Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Girls’ educational aspirations and agency: imagining alternative futures through schooling in a low-resourced Tanzanian community

ABSTRACT The chance of a secondary education for young girls who might have otherwise been among many out-of-school youth cultivates aspirations for their future. While aspirations to be educated expand the possibilities of opportunities, they also go unfulfilled in an environment of low achievement rates, high unemployment and constraining gender norms that can leave many secondary graduates disempowered. This study examines how aspirations, agency and future well-being are linked through 4 years of longitudinal data from interviews with girls in a technical and vocational school in rural Tanzania. Conceptually, the paper puts forward a framework within a capability approach to consider how aspirations and agency are oriented toward valued well-being. It also draws inspiration from Appadurai’s use of aspirations as a cultural concept that is future and change oriented and socially embedded. Finally, the body of scholarship that frames Bourdieu’s notion of agency as productive is drawn upon to illuminate whether and how girls are agentic in acting toward their aspirations. Bringing these conceptualizations together, the empirical analysis shows how aspirations and agency are dialectically related and socially situated, allowing for openings in agency to occur even when faced with gendered constraints to aspirations.
Experimental Analysis of Natural Gravel Covering as Cool Roofing and Cool Pavement

Passive solutions for building energy efficiency represent an interesting research focus nowadays. In particular, natural materials are widely investigated for their potential intrinsic high thermal energy and environmental performance. In this view, natural stones represent a promising solution as building envelope covering and urban pavement. This paper concerns the experimental characterization of several low-cost and local gravel coverings for roofs and urban paving, properly selected for their natural high albedo characteristics. To this aim, the in-field albedo of gravel samples is measured with varying grain size. These in-field measurements are compared to in-lab measurements of solar reflectance and thermal emissivity. The analysis shows a significant variation of the albedo with varying grain size. Both in-lab and in-field measurements agree that the stones with the finest grain size, i.e. , fine sand, have the best optic-thermal performance in terms of solar reflectance (62%). This feature results in the reduction of the surface temperature when exposed to solar radiation. Moreover, a natural mixed stone is compared to the high reflectance stone, demonstrating that the chosen stone presents an intrinsic “cool” behavior. Therefore, this natural, low-cost, durable and sustainable material could be successfully considered as a natural cool roof or cool paving solution.
Searching for Masculine Capital: Experiences Leading to High Drive for Muscularity in Men

Studies on the drive for muscularity (DFM) have primarily been quantitative, focused on identifying correlates. Currently little is known about men’s experiences leading them to desire high levels of muscle and engage in behaviors to increase their masculine capital. Our purpose was to explore the stories of men with high DFM revealing the sociocultural and personal factors leading to DFM and their search for masculine capital. In-depth life-history interviews and multiple in-the-field conversations were undertaken with 20 men (Mean age = 28.45, SD = 6.96, years) scoring ≥3 on the Drive for Muscularity Scale (M = 4.30, SD = 0.70). Men’s stories focused on a set of dysfunctional childhood and adolescent sociocultural interactions, including forms of symbolic violence, between them and significant others. In these interactions men were exposed to dominant social narratives of masculinity, and through comparisons and reinforcement they identified discrepancies between themselves and these narratives. In late adolescence and early adulthood men came to believe that they lacked masculine capital. Men struggled to increase their masculine capital through engagement with other traditional masculine activities (e.g., sport) and driven by activating events, they compensated through DFM desires and behaviors. This study advances knowledge by revealing the sociocultural and personal processes participants believed led to their high DFM. Findings disclose that men’s search for masculine capital may have led them to develop and maintain high levels of DFM.
CSAE WPS / 2006-12 Post-Conflict Risks

*We would like to thank Sarah Cliffe for suggesting the analysis of UN military peacekeeping expenditures and for arranging access to the data, and Meron Destra and Alice Kuegler for transforming them into a manageable form. We would like to thank participants at seminars at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and at the OECD for comments on previous drafts. Abstract Post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and risk reduction. Aid and policy reforms have been found to be highly effective in the economic recovery. In this paper we concentrate on the other challenge, risk reduction. The post-conflict peace is typically fragile: around half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses. Both external actors and the post-conflict government must therefore give priority to reducing the risk of conflict. Our statistical results suggest that economic development does substantially reduce risks, but it takes a long time. We also find evidence that UN peacekeeping expenditures significantly reduce the risk of renewed war. The effect is large: doubling expenditure reduces the risk from 40% to 31%. In contrast to these results we cannot find any systematic influence of elections on the reduction of war risk. Therefore, post-conflict elections should be promoted as intrinsically desirable rather than as mechanisms for increasing the durability of the post-conflict peace. Based on these results we suggest that peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining a gradual economic recovery, with political design playing a somewhat subsidiary role. Since there is a simple and statistically strong relationship between the severity of post-conflict risks and the level of income at the end of the conflict this provides a clear and uncontroversial principle for resource allocation: resources per capita should be approximately inversely proportional to the level of income in the post-conflict country.
MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT IN OLDER, RURAL-DWELLING ADULTS

