Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-controlled feedback is effective if it is based on the learner’s performance: a replication and extension of Chiviacowsky and Wulf (2005)

The learning advantages of self-controlled feedback schedules compared to yoked schedules have been attributed to motivational influences and/or information processing activities with many researchers adopting the motivational perspective in recent years. Chiviacowsky and Wulf (2005) found that feedback decisions made before (Self-Before) or after a trial (Self-After) resulted in similar retention performance, but superior transfer performance resulted when the decision to receive feedback occurred after a trial. They suggested that the superior skill transfer of the Self-After group likely emerged from information processing activities such as error estimation. However, the lack of yoked groups and a measure of error estimation in their experimental design prevents conclusions being made regarding the underlying mechanisms of why self-controlled feedback schedules optimize learning. Here, we revisited Chiviacowsky and Wulf’s (2005) design to investigate the learning benefits of self-controlled feedback schedules. We replicated their Self-Before and Self-After groups, but added a Self-Both group that was able to request feedback before a trial, but could then change or stay with their original choice after the trial. Importantly, yoked groups were included for the three self-controlled groups to address the previously stated methodological limitation and error estimations were included to examine whether self-controlling feedback facilitates a more accurate error detection and correction mechanism. The Self-After and Self-Before groups demonstrated similar accuracy in physical performance and error estimation scores in retention and transfer, and both groups were significantly more accurate than the Self-Before group and their respective Yoked groups (p’s < 0.05). Further, the Self-Before group was not significantly different from their yoked counterparts (p’s > 0.05). We suggest these findings further indicate that informational factors associated with the processing of feedback for the development of one’s error detection and correction mechanism, rather than motivational processes are more critical for why self-controlled feedback schedules optimize motor learning.
Molecular line study of the very young protostar IRAM 04191 in Taurus: Infall, rotation, and outflow

We present a detailed millimeter line study of the circumstellar environment of the low-luminosity Class 0 protostar IRAM 04191+1522 in the Taurus molecular cloud. New line observations demonstrate that the ~14000 AU radius protostellar envelope is undergoing both extended infall and fast, differential rotation. Radiative transfer modeling of multitransition CS and C34S maps indicate an infall velocity v_inf ~ 0.15 km/s at r ~ 1500 AU and v_inf ~ 0.1 km/s up to r ~ 11000 AU, as well as a rotational angular velocity Omega ~ 3.9 x 10^{-13} rad/s, strongly decreasing with radius beyond 3500 AU down to a value Omega ~ 1.5-3 x 10^{-14} rad/s at ~ 11000 AU. Two distinct regions, which differ in both their infall and their rotation properties, therefore seem to stand out: the inner part of the envelope (r ~< 2000-4000 AU) is rapidly collapsing and rotating, while the outer part undergoes only moderate infall/contraction and slower rotation. These contrasted features suggest that angular momentum is conserved in the collapsing inner region but efficiently dissipated due to magnetic braking in the slowly contracting outer region. We propose that the inner envelope is in the process of decoupling from the ambient cloud and corresponds to the effective mass reservoir (~0.5 M_sun) from which the central star is being built. Comparison with the rotational properties of other objects in Taurus suggests that IRAM 04191 is at a pivotal stage between a prestellar regime of constant angular velocity enforced by magnetic braking and a dynamical, protostellar regime of nearly conserved angular momentum. The rotation velocity profile we derive for the inner IRAM 04191 envelope should thus set some constraints on the distribution of angular momentum on the scale of the outer Solar system at the onset of protostar/disk formation.
Using vital signs to assess children with acute infections: a survey of current practice.

BACKGROUND GPs are advised to measure vital signs in children presenting with acute infections. Current evidence supports the value of GPs' overall assessment in determining how unwell a child is, but the additional benefit of measuring vital signs is not known. AIM To describe the vital signs and clinical features that GPs use to assess children (aged <5 years) with acute infections. DESIGN OF STUDY Questionnaire survey. SETTING All 210 GP principals working within a 10 mile radius of Oxford, UK. METHOD Data were collected on reported frequency, methods, and utility of measuring vital signs. Description of clinical features was used to assess the overall severity of illness. RESULTS One hundred and sixty-two (77%) GPs responded. Half (54%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 47 to 62) measured temperature at least weekly, compared to pulse (21%, 95% CI = 15 to 27), and respiratory rates (17%, 95% CI = 11 to 23). Almost half of GPs (77, 48%) never measured capillary refill time. Temperature was measured most frequently using electronic aural thermometers (131/152; 86%); auscultation or counting were used for pulse and respiratory rates. A minority used pulse oximeters to assess respiratory status (30/151, 20%). GPs' thresholds for tachypnoea were similar to published values, but there was no consensus on the threshold of tachycardia. Observations of behaviour and activity were considered more useful than vital signs in assessing severity of illness. CONCLUSION Vital signs are uncommonly measured in children in general practice and are considered less useful than observation in assessing the severity of illness. If measurement of vital signs is to become part of standard practice, the issues of inaccurate measurement and diagnostic value need to be addressed urgently.
Intense selective hunting leads to artificial evolution in horn size

