Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Matthew Project: National Report.

Previous studies found that the small size of schools or school districts mitigated the negative influence of poverty on academic achievement in California, Alaska, and West Virginia. The Matthew Project extends this research in four additional states selected to provide varied settings: Ohio, Georgia, Texas, and Montana. Data from each state were used in regression equations that predict overall school or district achievement from measures of size, socioeconomic status (SES), and the product of size and SES. These equations illuminate possible 'excellence effects" of size by showing which communities (based on SES-level) may benefit or lose from increases in school or district size. Equity effects of size on achievement were also tested by computing the correlation between SES and achievement in groups of larger and smaller schools and districts. Strong evidence of an interaction effect of school size was found in Ohio, Georgia, and Texas, such that academic achievement benefited from smaller schools in more impoverished communities and from larger schools in more affluent communities. A weaker interactive effect was found in Montana, which maintains many small schools. Across all four states, a strong equity effect was found at all grade levels, whereby small size reduced the negative influence of poverty on school and district performance. Strong evidence of an interaction effect of district size was found only in Ohio. The Matthew Project studies indicate that a one-best, everywhere "optimal," school size is a figment. Four policy questions related to school and district size are discussed. (Contains 15 references.) (SV) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ********************************************************************************
Management of depression in UK general practice in relation to scores on depression severity questionnaires: analysis of medical record data

Objective To determine if general practitioner rates of antidepressant drug prescribing and referrals to specialist services for depression vary in line with patients’ scores on depression severity questionnaires. Design Analysis of anonymised medical record data. Setting 38 general practices in three sites—Southampton, Liverpool, and Norfolk. Data reviewed Records for 2294 patients assessed with severity questionnaires for depression between April 2006 and March 2007 inclusive. Main outcome measures Rates of prescribing of antidepressants and referrals to specialist mental health or social services. Results 1658 patients were assessed with the 9 item patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), 584 with the depression subscale of the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), and 52 with the Beck depression inventory, 2nd edition (BDI-II). Overall, 79.1% of patients assessed with either PHQ-9 or HADS received a prescription for an antidepressant, and 22.8% were referred to specialist services. Prescriptions and referrals were significantly associated with higher severity scores. However, overall rates of treatment and referral were similar for patients assessed with either measure despite the fact that, with PHQ-9, 83.5% of patients were classified as moderately to severely depressed and in need of treatment, whereas only 55.6% of patients were so classified with HADS. Rates of treatment were lower for older patients and for patients with comorbid physical illness (including coronary heart disease and diabetes) despite the fact that screening for depression among such patients is encouraged in the quality and outcomes framework. Conclusions General practitioners do not decide on drug treatment or referral for depression on the basis of questionnaire scores alone, but also take account of other factors such as age and physical illness. The two most widely used severity questionnaires perform inconsistently in practice, suggesting that changing the recommended threshold scores for intervention might make the measures more valid, more consistent with practitioners’ clinical judgment, and more acceptable to practitioners as a way of classifying patients.
Visual and Auditory Brain–Computer Interfaces

Over the past several decades, electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have attracted attention from researchers in the field of neuroscience, neural engineering, and clinical rehabilitation. While the performance of BCI systems has improved, they do not yet support widespread usage. Recently, visual and auditory BCI systems have become popular because of their high communication speeds, little user training, and low user variation. However, building robust and practical BCI systems from physiological and technical knowledge of neural modulation of visual and auditory brain responses remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we review the current state and future challenges of visual and auditory BCI systems. First, we describe a new taxonomy based on the multiple access methods used in telecommunication systems. Then, we discuss the challenges of translating current technology into real-life practices and outline potential avenues to address them. Specifically, this review aims to provide useful guidelines for exploring new paradigms and methodologies to improve the current visual and auditory BCI technology.
A Three-Year Study of Brain Atrophy after Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Rapidly Evolving Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In multiple sclerosis (MS), autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) induces a profound suppression of clinical activity and MR imaging-detectable inflammation, but it may be associated with a rapid brain volume loss in the months subsequent to treatment. The aim of this study was to assess how AHSCT affects medium-term evolution of brain atrophy in MS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: MR imaging scans of the brain from 14 patients with rapidly evolving secondary-progressive MS obtained 3 months before and every year after AHSCT for 3 years were analyzed. Baseline normalized brain volumes and longitudinal percentage of brain volume changes (PBVCs) were assessed using the Structural Image Evaluation of Normalized Atrophy software. RESULTS: The median decrease of brain volume was 1.92% over the first year after AHSCT and then declined to 1.35% at the second year and to 0.69% at the third year. The number of enhancing lesions seen on the pretreatment scans was significantly correlated with the PBVCs between baseline and month 12 (r = −0.62; P = .02); no correlation was found with the PBVCs measured over the second and third years. CONCLUSIONS: After AHSCT, the rate of brain tissue loss in patients with MS declines dramatically after the first 2 years. The initial rapid development of brain atrophy may be a late consequence of the pretransplant disease activity and/or a transient result of the intense immunoablative conditioning procedure.
Computationally efficient real-time interpolation algorithm for non-uniform sampled biosignals