Introduction: Rural-dwelling adults are particularly vulnerable to cognitive problems given known higher rates of associated risk factors and limited resources and access to care. Early cognitive changes remain understudied in this population. Objective: To determine if and how rural residence is a unique risk factor for delayed detection of early-stage cognitive impairment. Methods: Studies 1 and 2 involved secondary data analyses of the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Uniform Data Set and compared older rural- and urban-dwelling adults on key characteristics and cognitive symptom severity. Study 1 used a cross-sectional design to examine sociodemographic factors, comorbid conditions and cognitive symptom severity between groups. Study 2 used the same variables from Study 1, to examine possible differences in results using two geographic classification schemes. Studies 3 and 4 used qualitative methods including semi-structured, in-home interviews with participants with early cognitive changes and care partners. Study 3 explored perceived determinants of health in these rural-dwelling dyads using thematic content analysis. Study 4 described their subjective experiences at three time periods around a specialty research center visit. Results: Study 1. Rural and urban groups differed significantly in mean (±SD) years since onset of cognitive symptoms (2.98±1.91 in rural and 3.89±2.70 in urban adults, t[260]= -2.23, P = .03), but they did not differ across sociodemographic features, comorbid conditions, or cognitive symptom severity. Study 2. Results varied both in magnitude and direction of odds ratio differences between two geographic classification schemes for outcome variables. Study 3. Six themes emerged about perceived determinants of health: 1) Staying active, 2) Eating well, 3) Living with cognitive changes, 4) Living rural, 5) Connecting with neighbors and community, and 6) Relying on children. Study 4. Dyad experiences varied across the three time periods. Dyads sought to learn more about cognitive symptoms and described the impact of cognitive changes on everyday life. Conclusions: There were no significant differences in cognitive symptom severity between rural- and urban-dwelling participants. Qualitative findings highlight critical aspects of rural adults’ perceived determinants of health and reactions to cognitive symptoms and diagnosis, which may be used to help target earlier diagnosis and improve long-term disease management.
Fluctuation-induced first order transition due to Griffiths anomalies of the cluster glass phase

In itinerant magnetic systems with disorder, the quantum Griffiths phase at T = 0 is unstable to formation of a cluster glass (CG) of frozen droplet degrees of freedom. In the absence of the fluctuations associated with these degrees of freedom, the transition from the paramagnetic Fermi liquid (PMFL) to the ordered phase proceeds via a conventional second-order quantum phase transition. However, when the Griffiths anomalies due to the broad distribution of local energy scales are included, the transition is driven first-order via a novel mechanism for a fluctuation induced first-order transition. At higher temperatures, thermal effects restore the transition to second-order. Implications of the enhanced non-Ohmic dissipation in the CG phase are briefly discussed.
Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling

Objective: Mindfulness is a process whereby one is aware and receptive to present moment experiences. Although mindfulness-enhancing interventions reduce pathological mental and physical health symptoms across a wide variety of conditions and diseases, the mechanisms underlying these effects remain unknown. Converging evidence from the mindfulness and neuroscience literature suggests that labeling affect may be one mechanism for these effects. Methods: Participants (n = 27) indicated trait levels of mindfulness and then completed an affect labeling task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The labeling task consisted of matching facial expressions to appropriate affect words (affect labeling) or to gender-appropriate names (gender labeling control task). Results: After controlling for multiple individual difference measures, dispositional mindfulness was associated with greater widespread prefrontal cortical activation, and reduced bilateral amygdala activity during affect labeling, compared with the gender labeling control task. Further, strong negative associations were found between areas of prefrontal cortex and right amygdala responses in participants high in mindfulness but not in participants low in mindfulness. Conclusions: The present findings with a dispositional measure of mindfulness suggest one potential neurocognitive mechanism for understanding how mindfulness meditation interventions reduce negative affect and improve health outcomes, showing that mindfulness is associated with enhanced prefrontal cortical regulation of affect through labeling of negative affective stimuli. fMRI = functional magnetic resonance imaging; PFC = prefrontal cortex; VLPFC = ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; VMPFC = ventromedial prefrontal cortex; MPFC = medial prefrontal cortex; DLPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
Using the Three Delays Model to Examine Civil Registration Barriers in Indonesia

