Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Manual Signing on Communicative Verbalizations by Toddlers with and without Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms

Inclusive programs involving toddlers with and without disabilities are becoming increasingly common. However, little research has evaluated the effects of specific aspects of inclusive services on participating children without disabilities. Due in part to parental concerns over a potentially reductive impact of manual signing on the communicative verbalizations of children without disabilities, we evaluated effects of manual signing by a classroom teacher on verbalizations of toddlers in an inclusive classroom. Manual signing was introduced sequentially by the teacher within ongoing verbal interactions with the toddlers in three play activities. Results indicated that teacher signing was accompanied by increases in communicative interactions involving signing with the teacher by each group of toddlers with and without disabilities. No reductive effects on communicative verbalizations were observed for any toddler group. These results offer support for using signing in an inclusive classroom without detrimental effects on the verbal functioning of children without disabilities. Future research should focus on conducting similar evaluations in other types of inclusive settings.
Inaction Inertia: Foregoing Future Benefits as a Result of an Initial Failure to Act

The circumstances under which initial inaction tends to persist were studied. Inaction inertia occurs when bypassing an initial action opportunity decreases the likelihood that subsequent similar action opportunities will be taken. The authors studied the case in which an initial attractive action opportunity, which is not taken, is followed by another positive but somewhat less attractive action opportunity. In 6 experiments, participants were less likely to take the second action when the discrepancy in attractiveness between the initial and final action opportunities was relatively large, compared with small-discrepancy participants or control participants, who were offered only the second opportunity. This finding was obtained using both a scenario methodology and an actual experimental situation. Possible explanations for inaction inertia based on perceptual contrast, dissonance, selfperception, or commitment theories were tested but were not clearly supported. Experiment 6, however, indicated that framing the initial inaction as a loss plays an important mediating role in producing inaction inertia
Family Strategies and Transnational Migration: Recent Polish Migrants in London

Poland's accession to the European Union in May 2004 brought many new possibilities and opportunities for Polish migrants to Britain. However, the focus on individual migrants has underestimated the complex roles of families in migration strategies and decision-making. Based on a qualitative study of recent Polish migrants in London, this paper explores the varied dynamics of family relationships, including caring, support and obligation. We examine how families may be reconfigured in different ways through migration. Transnational networks and splits within families are also discussed. We conclude that, in exploring family migration, it is necessary to go beyond a household perspective to appreciate the diversity of transnational and inter-generational relationships.
Majority‐minority influence: identifying argumentative patterns and predicting argument‐outcome links

In this paper, the authors investigate the argument activities of majority and minority factions in small group decision-making situations. We begin by identifying patterns of argument that characterize majority and minority communication in 34 discussions and then test several subgroup-outcome and argument-outcome links. Results indicate that winning and losing subgroups argue differently (as do minority and majority subgroups overall) and that consistency in argument is a strong predictor of subgroup success. Both theoretical and practical implications for subgroup influence in group decision making accrue from these findings.
Generation of Multiple Classes of V0 Neurons in Zebrafish Spinal Cord: Progenitor Heterogeneity and Temporal Control of Neuronal Diversity

The developing spinal cord is subdivided into distinct progenitor domains, each of which gives rise to different types of neurons. However, the developmental mechanisms responsible for generating neuronal diversity within a domain are not well understood. Here, we have studied zebrafish V0 neurons, those that derive from the p0 progenitor domain, to address this question. We find that all V0 neurons have commissural axons, but they can be divided into excitatory and inhibitory classes. V0 excitatory neurons (V0-e) can be further categorized into three groups based on their axonal trajectories; V0-eA (ascending), V0-eB (bifurcating), and V0-eD (descending) neurons. By using time-lapse imaging of p0 progenitors and their progeny, we show that inhibitory and excitatory neurons are produced from different progenitors. We also demonstrate that V0-eA neurons are produced from distinct progenitors, while V0-eB and V0-eD neurons are produced from common progenitors. We then use birth-date analysis to reveal that V0-eA, V0-eB, and V0-eD neurons arise in this order. By perturbing Notch signaling and accelerating neuronal differentiation, we predictably alter the generation of early born V0-e neurons at the expense of later born ones. These results suggest that multiple types of V0 neurons are produced by two distinct mechanisms; from heterogeneous p0 progenitors and from the same p0 progenitor, but in a time-dependent manner.
Classroom discourse in college English teaching of China: a pedagogic or natural mode?

The study reported in this article aims to capture the possible changes to the discursive mode of College English (CE) teaching in China by comparing teachers' questions, feedback, and teaching exchanges across two levels of quality courses constructed at different years. Based on transcribed data of 20 videos, it reveals that the general discursive mode of CE teaching was pedagogic; constraints such as sociocultural backgrounds, CE testing system, and factors related to teacher, student, and classroom may account for this mode. Meanwhile, significant differences were found regarding teachers' questioning behaviour and feedback as years elapsed and the course level rose, which may be caused by underlying teachers' beliefs. Implications for Chinese CE teachers and tertiary-level teachers in other Asian English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms are discussed, including the urgency for teachers in teacher-fronted classes to shift their discursive mode from pedagogic to natural to foster students' communicative competence, and suggestions for how to effectuate this shift provided.
Viscoelastic guidance of resuscitation

