Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teacher Commitment, Working Conditions, and Differential Incentive Policies

The push for more complex, intellectually demanding approaches to teaching suggests that teacher commitment will continue to be important for effective education. This article develops a framework for assessing how differential incentive policies affect teacher commitment. It identifies seven key workplace conditions that contribute to teacher commitment: job design characteristics, feedback, autonomy, participation, collaboration, learning opportunities, and resources. This framework is used to assess the effects of such differential incentive policies as merit pay and career ladders. The selection mechanisms in these two programs are found to reduce autonomy and collaboration, but the job enrichment aspects of career ladders are found to increase participation, collaboration, and resources. We recommend combining policies that increase participation, collaboration, and feedback rather than continuing to experiment with differential incentives.
“Public” Choice and Cooperation in n-Person Prisoner's Dilemma

Four-person groups played repeated trials of an n-Person Prisoner's Dilemma game under two information conditions. In one condition, each player's choice was made known to the others following each trial. In the other information condition each subject was informed only of the number of others who cooperated or competed on each trial. The first condition was a “public choice” situation while the second was an “anonymous choice” situation. The data supported the hypothesis that there would be greater cooperation in the “public choice” condition than in the “anonymous choice” condition since the former created a situation in which the individual would be made accountable to the group for the consequences of his choices. The results are discussed in terms of the various manipulations of group process which can produce deindividuation, that is, a lessening of the individual's propensity to behave in a socially approved manner.
Effects of air pollution on the incidence of myocardial infarction

Context: Short-term fluctuations in air pollution have been associated with changes in both overall and cardiovascular mortality. Objective: To consider the effects of air pollution on myocardial infarction (MI) risk by systematically reviewing studies looking at this specific outcome. Data sources: Medline, Embase and TOXNET publication databases, as well as reference lists and the websites of relevant public organisations. Study selection: Studies presenting original data with MI as a specific outcome and one or more of the following as an exposure of interest were included: particulate matter (PM), black carbon/black smoke, ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and traffic exposure. Data extraction: The effects of each pollutant on risk of MI, including effect sizes and confidence intervals, were recorded where possible. Methodological details were also extracted including study population, location and setting, ascertainment of MI events, adjustment for potential confounders and consideration of lagged effects. Results: 26 studies were identified: 19 looked at the short-term effects of pollution on a daily timescale; the remaining 7 at longer-term effects. A proportion of studies reported statistically significant detrimental effects of PM with diameter <2.5 µm (3/5 studies, risk increase estimates ranging from 5 to 17% per 10 µg/m3 increase), PM <10 µm (3/10, 0.7–11% per 10 µg/m3), CO (6/14, 2–4% per ppm), SO2 (6/13, effect estimates on varied scales) and NO2 (6/13, 1–9% per 10 ppb). Increasing ozone levels were associated with a reduction in MI risk in 3/12 studies. A number of differences in location, population and demographics and study methodology between studies were identified that might have affected results. Conclusion: There is some evidence that short-term fluctuations in air pollution affect the risk of MI. However, further studies are needed to clarify the nature of these effects and identify vulnerable populations and individuals.
On Hourglass Model of Poetry Teaching in College English Class in China

Inspired by the Input and Affective Hypothesis by Krashen, Interaction hypothesis by Long and Comprehensible Output hypothesis by Swain and absorbing the quintessence of Littlewood’s teaching sequences principle and Adair-Hauck & Cumo-Johanssen’s “top-down” language instruction principle, the paper relates to the reality of college English teaching in China and presents a model of poetry teaching in CE classes. This model combines organically input and output, including receptive and productive phases, namely, activate, study practice, study focus, study focus, study practice, activate. During the whole process of teaching, the focus is gradually shifting from meaning to form, and then form to meaning. Interaction happens between the teacher and students, students and students. Activities include listening, speaking, reading, writing, translating and discussing are scientifically and systematically arranged and thus make the input and output well-connected and mutually promoting. The learning style may develop from teacher-guided learning to students’ autonomous learning.
High School‐Aged Youths' Attitudes Toward their Peers with Disabilities: the role of school and student interpersonal Factors