The potential for selective harvests to induce rapid evolutionary change is an important question for conservation and evolutionary biology, with numerous biological, social and economic implications. We analyze 39 years of phenotypic data on horn size in bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) subject to intense trophy hunting for 23 years, after which harvests nearly ceased. Our analyses revealed a significant decline in genetic value for horn length of rams, consistent with an evolutionary response to artificial selection on this trait. The probability that the observed change in male horn length was due solely to drift is 9.9%. Female horn length and male horn base, traits genetically correlated to the trait under selection, showed weak declining trends. There was no temporal trend in genetic value for female horn base circumference, a trait not directly targeted by selective hunting and not genetically correlated with male horn length. The decline in genetic value for male horn length stopped, but was not reversed, when hunting pressure was drastically reduced. Our analysis provides support for the contention that selective hunting led to a reduction in horn length through evolutionary change. It also confirms that after artificial selection stops, recovery through natural selection is slow.
Sea Level Rise in Australia and the Pacific

It is generally accepted that the determination of a trend in a sea level record is only possible when a long time series of observed elevations over many years is available. The small magnitude of the trend on the one hand, and the perturbation of the record by systematic noise over a wide range of frequencies on the other, determine that this is so. In the context of sea level trend analysis, the word ‘Noise’ can be considered to apply to any feature present in the observed record which impedes access to the underlying long term change of mean sea level. Prominent in this category, and especially in the tropical Pacific, are the sub-regional variations of sea level which occur in time scales of five to ten years and which are associated with the El Ni£o phenomenon. Such features, together with the notorious volcanic and tectonic crustal motions of the Pacific Rim affecting the land levels to which the observations are referred, are of particular concern to those who seek an early assessment of sea level trends in the region.
Pathogenicity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Is Expressed by Regulating Metabolic Thresholds of the Host Macrophage

The success of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a pathogen derives from its facile adaptation to the intracellular milieu of human macrophages. To explore this process, we asked whether adaptation also required interference with the metabolic machinery of the host cell. Temporal profiling of the metabolic flux, in cells infected with differently virulent mycobacterial strains, confirmed that this was indeed the case. Subsequent analysis identified the core subset of host reactions that were targeted. It also elucidated that the goal of regulation was to integrate pathways facilitating macrophage survival, with those promoting mycobacterial sustenance. Intriguingly, this synthesis then provided an axis where both host- and pathogen-derived factors converged to define determinants of pathogenicity. Consequently, whereas the requirement for macrophage survival sensitized TB susceptibility to the glycemic status of the individual, mediation by pathogen ensured that the virulence properties of the infecting strain also contributed towards the resulting pathology.
The Globalization of Light Skin Colorism: From Critical Race to Critical Skin Theory

On the cusp of Western civilization, Caucasians aspired to a racial world order defining Caucasian as superior race status. Today, racial diversity is a societal theme facilitated by laws, which deems racial equality a right and racial discrimination illegal. Nevertheless, by globalization, a racial world order exists by locating light skin at the zenith of humanity. As pertains to the globalization of light skin, culture and social criteria are most significant considering the demands of a racist racial hierarchy. The existence of such a hierarchy by replacing racism with colorism then necessitates moving beyond race category. Critical race theory (CRT) per light skin as new world order must defer to critical skin theory (CST). Colorism per CST operates identical in manner to racism per CRT. CST must then be elevated to priority over CRT such that the future of humanity may be rescued from the tenacious transgressions of a racist societal past.
Region-Based Qualitative Geometry

We present a highly expressive logical language for describing qualitative con gurations of spatial regions. We call the theory Region Based Geometry (RBG). Our axiomatisation is based on Tarski's Geometry of Solids, in which the parthood relation and the concept of sphere are taken as primitive. We show that our theory is categorical: all models are isomorphic to a classical interpretation in terms of Cartesian spaces over R. We investigate the 2nd-order character of RBG and prove incompleteness of some weaker 1st-order variants. We show that within this theory the concept of sphere and the congruence relation are interde nable. We indicate how our theory might be applied to practical problems in knowledge representation by de ning concepts that can be used for representing and reasoning about the motion of rigid bodies within a con ning environment.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament Fibres – Effects of Tibial Translation During Flexion at the Knee

