Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Öğretmenlerin farklılaştırılmış öğretim yaklaşımını uygulama ve buna ilişkin yetkinlik düzeyleri

Amac: Dunya genelinde son yillarda gundemde olan farklilastirilmis ogretim ile ogrencilerin bireysel farkliliklarina gore ogretim saglanmasi mumkundur. Bu yeni yaklasima ne kadar hazir olduklarini tespit etmek amaciyla arastirmada, ortaokul ogretmenlerinin farklilastirilmis ogretimi uygulama ve yetkinlik duzeyleri incelenmistir. Yontem: Arastirmada nicel arastirma turlerinden tarama modeli kullanilmistir. Okulun konumu ve yapisina gore tabakali ornekleme yontemi ile Eskisehir il merkezindeki toplam 346 ogretmene basit rastlantisal yolla ulasilarak calisma yurutulmustur. Arastirmanin verileri arastirmaci tarafindan gelistirilen olcek ile toplanmistir. Verilerin cozumlenmesinde SPSS istatistik programindan yararlanilmistir. Bulgular: Ogretmenlerin farklilastirilmis ogretim yaklasimini mevcut kosullara gore uygulama duzeyleri orta duzeydeyken buna iliskin yetkinlik durumlari yuksek duzeyde cikmistir. Mevcut uygulama toplam puaninin bransa ve ogrenim durumuna gore degismedigi, okulun yapisi ve konumuna gore ise ozel okullar lehine fark olusturdugu tespit edilmistir. Yetkinlik boyutunda ise puan farkliliginin bransa, ogrenim durumuna, okulun konumu ve yapisina gore anlamli bir fark olusturmadigi ortaya cikarmistir. Mevcut durum ve yetkinlik arasinda istatistiksel acidan anlamli bir farklilik ortaya cikmistir. Tartisma ve Sonuc: Farklilastirilmis ogretim yaklasimina iliskin ogretmenlerin benzer yetkinlik duzeyinde olduklari, okulun yapisi ve konumuna bagli olarak uygulamada farklilastiklari, bu farkliligin ise ozel okullar lehine oldugu sonucuna ulasilmistir. Uygun ogrenme ortamlarinin saglanmasi ile uygulamada ortaya cikan bu farkliligin ortadan kaldirilabilecegi dusunulebilir. Ogrenim durumuna gore ogretimi farklilastirmada herhangi bir farkliligin ortaya cikmamasi ise alinan egitim ile ogretim yontemini kullanma arasinda bir iliski olmadigini ifade etmektedir. Bransa gore bir farkliligin ortaya cikmamasi da her derste bu ogretimin kullanilabilecegini gostermektedir.
ACS Photometry of Extended, Luminous Globular Clusters in the Outskirts of M31

A new population of extended, luminous globular clusters has recently been discovered in the outskirts of M31. These objects have luminosities typical of classical globular clusters, but much larger half-light radii. We report the first results from deep ACS imaging of four such clusters, one of which is a newly discovered example lying at a projected distance of ~60 kpc from M31. Our F606W, F814W color-magnitude diagrams extend ~3 mag below the horizontal branch level, and clearly demonstrate, for the first time, that all four clusters are composed of ≳10 Gyr old, metal-poor stellar populations. No evidence for multiple populations is observed. From a comparison with Galactic globular cluster fiducials we estimate metallicities in the range -2.2 ≲ [Fe/H] ≲ -1.8. The observed horizontal branch morphologies show a clear second parameter effect between the clusters. Preliminary radial luminosity profiles suggest integrated magnitudes in the range -7.7 ≲ MV ≲ -6.6, near the median value of the globular cluster luminosity function. Our results confirm that these four objects are bona fide old, metal-poor globular clusters, albeit with combined structures and luminosities unlike those observed for any other globular clusters in the Local Group or beyond.
Diagnosing Conceptions about the Epistemology of Science: Contributions of a Quantitative Assessment Methodology.

