Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive Read-Alouds for English Learners in the Elementary Grades.

This article describes the implementation of a read-aloud routine focused on the development of vocabulary knowledge and comprehension for English Learners (ELs) in grades K-3. This paper describes the steps of a daily read-aloud system, including key applications of second language acquisition and culturally responsive pedagogy with examples of how they are integrated with literacy instruction for ELs. The routine was implemented across three campuses, and qualitative data was collected throughout the implementation period to inform model development. Data sources include formal observations, focus-group interviews, documents from professional development activities, and researcher field notes. The article concludes with a discussion of the successes and challenges to implementing the read-aloud routine in K-3 classrooms.
BCG-loaded chitosan microparticles: interaction with macrophages and preliminary in vivo studies

Abstract The aim of this study was to develop a novel BCG-loaded chitosan vaccine with high association efficiency which can afford efficient interaction with APC and elicit local and Th1-type-specific immune response after intranasal administration. Chitosan-suspended BCG and BCG-loaded chitosan-alginate microparticles were prepared by ionotropic gelation. Interaction with APC was evaluated by fluorescence microscopy using rBCG-GFP. Specific immune responses were evaluated following intranasal immunisation of mice. Cellular uptake was approximately two-fold higher for chitosan-suspended BCG. A single dose of BCG-loaded microparticles or chitosan-suspended BCG by intranasal route improved Th1-type response compared with subcutaneous BCG. Chitosan-suspended BCG originated the highest mucosal response in the lungs by intranasal route. These positive results indicate that the proposed approach of whole live BCG microencapsulation in chitosan-alginate for intranasal immunisation was successful in allowing efficient interaction with APC, while improving the cellular immune response, which is of interest for local immunisation against tuberculosis.
Harnessing the online resources: A case study of ScienceDirect in India

E-mail-alerting system of online databases is a new trend catching up fast with researchers. Results of auto-run set queries are informed through e-mails as ‘alerts’ to the registered user. Even though e-mail-alerting systems are quite popular amongst Internet users, their inherent advantages remain unexplored in the Indian scenario. An effort to explore all such features available in the ScienceDirect online database has been made in this paper. The process of registration for activating e-mail alerts, customizing a home page, selecting favorite journals, search alerts, journal issue alerts, citation alerts and search history are briefed with screen shot examples. The study emphasizes the fact that librarians and information Science professionals should take lead roles in unveiling all such possible features available in various online databases. They should also make efforts at informing the user community of the utility of such features in a bid to enhance the research output.
International Genome-Wide Association Study Consortium Identifies Novel Loci Associated With Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents

Background— Our aim was to identify genetic variants associated with blood pressure (BP) in childhood and adolescence. Methods and Results— Genome-wide association study data from participating European ancestry cohorts of the Early Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology (EAGLE) Consortium was meta-analyzed across 3 epochs; prepuberty (4–7 years), puberty (8–12 years), and postpuberty (13–20 years). Two novel loci were identified as having genome-wide associations with systolic BP across specific age epochs: rs1563894 (ITGA11, located in active H3K27Ac mark and transcription factor chromatin immunoprecipitation and 5′-C-phosphate-G-3′ methylation site) during prepuberty (P=2.86×10–8) and rs872256 during puberty (P=8.67×10–9). Several single-nucleotide polymorphism clusters were also associated with childhood BP at P<5×10–3. Using a P value threshold of <5×10–3, we found some overlap in variants across the different age epochs within our study and between several single-nucleotide polymorphisms in any of the 3 epochs and adult BP-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Conclusions— Our results suggest that genetic determinants of BP act from childhood, develop over the lifecourse, and show some evidence of age-specific effects.
Moral Choices/Moral Conflicts: teachers’ self‐perceptions

Abstract This study examines perceptions of school teachers in response to various hypotheses generated in research about teachers as moral agents, by delineation of several themes that emerge throughout the questionnaires and interviews, and through the interpretation of interviews in which the teachers describe their moral selves and their decisions and behaviours as moral educators. Initially, a diverse population of 180 public school teachers responded to questionnaires that probed teachers’ understanding of themselves as moral agents as well as their value compatibility with people in their schools and communities and their perception of freedom to express values and beliefs. Structured interviews with 26 teachers selected from the questionnaire respondents reveal teachers’ perceptions of their actual teaching experiences which they perceived as involving moral values. The core finding of this research is that teachers’ individual moralities shape the choices they make and the conflicts that concern .
Hormone activation induces nucleosome positioning in vivo

The mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) promoter is induced by glucocorticoid hormone. A robust hormone‐ and receptor‐dependent activation could be reproduced in Xenopus laevis oocytes. The homogeneous response in this system allowed a detailed analysis of the transition in chromatin structure following hormone activation. This revealed two novel findings: hormone activation led to the establishment of specific translational positioning of nucleosomes despite the lack of significant positioning in the inactive state; and, in the active promoter, a subnucleosomal particle encompassing the glucocorticoid receptor (GR)‐binding region was detected. The presence of only a single GR‐binding site was sufficient for the structural transition to occur. Both basal promoter elements and ongoing transcription were dispensable. These data reveal a stepwise process in the transcriptional activation by glucocorticoid hormone.
Extensible Buffer Management of Indexes

Most extensible database systems support addition of new indexes or new data types. However, the reference patterns exhibited by these new indexes may not be efficiently supported by existing buffer replacement strategies. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism that allows an index method to pass replacement hints to the buffer manager by assigning priority values to the buffer pages to reflect the desired replacement criteria. The proposed approach provides more flexible control over the replacement criteria as different semantics can be encoded using priority values which can also be changed dynamically. Buffer replacement thus becomes extensible since it is possible to customize a strategy to exploit lmowledge about the reference pattern of the application. This extensibility also facilitates the design and fine tuning of better replacement strategies. The approach is illustrated with a hierarchical index example. Experimental results show that a customized priority-based replacement strategy outperforms the commonly used LRU stra-
Space-Time transmit precoding with imperfect feedback

The use of channel feedback from receiver to transmitter is standard in wireline communications. While knowledge of the channel at the transmitter would produce similar benefits for wireless communications as well, the generation of reliable channel feedback is complicated by the rapid time variations of the channel for mobile applications. The purpose of this paper is to provide an information-theoretic perspective on optimum transmitter strategies, and the gains obtained by employing them, for systems with transmit antenna arrays and imperfect channel feedback. The spatial channel, given the feedback, is modeled as a complex Gaussian random vector. Two extreme cases are considered: mean feedback, in which the channel side information resides in the mean of the distribution, with the covariance modeled as white, and covariance feedback, in which the channel is assumed to be varying too rapidly to track its mean, so that the mean is set to zero, and the information regarding the relative geometry of the propagation paths is captured by a nonwhite covariance matrix. In both cases, the optimum transmission strategies, maximizing the information transfer rate, are determined as a solution to simple numerical optimization problems. For both feedback models, our numerical results indicate that, when there is a moderate disparity between the strengths of different paths from the transmitter to the receiver, it is nearly optimal to employ the simple beamforming strategy of transmitting all available power in the direction which the feedback indicates is the strongest.
Online optimization for the smart (micro) grid

Growing environmental awareness and new government directives have set the stage for an increase in the fraction of energy supplied using renewable resources. The fast variation in renewable power, coupled with uncertainty in availability, emphasizes the need for algorithms for intelligent online generation scheduling. These algorithms should allow us to compensate for the renewable resource when it is not available and should also account for physical generator constraints. We apply and extend recent work in the field of online optimization to the scheduling of generators in smart (micro) grids and derive bounds on the performance of asymptotically good algorithms in terms of the generator parameters. We also design online algorithms that intelligently leverage available information about the future, such as predictions of wind intensity, and show that they can be used to guarantee near optimal performance under mild assumptions. This allows us to quantify the benefits of resources spent on prediction technologies and different generation sources in the smart grid. Finally, we empirically show how both classes of online algorithms, (with or without the predictions of future availability) significantly outperform certain `natural' algorithms.
The conflicting psychologies of learning—a way out.

One of the most striking things about the present state of the theory of learning and of psychological theory in general is the wide disagreement among individual psychologists. Perhaps the most impressive single manifestation of the extent of this disagreement is contained in 'Psychologies of 1925' [2] and 'Psychologies of 1930' [3]. In these works we find earnestly defending themselves against a world of enemies, a hormic psychology, an act psychology, a functional psychology, a structural psychology, a Gestalt psychology, a reflexology psychology, a behavioristic psychology, a response psychology, a dynamic psychology, a factor psychology, a psychoanalytical psychology, and a psychology of dialectical materialism -at least a dozen.
The Ultra-Potent and Selective TLR8 Agonist VTX-294 Activates Human Newborn and Adult Leukocytes

