transcripts either directly from the 5′ end or very close to it. Although the abundance of a large number of transcripts was altered by depletion of RNase III, this appears to result primarily from indirect transcriptional effects. Lastly, RNase depletion led to the stabilization of many low-abundance potential regulatory RNAs, both in intergenic regions and in the antisense orientation to known transcripts.
Leukotriene generation by eosinophils

Horse eosinophils purified to greater than 98% generated slow reacting substance (SRS) when incubated with the calcium ionophore A23187. On a per cell basis, eosinophils generated four to five times the SRS produced by similarly treated horse neutrophils. Eosinophil SRS production was inhibited by 5,8,11,14-eicosatetraynoic acid and augmented by indomethacin and arachidonic acid, suggesting that it was a product(s) of the lipoxygenase pathway of arachidonic acid metabolism. Compounds with SRS activity were purified by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and identified by ultraviolet spectra, spectral shift on treatment with lipoxygenase, incorporation of [14C]arachidonic acid, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and comparison of retention times on HPLC to authentic standards. The eosinophil products characterized were 5-(S), 12-(R)-dihydroxy-6-cis-8, 10-trans-14-cis-eicosatetraenoic acid (leukotriene B4) and its 5-(S), 12-(R)-6-trans and 5-(S), 12-(S)-6-trans isomers, 5-(S)-hydroxy-6-(R)-S- glutathionyl-7,9-trans-11, 14-cis-eicosatetraenoic acid (leukotriene C4) and its 11-trans isomer, and 5-(S)-hydroxy-6-(R)-S-cysteinylglycine- 7,9-trans-11,14-cis-eicosatetraenoic acid (leukotriene D4).
Hardware acceleration of database operations

As the amount of memory in database systems grows, entire database tables, or even databases, are able to fit in the system's memory, making in-memory database operations more prevalent. This shift from disk-based to in-memory database systems has contributed to a move from row-wise to columnar data storage. Furthermore, common database workloads have grown beyond online transaction processing (OLTP) to include online analytical processing and data mining. These workloads analyze huge datasets that are often irregular and not indexed, making traditional database operations like joins much more expensive. In this paper we explore using dedicated hardware to accelerate in-memory database operations. We present hardware to accelerate the selection process of compacting a single column into a linear column of selected data, joining two sorted columns via merging, and sorting a column. Finally, we put these primitives together to accelerate an entire join operation. We implement a prototype of this system using FPGAs and show substantial improvements in both absolute throughput and utilization of memory bandwidth. Using the prototype as a guide, we explore how the hardware resources required by our design change with the desired throughput.
Regional Epidemiologic Assessment of Prevalent Periodontitis Using an Electronic Health Record System

An oral health surveillance platform that queries a clinical/administrative data warehouse was applied to estimate regional prevalence of periodontitis. Cross-sectional analysis of electronic health record data collected between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2010, was undertaken in a population sample residing in Ladysmith, Wisconsin. Eligibility criteria included: 1) residence in defined zip codes, 2) age 25–64 years, and 3) ≥1 Marshfield dental clinic comprehensive examination. Prevalence was established using 2 independent methods: 1) via an algorithm that considered clinical attachment loss and probe depth and 2) via standardized Current Dental Terminology (CDT) codes related to periodontal treatment. Prevalence estimates were age-standardized to 2000 US Census estimates. Inclusion criteria were met by 2,056 persons. On the basis of the American Academy of Periodontology/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention method, the age-standardized prevalence of moderate or severe periodontitis (combined) was 407 per 1,000 males and 308 per 1,000 females (348/1,000 males and 269/1,000 females using the CDT code method). Increased prevalence and severity of periodontitis was noted with increasing age. Local prevalence of periodontitis was consistent with national estimates. The need to address potential sample selection bias in future electronic health record–based periodontitis research was identified by this approach. Methods outlined herein may be applied to refine oral health surveillance systems, inform dental epidemiologic methods, and evaluate interventional outcomes.
Flexibility of Polyhedral Embeddings of Graphs in Surfaces

Whitney's theorem states that 3-connected planar graphs admit essentially unique embeddings in the plane. We generalize this result to embeddings of graphs in arbitrary surfaces by showing that there is a function ? :N0? N0 such that every 3-connected graph admits at most ? (g) combinatorially distinct embeddings of face-width ? 3 into surfaces whose Euler genus is at most g.
Star Power: The Effect of Morningstar Ratings on Mutual Fund Flow

We apply an event-study methodology on over 10,000 Morningstar star rating changes and find that Morningstar has subsantial independent influence on the investment allocation decisions of retail mutual fund investors. It is the discrete change in the star rating itself and not the change in the underlying performance measures that drives frow. We document econnomically and statistically significant positive abnormal flow following rating upgrades, and negative abnormal flow following rating downgrades. In contrast to the cross-sectional flow performance literature, we find evidence of investor punishment of performance declines, some of which is evident immediately in the month of the rating change.
Fault-tolerant control design against actuator faults with application to UAV formation flight