This Letter presents a novel, computationally efficient interpolation method that has been optimised for use in electrocardiogram baseline drift removal. In the authors’ previous Letter three isoelectric baseline points per heartbeat are detected, and here utilised as interpolation points. As an extension from linear interpolation, their algorithm segments the interpolation interval and utilises different piecewise linear equations. Thus, the algorithm produces a linear curvature that is computationally efficient while interpolating non-uniform samples. The proposed algorithm is tested using sinusoids with different fundamental frequencies from 0.05 to 0.7 Hz and also validated with real baseline wander data acquired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology University and Boston's Beth Israel Hospital (MIT-BIH) Noise Stress Database. The synthetic data results show an root mean square (RMS) error of 0.9 μV (mean), 0.63 μV (median) and 0.6 μV (standard deviation) per heartbeat on a 1 mVp–p 0.1 Hz sinusoid. On real data, they obtain an RMS error of 10.9 μV (mean), 8.5 μV (median) and 9.0 μV (standard deviation) per heartbeat. Cubic spline interpolation and linear interpolation on the other hand shows 10.7 μV, 11.6 μV (mean), 7.8 μV, 8.9 μV (median) and 9.8 μV, 9.3 μV (standard deviation) per heartbeat.
Impacts of episodic acidification on in-stream survival and physiological impairment of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts.

We conducted field studies to determine the levels of acid and aluminum (Al) that affect survival, smolt development, ion homeostasis, and stress in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts in restoration streams of the Connecticut River in southern Vermont, USA. Fish were held in cages in five streams encompassing a wide range of acid and Al levels for two 6-day intervals during the peak of smolt development in late April and early May. Physiological parameters were unchanged from initial sampling at the hatchery and the high water quality reference site (pH > 7.0, inorganic Al < 12 μg·L–1). Mortality, substantial loss of plasma chloride, and gill Na+/K+-ATPase activity, and elevated gill Al occurred at sites with the lowest pH (5.4–5.6) and highest inorganic Al (50–80 μg·L–1). Moderate loss of plasma chloride, increased plasma cortisol and glucose, and moderately elevated gill Al occurred at less severely impacted sites. Gill Al was a better predictor of integrated physiological impacts than water chemistry.
Measuring playlist diversity for recommendation systems

We describe a way to measure the diversity of consumer's musical interests and characterize this diversity using published musical playlists. For each song in the playlist we calculate a set of features, which were optimized for genre recognition, and represent the song as a single point in a multidimensional genre-space. Given the points for a set of songs, we fit an ellipsoid to the data, and then describe the diversity of the playlist by calculating the volume of the enclosing ellipsoid. We compare 887 different playlists, representing nearly 29,000 distinct songs, to collections of different genres and to the size of our entire database. Playlists tend to be less diverse than a genre, and, by our measure, about 5 orders of magnitude smaller than the entire song set. These characteristics are important for recommendation systems, which want to present users with a set of recommendations tuned to each user's diversity.
Best of Both Worlds: Bridging First-generation Students' Experiences with Kin and College

First-generation college attendees comprise a quarter of the nearly 16 million students entering higher education in the United States each year. Previous research finds these students face hurdles specific to their status, such as lower rates of academic success, retention, and campus engagement, and they report higher levels of stress and lower self-efficacy and self-esteem. Additionally, some scholars contend that intergenerational educational mobility negatively impacts family relationships, especially those with parents. In the current study, I take a phenomenological approach to first-generation college students’ experiences in navigating school and family. I interviewed eight undergraduates who were the first in their families to attend college. Findings suggest that parents, despite lacking college experience, provide invaluable support to the academic success and emotional well-being of their children. Several participants also reported role modeling and inspiring younger siblings as a source of pride and motivation to persist. Overall, these students were found to be navigating college experiences quite similar to their continuing-generation counterparts. Implications for future research and institutional programming are discussed.
Interactive Effects of Discrimination and Racial Identity on Alcohol-Related Thoughts and Use

The interrelationships among racial discrimination, non race-based rejection, racial identity (RI), and alcohol cognitions and use were assessed in this research. In Study 1, individuals who experienced overt discrimination and who were high in RI were less likely than those low in RI to meet criteria for alcohol abuse disorder. In Study 2, discrimination and rejection were causally related to a faster reaction time in a lexical decision task to alcohol-related concepts as compared to neutral words, especially for those low in RI. Implications of discrimination and rejection on substance use and other risky health behaviors are discussed.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE LIFE CYCLE OF A THUNDERSTORM CELL