— Anterior Cruciate Ligament (or ACL) of the knee is frequently injured during activities involving large relative translations of the bones. Contributions of the knee ligaments in stabilizing the joint have been studied. Separately, tightening or slackening of the ACL fibres during flexion has also been analyzed. However, there is a need to understand the role of different fibre bundles in the ligament during activities. In the present study, a planar mathematical model of the knee is used to analyze the patterns of changes in the ACL fibres during passive motion and because of anterior tibial translation, which stretch the ligament fibres. The joint ligaments were modeled as bundles of non-linear elastic fibres. The bones were frictionless and impenetrable. Anatomical data and material properties were obtained from literature. An anterior laxity test was simulated. During passive flexion over 0-120 o range, the most anterior fibre of ACL remained isometric while other fibres slackened. Tibial translation during the simulated test stretched the fibres variably over the flexion range. For example, at 45 o flexion, 130N anterior load on the tibia resulted in 6.1 mm tibial translation and stretched the anterior fibre by 11.5% and the intermediate fibre by nearly 1.2% while the posterior fibre remained slack. The model calculations showed reasonable agreement with the experimental observations from literature. The analysis suggests that injuries can affect different fibres of the ligament depending on the relative positions of bones at the time of injury. Such effects may be clinically significant and may help in explaining complex functional behavior of the ligament during activity and injury.
Investigating Leader Self-Efficacy Through Policy Engagement and Social Network Position

Leaders’ self-efficacy has recently been identified as a critical component in the success of educational reform. In educational policy and leadership, little attention has been paid to leaders’ self-efficacy beliefs as they go about the implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This study seeks to understand leaders’ CCSS self-efficacy by examining the level of CCSS-focused engagement and the degree of leaders’ network connectedness from a social learning perspective. Findings suggest leaders who report higher levels of CCSS-focused engagement tend to be more efficacious about implementing CCSS. Such a relationship is mediated by leaders’ social network position in providing CCSS advice and work effort recognition to their fellow administrators.
The Araucaria Project: The Distance to the Local Group Galaxy WLM from Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables

We have obtained deep images in the near-infrared J and K filters for several fields in the Local Group galaxy WLM. We report intensity mean magnitudes for 31 Cepheids located in these fields, which we previously discovered in a wide-field optical imaging survey of WLM. The data define tight period-luminosity relations in both near-infrared bands, which we use to derive the total reddening of the Cepheids in WLM and the true distance modulus of the galaxy from a multiwavelength analysis of the reddened distance moduli in the VIJK bands. From this, we obtain the values E(B − V) = 0.082 ± 0.02 and (m − M)0 = 24.924 ± 0.042 mag, with a systematic uncertainty in the distance of about ±3%. This Cepheid distance agrees extremely well with the distance of WLM determined from the I-band tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) method by ourselves and others. Most of the reddening of the Cepheids in WLM (0.06 mag) is produced inside the galaxy, demonstrating again the need for an accurate determination of the total reddening and/or the use of infrared photometry to derive Cepheid distances which are accurate to 3% or better, even for small irregular galaxies like WLM.
Modelling CO formation in the turbulent interstellar medium

We present results from high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of turbulent interstellar gas that self-consistently follow its coupled thermal, chemical and dynamical evolution, with a particular focus on the formation and destruction of H 2 and CO. We quantify the formation time-scales for H 2 and CO in physical conditions corresponding to those found in nearby giant molecular clouds, and show that both species form rapidly, with chemical time-scales that are comparable to the dynamical time-scale of the gas. We also investigate the spatial distributions of H 2 and CO, and how they relate to the underlying gas distribution. We show that H 2 is a good tracer of the gas distribution, but that the relationship between CO abundance and gas density is more complex. The CO abundance is not well-correlated with either the gas number density n or the visual extinction Av : both have a large influence on the CO abundance, but the inhomogeneous nature of the density field produced by the turbulence means that n and A v are only poorly correlated. There is a large scatter in A v , and hence CO abundance, for gas with any particular density, and similarly a large scatter in density and CO abundance for gas with any particular visual extinction. This will have important consequences for the interpretation of the CO emission observed from real molecular clouds. Finally, we also examine the temperature structure of the simulated gas. We show that the molecular gas is not isothermal. Most of it has a temperature in the range of 10-20 K, but there is also a significant fraction of warmer gas, located in low-extinction regions where photoelectric heating remains effective.
Web page design: implications of memory, structure and scent for information retrieval

