Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SELF-REGULATION COMPETENCE IN MUSIC EDUCATION

This work starts from a systematic review about music education and self-regulation during learning processes. Then the paper identifies those meta-cognitive strategies that music students should adopt during their instrumental practice. The goal is applying such concepts in order to rethink the structure of a didactic e-book for instrumental music education. Thanks to the adoption of the IEEE 1599 standard, the paper outlines a model of active e-book able to improve learners’ performances through proper cognitive and multi-modal scaffolds. In the last section the design principles for an implementation will be proposed.
Fitness inheritance in genetic algorithms

GAS have proven effective on a broad range of search problems. However, when each population member’s fitness evaluation is computationally expensive, the prospect of evaluating an entire population can prohibit use of the GA. This paper examines a GA that overcomes this difficulty by evaluating only a portion of the population. The remainder of the population has its fitness assigned by inheritance. Theoretical arguments justify this approach. An application to a GA-easy problem shows that greater efficiency can be obtained by evaluating only a small portion of the population. A real-world search problem confirms these results. Implications and future directions are discussed.
How Noise Affects the Synchronization Properties of Recurrent Networks of Inhibitory Neurons

GABAergic interneurons play a major role in the emergence of various types of synchronous oscillatory patterns of activity in the central nervous system. Motivated by these experimental facts, modeling studies have investigated mechanisms for the emergence of coherent activity in networks of inhibitory neurons. However, most of these studies have focused either when the noise in the network is absent or weak or in the opposite situation when it is strong. Hence, a full picture of how noise affects the dynamics of such systems is still lacking. The aim of this letter is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms by which the asynchronous states in large, fully connected networks of inhibitory neurons are destabilized as a function of the noise level. Three types of single neuron models are considered: the leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) model, the exponential integrate-and-fire (EIF), model and conductance-based models involving sodium and potassium Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) currents. We show that in all models, the instabilities of the asynchronous state can be classified in two classes. The first one consists of clustering instabilities, which exist in a restricted range of noise. These instabilities lead to synchronous patterns in which the population of neurons is broken into clusters of synchronously firing neurons. The irregularity of the firing patterns of the neurons is weak. The second class of instabilities, termed oscillatory firing rate instabilities, exists at any value of noise. They lead to cluster state at low noise. As the noise is increased, the instability occurs at larger coupling, and the pattern of firing that emerges becomes more irregular. In the regime of high noise and strong coupling, these instabilities lead to stochastic oscillations in which neurons fire in an approximately Poisson way with a common instantaneous probability of firing that oscillates in time.
THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. II. STATISTICAL LENS SAMPLE FROM THE THIRD DATA RELEASE

We report the first results of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars using the spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Among 46,420 quasars from the SDSS Data Release 3 (∼4188 deg2), we select a subsample of 22,683 quasars that are located at redshifts between 0.6 and 2.2 and are brighter than the Galactic extinction-corrected i-band magnitude of 19.1. We identify 220 lens candidates from the quasar subsample, for which we conduct extensive and systematic follow-up observations in optical and near-infrared wavebands, in order to construct a complete lensed quasar sample at image separations between 1″ and 20″ and flux ratios of faint to bright lensed images larger than 10−0.5. We construct a statistical sample of 11 lensed quasars. Ten of these are galaxy-scale lenses with small image separations (∼ 1″–2″) and one is a large separation (15″) system which is produced by a massive cluster of galaxies, representing the first statistical sample of lensed quasars including both galaxy- and cluster-scale lenses. The Data Release 3 spectroscopic quasars contain an additional 11 lensed quasars outside the statistical sample.
Wiedza i zachowania żywieniowe młodzieży uprawiającej sport - konieczność edukacji

Streszczenie: Prawidłowy przebieg procesów rozwojowych oraz wysoka aktywność fizyczna generują zwiększone potrzeby żywieniowe dzieci i młodzieży uprawiającej sport. Przedmiotem pracy jest problematyka podstawowych zaleceń racjonalnego żywienia młodych sportowców w świetle aktualnych rekomendacji, ponadto przegląd wyników badań w zakresie wiedzy i zachowań żywieniowych młodzieży uprawiającej sport na podstawie dostępnego piśmiennictwa. Nakreślono także główne obszary edukacji żywieniowej w tej grupie populacyjnej. Z przeglądu literatury przedmiotu wynika, że młodzież uprawiająca sport dysponuje ograniczoną wiedzą w zakresie prawidłowego żywienia oraz wykazuje liczne nieprawidłowości żywieniowe, które mogą obniżać potencjał zdrowotny i zdolności wysiłkowe. W tym kontekście zdecydowanie uzasadniona jest edukacja zdrowotna, w tym żywieniowa w tej grupie populacyjnej.
The Effect of Financial Leverage on Financial Performance: Evidence of Quoted Pharmaceutical Companies in Nigeria.