This study applies a new quantitative methodological approach to diagnose epistemology conceptions in a large sample. The analyses use seven multiple-rating items on the epistemology of science drawn from the item pool Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS). The bases of the new methodological diagnostic approach are the empirical psychometric scaling of the item sentences in Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article 4 (Jun., 2016) Ángel VÁZQUEZ-ALONSO, María-Antonia MANASSERO-MAS, Antonio GARCÍA-CARMONA and Marisa MONTESANO DE TALAVERA Diagnosing conceptions about the epistemology of science: Contributions of a quantitative assessment methodology Copyright (C) 2016 EdUHK APFSLT. Volume 17, Issue 1, Article 4 (Jun., 2016). All Rights Reserved. accordance with experts’ criteria, the implementation of a multiple-rating model of answering (the respondent appraises each item sentence), and a scoring procedure that computes standardized indices from the multiple-rating responses and the sentence’s scaling. These standardized indices represent the extent to which the respondent's conceptions about the epistemology of science are informed (the higher the index, the more informed the conception). The approach is applied to evaluate the conceptions of a large and diverse national sample through its standardized indices, which provide statistical hypothesis-testing across individual sentences, items, groups, or studies, computation of reliability indices, the correlations between items, and an exploratory factor analysis that may complement qualitative analysis. Finally, the most relevant features of the new approach, its potential for applications to teacher training and curricular development in the science classroom and the method's power to make easy, quick, and economic evaluations of conceptions about the nature of science, are discussed.
Thrombin-Accelerated Quick Clotting Serum Tubes: An Evaluation with 22 Common Biochemical Analytes

Clot activator serum tubes have significantly improved turnaround times for result reporting compared to plain tubes. With increasing workload and service performance expectations confronting clinical laboratories with high-volume testing and with particular emphasis on critical analytes, attention has focussed on preanalytical variables that can be improved. We carried out a field study on the test performance of BD vacutainer rapid serum tubes (RSTs) compared to current institutional issued BD vacutainer serum separator tubes (SSTs) in its test result comparability, clotting time, and stability on serum storage. Data from the study population (n = 160) of patients attending outpatient clinics and healthy subjects showed that results for renal, liver, lipids, cardiac, thyroid, and prostate biochemical markers were comparable between RSTs and SSTs. Clotting times of the RSTs were verified to be quick with a median time of 2.05 min. Analyte stability on serum storage at 4°C showed no statistically significant deterioration except for bicarbonate, electrolytes, and albumin over a period of 4 days. In conclusion, RSTs offered savings in the time required for the clotting process of serum specimens. This should translate to further trimming of the whole process from blood collection to result reporting without too much sacrifice on test accuracy and performance compared to the current widely used SSTs in most clinical laboratories.
Circulating Fibroblast Growth Factor-2, HIV-Tat, and Vascular Endothelial Cell Growth Factor-A in HIV-Infected Children with Renal Disease Activate Rho-A and Src in Cultured Renal Endothelial Cells

Renal endothelial cells (REc) are the first target of HIV-1 in the kidney. The integrity of REc is maintained at least partially by heparin binding growth factors that bind to heparan sulfate proteoglycans located on their cell surface. However, previous studies showed that the accumulation of two heparin-binding growth factors, Vascular Endothelial Cell Growth Factor-A (VEGF-A) and Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 (FGF-2), in combination with the viral protein Tat, can precipitate the progression of HIV-renal diseases. Nonetheless, very little is known about how these factors affect the behavior of REc in HIV+ children. We carried out this study to determine how VEGF-A, FGF-2, and HIV-Tat, modulate the cytoskeletal structure and permeability of cultured REc, identify key signaling pathways involved in this process, and develop a functional REc assay to detect HIV+ children affected by these changes. We found that VEGF-A and FGF-2, acting in synergy with HIV-Tat and heparin, affected the cytoskeletal structure and permeability of REc through changes in Rho-A, Src, and Rac-1 activity. Furthermore, urine samples from HIV+ children with renal diseases, showed high levels of VEGF-A and FGF-2, and induced similar changes in cultured REc and podocytes. These findings suggest that FGF-2, VEGF-A, and HIV-Tat, may affect the glomerular filtration barrier in HIV+ children through the induction of synergistic changes in Rho-A and Src activity. Further studies are needed to define the clinical value of the REc assay described in this study to identify HIV+ children exposed to circulating factors that may induce glomerular injury through similar mechanisms.
The Interplay between Equity and Gender Ideology in Perceived Housework Fairness: Evidence from an Experimental Vignette Design

