Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Examination of the Relationship between the Preschool Teachers’ Attitudes towards Mathematics and the Mathematical Development in 6-Year-Old Preschool Children

This study was carried out to determine whether there is a relationship between the preschool teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics and mathematical development in 6-year-old preschool children. The sampling of the study was consisted of 30 teachers working with 6 years old children and their 120 students in public kindergartens and independent preschool classrooms in Erzurum City. Teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics education were measured using the “Preschool Teachers’ Attitudes towards Early Mathematics Education Determination Tool” and the levels of mathematical development in children were measured using the “Progress in Math 6 Test”. Collected data were analyzed using both descriptive and predictive statistical methods. Results presented that there was a positive and significant relationship between the preschool teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics and the mathematics development in 6-year-old preschool children. Furthermore, the preschool teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics were also determined to have an effect on the selection of mathematics skill areas included in the programs. According to these results, it can be said that teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics directly affect the mathematical development in children.
The Superstar Inventors and Entrepreneurs: How Were They Educated?

"Observations, such as the many celebrated inventive entrepreneurs with minimal schooling, lead to the hypothesis that protracted and rigorous education can impede entrepreneurship. Systematic analysis of biographies of noted inventors and entrepreneurs appears not to support the hypothesis. We do find that with time, entrepreneurial and inventor education increases as technology grows more complex. However, we find at the same time that the educational attainment of inventors has grown more rapidly than that of entrepreneurs and the educational gap has tended to widen over time. " Copyright (c) 2009, The Author(s) Journal Compilation (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
False Data Injection on State Estimation in Power Systems—Attacks, Impacts, and Defense: A Survey

The accurately estimated state is of great importance for maintaining a stable running condition of power systems. To maintain the accuracy of the estimated state, bad data detection (BDD) is utilized by power systems to get rid of erroneous measurements due to meter failures or outside attacks. However, false data injection (FDI) attacks, as recently revealed, can circumvent BDD and insert any bias into the value of the estimated state. Continuous works on constructing and/or protecting power systems from such attacks have been done in recent years. This survey comprehensively overviews three major aspects: constructing FDI attacks; impacts of FDI attacks on electricity market; and defending against FDI attacks. Specifically, we first explore the problem of constructing FDI attacks, and further show their associated impacts on electricity market operations, from the adversary's point of view. Then, from the perspective of the system operator, we present countermeasures against FDI attacks. We also outline the future research directions and potential challenges based on the above overview, in the context of FDI attacks, impacts, and defense.
Collinear Segment Detection Using HT Neighborhoods

In this paper, geometrical analysis is used to extract novel straight line segment features from the wings around the peaks of the Hough Transform (HT). Based on these features, a practical segment detection method is proposed which has the ability to determine complete straight line segment parameters including the location of the center, length, slope and the Euclidean distance to the origin. The proposed method does not rely on edge point verification in the image space, i.e., the complete set of segment features are determined only using the information embodied in the HT data. The proposed method can distinguish between highly collinear straight line segments. Segment detection is robust to disturbing edge points, especially ones collinear with the object. A predefined collinear segment resolution that provides a theoretical criterion to determine straight line contiguity is derived. Image processing and analysis experiments show consistent robust performance.
Frabin and other related Cdc42-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factors couple the actin cytoskeleton with the plasma membrane

• Introduction • Molecular structures of frabin and other related GEFs • Tissue distribution, subcellular localization and splicing variants of frabin and other related GEFs • Cellular activities of frabin and other related GEFs • Roles of the domains of frabin in cellular activities • Mode of action of frabin in cell shape changes • Mode of activation of frabin and FRG • Involvement of FGD4/frabin and FGD1 in human diseases • Conclusions and perspectives
“Iron Sharpens Iron”: Views of the Church Congregation from the Unheard Voices of Religious African American Men

ABSTRACT: African American male congregants have been frequently underrepresented in religious-based research. Therefore, this study examines the impact and perceptions of the church congregation for highly religiously involved African American men. Interviews with 35 African American men from 11 states were conducted. The mean age of the sample was 56 years, with an age range between 45 and 76. Narrative data were analyzed using a qualitative methodology of grounded theory and Numeric Content Analysis. The following three themes were identified: (1) the congregation supports and helps, (2) it is good to give and receive, and (3) where there are people, there are problems. Narratives are offered to illustrate each of these themes. While the shared emotional, spiritual, and monetary support from church members can positively contribute to the well-being of highly religious African American men, these men may also be negatively impacted by church interactions stemming from personality differences, expectations, and racial dissimilarity in the church.
Wireless Sensor Array Network DoA Estimation from Compressed Array Data via Joint Sparse Representation