The Three Delays Model has proven a useful framework for examining barriers to seeking obstetric care and preventing maternal and child mortality. This article demonstrates the applicability of the Three Delays Model to the case of civil registration in rural Indonesia and examines ways that efforts to strengthen civil registration services can draw on lessons from maternal and child health programming. Twenty focus group discussions were conducted using a participatory ranking exercise in four Indonesian districts. Focus groups were stratified into four groups: (1) government officials involved in civil registration, (2) civil society organization members that assist communities in civil registration, and (3) female and (4) male community members. Transcripts were analyzed using constant comparative method and thematic analysis, revealing barriers that communities commonly faced in accessing civil registration services. In examining the categories and themes related to these barriers, the research team found a significant overlap with the factors and phases of the Three Delays Model. Participants were delayed from seeking registration services by a range of sociocultural factors and by the perceived inaccessibility and poor quality of services. Once they decided to seek care, long distances to services and poor transportation options delayed their access to registration offices. Finally, a series of bottlenecks in service provision created extended delays once applicants reached registration offices. Ownership of civil registration documents in Indonesia remains exceptionally low, with just over half of children and youth possessing a birth certificate. To strengthen civil registration and health systems more generally, it is important to understand the factors that enable and constrain civil registration, how these factors relate to one another, and how they change over a child’s life.
Selection of the Best Answer in CQA Services

This study examines the factors that affect the selection of the best answer in a Community-driven Question Answering service (Yahoo! Answers). Factors identified were classified into three categories namely, social, textual and content-appraisal features. Social features refer to the community aspects of the users involved and are extracted from the explicit user interaction and feedback. Textual features refer to the surface aspects of the text such as answer length, number of unique words etc. The content-appraisal features emphasis on the quality of the content and the relevance judgment used by the asker to select the best answer. The framework built comprises 12 features from the three categories. Based on a randomly selected dataset of 800 question-answer pairs from Yahoo! Answers, social, textual and content-appraisal features were collected. The results of logistic regression showed the significance of content-appraisal features over social and textual features. The implications of these findings for system development and for future research are discussed.
The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes

Using straight industrial bonds with quoted prices, we investigate the determinants of credit spread changes. The variables that should in theory determine credit spread changes in fact have limited explanatory power. Further, the residuals from this first-pass regression are highly cross-correlated, and principal components analysis strongly suggests they are driven by a single common factor. We investigate several macro-economic and financial variables as candidate proxies for this factor. We cannot, however, find any set of variables which explain this common systematic factor. Our results suggest the corporate bond market is a segmented market driven by corporate bond specific supply/demand shocks.
Green metadata based adaptive DVFS for energy efficient video decoding

We present in this paper GM-DVFS, an adaptive DVFS scheme for energy efficient decoding of H.264 videos. GM-DVFS uses metadata (normalized by the MPEG Green Metadata standard) providing information about the upcoming workload. In the solution we propose, these metadata are processed within an adaptive filter to build dynamically an accurate video decoding complexity model. This model serves to calculate the minimal required processor frequency for decoding a video frame while guaranteeing the real time constraints. Our performance evaluations showed that the proposed algorithm is able to converge to an accurate complexity model (4%) in less than 1 second (in the worst case). Moreover, it is simple to implement (250 lines of C code) and induces very low overhead (1400 cycles/frames). On the other hand, it allows to achieve up to 46% energy saving as compared to the on demand Linux DVFS governor.
A k-12 college partnership

To combat the decline of teaching computing courses in high schools, a plan was created to offer professional development (in both content and pedagogy) to high school computing teachers, and to have college faculty partner with those high school teachers to implement innovative curricula. This paper describes a pilot program that was run in support of an NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project that funded this plan of action. Professional development activities were offered during summer 2006 and the resulting curriculum was taught in high school the following academic year (2006-2007).
Penerapan project based learning terintegrasi STEM untuk meningkatkan literasi sains siswa ditinjau dari gender