Negative peer attitudes are generally recognised as being a major barrier to full social inclusion at school for children and youth with disabilities. The present study examined the attitudes of 1,872 grade nine high school students in Ontario, Canada toward their peers with disabilities. A bioecological perspective and a structural equation modeling approach were adopted to investigate how various aspects of school culture and student interpersonal factors influenced attitudes. The majority of students (61%) held attitudes toward peers with disabilities that ranged from slightly above neutral to very positive. However, a substantial number (21%) held slightly below neutral to very negative attitudes. Positive student relationships at the school level and a school goal task structure that promoted learning and understanding for all students, rather than social comparison and competition among students, were two aspects of school culture that had both direct associations with positive attitudes and indirect associations through student interpersonal factors. Teacher and student relationships at the school level was an aspect of school culture that had an indirect association with positive attitudes via interpersonal support from teachers. Results support the development of ecologically based programs aimed at promoting aspects of school culture that contribute to positive attitudes of students toward their peers with disabilities.
Adversarial Generator-Encoder Networks

We present a new autoencoder-type architecture, that is trainable in an unsupervised mode, sus-tains both generation and inference, and has the quality of conditional and unconditional samples boosted by adversarial learning. Unlike previous hybrids of autoencoders and adversarial networks, the adversarial game in our approach is set up directly between the encoder and the generator, and no external mappings are trained in the process of learning. The game objective compares the divergences of each of the real and the generated data distributions with the canonical distribution in the latent space. We show that direct generator-vs-encoder game leads to a tight coupling of the two components, resulting in samples and reconstructions of a comparable quality to some recently-proposed more complex architectures.
Oblique Projections for Direction-of-Arrival Estimation With Prior Knowledge

Estimation of directions-of-arrival (DOA) is an important problem in various applications and a priori knowledge on the source location is sometimes available. To exploit this information, standard methods are based on the orthogonal projection of the steering manifold onto the noise subspace associated with the a priori known DOA. In this paper, we derive and analyze the Cramer-Rao bound associated with this model and in particular we point out the limitations of this approach when the known and unknown DOA are closely spaced and the associated sources are uncorrelated (block-diagonal source covariance). To fill this need, we propose to integrate a priori known locations of several sources into the MUSIC algorithm based on oblique projection of the steering manifold. Finally, we show that the proposed approach is able to almost completely cancel the influence of the known DOA on the unknown ones for block-diagonal source covariance and for sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
Motor Control Performance During Rapid Voluntary Movements of Elbow and Knee

ABSTRACT Knowledge of motor control differences during rapid goal-directed movements of the upper and lower limbs could be useful in improving rehabilitation protocols. The authors investigated performance and control differences between elbow and knee joints and between different contraction types (concentric vs. eccentric) during rapid movements under externally applied load. There were no significant differences in performance and control with respect to joint (elbow vs. knee) but the performance during concentric contractions was better than eccentric for both the joints. The findings indicate that despite anatomical and functional differences, the CNS is finely tuned for both the joints to maximize the efficiency of movement during a dynamic environment, but there are differences in control strategies between the 2 contraction types.
Development of a telescopic-arm type, climbing support robot

This paper describes a telescopic-arm type, climbing support robot. Although there are various kinds of wall climbing robots, there is a possibility that they may fall, due to the wall concavity/convexity or insufficient adhesion. To solve this problem, we developed the wall climbing support robot, which uses a telescopic-arm to support the climbing robot. The telescopic are includes a joint with sensors that detect the speed and direction of the climbing robot. The support robot follows and supports the movement of the climbing robot by follow-up control using detected parameters. With the aid of the support robot, the wall climbing robot can climb the wall more reliably and safely. We also provide experimental results which show that the proposed robot can support the climbing robot efficiently.
Situational Constraints on Transformational versus Transactional Leadership Behavior, Subordinates' Leadership Preference, and Satisfaction

Abstract The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass, 1985) was administered to police officers in New Zealand (Study 1) and to employees of three companies in Taiwan (Study 2). Results showed that siruational constraints affected actual leader behavior, as well as leadership preference scores. The results indicated that mechanistic organizations such as the police force do not necessarily foster transactional leadership. Leadership in the Taiwanese companies was equally transformational and transactional. Preferences for the transformational leadership style were evident in both samples, although Taiwanese employees had a greater liking for transactional leaders. Finally, discrepancy scores between actual and preferred leader ratings may have less efficacy in predicting subordinate satisfaction than scores of actual leader behavior alone.
Spread of inhibition across an object's surface

