Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender, Literacy, and Elementary School Students with Reading Centers

Reading centers are an important and active part of most elementary classrooms. As a teacher of young children in Saudi Arabia, I observed that there were times when students did not benefit from their literacy experiences, and at other times there was a good deal of activity around their experiences in the reading centers I had developed for them. As a result of this experience in my own classroom, I have continued to have great interest in the role of reading centers for young childrenâ€™s learning. This study is focused on the literacy activities in the reading centers in the elementary classroom. Specifically it is focused on exploring the differences between boys and girls as they participate in reading centers in their classroom. There are differences between boysâ€™ and girlsâ€™ reading interests that have been documented in the research. This study seeks to examine these differences in one elementary second grade classroom.
Inferring Relevance from Eye Movements Using Generic Neural Microcircuits

In the ”Inferring Relevance from Eye Movements Challenge 2005”, contestants were asked to apply machine learning techniques for predicting sentence relevancies based on eye movements of the readers. The twopart competition consisted of a classification problem and a time series analysis problem. In our winning solution to the time series analysis problem, we applied generic neural microcircuit as a nonlinear operator on time series with discriminative classifier as a readou t. The results suggest that the model used has some practical merits as a generic time series analysis tool.
A Retina Inspired Model for Enhancing Visibility of Hazy Images

The mammalian retina seems far smarter than scientists have believed so far. Inspired by the visual processing mechanisms in the retina, from the layer of photoreceptors to the layer of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), we propose a computational model for haze removal from a single input image, which is an important issue in the field of image enhancement. In particular, the bipolar cells serve to roughly remove the low-frequency of haze, and the amacrine cells modulate the output of cone bipolar cells to compensate the loss of details by increasing the image contrast. Then the RGCs with disinhibitory receptive field surround refine the local haze removal as well as the image detail enhancement. Results on a variety of real-world and synthetic hazy images show that the proposed model yields results comparative to or even better than the state-of-the-art methods, having the advantage of simultaneous dehazing and enhancing of single hazy image with simple and straightforward implementation.
Characterizing response behavior in multisensory perception with conflicting cues

We explore a recently proposed mixture model approach to understanding interactions between conflicting sensory cues. Alternative model formulations, differing in their sensory noise models and inference methods, are compared based on their fit to experimental data. Heavy-tailed sensory likelihoods yield a better description of the subjects’ response behavior than standard Gaussian noise models. We study the underlying cause for this result, and then present several testable predictions of these models.
Antidiabetic Activity of Azadirachta Excelsa Extract on Alloxan Induced Diabetic Rats

Plant-based remedies have been used to treat numerous diseases for thousands of years in various parts of the world. Azadirachta excelsa or sentang traditionally used by Malay as an agent for lowering blood glucose. The study was designed to evaluate the antidiabetic properties of this plant by measuring the plasma blood glucose level, the percentage of HbA1c and the plasma insulin level. Thirty two Sprague dawley rats were divided into four groups which received different treatments. The first and second groups served as positive and negative control were treated with saline respectively while the rats in the third group were received metformin. The fourth group was treated with ethanolic extract of A. excelsa. After 14 days of treatment, the plant extract was significantly reduced the fasting blood glucose and the concentration of HbA1c in diabetic rats by 72.89% and 6.58% respectively. The plasma insulin in diabetic rats was also significantly increased after treated with plant extract. These results suggest that the ethanolic extract of A. excelsa possess antidiabetic activity by improving the insulin secretion, with consequent decrease in the level of plasma blood glucose and HbA1c.
Population structure and phylogeography of the Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) across the Scotia Arc

Abstract Climate change, fisheries' pressure on penguin prey, and direct human disturbance of wildlife have all been implicated in causing large shifts in the abundance and distribution of penguins in the Southern Ocean. Without mark‐recapture studies, understanding how colonies form and, by extension, how ranges shift is challenging. Genetic studies, particularly focused on newly established colonies, provide a snapshot of colonization and can reveal the extent to which shifts in abundance and occupancy result from changes in demographic rates (e.g., reproduction and survival) or migration among suitable patches of habitat. Here, we describe the population structure of a colonial seabird breeding across a large latitudinal range in the Southern Ocean. Using multilocus microsatellite genotype data from 510 Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) individuals from 14 colonies along the Scotia Arc and Antarctic Peninsula, together with mitochondrial DNA data, we find strong genetic differentiation between colonies north and south of the Polar Front, that coincides geographically with the taxonomic boundary separating the subspecies P. p. papua and P. p. ellsworthii. Using a discrete Bayesian phylogeographic approach, we show that southern Gentoos expanded from a possible glacial refuge in the center of their current range, colonizing regions to the north and south through rare, long‐distance dispersal. Our findings show that this dispersal is important for new colony foundation and range expansion in a seabird species that ordinarily exhibits high levels of natal philopatry, though persistent oceanographic features serve as barriers to movement.
A block exact fast affine projection algorithm

