Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on DC Voltage Control for Chopper-Cell-Based Modular Multilevel Converters in D-STATCOM Application

This paper presents a three-phase transformerless structure of modular multilevel converters based on cascaded pulsewidth-modulated chopper cells in medium-voltage D-STATCOM application. It is suggested for installation on unbalanced medium-voltage power-supply systems to achieve higher performance in improving power quality. This paper proposes a new control strategy based on power-flow analysis with a focus on dc capacitor voltage control that is insulated from the source voltage fault. This control strategy enables the D-STATCOM system to compensate unbalanced nonlinear load even under asymmetrical grid fault conditions and it has no limitations on the cascaded number. Experimental results obtained from a 60-V 3-kVA downscaled prototype verify that this D-STATCOM system performs satisfactory, not only compensating for unbalanced nonlinear load but also keeping the capacitor voltages maintained at the given value even in unbalanced power systems.
Hodge-type conjecture for higher Chow groups

Let X be a smooth quasi-projective variety over the algebraic closure of the rational number field. We show that the cycle map of the higher Chow group to Deligne cohomology is injective and the higher Hodge cycles are generated by the image of the cycle map as conjectured by Beilinson and Jannsen, if the cycle map to Deligne cohomology is injective and the Hodge conjecture is true for certain smooth projective varieties over the algebraic closure of the rational number field. We also verify the conjecture on the surjectivity in the case of the complement of a union of general hypersurfaces in a smooth projective variety.
A new look at within-source interrater reliability of 360-degree feedback ratings.

This study investigated within-source interrater reliability of supervisor, peer, and subordinate feedback ratings made for managerial development. Raters provided 360-degree feedback ratings on a sample of 153 managers. Using generalizability theory, results indicated that little within-source agreement exists; a large portion of the error variance is attributable to the combined rater main effect and Rater x Ratee effect; more raters are needed than currently used to reach acceptable levels of reliability; supervisors are the most reliable with trivial differences between peers and subordinates when the numbers of raters and items are held constant; and peers are the most reliable, followed by subordinates, followed by supervisors, under conditions commonly encountered in practice. Implications for the validity, design, and maintenance of 360-degree feedback systems are discussed along with directions for future research in this area.
Development of a Forced-Choice Measure of Typical-Performance Emotional Intelligence

Self-report ratings of emotional intelligence (EI) can be faked in high-stakes situations. Although forced-choice administration can prevent response distortion, it produces ipsative scores when scored conventionally. This study (n = 486) develops an 18-item EI rating scale assessing emotion perception, understanding, and management. We compare validity evidence for: (a) a single-stimulus rating scale; and (b) a forced-choice assessment scored with conventional methods versus item response theory (IRT) methods. The single-stimulus items showed acceptable fit to a three-factor solution, and the forced-choice items showed acceptable fit to the IRT solution. Correlations with criterion variables (ability and self-reported EI, Big Five personality, loneliness, life satisfaction, and GPA) were obtained for 283 participants. Correlations were in the expected direction for the single-stimulus and the IRT-based forced-choice scores. In contrast, the conventionally scored forced-choice test showed the expected correlations for emotion management, but not for emotion perception nor understanding. Results suggest that IRT-based methods for scoring forced-choice assessments produce equivalent validity to single-stimulus rating scales. As such, IRT-based scores on forced-choice assessments may allow EI tests to be used for high-stakes applications, where faking is a concern.
Assembly Mechanisms of Specialized Core Particles of the Proteasome

The 26S proteasome has a highly complicated structure comprising the 20S core particle (CP) and the 19S regulatory particle (RP). Along with the standard CP in all eukaryotes, vertebrates have two more subtypes of CP called the immunoproteasome and the thymoproteasome. The immunoproteasome has catalytic subunits β1i, β2i, and β5i replacing β1, β2, and β5 and enhances production of major histocompatibility complex I ligands. The thymoproteasome contains thymus-specific subunit β5t in place of β5 or β5i and plays a pivotal role in positive selection of CD8+ T cells. Here we investigate the assembly pathways of the specialized CPs and show that β1i and β2i are incorporated ahead of all the other β-subunits and that both β5i and β5t can be incorporated immediately after the assembly of β3 in the absence of β4, distinct from the assembly of the standard CP in which β-subunits are incorporated in the order of β2, β3, β4, β5, β6, β1, and β7. The propeptide of β5t is a key factor for this earlier incorporation, whereas the body sequence seems to be important for the earlier incorporation of β5i. This unique feature of β5t and β5i may account for preferential assembly of the immunoproteasome and the thymoproteasome over the standard type even when both the standard and specialized subunits are co-expressed.
Korean‐American Mothers’ Perception of Professional Support in Early Intervention and Special Education Programs