A compressive sensing joint sparse representation direction of arrival estimation (CSJSR-DoA) approach is proposed for wireless sensor array networks (WSAN). By exploiting the joint spatial and spectral correlations of acoustic sensor array data, the CSJSR-DoA approach provides reliable DoA estimation using randomly-sampled acoustic sensor data. Since random sampling is performed at remote sensor arrays, less data need to be transmitted over lossy wireless channels to the fusion center (FC), and the expensive source coding operation at sensor nodes can be avoided. To investigate the spatial sparsity, an upper bound of the coherence of incoming sensor signals is derived assuming a linear sensor array configuration. This bound provides a theoretical constraint on the angular separation of acoustic sources to ensure the spatial sparsity of the received acoustic sensor array signals. The Crame´r–Rao bound of the CSJSR-DoA estimator that quantifies the theoretical DoA estimation performance is also derived. The potential performance of the CSJSR-DoA approach is validated using both simulations and field experiments on a prototype WSAN platform. Compared to existing compressive sensing-based DoA estimation methods, the CSJSR-DoA approach shows significant performance improvement.
Monitoring Activities from Multiple Video Streams: Establishing a Common Coordinate Frame

Monitoring of large sites requires coordination between multiple cameras, which in turn requires methods for relating events between distributed cameras. This paper tackles the problem of automatic external calibration of multiple cameras in an extended scene, that is, full recovery of their 3D relative positions and orientations. Because the cameras are placed far apart, brightness or proximity constraints cannot be used to match static features, so we instead apply planar geometric constraints to moving objects tracked throughout the scene. By robustly matching and fitting tracked objects to a planar model, we align the scene's ground plane across multiple views and decompose the planar alignment matrix to recover the 3D relative camera and ground plane positions. We demonstrate this technique in both a controlled lab setting where we test the effects of errors in the intrinsic camera parameters, and in an uncontrolled, outdoor setting. In the latter, we do not assume synchronized cameras and we show that enforcing geometric constraints enables us to align the tracking data in time. In spite of noise in the intrinsic camera parameters and in the image data, the system successfully transforms multiple views of the scene's ground plane to an overhead view and recovers the relative 3D camera and ground plane positions.
Reactive balance control in walking based on a bipedal linear inverted pendulum model

Dynamic balance depends on proper foot placement in legged locomotion and corresponding placement strategies have mainly been developed using the linear inverted pendulum model as theoretical framework. While this model can identify single leg strategies for balance control, it does not consider the double support that is common to bipedal locomotion, indicating that current strategies do not fully exploit the theoretical potential of balance control in bipedal systems. Here we extend the linear inverted pendulum model to a bipedal system which includes double support dynamics, and derive a reactive balance controller based on foot placement and double stance length. We show that this controller enables the model to stand and walk at user-defined target speeds, to transition between these behaviors by acceleration and deceleration, and to react to intermittent disturbances and compensate for permanent ones, as long as they are compatible with the swing leg dynamics placing the feet. Finally, we discuss how the versatility of this balance controller depends on including double support and suggest further steps to improve dynamic balance control in bipedal systems.
T Cell Post-Transcriptional miRNA-mRNA Interaction Networks Identify Targets Associated with Susceptibility/Resistance to Collagen-induced Arthritis

Background Due to recent studies indicating that the deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) in T cells contributes to increased severity of rheumatoid arthritis, we hypothesized that deregulated miRNAs may interact with key mRNA targets controlling the function or differentiation of these cells in this disease. Methodology/Principal Findings To test our hypothesis, we used microarrays to survey, for the first time, the expression of all known mouse miRNAs in parallel with genome-wide mRNAs in thymocytes and naïve and activated peripheral CD3+ T cells from two mouse strains the DBA-1/J strain (MHC-H2q), which is susceptible to collagen induced arthritis (CIA), and the DBA-2/J strain (MHC-H2d), which is resistant. Hierarchical clustering of data showed the several T cell miRNAs and mRNAs differentially expressed between the mouse strains in different stages of immunization with collagen. Bayesian statistics using the GenMir++ algorithm allowed reconstruction of post-transcriptional miRNA-mRNA interaction networks for target prediction. We revealed the participation of miR-500, miR-202-3p and miR-30b*, which established interactions with at least one of the following mRNAs: Rorc, Fas, Fasl, Il-10 and Foxo3. Among the interactions that were validated by calculating the minimal free-energy of base pairing between the miRNA and the 3′UTR of the mRNA target and luciferase assay, we highlight the interaction of miR-30b*-Rorc mRNA because the mRNA encodes a protein implicated in pro-inflammatory Th17 cell differentiation (Rorγt). FACS analysis revealed that Rorγt protein levels and Th17 cell counts were comparatively reduced in the DBA-2/J strain. Conclusions/Significance This result showed that the miRNAs and mRNAs identified in this study represent new candidates regulating T cell function and controlling susceptibility and resistance to CIA.
Multimaterial mesh-based surface tracking