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) strategy against actuator malfunctions, with application to formation flight of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Within the leader-follower context, the FTC mainly consists of the outer-loop control and the inner-loop fault accommodation. The reference commands for the follower UAV are generated by the inner-loop of the follower UAV. The inner-loop FTC is designed based on sliding mode control (SMC) and model reference adaptive control (MRAC) approaches, such that the adverse effects induced by failed actuators can be counteracted within finite time. Within the presented FTC scheme, both the finite-time convergence of the adaptive laws and the finite-time stability of the post-fault UAV can be ensured. The effectiveness of the proposed FTC approach is illustrated by simulations of UAVs formation flight.
Pitch Histograms in Audio and Symbolic Music Information Retrieval

In order to represent musical content, pitch and timing information is utilized in the majority of existing work in Symbolic Music Information Retrieval (MIR). Symbolic representations such as MIDI allow the easy calculation of such information and its manipulation. In contrast, most of the existing work in Audio MIR uses timbral and beat information, which can be calculated using automatic computer audition techniques. In this paper, Pitch Histograms are defined and proposed as a way to represent the pitch content of music signals both in symbolic and audio form. This representation is evaluated in the context of automatic musical genre classification. A multiple-pitch detection algorithm for polyphonic signals is used to calculate Pitch Histograms for audio signals. In order to evaluate the extent and significance of errors resulting from the automatic multiple-pitch detection, automatic musical genre classification results from symbolic and audio data are compared. The comparison indicates that Pitch Histograms provide valuable information for musical genre classification. The results obtained for both symbolic and audio cases indicate that although pitch errors degrade classification performance for the audio case, Pitch Histograms can be effectively used for classification in both cases.
Teacher Ratings of Social Skills as Longitudinal Predictors of Long-Term Arrest Status in a Sample of At-Risk Males

The study described here is one of a number of longitudinal reports involving an at-risk group of 80 males we have been following since 1984 in collaboration with the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLO. We collected the following measures on the study participants twice annually, fall and spring: (a) direct observations in classroom and playground settings through grade 6; (b) teacher ratings on the Walker-McConnell Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment; and (c) archival school records (e.g., attendance, discipline referrals, negative narrative comments in cumulative folders, standardized achievement test data, and so forth). OSLC staff accessed public safety and court records annually to record police contacts, arrests, and dispositions of cases. This article examines the relationships over a 6-year period between teacher ratings of social skills recorded in grade 5 and arrest records through grade 11. Results indicated that teacher ratings of social skills were a significant predictor of police contacts and arrest status during middle and high school years for this group of students. Implications for early detection and intervention are discussed in light of these findings.
Are prediction equations reliable for estimating resting energy expenditure in chronic kidney disease patients?

BACKGROUND The determination of resting energy expenditure (REE) is the primary step for estimating the energy requirement of an individual. Although numerous equations have been formulated for predicting metabolic rates, there is a lack of studies addressing the reliability of those equations in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate whether the main equations developed for estimating REE can be reliably applied for CKD patients. METHODS A total of 281 CKD patients (124 non-dialysis, 99 haemodialysis and 58 peritoneal dialysis) and 81 healthy control individuals were recruited. Indirect calorimetry and blood sample collection were performed after a 12-h fasting. Two most traditionally used equations for estimating REE were chosen for comparison with the REE measured by indirect calorimetry: (i) the equation proposed by Harris and Benedict, and (ii) the equation proposed by Schofield that is currently recommended by the FAO/WHO/UNU. RESULTS Schofield's equation exhibited higher REE [1492±220 kcal/day (mean±SD)] in relation to Harris and Benedict's equation (1431±214 kcal/day; P<0.001), and both prediction equations showed higher REE in comparison with the reference indirect calorimetry (1352±252 kcal/day; P<0.001). In patients with diabetes, inflammation or severe hyperparathyroidism, the REE estimated by the Harris and Benedict equation was equivalent to that measured by indirect calorimetry. The intraclass correlation of the REE measured by indirect calorimetry with the Schofield's equation was r=0.48 (P<0.001) and with the Harris and Benedict's equation was r=0.58 (P<0.001). According to the Bland and Altman analysis, there was a large limit of agreement between both prediction equations and the reference method. Acceptable prediction of REE (90-110% adequacy) was found in 47% of the patients by using the Harris and Benedict's equation and in only 37% by using the Schofield's equation. CONCLUSIONS The most traditionally used prediction equations overestimated the REE of CKD patients, and the errors were minimized in the presence of comorbidities. There is a need to develop population-specific equations in order to adequately estimate the energy requirement of these patients.
Consequences of youth tobacco use: a review of prospective behavioural studies.