Twenty Korean-American mothers of children with disabilities participated in interviews concerning perceptions of the expertise, attitudes, and behavior of social and educational service providers, differences in cultural values and communication styles, and the need and use of translation services. Mothers reported satisfaction with the availability of services and expertise of professionals. Mothers were dissatisfied with repeatedly requesting services, dealing with professionals who disenfranchised and marginalized them, and in managing Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings; difficulties to which differences in cultural values and communication styles substantially contribute. Mothers reported on concerns about translators and suggested some attributes that a qualified translator should possess. Sensitivity and respect for parents’ emotions, requests, and need for support from service providers are essential, especially for providers who aim to nurture parental engagement and promote a positive educational experience for children and their families of diverse cultural backgrounds.
Computation and Visualization of Degenerate Repeats in Complete Genomes

The repetitive structure of genomic DNA holds many secrets to be discovered. A systematic study of repetitive DNA on a genomic or inter-genomic scale requires extensive algorithmic support. The REPuter family of programs described herein was designed to serve as a fundamental tool in such studies. Efficient and complete detection of various types of repeats is provided together with an evaluation of significance, interactive visualization, and simple interfacing to other analysis programs.
Alternative Models of Responsiveness in International Negotiation

Alternative models of responsiveness are evaluated for goodness of fit to moves made by negotiators in six international negotiations: five arms-control talks and one base-rights negotiation. Three models, developed originally by Stoll and McAndrew (1986), are referred to as directional (tit-for-tat), trend, and comparative reciprocity. Seven models are variants on trend and comparative reciprocity including various lags and weightings for earlier and recent moves, as well as a combined trend and comparative model. The results indicate clear support for the comparative model in all of the negotiations analyzed: Negotiators responded to the difference between moves made by themselves and others in the previous round, adjusting their next move in the direction of the other's previous move. They did not respond to a monitored trend in the other's moves. Nor did the combined trend and comparative model improve predictions over the comparative model alone. Implications are discussed for the importance of fairness in the process of negotiating, for theories of information processing in bargaining, and for the “threshold-adjustment” hypothesis.
Who are the bilinguals (and monolinguals)?

In the keynote article, “Bilingualism and Cognition”, Valian (2014) has reviewed current research on comparing executive function (EF) in monolingual and bilingual individuals across the lifespan. The conclusion is that there are inconsistent EF advantages from bilingualism and all other cognitive challenging activities primarily because individual differences in these cognitive challenging experiences may collectively attribute to superior EF resulting in inconsistent EF benefit attributable to a single experience. In essence, variability in study participants’ experience and tasks contributes to the inconsistency in the behavioral outcomes observed in monolinguals and bilinguals. Notably, Valian suggests that monolinguals may also engage in other cognitively challenging activities, which have not been accounted for in individual studies, thereby resulting in improved EF similar in magnitude to that related to bilingual experience. Although it was not specified which cognitively challenging activity is more likely to be engaged by monolinguals more than by bilinguals, the question at heart is: is there an EF advantage that can be specifically attributed to bilingual experience? The review addressed in the keynote demonstrates seemingly inconsistent patterns of results. In this commentary, I would like to suggest that, in addition to task measurements, individual bilingual experience is dynamic and multifaceted. Moreover, bilingual experience varies in different communities. Consequently, one potential source of explanation for the inconsistent results in between-group EF performances is the characteristics of the bilinguals (and monolinguals) and their social environments included in these studies.
Mothers’ and fathers’ guidance behaviours during storybook reading

The nature of parental guidance during book reading is an important influence on developmental outcomes linked to literacy and language. Despite extensive research documenting the importance of gender roles and schemas on young children’s participation in the sociocultural environment, little is known about the possible influences of parent and child gender on participation in literacy activities. The purpose of this study was to observe guidance behaviours employed by 26 mothers and fathers when reading to their three-year-old child in separate sessions. There was a consistent pattern of findings indicating that fathers provided more guidance to daughters, whereas mothers had higher rates of guided participation with sons. However, there were no differences on parental ratings of enjoyment or frequency of reading with sons or daughters. Theresults highlight interesting differences in parent-child interactions during reading and suggest that both parent and child gender may influence exchanges during shared storybook reading.
Perspectives on HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination: voices of some young people in Ghana