For efficient visual search it is critical that attention is inhibited from returning to previously examined loci. It has been demonstrated that this inhibition can be associated both with the location and the object towards which attention was oriented. However, it is not known whether, after attending to one part of an object, the inhibition spreads to the entire object, or remains localized at the attended site. This study demonstrates that inhibition can spread across an object's surface. This confirms that the presence of objects in a display is sufficient to observe an object-based inhibitory attentional effect. However, it is also noted that this spread of inhibition appears to decline with exposure to the task, being generally non-significant in the second half of the study. The study suggests that the magnitude of pure object-based Inhibition of Return (IOR) effect may be modulated by the subjective salience of the objects and that, when not directly relevant to a subject s behavioural goals, object-based representations can have minimal impact on attentional orienting processes.
Ethical Issues in the Use of In-Depth Interviews: Literature Review and Discussion

This paper reports a literature review on the topic of ethical issues in in-depth interviews. The review returned three types of article: general discussion, issues in particular studies, and studies of interview-based research ethics. Whilst many of the issues discussed in these articles are generic to research ethics, such as confidentiality, they often had particular manifestations in this type of research. For example, privacy was a significant problem as interviews sometimes probe unexpected areas. For similar reasons, it is difficult to give full information of the nature of a particular interview at the outset, hence informed consent is problematic. Where a pair is interviewed (such as carer and cared-for) there are major difficulties in maintaining confidentiality and protecting privacy. The potential for interviews to harm participants emotionally is noted in some papers, although this is often set against potential therapeutic benefit. As well as these generic issues, there are some ethical issues fairly specific to in-depth interviews. The problem of dual role is noted in many papers. It can take many forms: an interviewer might be nurse and researcher, scientist and counsellor, or reporter and evangelist. There are other specific issues such as taking sides in an interview, and protecting vulnerable groups. Little specific study of the ethics of in-depth interviews has taken place. However, that which has shows some important findings. For example, one study shows participants are not averse to discussing painful issues provided they feel the study is worthwhile. Some papers make recommendations for researchers. One such is that they should consider using a model of continuous (or process) consent rather than viewing consent as occurring once, at signature, prior to the interview. However, there is a need for further study of this area, both philosophical and empirical.
Source Representation in the Communication of Childhood Immunisation

This study conducted a qualitative semiotic analysis of 36 images that appeared on www.google. com and www.yahoo. com. The ultimate objective is to reveal source representation and fear appeals in online images to see what information is being provided to the decision-makers in immunisation behaviour. Drawing on principles of visual literacy theory, the authors looked for important themes regarding who is being represented and how information is being portrayed through the images. This analysis revealed three key findings: online images are rife with information presented or supported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), other governmental agencies, and views from healthcare professionals; images displayed a strong use of both high and low fear appeals (although intent to support or oppose immunisations was most often undetermined) and a high use of gain frames in support of immunisations; and the use of graphs and charts, consisting of the CDC's recommended immunisation schedule, was a dominant theme in images from both online search engines.
Determining Key Model Parameters of Rapidly Intensifying Hurricane Guillermo(1997) using the Ensemble Kalman Filter

AbstractIn this work the authors determine key model parameters for rapidly intensifying Hurricane Guillermo (1997) using the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). The approach is to utilize the EnKF as a tool only to estimate the parameter values of the model for a particular dataset. The assimilation is performed using dual-Doppler radar observations obtained during the period of rapid intensification of Hurricane Guillermo. A unique aspect of Guillermo was that during the period of radar observations strong convective bursts, attributable to wind shear, formed primarily within the eastern semicircle of the eyewall. To reproduce this observed structure within a hurricane model, background wind shear of some magnitude must be specified and turbulence and surface parameters appropriately specified so that the impact of the shear on the simulated hurricane vortex can be realized. To identify the complex nonlinear interactions induced by changes in these parameters, an ensemble of model simulations have been condu.
Predictors that Distinguish First-Generation College Students from Non-First Generation College Students

The purpose of the study was to compare a freshman cohort of first and non first-generation college students enrolled in an urban university and to identify characteristics that distinguish the two groups in terms of selected demographics, pre-college behaviors and beliefs (expectations and personal traits). Some of the distinguishing characteristics such as household income were common across race/ethnicity, but there were differences in types and in relative importance of the characteristics between White students and students of color and among various ethnicity groups. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Through Thick and Thin

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV) Relationship: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura Character: Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin, Scott McCall, Kira Yukimura, Sheriff Stilinski, Alan Deaton, Derek Hale Additional Tags: Kidnapped Stiles, Banshee Lydia Martin, Torture, There should be more tags but it's my first fanfic so I don't know, Malia was never there. , Stydia! , Temporary Character Death Stats: Published: 2015-12-25 Completed: 2016-01-22 Chapters: 9/9 Words: 10641
Learning in the Making: A Comparative Case Study of Three Makerspaces.