BACKGROUND Cigarette smoking represents a significant health problem and tobacco has been identified as causing more preventable diseases and premature deaths than any other drug. Although health consequences from smoking have been documented, there has been a surprising lack of research into behavioural consequences. AIMS To review what is known of the long-term relationship between patterns of tobacco use prior to age 18 years and behavioural consequences in adulthood. METHOD A literature search of electronic abstraction services from 1980 to September 2005 was conducted. To be included in the review, studies had to have large, representative samples, be longitudinal studies with baseline age under 18 years and follow-up age 18 years or older and clarify effects due to attrition, leaving 16 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Two reviewers evaluated each paper. FINDINGS Adolescent tobacco use predicts a range of early adult social and health problems. Surprisingly few studies met the inclusion criteria. The limited evidence available suggests that adolescent tobacco smoking increases the likelihood of early adult tobacco use and the initiation of alcohol use or the development of alcohol-related problems. The link between adolescent tobacco use and subsequent cannabis use was not resolved convincingly from the studies summarized. The effects of tobacco use on later illicit drug use tended to fall away when adjusting for underlying risk factors. Existing studies of the effects of tobacco use on later mental health have many limitations. Nevertheless, a finding that youth tobacco use may predict subsequent mental health problems deserves further investigation. The possible effects of tobacco use on academic/social problems and sleep problems also warrant further investigation. CONCLUSION This review highlights links between youth tobacco use and subsequent behavioural and mental health problems. It provides health care professionals with evidence of the possible harmful effects of youth tobacco smoking on later social, emotional, and behavioural well-being.
Dopaminergic nigrostriatal projections regulate neural precursor proliferation in the adult mouse subventricular zone

An understanding of the regulators of neurogenesis in the normal and diseased brain is necessary in order to recruit endogenously produced neural precursors for cell replacement in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. The location of dopaminergic projections from the midbrain to the neostriatum and nucleus accumbens overlaps with the most active region of neurogenesis in the adult brain, the subventricular zone of the anterior lateral ventricle. This suggests that dopamine may contribute to regulation of the subventricular niche of adult neurogenesis. Here, we show in adult mice that destruction of the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area in a 6‐hydroxydopamine model of Parkinson's disease reduced the number of proliferating neural precursors in the subventricular zone of the anterior lateral ventricle by ∼ 40%. The effect on neural precursor proliferation correlated with the extent of dopaminergic denervation in the neighboring neostriatum. This identifies dopamine as one of the few known endogenous regulators of adult neurogenesis with implications for the potential use of endogenous neural precursors in cell replacement strategies for Parkinson's disease.
Performance Optimisation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Algorithms for Multi/Many-Core Architectures

We describe a strategy for code modernisation of Gadget, a widely used community code for computational astrophysics. The focus of this work is on node-level performance optimisation, targeting current multi/many-core Intel® architectures. We identify and isolate a sample code kernel, which is representative of a typical Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) algorithm. The code modifications include threading parallelism optimisation, change of the data layout into Structure of Arrays (SoA), auto-vectorisation and algorithmic improvements in the particle sorting. We obtain shorter execution time and improved threading scalability both on Intel Xeon® (2.6× on Ivy Bridge) and Xeon Phi™ (13.7× on Knights Corner) systems. First few tests of the optimised code result in 19.1× faster execution on second generation Xeon Phi (Knights Landing), thus demonstrating the portability of the devised optimisation solutions to upcoming architectures.
Students Serving Abroad: A Framework for Inquiry

International service by students is gaining greater attention at colleges and universities around the world. Some research has examined the effects of international service for students, but relatively few studies have examined outcomes for host communities and sponsoring organizations, including colleges and universities. Beginning with an examination of theoretical and empirical research from the fields of international volunteerism, international service-learning, and international study abroad, this article proposes a framework for inquiry on international service programs. It suggests that differences in outcomes for students, host communities, and home colleges and universities are the result of variations in individual and institutional characteristics and service activities. Finally, the article considers implications for future research, including hypotheses and research designs to test differences across programs and educational institutions.
Hydrodynamical simulations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect

With detections of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect induced by galaxy clusters becoming routine, it is crucial to establish accurate theoretical predictions. We use a hydrodynamical N-body code to generate simulated maps, of size 1 deg2, of the thermal SZ effect. This is done for three different cosmologies: the currently favoured low-density model with a cosmological constant, a critical-density model and a low-density open model. We stack simulation boxes corresponding to different redshifts in order to include contributions to the Compton y-parameter out to the highest necessary redshifts. Our main results are as follows. (i) The mean y-distortion is around 4×10−6 for low-density cosmologies, and 1×10−6 for critical density. These are below current limits, but not by a wide margin in the former case. (ii) In low-density cosmologies, the mean y-distortion is contributed across a broad range of redshifts, with the bulk coming from z≲2 and a tail out to z∼5. For critical-density models, most of the contribution comes from z<1. (iii) The number of SZ sources above a given y depends strongly on instrument resolution. For a 1-arcmin beam, there are around 0.1 sources per deg2 with y>10−5 in a critical-density Universe, and around 8 such sources per deg2 in low-density models. Low-density models with and without a cosmological constant give very similar results. (iv) We estimate that the Planck satellite will be able to see of order 25 000 SZ sources if the Universe has a low density, or around 10 000 if it has critical density.