Previous studies on the perceived fairness of the division of housework have suffered from limitations resulting from the use of observational data, namely reverse causation and the difficulty of disentangling the effects of strongly interconnected factors. This article overcomes these limitations by using an innovative method in this research field: a survey-based vignette design combining the benefits of experiments with a higher capability of generalization. From our findings based on Italian primary data, we argue that both equity and gender ideology theories concur to explain housework fairness. Consistently with equity theory, under certain conditions it is considered fair to exchange paid and unpaid time, regardless of their economic value. Moreover, a request to renegotiate housework is more legitimate if it redresses a prior inequity and, for women, irrespective of the asker’s gender. Gender ideology affects partners’ equity considerations, weighting their contribution to paid and unpaid work differently.
Photometric properties of the Arp 220 super star clusters

We investigate the photometric properties of six super stellar clusters (SSCs) seen in both the optical and near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope images of the local ultraluminous starburst galaxy Arp 220. Three of the SSCs are located in the central 0.5 kpc region. The remaining three are in the circumnuclear region between 0.5 kpc and 2.5 kpc from the centre. Comparing the observed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the SSCs with the Starburst99 models of Leitherer et al., we confirm that all the three nuclear SSCs are heavily obscured ($A_V \sim 10$ mag). Considering the results from this comparison in conjunction with measurements of the near-infrared CO absorption index and of millimetre CO line widths and luminosities, we estimate the ages of the nuclear SSCs to be $10^7 - 10^8$ yrs. The bolometric luminosity of the three nuclear SSCs is at most one-fifth of the total bolometric luminosity of Arp 220. On the other hand, the circumnuclear SSCs have little internal extinction ($A_V \leq$ 1 mag). These contribute negligibly to the total bolometric luminosity.
Direct and indirect effects of soil properties on phosphorus retention capacity

Phosphorus retention ability of soil has been predicted from different combinations of soil properties as a result of significant correlations between these variables. However, a significant correlation between P retention capacity and a soil property does not necessarily imply a significant direct effect of the soil property on P retention. The objective of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the direct and indirect influence of soil properties on P retention capacity of neutral to calcareous soils of Manitoba (Canada). One hundred fifteen archived surface soil samples representing major soils of Manitoba were used for the study. The P retention index (PRI) of these soils was determined by the single-point adsorption method. The relationships between P retention and soil properties were evaluated by correlation analyses while the direct and indirect influences of these soil properties on P retention were evaluated using the path analysis procedures. Significant correlations (p = 0.05) were observed between PRI and pH; CO 3 2- ; organic C; sand content; silt content; clay content; exchangeable Ca (Ca Ex ); exchangeable Mg (Mg Ex ); cation exchange capaciaty (CEC); Mehlich-3 extractable Ca (Ca M3 ); Mehlich-3 extractable Mg (Mg M3 ); and oxalate extractable Al (Al Ox ). However, path analysis showed that only Ca M3 (D = 0.62), Mg M3 (D = 0.26), and Al O+ (D =0.21) had significant direct effects (p = 0.05) on PRI. The significant effect of sand (soil texture) was due to the indirect influence of Ca M3 . Our results show that the PRI for the neutral to calcareous soils of Manitoba is best predicted from Ca M3 , Mg M3 , and Al Ox . Similar analysis conducted to relate the classical Langmuir adsorption maximum with the properties of a subset of soils also showed Ca M3 , Mg M3 , and Al M3 as the soil variables that had significant direct effects on soil's P retention.
A Structural Domain Mediates Attachment of Ethanolamine Phosphoglycerol to Eukaryotic Elongation Factor 1A in Trypanosoma brucei