A common phenomenon in the financial reports of Nigerian pharmaceutical companies is the volume of short-term and long-term liabilities that forms a considerable size of their capital structure. Explaining the role of financial leverage in companies' financial performance is one of the primary objectives of contemporary researches and this role remains a questionable subject which has continued to attract the attention of many researchers. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of financial leverage on financial performance of the Nigeria pharmaceutical companies over a period of twelve (12) years (2001 - 2012) for the three (3) selected companies. This work employed three (3) financial leverage for the independent variables such as: debt ratio (DR); debt-equity ratio (DER) and interest coverage ratio (ICR) in determining their effect on financial performance for Return on Assets (ROA) as dependent variable. The ex-post facto research design was used for this study. The secondary data were obtained from the financial statement (Comprehensive income statement and Statement of financial position) of the selected pharmaceutical companies' quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and regressions were employed and used for this study. The results of the analysis showed that debt ratio (DR) and debt-equity ratio (DER) have negative relationship with Return on Assets (ROA) while interest coverage ratio (ICR) has a positive relationship with Return on Assets (ROA) in Nigeria pharmaceutical industry. The analysis also revealed that all the independent variables have no significant effect on financial performance of the sampled companies. The results further suggested that only 16.4% of the variations on the dependent variable are caused by the independent variables in our model suggesting that 83.6% of the variations in financial performance are caused by other factors outside our model. Based on the above findings, the researchers now recommend that companies' management should ensure that financial decisions made by them are in consonance with the shareholders' wealth maximization objectives which encompasses the profit maximization objective of the firm. The amount of debt finance in the financial mix of the firm should be at the optimal level so as to ensure adequate utilisation of the firms' assets. The management should also monitor the interest charged on debt financing to avoid liquidation of the company.
Study of star-forming galaxies in SDSS up to redshift 0.4 II. Evolution from the fundamental parameters: mass, metallicity & SFR

To understand the formation and evolution of galaxies, it is important to have a full comprehension of the role played by the metallicity, star formation rate (SFR), morphology, and color. The interplay of these parameters at different redshifts will substantially affect the evolution of galaxies and, as a consequence, the evolution of them will provide important clues and constraints on the galaxy evolution models. In this work we focus on the evolution of the SFR, metallicity of the gas, and morphology of galaxies at low redshift in search of signs of evolution. We use the S2N2 diagnostic diagram as a tool to classify star--forming, composite, and AGN galaxies. We analyzed the evolution of the three principal BPT diagrams, estimating the SFR and specific SFR (SSFR) for our samples of galaxies, studying the luminosity and mass-metallicity relations, and analyzing the morphology of our sample of galaxies through the g-r color, concentration index, and SSFR. We found that the S2N2 is a reliable diagram to classify star--forming, composite, and AGNs galaxies. We demonstrate that the three principal BPT diagrams show an evolution toward higher values of [OIII]5007/Hb due to a metallicity decrement. We found an evolution in the mass-metallicity relation of ~ 0.2 dex for the redshift range 0.3 < z < 0.4 compared to our local one. From the analysis of the evolution of the SFR and SSFR as a function of the stellar mass and metallicity, we discovered a group of galaxies with higher SFR and SSFR at all redshift samples, whose morphology is consistent with those of late-type galaxies. Finally, the comparison of our local (0.04<z<0.1) with our higher redshift sample (0.3<z<0.4), show that the metallicity, the SFR and morphology, evolve toward lower values of metallicity, higher SFRs, and late--type morphologies for the redshift range 0.3<z<0.4
Practical Performance Evaluation of Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony Using SIP

Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems have been shown to have excellent scalability and fault tolerance characteristics, mainly due to their distributed nature and the lack of a single point of failure. As a result, P2P technology has been proposed for a wide range of applications. Recently, a number of researchers proposed the use of P2P technology in the context of Voice over IP (VoIP) or Internet Telephony, in particular with the IETF's Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). By replacing the centralised components of the client/server based SIP protocol with a P2P system (P2P-SIP), a higher level of robustness and scalability can be achieved. However, this comes at the cost of a higher latency, which might negatively impact on the Quality of Service (QoS) due to increased delays in call establishment. In this paper, we provide a practical performance evaluation of a P2P-SIP system via extensive measurements on OpenDHT, a large scale, publicly accessible P2P system. The basis of this evaluation is formed by our own implementation of a P2P-SIP system, and standard, SIP-compliant client software. Our results confirm the feasibility of the P2P-SIP approach, since the cost in terms of increased delay in call setup time is quite moderate and well below the recommended value for traditional telephony defined by the Standardisation Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T).
Comparison Between Kanerva's SDM and Hopfield-Type Neural Networks

The Sparse, Distributed Memory (SDM) model (Kanerva, 1984) is compared to Hopfield-type, neural-network models. A mathematical framework for comparing the two models is developed, and the capacity of each model is investigated. The capacity of the SDM can be increased independent of the dimension of the stored vectors, whereas the Hopfield capacity is limited to a fraction of this dimension. The stored information is proportional to the number of connections, and it is shown that this proportionality constant is the same for the SDM, the Hopfield model, and higher-order models. The models are also compared in their ability to store and recall temporal sequences of patterns. The SDM also includes time delays so that contextual information can be used to recover sequences. A generalization of the SDM allows storage of correlated patterns.
Conspicuous Consumption and Peer Effects: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Relative concerns over status goods imply that peer effects in conspicuous consumption are an important determinant of consumption patterns. I use data from a cluster-randomized cash transfer program from Indonesia to test for peer effects in conspicuous consumption. Using data on the visibility of a variety of goods, I examine whether peer effects in consumption differ by consumption visibility. In line with a model of conspicuous consumption, I find that the expenditure share of visible goods rises for households whose peers’ visible consumption is exogenously increased. Finally, I shed light on the social mechanisms underlying peer effects in consumption.
Association between Nutrition Label Use and Chronic Disease in Korean Adults: The Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008-2009

Nutrition labels are helpful for chronic disease management in patients requiring balanced nutritional intake. This study aimed to investigate the association between the use of nutrition labels and chronic diseases (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia) by using the 2008-2009 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. A total of 10,695 individuals aged 20 and over was included in the analysis. Using multiple logistic regressions, there was no difference in nutrition label use between the chronic disease and normal groups (men with hypertension OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.75-1.27; women with hypertension OR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.67-1.03; men with diabetes OR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.45-1.08; women with diabetes OR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.84-1.53; men with hyperlipidemia OR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.59-1.23; women with hyperlipidemia OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.91-1.44). In hyperlipidemia patients, awareness (OR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.03-2.35) and control (OR, 2.19; 95% CI, 2.32-3.63) of disease were related to nutrition label use; however, no significant associations were found for the hypertension and diabetes mellitus patients. Considering the importance of dietary habits in the management of chronic diseases, an improvement in nutrition label use by patients with these diseases is required. Graphical Abstract
Quality of root fillings performed with two root filling techniques. An in vitro study using micro-CT

Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to compare the presence of voids in root fillings performed in oval and ribbon-shaped canals with two root filling techniques, lateral compaction technique (LCT) or hybrid technique (HT), a combination of a gutta-percha masterpoint and thermoplastic gutta-percha. Furthermore, the obturation time for the two techniques was evaluated. Materials and methods. Sixty-seven roots with oval and ribbon-shaped canals were prepared using Profile Ni-Ti rotary files. After preparation, the roots were randomly allocated to two groups according to root filling technique. All roots were filled with AH plus and gutta-percha. Group 1 was filled using LCT (n = 34) and group 2 was filled using HT (n = 33). The obturation time was measured in 30 cases evenly distributed between the two techniques. Voids in relation to the root canal fillings were assessed using cross-section images from Micro-computed Tomography scans. Results. All root canal fillings had voids. Permutation test showed no statistically significant difference between the two root filling techniques in relation to presence of voids (p = 0.092). A statistically significant difference in obturation time between the two techniques was found (p < 0.001). Conclusion. The present study found no statistically significant difference in percentage of voids between two root filling techniques. A 40% reduction in obturation time was found for the HT compared to the LCT.
The Unintended Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility Performance on Investors' Estimates of Fundamental Value