This paper examines Ghanaian young people's perceptions of the determinants of HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination, and how these perceptions may influence the de-stigmatisation process. Drawing on findings from an in-depth, multi-method qualitative study involving 104 school and street young people aged between 14 and 19 years, the paper presents young people's accounts of HIV and AIDS. The paper provokes discussion on how language and images associated with existing educational programmes on HIV and AIDS place young people in a dilemma. It also argues that fear and secrecy associated with the disease not only consolidate stigmatisation and discrimination, but also create the desire for retribution. It concludes by challenging health educators to pay particular attention to the language and images used in future educational programmes.
Mathematical connections of a higher cognitive level: A tool we may use to identify these in practice

Abstract Learner acquisition of higher order cognitive skills and processes in mathematics is at the centre of many current curriculum reforms the world over. Although literature suggests that high-level cognitive processes require emphasis on reasoning about and connecting ideas, in South Africa one of the biggest challenges has been to develop tools that can help to conceptualize the linking of ideas in practice. This paper is an exposé of one such potential tool. The paper starts by borrowing from literature on the links between connections and higher order cognitive skills and processes. It then shows how a tool was developed from these connections for interrogating practice, how it was used in data analysis of video-recorded classroom observations and what it was able to capture. The paper concludes by discussing the potential of the tool in terms of observable strengths and weaknesses.
‘The body does not lie’: Identity, risk and trust in technoculture

The article suggests that surveillance of the body is gradually becoming a major source of identification, as well as a vital element of late-modern mechanisms of social exclusion. The increasing demand for technological verification of identity is a result of intricate connections between our notions of the self, order, efficiency and security. Behind the growing acceptance of these new technologies, such as biometric passports, biometric ID cards, drug testing, and DNA databases, are fears connected to those who may have a ‘stolen identity’, are unidentified, or ‘identity-less’, such as potentially fraudulent welfare recipients, ‘identity thieves’, terrorists, immigrants and asylum seekers. However, unlike Foucault's disciplinary power, the latest technologies no longer see the body as something that needs to be trained and disciplined, but rather as a source of unprecedented accuracy and precision. Bodies become ‘coded’ and function as ‘passwords’. This form of identification is particularly relevant since its mode of operation enables identification and denial of access at-a-distance, thus fitting perfectly into the contemporary modes of disembedded global governance.
Coordinated Studies Programs: Their Effect on Student Involvement at a Community College

Like larger tuition-driven four-year colleges and universities, two-year institutions are painfully aware of the need to increase their rates of program completion, which nationally are barely a third of all beginning full-time students (Tinto, 1994). Unlike the much touted residential colleges that are described as "involving colleges" (Kuh, Schuh, Whitt & Associates, 1991), most community colleges find themselves in situations where student involvement is quite difficult to achieve. Most two-year institutions, especially those in urban settings, are nonresidential; and a great majority of their students are older, employed while in college, and have multiple obligations that constrain their involvement in college. Faced with such circumstances, it is not surprising that so many community colleges have found the task of increasing student involvement and persistence difficult to achieve. But some have succeeded. They have done so by looking beyond past approaches to involvement and persistence to new ways of structuring their educational programs to enable students to become active participants in the learning process (MacGregor, 1991; Matthews, 1993). As part of its research agenda, the result of a five-year grant from the U. S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, The National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment initiated a series of studies of collaborative learning in higher education. They focused on the academic and social experiences of beginning college students in three different collaborative learning programs. This report focuses on one of those programs, specifically the Coordinated Studies Program at Seattle Central Community College in Seattle, Washington (Tinto & Russo, 1993).
Using Ideology: Cases of Nonrecognition of the Politics of Research and Practice in Special Education

This critical review focuses on 13 articles and 5 book chapters by prominent special education scholars. These authors write in support of a continuum of special education services and recommend that only the results of empirical research should inform special education practice. They also express wariness about the concept of inclusion and the direction of the inclusion movement. In touting the superiority of their own scholarship, they accuse inclusion supporters of being political, subjective, and ideological. This article challenges the supposed neutrality of the special education status quo and the moral grounding of the reviewed authors’ position. Drawing from the insights of theorists who study ideology, the analysis sheds light on the ideological nature of the reviewed authors’ own writing. The major recommendation put forth in this article is that scholars and other professionals need to think seriously about the impact of their educational preferences on the least powerful members of society if equity in schooling is to be realized.
Calling in Work