Ethanolamine phosphoglycerol (EPG) represents a protein modification that so far has only been found in eukaryotic elongation factor 1A (eEF1A). In mammals and plants, EPG is covalently attached to two conserved glutamate residues located in domains II and III of eEF1A. In contrast, Trypanosoma brucei eEF1A contains a single EPG attached to Glu362 in domain III. The sequence and/or structural requirements for covalent linkage of EPG to eEF1A have not been determined for any organism. Using a combination of biosynthetic labelling of parasites with tritiated ethanolamine and mass spectrometry analyses, we demonstrate that replacement of Glu362 in T. brucei eEF1A by site-directed mutagenesis prevents EPG attachment, whereas single or multiple amino acid substitutions around the attachment site are not critical. In addition, by expressing a series of eEF1A deletion mutants in T. brucei procyclic forms, we demonstrate that a peptide consisting of 80 amino acids of domain III of eEF1A is sufficient for EPG attachment to occur. Furthermore, EPG addition also occurs if domain III of eEF1A is fused to a soluble reporter protein. To our knowledge, this is the first report addressing amino acid sequence, or structure, requirements for EPG modification of eEF1A in any organism. Using T. brucei as a model organism, we show that amino acid substitutions around the modification site are not critical for EPG attachment and that a truncated version of domain III of eEF1A is sufficient to mediate EPG addition.
Government spending and re-election: Quasi-experimental evidence from Brazilian municipalities

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population cutoffs over the period 1982-1985. We show that extra fiscal transfers resulted in a 20% increase in local government spending per capita, and an increase of about 10 percentage points in the re-election probability of local incumbent parties. In the context of an agency model of electoral accountability, as well as existing results indicating that the revenue jumps studied here had positive impacts on education outcomes and earnings, these results suggest that expected electoral rewards encouraged incumbents to spend additional funds in ways that were valued by voters.
The structural and functional recovery of pancreatic β-cells in type 1 diabetes mellitus induced mesenchymal stem cell-conditioned medium

Aim: Various studies have shown that secreted factors alone in culture medium without stem cell are capable of repairing tissues by itself in various conditions involving damaged tissue/organ. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the role of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-derived conditioned medium (CM) on the recovery of pancreatic β-cells in Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods: The 0.05 ml CM induction was applied to the diabetic group of rats in weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4. 1 week after each CM induction, insulin concentration was analyzed using ELISA. The pancreas was divided into 3 regions, processed by paraffin method, stained with hematoxylin-eosin, and immunohistochemical method for insulin. Results: This study indicated the decrease in the total number of islets and insulin concentration after the injection of single dose of alloxan. The exocrine acini were also damaged. Microscopic observation detected the presence of small islets in the diabetic group 1 week after the first 0.05 ml CM induction. The number and size of the islets increased in line with the CM doses and time of inductions. Immunohistochemically, the presence of low intensity of insulin-positive cells could be recognized at the splenic and duodenal regions of the pancreas, but not gastric region, 1 week after the first and second 0.05 ml CM induction. The intensity of staining and the number of insulin-positive cells increased dramatically in 1 week after the third and fourth 0.05 ml of CM induction in all regions of the pancreas. The data of insulin blood concentration showed clear differences between the second and the fourth induction of 0.05 ml CM induction. Conclusions: This study showed very strong evidence on the role of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-derived CM in recovering the pancreatic β-cells damage in Wistar rats (R. norvegicus) with type 1 diabetes mellitus, structurally and functionally.
Exploring the Impact of Computer Self-Efficacy on User Contributions and Learning within a Listserv Environment

This paper reports on the effects of computer self-efficacy and involvement on satisfaction with using a Listserv Web site, learning, and team-member tie strength. The customized Listserv allowed one hundred sixteen undergraduate students, enrolled in database and decision support courses, to exchange ideas and documents related to an Oracle class project. Questionnaires were administered before and after the class projects to study learning effects. The Listserv software collected data regarding logins, message and document postings, and lurkers (browsers). Findings indicate that the interaction of computer self-efficacy and involvement resulted in increased learning as well as tie-strength.
Mortality in Sepsis and its relationship with Gender