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki pengaruh gender siswa terhadap literasi sains melalui pembelajaran project based learning (PjBL) yang diintegrasikan dengan science, technology, engineering, dan mathematics (STEM) pada tema pencemaran udara. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah pre-eksperimen dengan desain The static Group Pretest-Posttest Design yang dilaksanakan di kelas VII SMP Islam Terpadu di kabupaten Sukabumi sebanyak 57 siswa yang terdiri dari kelas laki-laki (29 orang) dan kelas perempuan (28 orang). Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan menggunakan tes awal dan tes akhir untuk literasi sains dan angket siswa terhadap PjBL STEM. Berdasarkan hasil analisis data diperoleh peningkatan literasi sains siswa kelompok laki-laki dan kelompok perempuan sama-sama mengalami peningkatan dengan rerata N_Gain yaitu 0,36 dan 0,31 pada kategori sedang untuk aspek pengetahuan dan kompetensi. Hasil uji-t menunjukkan bahwa peningkatan literasi sains kelas laki-laki dan kelas perempuan berbeda tidak signifikan. Pada aspek sikap sains, kelas perempuan berbeda signifikan dari kelas laki-laki. Tanggapan siswa secara keseluruhan menunjukkan hampir seluruh siswa menyatakan senang dengan pembelajaran PjBL STEM dan memperoleh pengalaman yang sangat berkesan mengikuti tahapan pembelajaran sehingga menimbulkan motivasi dan minat dalam belajar. Kata Kunci: project based learning; STEM; literasi sains; gender Implementation Project-Based Learning Integrated STEM to Improve Scientific Literacy Based on Gender Abstract This study aims to investigate the influence of gender on the students' science literacy through project based learning (PjBL) integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) approach for students junior high school. The theme used in this project was air pollution. The method used was pre-experimental design the static group pretest-posttest design and was implemented in grade VII of the Integrated Islamic school at Sukabumi. The subjects were 57 students divided into two, male group (N = 29) and female group (N = 28). The data collection was done by pretest and posttest for scientific literacy and students' responses to the PjBL STEM. Based on the result it were obtained that an average N_Gain of male group was 0.36 and was 0.31 for female group with medium category on knowledge and competence. T-test results showed that increasing scientific literacy male group and female of different classes do not signifikan. Attitude aspect of science, female group differ significantly from male group. The student responses showed almost all of the students agreed to the implementation of the PjBL STEM and gain great new experiences that stages of learning that lead to be interested and motivated in learning. Keywords : project-based learning, STEM, scien tific literacy, gender
Early identification of learners with autism spectrum disorder: drawing on developmental histories

ABSTRACT This article examines early developmental histories of learners who attended a government-funded school for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in South Africa from 1992 to 2014. A total of 141 complete historical admission records of learners were analysed. Frequencies, means and correlations were determined for perinatal conditions and developmental milestones. Low birth weight and preterm birth did not occur more than in the general South African population. Only 7.6% of the participants had delayed motor development. Self-help skills, except for feeding, were mostly achieved according to typical developmental criteria. Half of the participants started talking after the age of three years and that was the main reason why parents became concerned about their development. The percentage of participants who were non-verbal and had regressed speech was higher than that reported in other studies. Public information should focus on early developmental factors associated with ASD risk to expedite early identification and diagnosis.
On the Evolution and Appearance of a Surviving Companion after a Type Ia Supernova Explosion

One promising method to test progenitor models for Type Ia supernovae is to identify surviving companion stars in historical supernova remnants. A surviving companion will have been strongly affected by its interaction with the supernova ejecta. Here we systematically explore the evolution and appearance of a typical companion star that has been stripped and heated by the supernova interaction during the post-impact re-equilibration phase. We show that, depending on the amount of heating and the amount of mass stripped by the impact or the previous binary mass transfer, such a star may be significantly overluminous or underluminous 10^3 - 10^4 yr after the supernova relative to its pre-supernova luminosity (by up to two orders of magnitude) and discuss the implications of these results for the strategies to be employed in searches for such companions.
The zigzag paradigm: a new P300-based brain computer interface

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are used to translate the input of Electroencephalogram (EEG), digitally-recorded via electrodes on the user's scalp, into output commands that control external devices. A P300-based BCI speller system is based upon visual Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in response to stimulation, as derived from EEG, and is used to type on a computer screen. The Row-Column speller Paradigm (RCP), utilizing a 6-by-6 character matrix, has been a widely-used successful P300 speller, despite inherent problems of adjacency, crowding, and fatigue. RCP is compared here with a new P300 speller interface, the Zigzag Paradigm (ZP). In the ZP interface every second row of the 6-by-6 character matrix is offset to the right by $d/2$ cm, where $d$ cm is the horizontal distance between two adjacent characters. This shifting addressed the adjacency problem by removing all vertical adjacent characters and increasing the distance between most adjacent characters. This shifting also addressed the crowding problem, for most characters, by reducing the number of other characters surrounding a character; critically the target character. A user study upon neurologically-normal individuals revealed significant improvements in online classification performance with the ZP, as supported the view that ZP effectively addressed adjacency and crowding problems. Subjective ratings also revealed that the ZP was more comfortable and caused less fatigue. Theoretical and practical implications of the applicability of the ZP for patients with neuromuscular diseases are discussed.