Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Orchestrating student discourse opportunities and listening for conceptual understandings in high school science classrooms

ORCHESTRATING STUDENT DISCOURSE OPPORTUNITIES AND LISTENING FOR CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDINGS IN HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSROOMS Scientific communities have established social mechanisms for proposing explanations, questioning evidence, and validating claims. Opportunities like these are often not a given in science classrooms (Vellom, Anderson, & Palincsar, 1993) even though the National Science Education Standards (NSES, 1996) state that a scientifically literate person should be able to “engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about important issues in science and technology” (National Research Council [NRC], 1996). Research further documents that students’ science conceptions undergo little modification with the traditional teaching experienced in many high school science classrooms (Duit, 2003, Dykstra, 2005). This case study is an examination of the discourse that occurred as four high school physics students collaborated on solutions to three physics lab problems during which the students made predictions and experimentally generated data to support their predictions. The discourse patterns were initially examined for instances of concept negotiations. Selected instances were further examined using Toulmin’s (2003) pattern for characterizing argumentation in order to understand the students’ scientific reasoning strategies and to document the role of collaboration in facilitating conceptual modifications and changes. Audio recordings of the students’ conversations during the labs, written problems turned in to the teacher, interviews of the students, and observations and field notes taken during student collaboration were used to document and describe the students’ challenges and successes encountered during their collaborative work. The findings of the study indicate that collaboration engaged the students and generated two types of productive science discourse: concept negotiations and procedure negotiations. Further analysis of the conceptual and procedure negotiations revealed that the students viewed science as sensible and plausible but not as a tool they could employ to answer their questions. The students’ conceptual growth was inhibited by their allegiance to the authority of the science laws as learned in their school classroom. Thus, collaboration did not insure conceptual change. Describing student discourse in situ contributes to science education research about teaching practices that facilitate conceptual understandings in the science classroom. ORCHESTRATING STUDENT DISCOURSE OPPORTUNITIES AND LISTENING FOR CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDINGS IN HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSROOMS by Melissa Grass Kinard
MHC, parasites and antler development in red deer: no support for the Hamilton & Zuk hypothesis

The Hamilton‐Zuk hypothesis proposes that the genetic benefits of preferences for elaborated secondary sexual traits have their origins in the arms race between hosts and parasites, which maintains genetic variance in parasite resistance. Infection, in turn, can be reflected in the expression of costly sexual ornaments. However, the link between immune genes, infection and the expression of secondary sexual traits has rarely been investigated. Here, we explored whether the presence and identity of functional variants (supertypes) of the highly polymorphic major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which is responsible for the recognition of parasites, predict the load of lung and gut parasites and antler development in the red deer (Cervus elaphus). While we found MHC supertypes to be associated with infection by a number of parasite species, including debilitating lung nematodes, we did not find support for the Hamilton‐Zuk hypothesis. On the contrary, we found that lung nematode load was positively associated with antler development. We also found that the supertypes that were associated with resistance to certain parasites at the same time cause susceptibility to others. Such trade‐offs may undermine the potential genetic benefits of mate choice for resistant partners.
New instruments – old practices? The implications of environmental management systems and extended producer responsibility for design for the environment

As the focus of environmental policy and management is shifting from cleaner production at the process level towards greener products, there is a need for new kinds of policy instruments and initiatives. Environmental management systems (EMSs) and extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems are efforts to overcome the limitations of the traditional regulatory approach. In this paper, I illustrate how EMSs and EPR systems have influenced the emergence of greener products in three case companies. These case studies are complemented by results from a survey on design for the environment in the electrical and electronics industry. Both the case studies and the survey indicate that the linkage between EMSs and product development is weak or completely missing. Therefore, the mere existence of an EMS can hardly be used as a convincing indicator of the implementation of an environmentally friendly design process. The results regarding the EPR systems are more positive. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
College Entry by Blacks since 1970: The Role of College Costs, Family Background, and the Returns to Education

College enrollment of black 18-19-year-old high school graduates declined from 1980 through 1984 and then rebounded after 1984. This paper presents data from a time series of cross sections of 18-19-year-old youths from 1973 through 1988 to test the role of family background, direct college costs, local economic conditions, and returns to college in driving these trends. The evidence suggests that, on the one hand, increases in direct college costs were driving enrollment rates downward throughout the eighties. On the other hand, dramatic increases in average parental education for black youths exerted upward pressure on college enrollment by blacks, particularly in the latter half of the decade. The net effect of these two factors contributed to the pattern of decline and recovery observed during the eighties.
Selection of planned supply initiatives: the role of senior management expertise