We present a triangle mesh-based technique for tracking the evolution of three-dimensional multimaterial interfaces undergoing complex deformations. It is the first non-manifold triangle mesh tracking method to simultaneously maintain intersection-free meshes and support the proposed broad set of multimaterial remeshing and topological operations. We represent the interface as a non-manifold triangle mesh with material labels assigned to each half-face to distinguish volumetric regions. Starting from proposed application-dependent vertex velocities, we deform the mesh, seeking a non-intersecting, watertight solution. This goal necessitates development of various collision-safe, label-aware non-manifold mesh operations: multimaterial mesh improvement; T1 and T2 processes, topological transitions arising in foam dynamics and multiphase flows; and multimaterial merging, in which a new interface is created between colliding materials. We demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of our approach on a range of scenarios including geometric flows and multiphase fluid animation.
Theory and Methodology Representation of consistent recursive rules

This paper develops the recursive model for connective rules (as proposed in V. Cutello, E. Molina, J. Montero, Associativeness versus recursiveness, in: Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Symposium on Multiple-valued Logic, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 29±31 May, 1996, pp. 154±159; V. Cutello, E. Molina, J. Montero, Binary operators and connective rules, in: M.H. Smith, M.A. Lee, J. Keller, J. Yen (Eds.), Proceedings of NAFIPS 96, North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society, IEEE Press, Piscataway, NJ, 1996, pp. 46±49), where a particular solution in the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) context (see V. Cutello, J. Montero, Recursive families of OWA operators, in: P.P. Bonissone (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third IEEE Conference on Fuzzy Systems, IEEE Press, Piscataway, NJ, 1994, pp. 1137±1141; V. Cutello, J. Montero, Recursive connective rules, International Journal of Intelligent Systems, to appear) was translated into a more general framework. In this paper, some families of solutions for the key recursive equation are obtained, based upon the general associativity equation as solved by K. Mak (Coherent continuous systems and the generalized functional equation of associativity, Mathematics of Operations Research 12 (1987) 597±625). A context for the representation of families of binary connectives is given, allowing the characterization of key families of connective rules. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
The high-mass star-forming region IRAS 18182 1433

Aims. We present mm line and continuum observations at high spatial resolution characterizing the physical and chemical properties of the young massive star-forming region IRAS 18182−1433. Methods. The region was observed with the Submillimeter Array in the 1.3 mm band. The data are complemented with short-spacing information from single-dish CO(2‐1) observations. SiO(1‐0) data from the VLA are added to the analysis. Results. Multiple massive outflows emanate from the mm continuum peak. The CO(2‐1) data reveal a quadrupolar outflow system consis ting of two outflows inclined by ∼90 ◦ . One outflow exhibits a cone-like red-shifted morphology wi th a jet-like blue-shifted counterpart where a blue counter-cone can only be tentatively identified. The SiO(1‐ 0) data suggest the presence of a third outflow. Analyzing the 12 CO/ 13 CO line ratios indicates decreasing CO line opacities with increasing velocities. Although we observe a multiple outflow system, the m m continuum peak remains single-peaked at the given spatial resolution (∼13500 AU). The other seven detected molecular species ‐ also high-density tracers like CH3CN, CH3OH, HCOOCH3 ‐ are all∼1-2 ′′ offset from the mm continuum peak, but spatially associated with a strong molecular outflow peak and a cm emission feature indicative of a thermal jet. This spatial displacement between the molecular lines and the mm continuum emission could be either due to an unresolved sub-source at the position of the cm feature, or the outflow /jet itself alters the chemistry of the core enhancing the molecular abundances toward that region. A temperature estimate based on the CH3CN(12k− 11k) lines suggests temperatures of the order 150 K. A velocity analysis of the high-density tracing molecules reveals that at the given spatial resolutio n none of them shows any coherent velocity structure which would be consistent with a rotating disk. We discuss this lack of rotation signatu res and attribute it to intrinsic diffi culties to observationally isolate massive accretion disk s from the surrounding dense gas envelopes and the molecular outflows.
How Do Different Cognitive Styles Affect Learning Programming? Insights from a Game-Based Approach in Greek Schools

Is there any relationship between students’ cognitive style and the ability to learn programming through serious games? The aim of this work is to assess the learning effectiveness and motivational appeal of digital games for learning basic programming concepts, involving secondary education students. For this purpose, the Code.org®’s activity named K-8 Intro to Computer Science was used. The study investigated students’ attitudes from gaming activities to reveal the quality of their learning experience. Next, students’ attitudes from games were correlated with their cognitive profile to reveal potential differences. Finally, students’ performance from the digital games was assessed to reveal game-based learning (GBL) effectiveness compared to their cognitive styles. In the study, 77 students of two Greek high schools participated in the context of the European Code Week. The results suggest that these specific games, or similar educational computer games, can be exploited as effective and motivational learning environments within schools, as they provide a high-quality learning experience. Cognitive style was found to be a significant learning characteristic that should be taken into consideration when using digital games to learn programming.
Do children learn letter writing from their names? Examining the relations between Head Start children’s writing skills and name-specific letter knowledge