Recent scholarship indicates that people who view their work as a calling are more satisfied with their work and their lives. Historically, calling has been regarded as a religious experience, although modern researchers frequently have adopted a more expansive and secular conceptualization of calling, emphasizing meaning and personal fulfillment in work. The assumption that calling can be easily secularized and applied has not been tested. Therefore, we tested whether calling was related to psychological adjustment and positive work attitudes of both highly religious and less religious college students (N = 242). We also tested whether these positive relations were mediated by people’s intrinsic religiousness or by a broader, secular construct, meaning in life. Moderation-mediation analyses supported views of calling centering on people’s experience of meaning in their work rather than more constrained religious views. Implications for future research and practical applications of calling to positive work attitudes are discussed.
Detection of Specific Antibodies to an Antigenic Mannoprotein for Diagnosis of Penicillium marneffeiPenicilliosis

ABSTRACT The disseminated and progressive fungal disease Penicillium marneffei penicilliosis is one of the most common infectious diseases in AIDS patients in Southeast Asia. To diagnose systemic penicilliosis, we developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-based antibody test with Mp1p, a purified recombinant antigenic mannoprotein of P. marneffei. Evaluation of the test with guinea pig sera against P. marneffei and other pathogenic fungi indicated that this assay was specific for P. marneffei. Clinical evaluation revealed that high levels of specific antibody were detected in two immunocompetent penicilliosis patients. Furthermore, approximately 80% (14 of 17) of the documented penicilliosis patients with human immunodeficiency virus tested positive for the specific antibody. No false-positive results were found for serum samples from 90 healthy blood donors, 20 patients with typhoid fever, and 55 patients with tuberculosis, indicating a high specificity of the test. Thus, this ELISA-based test for the detection of anti-Mp1p antibody can be of significant value as a diagnostic for penicilliosis.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia and the importance of education of ICU nurses on prevention – Preliminary results

Background and aims Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) increases intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, ICU mortality, the number of ventilator days, and costs. We implemented a VAP bundle and investigated its efficacy on prevention. Materials and methods A prospective observational study was conducted between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015 in a 12-bed multidisciplinary ICU. The bundle was implemented on July 02, 2015. Comparative analysis was performed before and after the implementation of the bundle. The compliance of the nurses was also studied. Results The incidence of VAP was 21.5/1,000 ventilator days (95% CI: 14.17–31.10) in the first phase and 12.0/1,000 ventilator days (95% CI: 7.2–19.49) in the second phase. Relative risk reduction was 44% (95% CI: −0.5 to 0.98). Most common bacteria identified during the first phase were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, and Staphylococcus aureus; and in the second phase P. aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, and S. maltophilia were identified. Significant improvement was achieved in the head-of-bed elevation (p = 0.004), oral care (p = 0.01), hand hygiene (p < 0.001), endotracheal suctioning (p = 0.004), and removal of condensate (p = 0.043). Discussion The incidence of VAP showed tendency for reduction. The prevalence of nursing-dependent bacteria decreased and compliance in following prevention methods increased. Conclusion These results underline the importance of education of prevention methods.
The Film Criminal Justice

This research examines the use of the film Criminal Justice to consider the extent to which students’ race, gender, and university experience influence their determinations of guilt and perceptions of racism in the criminal justice system. The study samples 835 students in large criminal justice classes taught at an urban university in an eastern, predominately Black city and at an urban university in a southwestern, predominately Hispanic city. Analysis shows some statistically significant relationships, including those perceiving racism in the film as more likely to view the film’s defendant as not guilty, White students perceiving racism as more likely to see the defendant as not guilty, and males perceiving racism in the system as more likely to view the film’s defendant as not guilty. However, Black females perceiving racism as a factor in the film were significantly more likely to find the film’s defendant guilty than any other combination of race/ethnicity and gender, leaving an intriguing set of questions that are duly addressed.
Covering Number Bounds of Certain Regularized Linear Function Classes

Recently, sample complexity bounds have been derived for problems involving linear functions such as neural networks and support vector machines. In many of these theoretical studies, the concept of covering numbers played an important role. It is thus useful to study covering numbers for linear function classes. In this paper, we investigate two closely related methods to derive upper bounds on these covering numbers. The first method, already employed in some earlier studies, relies on the so-called Maurey's lemma; the second method uses techniques from the mistake bound framework in online learning. We compare results from these two methods, as well as their consequences in some learning formulations.
'Doing the right thing wrong' - Personality and tolerance to uncomfortable robot approaches

The study presented in this paper explored the relationships between subject personality and preferences in the direction from which a robot approached the human participants (N=42) in order to deliver an object in a naturalistic `living room' setting. Personality was assessed using the Big Five Domain Scale. No consistent significant relationships were found between personality traits and preferred approach directions; however, a consistent nonsignificant trend was found in which high scores on the personality trait extraversion was associated with a higher degree of tolerance to the approach directions rated overall as most uncomfortable. The implications of the results are discussed both from a theoretical and methodological viewpoint