Abstract A model of cumulus clouds is presented that combines the vertical equation of motion, the equation of mass continuity, the first law of thermodynamics, and the following cloud microphysical processes: condensation of water vapor to produce cloud droplets, conversion of cloud droplets to raindrops, glaciation, sublimation of water vapor, melting of ice crystals, evaporation of cloud droplets, evaporation of raindrops, evaporation of ice crystals, and evaporation of melting ice crystals. The conversion and glaciation processes are parameterized and the drag force is assumed to be provided by the weight of hydrometeors. The result of time integration of the model shows that, with the inclusion of the microphysical processes, some aspects of the three stages of the life cycle of a cumulus cloud as depicted by Byers and Braham in 1949 (developing stage, mature stage, and decaying stage) are simulated qualitatively by the model. The model also shows that the rate of conversion from cloud droplets to ra.
Electron and phonon scattering in the high-temperature thermoelectric La 3 Te 4 − z M z ( M = Sb , Bi )

In this work, scattering mechanisms in the highly efficient thermoelectric material La_(3−x)Te_4 are investigated by controlling the carrier concentration via anion substitution in the nominally vacancy-free compositions La_3Te_(4−z)Sb_z and La_3Te_(4−z)Bi_z. Through a comparison of the lattice thermal conductivity κ_L in samples with and without Sb/Bi, this work reveals that La vacancies scatter phonons very efficiently and provide a ~100% reduction in κ_L at 575 K. The addition of Sb or Bi leads to a significant reduction in the band gap, which is observed in the temperature-dependent transport data as well as first-principles calculations. Despite this significant change to the band structure, the transport parameters of the conduction band are only slightly modified. Also, an increase in the Hall mobility is observed at high T and z, which is caused by a reduction in either the La-vacancy concentration or the electron’s effective mass. A slight increase in thermoelectric efficiency is observed for nominal La_3Te_(3.35)Sb_(0.65) at high T. Thus, the net result is a system with large thermoelectric efficiency and a tunable band gap, thereby enabling a clear example to examine the effect of band gap on thermoelectric properties.
Modeling and vector control of a planar magnetic levitator

The authors designed and implemented a magnetically levitated stage with large planar motion capability. This positioning system is the first capable of providing all the motions required for photolithography in semiconductor manufacturing with only a single moving part. This planar magnetic levitator employs four novel permanent-magnet linear motors which generate vertical force for suspension against gravity, and horizontal force for drive. In this paper, the authors discuss electromechanical modeling and real-time vector control of such a permanent-magnet levitator. They describe the dynamics in a DQ frame introduced to decouple the forces acting on the stage. A similar transformation to the Blondel-Park transformation is derived for commutation of the phase currents of the levitator. They provide testing results on step responses of the stage. It shows a 5-nm position noise in x and y, which demonstrates the applicability in the next-generation photolithography.
Altered Perceptual Sensitivity to Kinematic Invariants in Parkinson's Disease

Ample evidence exists for coupling between action and perception in neurologically healthy individuals, yet the precise nature of the internal representations shared between these domains remains unclear. One experimentally derived view is that the invariant properties and constraints characterizing movement generation are also manifested during motion perception. One prominent motor invariant is the “two-third power law,” describing the strong relation between the kinematics of motion and the geometrical features of the path followed by the hand during planar drawing movements. The two-thirds power law not only characterizes various movement generation tasks but also seems to constrain visual perception of motion. The present study aimed to assess whether motor invariants, such as the two thirds power law also constrain motion perception in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Patients with PD and age-matched controls were asked to observe the movement of a light spot rotating on an elliptical path and to modify its velocity until it appeared to move most uniformly. As in previous reports controls tended to choose those movements close to obeying the two-thirds power law as most uniform. Patients with PD displayed a more variable behavior, choosing on average, movements closer but not equal to a constant velocity. Our results thus demonstrate impairments in how the two-thirds power law constrains motion perception in patients with PD, where this relationship between velocity and curvature appears to be preserved but scaled down. Recent hypotheses on the role of the basal ganglia in motor timing may explain these irregularities. Alternatively, these impairments in perception of movement may reflect similar deficits in motor production.
Interaction between Real Options and Financial Hedging: Fact or Fiction in Managerial Decision-Making

This empirical study of the exchange rate exposure management of Danish non-financial companies shows that decisions on whether or not to financially hedge an exchange rate exposure is affected by the possibility to react to changes in exchange rates by undertaking various forms of real actions (exercising real options) such as to enter new markets, change suppliers, shift production, among others. The results show that the combined interaction of a firm's size, exports, and foreign subsidiaries, as well as the firm's managerial emphasis on flexibility, are important to real options usage. These findings are important to firms in other countries with open economies.
Peer influence on children's physical activity: an experience sampling study.