ABSTNACT Much is known about depth and breadth tradeoff issues in graphical user interface menu design. We describe an experiment to see if large breadth and decreased depth is preferable, both subjectively and via performance data, while attempting to design for optimal scent throughout different structures of a website. A study is reported which modified previous procedures for investigating depth/breadth tradeoffs in content design for the web. Results showed that, while increased depth did harm search performance on the web, a medium condition of depth and breadth outperformed the broadesf shallow web structure overall.
Dementia before Death in Ageing Societies— The Promise of Prevention and the Reality

Background Dementia and severe cognitive impairment are very closely linked to ageing. The longer we live the more likely we are to suffer from these conditions. Given population increases in longevity it is important to understand not only risk and protective factors for dementia and severe cognitive impairment at given ages but also whether protection affects cumulative risk. This can be explored by examining the effect on cumulative risk by time of death of factors found consistently to reduce risk at particular ages, such as education and social status. Methods and Findings In this analysis we report the prevalence of dementia and severe cognitive impairment in the year before death in a large population sample. In the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (a 10-y population-based cohort study of individuals 65 and over in England and Wales), these prevalences have been estimated by age, sex, social class, and education. Differences have been explored using logistic regression. The overall prevalence of dementia at death was 30%. There was a strong increasing trend for dementia with age from 6% for those aged 65–69 y at time of death to 58% for those aged 95 y and above at time of death. Higher prevalences were seen for severe cognitive impairment, with similar patterns. People with higher education and social class had significantly reduced dementia and severe cognitive impairment before death, but the absolute difference was small (under 10%). Conclusions Reducing risk for dementia at a given age will lead to further extension of life, thus cumulative risk (even in populations at lower risk for given ages) remains high. Ageing of populations is likely to result in an increase in the number of people dying with dementia and severe cognitive impairment even in the presence of preventative programmes. Policy development and research for dementia must address the needs of individuals who will continue to experience these conditions before death.
Interactive Indirect Illumination Using Voxel Cone Tracing

Indirect illumination is an important element for realistic image synthesis, but its computation is expensive and highly dependent on the complexity of the scene and of the BRDF of the involved surfaces. While off‐line computation and pre‐baking can be acceptable for some cases, many applications (games, simulators, etc.) require real‐time or interactive approaches to evaluate indirect illumination. We present a novel algorithm to compute indirect lighting in real‐time that avoids costly precomputation steps and is not restricted to low‐frequency illumination. It is based on a hierarchical voxel octree representation generated and updated on the fly from a regular scene mesh coupled with an approximate voxel cone tracing that allows for a fast estimation of the visibility and incoming energy. Our approach can manage two light bounces for both Lambertian and glossy materials at interactive framerates (25–70FPS). It exhibits an almost scene‐independent performance and can handle complex scenes with dynamic content thanks to an interactive octree‐voxelization scheme. In addition, we demonstrate that our voxel cone tracing can be used to efficiently estimate Ambient Occlusion.
1 alpha, 25-dihydroxylvitamin D3 promotes Bacillus Calmette-Guérin immunotherapy of bladder cancer

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine against tuberculosis(TB), has been used and proven to be one of the most effective treatments for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (BCa). However, the mechanisms of BCG action have not been completely understood, thereby limiting the improvement of BCG therapy. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with a high risk of TB infection, and the beneficial effect of UV exposure in TB patients was proven to be mediated via activation of vitamin D signals of innate immune cells. Thus, vitamin D signals might be involved in mediating BCG immunotherapy. To test this hypothesis, we examined the impact of 1alpha, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25-VD) on BCG-induced response in BCa cells and macrophage cells. Our data revealed that 1,25-VD promotes BCG-induced interleukin 8 (IL-8) secretion by BCa cells, consequently inducing the migration of macrophage, THP-1. This THP-1 cell migration promoted by 1,25-VD can be blocked by IL-8 neutralized antibody. Furthermore, 1,25-VD increased BCG-induced expression of macrophage markers in THP-1 cell, and enhanced the BCG-induced THP-1 cytotoxicity against low-grade BCa cells. Importantly, a pre-clinical trial using the N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine (BBN)-induced BCa mouse model revealed that intravesical co-treatment of 1,25-VD with BCG can prolong mice survival. These data demonstrate a novel mechanism by which 1,25-VD promotes BCG-mediated anti-BCa pathways and provides a platform for improving BCG efficacy with combination of 1,25-VD.