Background Newborns display distinct immune responses that contribute to susceptibility to infection and reduced vaccine responses. Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists may serve as vaccine adjuvants, when given individually or in combination, but responses of neonatal leukocytes to many TLR agonists are diminished. TLR8 agonists are more effective than other TLR agonists in activating human neonatal leukocytes in vitro, but little is known about whether different TLR8 agonists may distinctly activate neonatal leukocytes. We characterized the in vitro immuno-stimulatory activities of a novel benzazepine TLR8 agonist, VTX-294, in comparison to imidazoquinolines that activate TLR8 (R-848; (TLR7/8) CL075; (TLR8/7)), with respect to activation of human newborn and adult leukocytes. Effects of VTX-294 and R-848 in combination with monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA; TLR4) were also assessed. Methods TLR agonist specificity was assessed using TLR-transfected HEK293 cells expressing a NF-κB reporter gene. TLR agonist-induced cytokine production was measured in human newborn cord and adult peripheral blood using ELISA and multiplex assays. Newborn and adult monocytes were differentiated into monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MoDCs) and TLR agonist-induced activation assessed by cytokine production (ELISA) and co-stimulatory molecule expression (flow cytometry). Results VTX-294 was ∼100x more active on TLR8- than TLR7-transfected HEK cells (EC50, ∼50 nM vs. ∼5700 nM). VTX-294-induced TNF and IL-1β production were comparable in newborn cord and adult peripheral blood, while VTX-294 was ∼ 1 log more potent in inducing TNF and IL-1β production than MPLA, R848 or CL075. Combination of VTX-294 and MPLA induced greater blood TNF and IL-1β responses than combination of R-848 and MPLA. VTX-294 also potently induced expression of cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules HLA-DR and CD86 in human newborn MoDCs. Conclusions VTX-294 is a novel ultra-potent TLR8 agonist that activates newborn and adult leukocytes and is a candidate vaccine adjuvant in both early life and adulthood.
Racial/Ethnic Group Attitudes Toward Environmental Protection in California: Is “Environmentalism” Still a White Phenomenon?

One view of minority opinion on environmental issues suggests that minority voters are focused on less esoteric concerns such as education, jobs, and crime. An alternative argument is that minorities, many of whom live proximate to the sources of pollution and environmental degradation, are actually more concerned. Focusing here on Latinos, we argue that minority concern about environmental issues is endogenous to the nature of the issue and has changed over time. Specifically, we suggest that increasing environmental awareness among minorities has led Latinos to become more sensitive to environmental issues than their white counter-parts over time, but that this difference is manifest only on issues of proximate concern to Latinos and not on more abstract environmental principles. Pooling Field Polls in California across a 21-year span, we model support for various pro-environment positions among Latino, African-American, and non-Hispanic white respondents. We find considerable empirical support for the dynamics of growing minority environmental concern among Latinos, but only weak evidence for a similar trend among African-Americans.
Chapter IV: Experimental and Statistical Studies: Applications of Newer Statistical Techniques1

THE LAST FEW YEARS have witnessed a gradual and rather belated introduction into research procedures in education of the many new and in some cases very important statistical techniques that have become available during the past two or three decades. While many of the educational applications of these newer techniques have been valid, not a few have evidenced a faulty understanding of the techniques or a failure to recognize the implications of the theoretical assumptions underlying their derivations. It is the purpose of this chapter to attempt a general appraisal of these applications from the technician's point of view. The chapter has therefore been organized with reference to techniques. Only as many studies have been cited with reference to each technique as were needed to yield illustrations of important prevalent errors and misconceptions, or, occasionally, of valid applications. In some of the studies cited the error may be of relatively minor consequence and in all other respects the study may be very competently conducted. The treatment is divided into three general, somewhat overlapping areas: problems involving correlation, significance of differences between means, and analysis of variance and covariance.
The Unexpected Effects of a Sexual Harassment Educational Program

This study evaluated a sexual harassment program for staff and faculty employees at a metropolitan university. One hundred men and 97 women who participated in the program and 141 men and 178 women who did not participate responded to a self-report questionnaire through campus mail. Analysis of variance was used to test for effects of program participation and employee gender on five outcome variables. Results indicated that participants showed more knowledge about sexual harassment than did nonparticipants and had a stronger attitude that sexual behavior at work is inappropriate. Men had more favorable attitudes toward sexual behavior at work than did women. Moreover, program participation and employee gender interacted, indicating an adverse reaction to the program among male participants. Male participants were less likely than other groups to perceive coercive sexual harassment, less willing to report sexual harassment, and more likely to blame the victim. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Comorbidity of anxiety disorders with anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