OBJECTIVE The primary objective was to examine the associations between social context (the presence of peers, friends, and family members) and physical activity intensity for overweight and lean girls and boys. METHODS Participants for this study included 10 boys (M = 13.4 years; SD = .8) and 10 girls (M = 13.8 years; SD =. 8). Twelve participants were between the 15th and the 85th BMI percentile (eight girls, four boys) and eight youth were at or above the 85th BMI percentile (six boys, two girls). Participants reported on their activity intensity and whether the activity was solitary or with others for seven consecutive days. RESULTS Children were more likely to report more intense physical activity when in the company of peers or close friends. Overweight children reported greater physical activity when in the presence of peers than did lean children; however, overweight children also reported more time spent alone. CONCLUSIONS Taken together, findings highlight the importance of considering peer relationships in studies of physical activity and childhood "obesity".
Expression of OCT4A: The First Step to the Next Stage of Urothelial Bladder Cancer Progression

OCT4 (octamer-binding transcription factor) is a transcription factor responsible for maintaining the pluripotent properties of embryonic stem cells. In this paper, we present the results of studies to investigate the role of the OCT4 splicing variant in urothelial bladder cancer and the relationship between the OCT4 phenotype and the morphological parameters of tumor malignancy. Ninety patients who received a cystectomy for bladder cancer were enrolled. The expression of OCT4 protein was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. The ratio of OCT4-positive cells was the lowest in pT1 (pathological assessment (p)—tumor extent confined to mucosa (T1)) tumors and the highest in pTis (non-papillary tumor extent confined to urothelium) and pT2 (tumor extent including muscularis propria) tumors. Information about the percentage of OCT4A-positive tumor cells could facilitate choosing the treatment mode in borderline pTis–pT1 (crossing the border of the basement membrane; the first stage of progression) and pT1–pT2 (crossing the border of the muscularis propria; the second stage of progression) cases: a higher percentage of OCT4A-positive cells should support more radical therapy. A significantly higher percentage of cases with moderate OCT4 intensity was found in metastasizing (the third stage of progression) cases with >2 positive lymph nodes. The percentage of OCT4-positive cells was significantly higher for cancers with a high grade, higher non-classic differentiation number and greater aggressiveness of invasion. The differentiation, maturation and aggressiveness of tumor invasion appear to depend on the expression of the OCT4 phenotype in cancer cells, similar to the successive stages of malignancy progression in urothelial cancer.
STBU System for the NIST 2006 Speaker Recognition Evaluation

This paper describes STBU 2006 speaker recognition system, which performed well in the NIST 2006 speaker recognition evaluation. STBU is consortium of 4 partners: Spescom DataVoice (South Africa), TNO (Netherlands), BUT (Czech Republic) and University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). The primary system is a combination of three main kinds of systems: (1) GMM, with short-time MFCC or PLP features, (2) GMM-SVM, using GMM mean supervectors as input and (3) MLLR-SVM, using MLLR speaker adaptation coefficients derived from English LVCSR system. In this paper, we describe these sub-systems and present results for each system alone and in combination on the NIST Speaker Recognition Evaluation (SRE) 2006 development and evaluation data sets.
Difference in distant failure site between locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix after C-ion RT

We investigated the first site of distant failure after carbon ion radiotherapy (C-ion RT) for locally advanced cervical cancer in three clinical trials. A total of 91 cases were enrolled in the three trials (Protocol 9702, 9704 and 9902). Histologically, 36 cases had squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC) and 55 cases had adenocarcinoma (AC), including 13 with adenosquamous cell carcinoma. The number of cases with Stage IIB, IIIB and IVA disease was 21, 59 and 11, respectively. Of the 91 cases, 42 had positive pelvic lymph nodes (PLNs). The median tumor size was 6.0 cm (range, 3.0–12.0 cm). The median follow-up duration for all cases was 40 months (range, 7–181 months). A total of 40 cases developed distant failure as the first site of failure: 13 of 36 (36.1%) SqCC cases had distant failure, with 9 of them with para-aortic lymph node (PALN) failure; 27 of 55 (44.0%) AC cases had distant failure, and 23 of them had distant failure excluding PALN metastasis. Distant failure rates of SqCC cases who had positive and negative PLNs before C-ion RT were 61.1% and 11.1%, respectively (P = 0.0045). Those of AC cases were 54.2% and 45.2%, respectively (P = 0.507). In conclusion, there were high rates of distant failure after C-ion RT in AC cases regardless of PLN status, and there were high rates of distant failure after C-ion RT, especially PALN failure, in SqCC cases with positive PLNs.