This paper describes a block (affine) projection algorithm that has exactly the same convergence rate as the original sample-by-sample algorithm and smaller computational complexity than the fast affine projection algorithm. This is achieved by (1) introducing a correction term that compensates for the filter output difference between the sample-by-sample projection algorithm and the straightforward block projection algorithm, and (2) applying a fast finite impulse response (FIR) filtering technique to compute the filter outputs and to update the filter. We describe how to choose a pair of block lengths that gives the longest filter length under a constraint on the total computational complexity and processing delay. An example shows that the filter length can be doubled if a delay of a few hundred samples is permissible.
Narratives of Aging and Patient Activation

I highlight the generally negative social discourse on aging in the United States, which is often characterized by themes of marginalization and stagnation, and I advocate for a more developmental view. I propose a conceptual framework of social constructionism to consider how the intersection between social discourse and personal narrative regarding aging might influence older adults’ patient activation; Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is an appropriate qualitative methodology through which to understand these relational dynamics. Key constructs are defined and evidentiary, social justice, and pragmatic rationales are provided. In a discussion of the application to clinical psychology I suggests that how the “baby boomer” generation—the largest birth cohort of the 20th century—navigate older adulthood will have social implications in how subsequent generations experience aging. Clinical intervention implications are explored, as are several intersections, including relationship, diversity, ethics, and developmental psychology. Themes of distancing one’s self from an aging peer group; ongoing personal development; staying active, both mentally and physically; and acceptance emerged from conversations with ten older adults ages 60 to 68.
CONGA: distributed congestion-aware load balancing for datacenters

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of CONGA, a network-based distributed congestion-aware load balancing mechanism for datacenters. CONGA exploits recent trends including the use of regular Clos topologies and overlays for network virtualization. It splits TCP flows into flowlets, estimates real-time congestion on fabric paths, and allocates flowlets to paths based on feedback from remote switches. This enables CONGA to efficiently balance load and seamlessly handle asymmetry, without requiring any TCP modifications. CONGA has been implemented in custom ASICs as part of a new datacenter fabric. In testbed experiments, CONGA has 5x better flow completion times than ECMP even with a single link failure and achieves 2-8x better throughput than MPTCP in Incast scenarios. Further, the Price of Anarchy for CONGA is provably small in Leaf-Spine topologies; hence CONGA is nearly as effective as a centralized scheduler while being able to react to congestion in microseconds. Our main thesis is that datacenter fabric load balancing is best done in the network, and requires global schemes such as CONGA to handle asymmetry.
Market Shares, Financial Constraints and Pricing Behaviour in the Export Market

A parsimonious structural model of price and quantity dynamics is applied to Swedish exports and export prices for manufactured goods 1972-1996. Two sources of dynamics are considered: customer markets and pre-set prices. The dynamic adjustment of exports is very much in line with what the customer market model predicts: the market share adjusts slowly after a change in the relative price. Prices are sticky in the sense that they do not reflect the most recent information about costs and exchange rates. Prices are high when firms are borrowing heavily, supporting the argument in Gottfries (1991) that financial constraints affect pricing behavior.
The effects of student violence against school employees on employee burnout and work engagement: the roles of perceived school unsafety and transformational leadership

Victimization of school staff by students is a serious topic that receives scant attention. In this study, we quantified acts of student violence against school staff in one large school district in the Northeastern U.S. and examined the extent to which this type of victimization is associated with burnout and work engagement. We also examined a potential mediator (staff members' perceptions of safety at school) and moderator (staff member's perceptions of school leadership) of the relationship between victimization and both burnout and work engagement. These research questions were considered using cross-sectional, self-report data from 728 employees who responded to an anonymous, online survey. Consistent with our hypotheses, victimization was positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with work engagement. In addition, staff perceptions of school unsafety partially mediated the relationship between victimization and both burnout and work engagement, whereas transformational leadership buffered the effect of student violence against school employees on perceived school unsafety and work engagement. These results support the notion that student violence against school employees can be considered a job demand, whereas transformational leadership may act as a job resource. Moreover, our findings suggest that workplace safety perceptions can be a mediating mechanism between job demands and well-being outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) Language: en
Direct observations of the mechanisms of interference between Daphnia and Keratella cochlearis1