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the selection of planned supply initiatives and the role of senior management expertise. The drivers that influence the selection of particular supply initiatives by firms are of major interest to both practitioners and academics, as choices indicate priorities for resources, potential performance gaps and needs for future research. Moreover, theory indicates that senior management expertise and firm‐level resources might influence the likelihood of selecting particular initiatives.Design/methodology/approach – A synthesis of the literature supported the development of a five‐dimensional framework of major supply initiatives. Logistic regression was conducted with data from a survey of chief purchasing officers at large North American firms. The impact of firm‐level resources and senior management expertise, including background and experience, was assessed for the selection of supply initiatives.Findings – After controlling for general industry‐level facto.
Breast cancer screening in a resource poor country: Ultrasound versus mammography.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the commonest female cancer in Nigeria. Despite its increased awareness, affordability of available screening tools is a bane. Mammography, the goal standard for screening is costly and not widely available in terms of infrastructure, technical/personnel capabilities. Ultrasound is accessible and affordable. OBJECTIVES This study compared the use of ultrasound and mammography as breast cancer screening tools in women in South West Nigeria by characterizing and comparing the prevalent breast parenchyma, breast cancer features and the independent sensitivity of ultrasound and mammography. METHODS This cross sectional comparative descriptive study used both ultrasound and mammography as screening tools in 300 consenting women aged 30 to 60 years who attended a free breast cancer screening campaign in a tertiary hospital in Lagos. Categorical variables were presented in tables and Chi squares for associations P-value set at ± 0.1. RESULTS Mean age was 41.01 + 6.5years with majority in the 30 - 39 year age group 139 (55%). Fatty (BIRADS A and B) parenchyma predominated {ultrasound 237 (79%); mammography 233 (77.7%)} in all age groups. 7 (2.3%) were confirmed malignant by histology with (6) in the 30-39 age group and (1) in the 40-49 age group. Ultrasound detected all the confirmed cases 7(100%), whereas mammography detected 6 (85%). Sensitivity was higher using ultrasound (100%) than mammography (85.7%). CONCLUSION Ultrasound can be utilized as a first line of screening especially in remote/rural areas in developing world. FUNDING Part funding from Run for Cure governmental organization.
Hostile Takeovers as Corporate Governance? Evidence from the 1980s

The notion that hostile takeovers must play a key role in corporate governance, by bringing purportedly efficient financial market pressures to bear on poorly performing managers, often underlies proposals for financial sector reform. This paper tests the most influential explanation of takeovers, the free cash flow theory of debt-financed restructuring, against a comprehensive sample of large U.S. hostile takeovers from the years 1978‐89. The tests provide little support for the free cash flow hypothesis: that over-retention of corporate resources, relative to investment opportunities, would distinguish targets from other companies. Firms with less debt are more likely to have been taken over. But this and closely related evidence is more consistent with the idea that the takeover and credit markets underwent a period of speculative overheating. Thus the role played by hostile takeovers in the corporate restructuring of the 1980s does not suggest that facilitating such activity should be a goal of present day financial reforms, in Europe or elsewhere
Information and Delay in an Agency Model

Negotiations often take long a time even if a delay in the agreement is inefficient. One typical explanation is the existence of private information of at least one party; the time is then a discriminating instrument. The paper starts by pointing out that this result does not hold once the traded quantity is not fixed as in most bargaining models; the quantity outperforms the time as a discriminating instrument, that is, there is no delay. Moreover, Coase conjecture does not hold either. We then study how a signal arriving in the course of negotiations affects the delay in the agreement. Unlike investment-under-uncertainty models, a better signal not only improves contracting in the future but also in the present. Therefore, the delay is in general not monotonic in the quality of information. The value of information can be negative over some range as better information may aggravate the principal`s commitment problem.
Exchange Rate Regimes and the Stability of Trade Policy in Transition Economies

This paper examines the interplay between exchange rate regimes and policies and commercial policy in six transition economies. In all these economies the rate of protection afforded domestic industry by the exchange rate has been eroded by high rates of inflation and insufficient growth in productivity. As a result, there has been pressure on governments to increase trade barriers and each country examined has had recourse to various means of restricting imports. We argue that more flexible management of the nominal exchange rate would be a preferable way of dealing with the real appreciation of these countries' currencies. exchange rates, trade policy, transition economies.
The Economics of Agency.