ABSTRACT This study assessed 266 young children’s (mean age = 55.41 months, SD = 4.70 month) writing skills (name writing and letter writing), and decoding skills (letter knowledge, letter-word identification, and phonological awareness), and investigated whether children learn letter writing from their own names, and whether children’s gender is related to their early writing. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses show that among children who wrote recognizable letters in both name writing and letter writing tasks, children wrote a significantly higher percentage of dictated name letters than non-name letters. Letter knowledge was related to both name writing and letter writing skills. There was evidence that once children had developed basic writing skills, earlier gender differences in writing skills were no longer significant. This study provides support for the classroom instructions that integrate children’s own names and decoding knowledge into writing activities.
MERBIS-A Self-Adaptive Multi-Objective Evolutionary Rule Base Induction System

Supervised classification is a particular data-mining task that forms part of the knowledge discovery process. Its objectives are to xtract accurate, comprehensible and interesting knowledge form data. Howev er, many existing supervised classification approaches only focus on one of th ese objectives. This paper introduces a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Rule Base Induction System called MERBIS that is capable of producing trade-off soluti ns with regard to the accuracy and comprehensibility objectives. We utilise a superior accuracy measure, problem-tailored genetic operators and a self-ad aptive mechanism that reduces the number of parameters. We compare MERBIS with sev eral existing approaches for supervised classification on a number of benc hmark data sets and show that it performs comparable while producing more compr ehensible classi-
Regularizing RNNs by Stabilizing Activations

We stabilize the activations of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) by penalizing the squared distance between successive hidden states' norms. This penalty term is an effective regularizer for RNNs including LSTMs and IRNNs, improving performance on character-level language modeling and phoneme recognition, and outperforming weight noise and dropout. We achieve competitive performance (18.6\% PER) on the TIMIT phoneme recognition task for RNNs evaluated without beam search or an RNN transducer. With this penalty term, IRNN can achieve similar performance to LSTM on language modeling, although adding the penalty term to the LSTM results in superior performance. Our penalty term also prevents the exponential growth of IRNN's activations outside of their training horizon, allowing them to generalize to much longer sequences.
Phytosome-hyaluronic acid systems for ocular delivery of L-carnosine

This study reports on L-carnosine phytosomes as an alternative for the prodrug N-acetyl-L-carnosine as a novel delivery system to the lens. L-carnosine was loaded into lipid-based phytosomes and hyaluronic acid (HA)-dispersed phytosomes. L-carnosine-phospholipid complexes (PC) of different molar ratios, 1:1 and 1:2, were prepared by the solvent evaporation method. These complexes were characterized with thermal and spectral analyses. PC were dispersed in either phosphate buffered saline pH 7.4 or HA (0.1% w/v) in phosphate buffered saline to form phytosomes PC1:1, PC1:2, and PC1:2 HA, respectively. These phytosomal formulations were studied for size, zeta potential, morphology, contact angle, spreading coefficient, viscosity, ex vivo transcorneal permeation, and cytotoxicity using primary human corneal cells. L-carnosine-phospholipid formed a complex at a 1:2 molar ratio and phytosomes were in the size range of 380–450 nm, polydispersity index of 0.12–0.2. The viscosity of PC1:2 HA increased by 2.4 to 5-fold compared with HA solution and PC 1:2, respectively; significantly lower surface tension, contact angle, and greater spreading ability for phytosomes were also recorded. Ex vivo transcorneal permeation parameters showed significantly controlled corneal permeation of L-carnosine with the novel carrier systems without any significant impact on primary human corneal cell viability. Ex vivo porcine lenses incubated in high sugar media without and with L-carnosine showed concentration-dependent marked inhibition of lens brunescence indicative of the potential for delaying changes that underlie cataractogenesis that may be linked to diabetic processes.
Putative Multifunctional Signature of Lung Metastases in Dedifferentiated Chondrosarcoma

Chondrosarcomas are among the most malignant skeletal tumors. Dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma is a highly aggressive subtype of chondrosarcoma, with lung metastases developing within a few months of diagnosis in 90% of patients. In this paper we performed comparative analyses of the transcriptomes of five individual metastatic lung lesions that were surgically resected from a patient with dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma. We document for the first time a high heterogeneity of gene expression profiles among the individual lung metastases. Moreover, we reveal a signature of “multifunctional” genes that are expressed in all metastatic lung lesions. Also, for the first time, we document the occurrence of massive macrophage infiltration in dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma lung metastases.