Direct observation was used to describe and quantify four types of interaction between Daphnia (D. pulex, D. rosea, D. galeata mendotae, D. ambigua, and D. magna) and the rotifer, Keratella cochlearis f. tecta. The types of encounter differed primarily in duration, in the appendage movements elicited in Daphnia, and in the damage lo Keratella. Egg-carrying rotifers were just as susceptible to damage by Daphnia as nonovigerous rotifers. The frequency of interactions lethal to Keratella increased with increasing body size of Daphnia and decreased at algal concentrations above the incipient limiting concentration. By combining direct observations of the proportions of Keratella killed with measurements of Keratella-based clearance rates by Daphnia, the actual pumping rate of Daphnia could be estimated.
Multiple change in E2F function and regulation occur upon muscle differentiation

We have examined regulation of the E2F transcription factor during differentiation of muscle cells. E2F regulates many genes involved in growth control and is also the target of regulation by diverse cellular signals, including the RB family of growth suppressors (e.g., the retinoblastoma protein [RB], p107, and p130). The following aspects of E2F function and regulation during muscle differentiation were investigated: (i) protein-protein interactions, (ii) protein levels, (iii) phosphorylation of the E2F protein, and (iv) transcriptional activity. A distinct E2F complex was present in differentiated cells but not in undifferentiated cells. The p130 protein was a prominent component of the E2F complex associated with differentiation. In contrast, in undifferentiated cells, the p107 protein was the prominent component in one of three E2F complexes. In addition, use of a differentiation-defective muscle line provided genetic and biochemical evidence that quiescence and differentiation are separable events. Exclusive formation of the E2F-p130 complex did not occur in this differentiation-defective line; however, E2F complexes diagnostic of quiescence were readily apparent. Thus, sole formation of the E2F-p130 complex is a necessary event in terminal differentiation. Other changes in E2F function and regulation upon differentiation include decreased phosphorylation and increased repression by E2F. These observations suggest that the regulation of E2F function during terminal differentiation may proceed through differential interaction within the RB family and/or phosphorylation.
On the interplay between fault handling and request-response service invocations

Service oriented computing (SOC) allows for the composition of services which communicate using uni-directional notification or bidirectional request-response primitives. Most service orchestration languages proposed so far provide also primitives to handle faults and compensations. The interplay between fault handling and request-response invocations is nontrivial since, for instance, faults should be notified to the request-response communication partners in order to compensate also the remote activities. Our work is motivated by the difficulties encountered in programming, using current orchestration languages, some fault handling strategies. We propose as a solution an orchestration programming style in which fault and compensation handlers are dynamically installed. We show the adequacy of our proposal defining its semantics, and proving that it satisfies some expected high-level properties. Finally, we also show how to apply dynamic handler installation in a nontrivial automotive scenario.
Reprogramming of HUVECs into Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (HiPSCs), Generation and Characterization of HiPSC-Derived Neurons and Astrocytes

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by chronic and progressive structural or functional loss of neurons. Limitations related to the animal models of these human diseases have impeded the development of effective drugs. This emphasizes the need to establish disease models using human-derived cells. The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has provided novel opportunities in disease modeling, drug development, screening, and the potential for “patient-matched” cellular therapies in neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, with the objective of establishing reliable tools to study neurodegenerative diseases, we reprogrammed human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) into iPSCs (HiPSCs). Using a novel and direct approach, HiPSCs were differentiated into cells of central nervous system (CNS) lineage, including neuronal, astrocyte and glial cells, with high efficiency. HiPSCs expressed embryonic genes such as nanog, sox2 and Oct-3/4, and formed embryoid bodies that expressed markers of the 3 germ layers. Expression of endothelial-specific genes was not detected in HiPSCs at RNA or protein levels. HiPSC-derived neurons possess similar morphology but significantly longer neurites compared to primary human fetal neurons. These stem cell-derived neurons are susceptible to inflammatory cell-mediated neuronal injury. HiPSC-derived neurons express various amino acids that are important for normal function in the CNS. They have functional receptors for a variety of neurotransmitters such as glutamate and acetylcholine. HiPSC-derived astrocytes respond to ATP and acetylcholine by elevating cytosolic Ca2+ concentrations. In summary, this study presents a novel technique to generate differentiated and functional HiPSC-derived neurons and astrocytes. These cells are appropriate tools for studying the development of the nervous system, the pathophysiology of various neurodegenerative diseases and the development of potential drugs for their treatments.
An Overview of the Clinical Use of Filter Paper in the Diagnosis of Tropical Diseases