Abstract : The agency relationship is a pervasive fact of economic life. Even in the limited sense in which the concept has traditionally been understood in ordinary and in legal discourse, the principal-agent relation is a phenomenon of significant scope and economic magnitude. But economic theory has recently recognized that analogous interactions are virtually universal in the economy, at least as one significant component of almost all transactions. The common element is the presence of two individuals. One (the agent) must choose an action from a number of alternative possibilities. The action affects the welfare of both the agent and another person, the principal. In this study of organizational efficiency this report discusses the following topics: (1) The Two Types--Hidden Action and Hidden Information;(2) Example--Public Utility Rate Setting; (3) Multiple Principles; (4) The Hidden-Action Model; (5) Monitoring; (6) Multiple Agents and Repeated Relations; (7) An Evaluation of Agency Theory.
Crisis and Citizens’ Trust in the European Central Bank — Panel Data Evidence for the Euro Area, 1999–2012

ABSTRACT Throughout the crisis, citizens’ trust in the European Central Bank has significantly declined throughout the Euro area (EA-12). Although a decline in the core countries of the EA-12 has been distinct, a more pronounced decline has been taking place in the peripheral countries of the EA-12. Taking panel data and using a fixed effects DFGLS estimation for an EA-12 country sample over the time period of 1999–2012 with a total of 305 observations, this paper detects a negative and significant relationship between unemployment and trust in times of crisis. The robustness analysis of the paper confirms that this decrease in trust is strongly driven by the significant increase in unemployment rates in the four peripheral countries Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal.
Unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant for adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia in first and second complete remission: a comparison with allografts from adult unrelated donors

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation has an established role in the treatment of adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia whose survival when recipients of grafts from adult unrelated donors approaches that of recipients of grafts from sibling donors. Our aim was to determine the role of mismatched unrelated cord blood grafts in transplantation for 802 adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in first or second complete remission. Using Cox regression we compared outcomes after 116 mismatched single or double cord blood transplants, 546 peripheral blood progenitor cell transplants and 140 bone marrow transplants. The characteristics of the recipients and their diseases were similar except cord blood recipients were younger, more likely to be non-Caucasians and more likely to have a low white blood cell count at diagnosis. There were differences in donor-recipient human leukocyte antigen-match depending on the source of the graft. Most adult donor transplants were matched at the allele-level considering human leukocyte antigens-A, -B, -C and –DRB1. In contrast, most cord blood transplants were mismatched and considered antigen-level matching; 57% were mismatched at two loci and 29% at one locus whereas only 29% of adult donor transplants were mismatched at one locus and none at two loci. There were no differences in the 3-year probabilities of survival between recipients of cord blood (44%), matched adult donor (44%) and mismatched adult donor (43%) transplants. Cord blood transplants engrafted slower and were associated with less grade 2–4 acute but similar chronic graft-versus-host disease, relapse, and transplant-related mortality. The survival of cord blood graft recipients was similar to that of recipients of matched or mismatched unrelated adult donor grafts and so cord blood should be considered a valid alternative source of stem cells for adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the absence of a matched unrelated adult donor.
External Technology Commercialization in Large Firms: Results of a Quantitative Benchmarking Study

External technology commercialization (ETC), i.e., the commercialization of technological knowledge exclusively or in addition to its application inside the firm, has recently become a broader trend. However, this increase in outward technology transfer, e.g., by means of technology licensing, has been insufficiently reflected by academic research. Thus, we lack a detailed understanding of the evolution and the current scope of ETC, which represents an important component of technology portfolio management. Moreover, our insights into the functions of ETC and into firms' strategies, processes, and structures for managing ETC are limited. To address these research deficits, we present the results of a questionnaire-based benchmarking study in 154 medium-sized and large European firms spanning multiple industries. Thus, this article is among the first studies that provide quantitative empirical evidence for the current scope and management of ETC. After an introduction and theoretical considerations, the research design is described. Subsequently, the results of the survey are presented. In the final section, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and opportunities for further research are pointed out.
Aid dimension of the Commitment to Development Index: case study of the Czech Republic