Background and Objective: Sepsis remains a leading cause of death across the world, carrying a mortality rate of 20–50%. Women have been reported to be less likely to suffer from sepsis and to have a lower risk of mortality from sepsis compared to men. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between gender and mortality in sepsis, and compare cytokine profiles of male and female patients. Methods: This was a prospective case series on 97 patients admitted with sepsis. Clinical and microbiological data was gathered, blood samples were collected for cytokine (IL-10, IL-6 and TNFα) levels and patients were followed up for clinical outcome. Results: There were 54% males and 46% females, with no significant difference of age or comorbids between genders. Respiratory tract infection was the commonest source of sepsis, and was more common in females (60%) compared to males (39%) (p=0.034). Males had a higher mortality (p=0.048, RR 1.73) and plasma IL-6 level(p=0.040) compared to females. Mean IL-6 plasma level was significantly (p<0.01) higher in patients who died vs. who recovered. Conclusion: Our study shows that males with sepsis have a 70% greater mortality rate, and mortality is associated with a higher IL-6 plasma level.
C3: Cutting Tail Latency in Cloud Data Stores via Adaptive Replica Selection

Achieving predictable performance is critical for many distributed applications, yet difficult to achieve due to many factors that skew the tail of the latency distribution even in well-provisioned systems. In this paper, we present the fundamental challenges involved in designing a replica selection scheme that is robust in the face of performance fluctuations across servers. We illustrate these challenges through performance evaluations of the Cassandra distributed database on Amazon EC2. We then present the design and implementation of an adaptive replica selection mechanism, C3, that is robust to performance variability in the environment. We demonstrate C3's effectiveness in reducing the latency tail and improving throughput through extensive evaluations on Amazon EC2 and through simulations. Our results show that C3 significantly improves the latencies along the mean, median, and tail (up to 3 times improvement at the 99.9th percentile) and provides higher system throughput.
Internet social networking - Distinguishing the phenomenon from its manifestations in web sites

Social Networking Sites (SNS) are one of the most popular business models on the Internet at the moment. At the same time, Social Networking is increasingly interesting as a topic of research in Information Systems. Drawing on existing research in the field, in this paper we propose to distinguish ISN (Internet Social Networking) as a phenomenon from its concrete manifestations in the various SNSs in the marketplace. On the basis of this distinction we take to the classification of SNSs grounded in real-life marketplace variety. In doing so, we identify seven different classes of SNSs. We argue that a typology of SNSs is useful for shaping our understanding of the diverse nature of ISN as existing in concrete manifestations. Most importantly, our classification makes accessible existing research for conceptually sound meta-analysis research. In order to fully grasp the phenomenon of ISN we also propose to include in the definition web sites that feature only certain aspects of ISN, while networking is not their core feature. Using our classification we discuss future research directions.
Mining Fashion Outfit Composition Using an End-to-End Deep Learning Approach on Set Data

Composing fashion outfits involves deep under-standing of fashion standards while incorporating creativity for choosing multiple fashion items (e.g., jewelry, bag, pants, dress). In fashion websites, popular or high-quality fashion outfits are usually designed by fashion experts and followed by large audiences. In this paper, we propose a machine learning system to compose fashion outfits automatically. The core of the proposed automatic composition system is to score fashion outfit candidates based on the appearances and metadata. We propose to leverage outfit popularity on fashion-oriented websites to supervise the scoring component. The scoring component is a multimodal multiinstance deep learning system that evaluates instance aesthetics and set compatibility simultaneously. In order to train and evaluate the proposed composition system, we have collected a large-scale fashion outfit dataset with 195K outfits and 368K fashion items from Polyvore. Although the fashion outfit scoring and composition is rather challenging, we have achieved an AUC of 85% for the scoring component, and an accuracy of 77% for a constrained composition task.