Tropical infectious diseases diagnosis and surveillance are often hampered by difficulties of sample collection and transportation. Filter paper potentially provides a useful medium to help overcome such problems. We reviewed the literature on the use of filter paper, focusing on the evaluation of nucleic acid and serological assays for diagnosis of infectious diseases using dried blood spots (DBS) compared with recognized gold standards. We reviewed 296 eligible studies and included 101 studies evaluating DBS and 192 studies on other aspects of filter paper use. We also discuss the use of filter paper with other body fluids and for tropical veterinary medicine. In general, DBS perform with sensitivities and specificities similar or only slightly inferior to gold standard sample types. However, important problems were revealed with the uncritical use of DBS, inappropriate statistical analysis, and lack of standardized methodology. DBS have great potential to empower healthcare workers by making laboratory-based diagnostic tests more readily accessible, but additional and more rigorous research is needed.
Death and Lightness: Using a Demographic Model to Find Support Verbs

Some verbs have a particular kind of binary ambiguity: they can carry their normal, full meaning, or they can be merely acting as a prop for the nominal object. It has been suggested that there is a detectable pattern in the relationship between a verb acting as a prop (a \term{support verb}) and the noun it supports. The task this paper undertakes is to develop a model which identifies the support verb for a particular noun, and by extension, when nouns are enumerated, a model which disambiguates a verb with respect to its support status. The paper sets up a basic model as a standard for comparison; it then proposes a more complex model, and gives some results to support the model's validity, comparing it with other similar approaches.
Susceptibility to Vibrio cholerae Infection in a Cohort of Household Contacts of Patients with Cholera in Bangladesh

Background Despite recent progress in understanding the molecular basis of Vibrio cholerae pathogenesis, there is relatively little knowledge of the factors that determine the variability in human susceptibility to V. cholerae infection. Methods and Findings We performed an observational study of a cohort of household contacts of cholera patients in Bangladesh, and compared the baseline characteristics of household members who went on to develop culture-positive V. cholerae infection with individuals who did not develop infection. Although the vibriocidal antibody is the only previously described immunologic marker associated with protection from V. cholerae infection, we found that levels of serum IgA specific to three V. cholerae antigens—the B subunit of cholera toxin, lipopolysaccharide, and TcpA, the major component of the toxin–co-regulated pilus—also predicted protection in household contacts of patients infected with V. cholerae O1, the current predominant cause of cholera. Circulating IgA antibodies to TcpA were also associated with protection from V. cholerae O139 infection. In contrast, there was no association between serum IgG antibodies specific to these three antigens and protection from infection with either serogroup. We also found evidence that host genetic characteristics and serum retinol levels modify susceptibility to V. cholerae infection. Conclusions Our observation that levels of serum IgA (but not serum IgG) directed at certain V. cholerae antigens are associated with protection from infection underscores the need to better understand anti–V. cholerae immunity at the mucosal surface. Furthermore, our data suggest that susceptibility to V. cholerae infection is determined by a combination of immunologic, nutritional, and genetic characteristics; additional factors that influence susceptibility to cholera remain unidentified.
Dirty black holes: spacetime geometry and near-horizon symmetries

We consider the spacetime geometry of a static but otherwise generic black hole (that is, the horizon geometry and topology are not necessarily spherically symmetric). It is demonstrated, by purely geometrical techniques, that the curvature tensors, and the Einstein tensor in particular, exhibit a very high degree of symmetry as the horizon is approached. Consequently, the stress-energy tensor will be highly constrained near any static Killing horizon. More specifically, it is shown that—at the horizon—the stress-energy tensor block-diagonalizes into ‘transverse’ and ‘parallel’ blocks, the transverse components of this tensor are proportional to the transverse metric, and these properties remain invariant under static conformal deformations. Moreover, we speculate that this geometric symmetry underlies Carlip's notion of an asymptotic near-horizon conformal symmetry controlling the entropy of a black hole.
The Effectiveness of Collaborative Tasks on the Acquisition of the Spanish Subjunctive and Development of Mood Selection Abilities: Exploring Form-focused Instruction

Abstract:The present study investigates whether the implementation of a dictogloss task within a proactive Focus on Form approach (e.g., Long 1991; Long and Robinson 1998) has significant effects on the acquisition of Spanish present subjunctive. A total of sixty-six learners in a fifth-semester Spanish course participated in the study and were assigned to three groups (control, dictogloss, and explicit and dictogloss), constituted by three intact classes. A pretest, post-test, and delayed post-test design was used and two assessment tasks were administered: an oral elicitation task and a written mechanical recognition and production task. Overall results indicate that the dictogloss task was effective at enhancing mood alternation abilities and mood production, as evidenced not only in the mechanical recognition task but also in the increased subjunctive production during the oral elicitation task.