Through a comparative case study, Sheridan and colleagues explore how makerspaces may function as learning environments. Drawing on field observations, interviews, and analysis of artifacts, videos, and other documents, the authors describe features of three makerspaces and how participants learn and develop through complex design and making practices. They describe how the makerspaces help individuals identify problems, build models, learn and apply skills, revise ideas, and share new knowledge with others. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of their findings for this emergent field.
The spatial and temporal evolution of strain during the separation of Australia and Antarctica

A re‐evaluation of existing onshore and offshore gravity, magnetic, seismic reflection, and well data from the Australo‐Antarctic margins suggests that magmatism and along‐strike lithospheric heterogeneities have influenced the localization of initial rifting. The 3‐D crustal architecture of the Australian and Antarctic margins, which formed during multiple rifting episodes spanning ∼80 Myr, reveal local asymmetries along strike. Rift structures from the broad, late Jurassic (165–145 Ma) rift zone are partially overprinted by a narrower, mid‐to‐late Cretaceous rift zone (∼100 Ma), which evolved in highly extended crust. This late‐stage rift zone is located within a region of heterogeneous crust with faults that cut late syn‐rift strata, interpreted as a continent ocean transition zone. This late stage transitional rift is populated by seismically identified rift‐parallel basement highs and intracrustal bodies with corresponding positive Bouguer gravity and magnetic anomalies. These undrilled features can be interpreted as exposures of exhumed mantle rocks, lower crustal rocks and/or as discrete magmatic bodies. Our results suggest that strain across an initially broad Australo‐Antarctic rift system (165–145 Ma) migrated to a narrow rift zone with some magmatism at 100–83 Ma. Breakup did not occur until ∼53 Ma within the eastern Bight‐Wilkes and Otway‐Adélie margin sectors, suggesting a west to east propagation of seafloor spreading. The prolonged eastward propagation of seafloor spreading processes and the increased asymmetry of the Australian‐Antarctic margins coincides with a change from rift‐perpendicular to oblique rifting processes, which in turn coincide with along‐strike variations in cratonic to Palaeozoic lithosphere.
Shifting From Reactive to Proactive Discipline in an Urban School District

The applied science of positive behavior supports (PBS; Carr et al., 2002) was initially developed as an alternative to aversive interventions for changing self-injurious and aggressive behaviors of individual youth with developmental disabilities (Durand & Carr, 1985). PBS has been recently extended from an approach with individual children to a school-wide intervention for schools (Dwyer & Osher, 2000; Lewis, Sugai, & Colvin, 1998; Scott & Hunter, 2001). The Illinois Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Network is a statewide technical assistance project that is focused on applying the science of PBS at a school-wide level through a systems approach. PBIS in Illinois supports the development of proactive schoolwide discipline systems that provide multiple levels of intervention to address the behavior support needs of all students, including those with significant behavior challenges (see the PBIS section of www.ebdnetwork-il.org). This article describes PBIS implementation as experienced by an urban school district in Illinois.
A Chest Wall Restrictor to Study Effects on Pulmonary Function and Exercise

Chest wall restriction, whether caused by disease or mechanical constraints such as protective outerwear, can cause decrements in pulmonary function and exercise capacity. However, the study of the oxygen cost associated with mechanical chest restriction has so far been purely qualitative. The previous paper in this series described a device to impose external chest wall restriction, its effects on forced spirometric volumes, and its test-retest reliability. The purpose of this experiment was to measure the oxygen cost associated with varied levels of external chest wall restriction. Oxygen uptake and electromyogram (EMG) of the external intercostals were recorded during chest restriction in 10 healthy males. Subjects rested for 9 min before undergoing volitional isocapnic hyperpnea for 6 min. Subjects breathed at minute ventilations (V·I) of 30, 60, and 90 liters/min with chest wall loads of 0, 25, 50 and 75 mm Hg applied. Frequency of breathing was set at 15, 30, and 45 breaths per minute with a constant tidal volume (VT) of 2 liters. Oxygen uptake was measured continuously at rest and throughout the hyperventilation bouts, while controlling V·I and VT. Integrated EMG (IEMG) from the 3rd intercostal space was recorded during each minute of rest and hyperventilation. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures revealed that chest wall loading and hyperpnea significantly increased V·O2 values (p < 0.01). External intercostal IEMG levels were significantly increased (p < 0.05) at higher restrictive load (50 and 75 mm Hg) and at the highest minute ventilation (90 liters/min). These data suggest that there is a significant and quantifiable increase in the oxygen cost associated with external chest wall restriction which is directly related to the level of chest wall restriction.