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) aims to assess rich countries' policies that affect sustainable development perspectives of poor countries and to rank rich countries from this perspective. The index consists of seven components and one of them - foreign aid - is explored in this paper. We describe the methodology of the aid component and apply it to the Czech Republic. Our results show that the aid policy of the Czech Republic, as measured by the aid component of the CDI, is relatively worse than that of most rich countries. However, this is not unexpected for a transition economy that has relatively recently changed its status from the recipient of foreign aid to that of a re-emerging donor. Both quantity and quality of aid are important for the overall development impact of the Czech Republic, though the data reveal that the main determinant of CDI aid scores are the aid volumes.
A comparison of roughness parameters and friction coefficients of aesthetic archwires.

AIM Compare surface roughness of 'aesthetic' nickel-titanium (NiTi) archwires with their dynamic frictional properties. METHODS Archwires investigated were: four fully coated tooth coloured [Forestadent: Biocosmetic (FB) and Titanol Cosmetic (FT); TOC Tooth Tone (TT); and Hawley Russell Coated Superelastic NiTi (HRC)]; two partially coated tooth coloured [DB Euroline Microcoated (DB) and TP Aesthetic NiTi (TP)]; two rhodium coated [TOC Sentalloy (TS) and Hawley Russell Rhodium Coated Superelastic NiTi (HRR)]; and two controls: stainless steel [Forestadent Steel (FS)] and NiTi archwire [Forestadent Titanol Superelastic (FN)]. Surface roughness [profilometry (Rugosurf)] was compared with frictional coefficients for archwire/bracket/ligature combinations (n = 10). Analysis of variance, Sidak's multiple comparison of means, and Spearman's correlation coefficient were used for analysis. RESULTS Roughness coefficients were from low to high: FB; FN; TT; FS; TS; HRR; FT; DB; TP; HRC. Friction coefficients were from low to high: TP; FS; FN; HRR; FT; DB; FB; HRC; TS; TT. Coated archwires generally exhibited higher friction than uncoated controls. TP had the lowest friction but this was not statistically significant (P < 0.05). Friction of tooth coloured coated archwires were significantly different for some wires. Spearman's correlation did not demonstrate consistency between surface roughness (R a) and dynamic friction. CONCLUSIONS Aesthetic archwires investigated had either low surface roughness or low frictional resistance but not both properties simultaneously. Causes for friction are likely to be multifactorial and do not appear to be solely determined by surface roughness (measured by profilometry). For selecting the most appropriate aligning archwire, both surface roughness and frictional resistance need to be considered.
Compressive sensing reconstruction of video data based on DCT and gradient-descent method

The reconstruction of video with missing data using a gradient-based compressive sensing algorithm is presented in this paper. The video is assumed to have missing data randomly spread over the frames. Also, it has been assumed that the video frames are sparse in the DCT domain. The value of the gradient is calculated in the sparsity domain and then used to update the pixel values. The efficiency of the video reconstruction using the gradient-descent algorithm is analyzed in terms of the number of available samples and sparsity level, showing better reconstruction performance comparing to the greedy algorithm. Also, it has been shown that the gradient-based algorithm provides high quality reconstruction for real video sequences.
A Zero-Configuration Tracking System for First Responders Networks

In emergency scenarios, tracking first responders is essential. While in open areas the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) service is typically acceptable, in partially obstructed environments, such as urban canyons, or indoor, it could be either unavailable or hindered by very coarse and unacceptable estimates. Moreover, most of the proposals for overcoming these limitations could be unsuitable in emergency scenarios. We propose a localization and tracking system based on the combined usage of WiFi and GPS. Essentially, when the GPS coverage is scarce, our localization solution allows augmenting it by using the WiFi access points as virtual satellites. When GPS coverage is not available at all, we use WiFi trilateration based on received signal strength, even maintaining the same coordinate system used in the GPS. The tracking protocol makes use of session initiation protocol messaging over a WiFi network. The proposed system is characterized by ease of deployment and usage, since it does not require any particular configuration. In order to assess its feasibility, we implemented a proof-of-concept prototype made up of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf components and open-source software. The performance tests carried out by using this prototype confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system.