OBJECTIVE A large and well-characterized sample of individuals with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa from the Price Foundation collaborative genetics study was used to determine the frequency of anxiety disorders and to understand how anxiety disorders are related to state of eating disorder illness and age at onset. METHOD Ninety-seven individuals with anorexia nervosa, 282 with bulimia nervosa, and 293 with anorexia nervosa and bulimia were given the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders and standardized measures of anxiety, perfectionism, and obsessionality. Their ratings on these measures were compared with those of a nonclinical group of women in the community. RESULTS The rates of most anxiety disorders were similar in all three subtypes of eating disorders. About two-thirds of the individuals with eating disorders had one or more lifetime anxiety disorder; the most common were obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (N=277 [41%]) and social phobia (N=134 [20%]). A majority of the participants reported the onset of OCD, social phobia, specific phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder in childhood, before they developed an eating disorder. People with a history of an eating disorder who were not currently ill and never had a lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis still tended to be anxious, perfectionistic, and harm avoidant. The presence of either an anxiety disorder or an eating disorder tended to exacerbate these symptoms. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of anxiety disorders in general and OCD in particular was much higher in people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa than in a nonclinical group of women in the community. Anxiety disorders commonly had their onset in childhood before the onset of an eating disorder, supporting the possibility they are a vulnerability factor for developing anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.
Genetic influences on fibrinogen, tissue plasminogen activatorantigen and von Willebrand factor in males and females

Summary Differences in genetic influence on death from CHD between males and females have been reported. Haemostatic factors have consistently been associated with risk for coronary heart disease (CHD), but sex differences in genetic architecture have not been studied. This study in middle-aged twins investigates whether there are sex differences in means and in genetic and/ or environmental variance components of haemostatic risk factors for CHD. A total of 93 monozygotic twin pairs (44 male and 49 female) and 116 dizygotic twin pairs (36 male, 40 female and 40 opposite sex) were available for this study. Structural equation modelling was used to estimate the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on variation in levels of fibrinogen, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) antigen and von Willebrand factor (vWF). Mean levels of tPA and vWF increased with age. Oral contraceptive pill (OCP) and menopause had significant influences on levels of fibrinogen and tPA. Genetic influences explained 39, 66 and 72% of the variation in levels of fibrinogen, tPA and vWF, respectively. No quantitative or qualitative differences of genetic influences on haemostatic levels were seen between males and females. Haemostatic factors may account fora significant part of the genetic risk for cardiovascular disease. No difference in genetic architecture for levels of fibrinogen, tPA or vWF was observed between males and females.
Impact of managerial communication styles on employees’ attitudes and behaviours

Purpose – Through the lens of social exchange theory and organisation support theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the passive, aggressive, and assertive styles of managers/supervisors that influence perceived supervisory support and to test whether the support increases employees’ satisfaction with the communication of supervisors and their organisation‐based self‐esteem. It also assesses whether employees’ communication satisfaction and their self‐esteem influence employees’ performance, commitment and absenteeism.Design/methodology/approach – In total, 400 employees from ten manufacturing firms in India were studied through questionnaire survey. Standard instruments were used to assess the constructs. A scale was developed to measure the communication style of managers and a single item to assess absenteeism.Findings – Results revealed that assertive style of communication lends maximum support to employees. Perceived supervisory support at the workplace enhances employees’ satisfaction with.
The teacher study group as a space for agency in an era of accountability and compliance

This paper examines the impact of discourses upon teachers who strive to be professionals amidst the US No Child Left Behind era. Using qualitative research methodology and ethnographic techniques, a case study was conducted within the context of a teacher learning community comprised of two female secondary teachers and the researcher. Data were collected via transcripts of the conversations, teacher interviews, written reflections and field notes. Discourse analysis was employed to unpack discourses operating within the context of the teacher learning community. The study illustrates the push–pull relationship between constraint and possibility for teacher professionals. The paper illuminates how a teacher learning community becomes a space for agency for the ‘teacher as professional’ and how teacher development can be sustained within a contemporary context of compliance and accountability.
Joint Application and Network Defense against DDoS Flooding Attacks in the Future Internet

The threat of denial of service flooding attacks in the Internet is rapidly increasing. Especially the use of techniques that allow attackers to hide their attack traffic raises concerns: attack distribution and rotation in botnets to obfuscate senders, low-rate bandwidth attacks, and attacks that mimic realistic patterns such as flash crowds. The defense against such attacks is limited due to a deadlock: the attacks must be stopped inside the network, but the network is unable to distinguish legitimate and unsolicited traffic. In contrast, end systems may distinguish legitimate users from bots, but are unable to stop the attacks inside the network. This paper advocates for a joint end system-network defense to address such attacks in the future. Edge-based capabilities (EC) is a novel framework that combines end-to-end authentication with network-based control. Applications authenticate legitimate senders and issue capabilities to tag their packets, and the network filters out untagged packets. This paper describes the mechanisms that make EC a secure, efficient, and scalable solution. Moreover, we argue that EC is an attractive solution because it can be incrementally deployed and because it provides the right incentives to users, servers, and ISPs.