ABSTRACT: We provide theory and experimental evidence consistent with an unintended, causal relation between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance and investors' estimates of fundamental value that can be attenuated by investors' explicit assessment of CSR performance. Consistent with “affect-as-information” theory from psychology, we find that investors who are exposed to, but do not explicitly assess, CSR performance derive higher fundamental value estimates in response to positive CSR performance, and lower fundamental value estimates in response to negative CSR performance. Explicit assessment of CSR performance, however, significantly diminishes this effect, indicating that the effect among investors who do not explicitly assess CSR performance is unintended; i.e., they unintentionally use their affective reactions to CSR performance in estimating fundamental value. Supplemental findings shed light on consequences of these fundamental value estimates: investors who do not explicitly asses.
Aging affects contrast response functions and adaptation of MT neurons in rhesus monkeys

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Abstract-In the present study we studied the effects of aging on the coding of contrast in area V1 (primary visual cortex) and MT (middle temporal visual area) of the macaque monkey using single-neuron in vivo electrophysiology. Our results show that both MT and V1 neurons in old monkeys are less sensitive to contrast than those in young monkeys. Generally, contrast sensitivity is affected by aging more severely in MT cells than in V1 cells. Specifically, MT cells were affected more severely than motion direction selective V1 cells. Particularly, we found that MT neurons in old monkeys exhibited enhanced maximum visual responses, higher levels of spontaneous activity and decreased signal-to-noise ratios. In addition, we also found age-related changes in neuronal adaptation to visual motion in MT. Compared to young animals, the contrast gain of MT neurons in old monkeys are less affected, but the response gain by adaptation of MT neurons are more affected. Our results suggest that there may be an anomalous visual processing in both the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. The neural changes described here are consistent with an age-related degeneration of intracortical inhibition and could underlie some deficits in visual function during normal aging.
Extremely Low Birthweight Infant with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome: A Dilemma in Determination of the Optimal Timing of Delivery

Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome (WHS) is characterized by multiple malformations as well as mental and developmental defects resulting from the absence of a distal segment of the short arm of chromosome 4. We experienced an extremely low birthweight infant with WHS. The male infant (birthweight 934 g) was born at 31 weeks’ gestation by cesarean section due to intrauterine growth restriction and presented with the typical WHS phenotype. Chromosomal analysis showed a deletion: 46,XY,del(4)(p15.3 p16). Although the patient's respiratory distress syndrome resolved favourably and his subsequent condition was also stable, he had unusually severe retinopathy of prematurity and periventricular leukomalacia. We suppose that these severe complications were associated with not only prematurity but also with latent structural fragility due to WHS. Herein, we discuss the prenatal detection of WHS and the optimal timing of delivery.
Evolution of Smart n Players

To model the evolution of strategic intelligence, players types are drawn from a hierarchy of "smartness" analogous to the levels of iterated rationalizability. If smarter types have demonstrably better survival fitness, then we would tixve an evolutionary foundation for the standard game-theoratíc assumption of super-intalligent players. The results do not support this wishful conjecture. Sensitivity Stable Sets: The Stable and the Individual Stable Bargaining Trade Current Non-Expected
Optimized design of Capsule endoscopy lens based on ZEMAX

At present, the application of Capsule endoscopy (CE) faces some extremely important issues, e.g., image quality and field of view, which causing difficulties for doctors to make an accurate diagnosis. It's a technical difficulty to acquire wide-angle internal intestinal image under the volume restrictions of CE. In this paper, a simple and practical design of CE lens aimed to clearer and wider-angle intestine image is proposed based on ZEMAX. The new lens improves the field curvature and distortion with the application of special transparent cover and aspheric technology. The optimal design has a FOV of 105 °, and the F number is 2.8. The modulation transfer function (MTF) is about 40% at 45lp/mm, and the distortion is under 15%. It can perfectly satisfy the requirements of the CE lens, and provide high-quality image for 1/4″ CMOS image sensor with effective pixels of 1600×1200 and pixel size of 2. 2µm.
Valuation and Optimal Harvesting : An application to Eucalyptus Forestry Investment in Brazil

This paper examines a problem that is usual in investment theory: when to cut a stand of trees in an investment project of eucalyptus reforestation for cellulose production, under stochastic prices of wood. The real options approach that was used in this study has shown to be quite convenient for this type of analysis. The objective of this paper is to verify the influence of the price diffusion process in the value of a stand of trees and in the optimal harvesting time over a single forest rotation. Two different processes were used, the Geometric Brownian Movement (GBM) and the process of geometric mean reversion (GMR), known as Geometric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck. Key-words: Processes of price diffusion, real options, eucalyptus forest.