Purpose of review Bleeding in trauma carries a high mortality and is increased in case of coagulopathy. Our understanding of hemostasis and coagulopathy has improved, leading to a change in the protocols for hemostatic monitoring. This review describes the current state of evidence supporting the use of viscoelastic hemostatic assays to guide trauma resuscitation. Recent findings Viscoelastic hemostatic assays such as thrombelastography and rotational thrombelastometry have shown to reduce bleeding, transfusion of fresh frozen plasma and platelets, and possibly mortality in different surgical populations. In trauma care, viscoelastic hemostatic assays allows for rapid and timely identification of coagulopathy and individualized, goal-directed transfusion therapy. As part of the resuscitation concept, viscoelastic hemostatic assays seem to improve outcome also in trauma; however, there is a need for randomized clinical trials to confirm this. Summary We are moving toward avoiding coagulopathy by individualized, goal-directed transfusion therapy, using viscoelastic hemostatic assays to guide ongoing resuscitation of actively bleeding patients in a goal-directed manner.
Vitamin D Therapy in Individuals With Prehypertension or Hypertension: The DAYLIGHT Trial

Background— A large body of epidemiological and experimental evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency may promote hypertension. This raises the possibility that vitamin D supplementation could be a simple intervention to reduce blood pressure, but data from prospective, randomized trials are limited. Methods and Results— A double-blind, randomized, controlled trial was conducted at 4 sites in the United States. We enrolled 534 individuals 18 to 50 years of age with low vitamin D status (25-hydroxyvitamin D levels ⩽25 ng/mL) and systolic blood pressure of 120 to 159 mm Hg. Participants were randomized to high-dose (4000 IU/d) versus low-dose (400 IU/d) oral vitamin D3 for 6 months. The primary end point was change in mean 24-hour systolic blood pressure. Secondary end points included change in ambulatory diastolic blood pressure and clinic systolic and diastolic blood pressures. The median age was 38 years, and 62% of participants were men. Forty-six percent of participants were white, and 48% were black. The median 25-hydroxyvitamin D level at baseline was 15.3 ng/mL. Four-hundred fifty-five participants (85%) had at least 1 follow-up blood pressure measurement; 383 participants (72%) completed the full 6-month study. At the end of the study, there was no significant difference in the primary end point (change in mean 24-hour systolic blood pressure, −0.8 versus −1.6 mm Hg in the high-dose and low-dose arms; P=0.71) or in any of the secondary end points. Furthermore, there was no evidence of association between change in 25-hydroxyvitamin D and change in 24-hour systolic blood pressure at 6 months (Spearman correlation coefficient, −0.05, P=0.34). Results were consistent across prespecified subgroups. Conclusions— Vitamin D supplementation did not reduce blood pressure in individuals with prehypertension or stage I hypertension and vitamin D deficiency. Our findings suggest that the association between vitamin D status and elevated blood pressure noted in observational studies is not causal. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01240512.
On the telephone again! Differences in telephone behaviour: England versus Greece

ABSTRACT This article investigates differences in telephone behaviour in England and Greece in the light of Brown and Levinson's model of interaction. It focusses upon differences both in verbal telephone call behaviour and in the attitudes and values attached to telephone usage. Explanations are placed within a broad framework of cultural differences in the preferred interactional strategies of the two societies. (Sociolinguistics, culturally determined variations in telephone behaviour, politeness phenomena, Greece versus England)
Follow-Up Study of the Effects of a Supplemental Early Reading Intervention on the Reading/Disability Risk of Urban Primary Learners

Early intervention to mitigate special education and reading risk is especially critical for low socioeconomic and minority learners. This study examined the lasting effects of an early reading intervention package of phonemic awareness on the reading skills of 38 second-grade students one and two years after intervention ended. The participants were kindergarten through second grade low socioeconomic, racially diverse learners from three urban elementary schools. Assessments consisted of standardized annual pre- and posttests and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills regular measures. The findings showed beneficial effects of the early literacy interventions with strong responders attaining and maintaining benchmark status and with poorer responders needing more intensive instruction to show continuous growth. On the other hand, initially low-risk (non-treatment) urban learners failed to maintain their early advantage over their higher risk peers, suggesting the need for more extensive monitoring and interventions within urban settings. The implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.
Building a Second Closet: Third Party Responses to Victims of Lesbian Partner Abuse

This article examines the problem of violence in intimate lesbian relationships and the role of third party responses to victims in perpetuating or preventing future attacks. Based on questionnaire and interview data from a nationwide self-selected sample of 100 battered lesbians, the article first examines the incidence and forms of abuse in violent lesbian relationships. It then analyzes victims' help-seeking efforts, the responses of help providers to these requests, and the impact of these responses on both victims and violent episodes. The article concludes with recommendations for improving the ways third party help providers respond to lesbian victims.
Large-Scale Anisotropic Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies

We study the large-scale anisotropic two-point correlation function using 46,760 luminous red galaxies at redshifts 0.16-0.47 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We measure the correlation function as a function of separations parallel and perpendicular to the line of sight in order to take account of anisotropy of the large-scale structure in redshift space. We find a slight signal of baryonic features in the anisotropic correlation function, i.e., a “baryon ridge” corresponding to a baryon acoustic peak in the spherically averaged correlation function, which has already been reported using the same sample. The baryon ridge has primarily a spherical structure with a known radius in comoving coordinates. It enables us to divide the redshift distortion effects into dynamical and geometrical components and provides further constraints on cosmological parameters, including the dark energy equation-of-state. With an assumption of a flat Λ cosmology, we find the best-fit values of Ωm = 0.218−0.037+0.047 and Ωb = 0.047 ± 0.016 (68% CL) when we use the overall shape of the anisotropic correlation function of 40 < s < 200 h−1 Mpc including a scale of baryon acoustic oscillations. When an additional assumption of Ωbh2 = 0.024 is adopted, we obtain ΩDE = 0.770−0.040+0.051 and w = − 0.93−0.35+0.45. These constraints are estimated only from our data of the anisotropic correlation function, and they agree quite well with values both from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and from other complementary statistics using the LRG sample. With the CMB prior from the 3 year WMAP results, we give stronger constraints on those parameters.
Elevated Arterial Compliance in Patients with Cirrhosis Is Not Related to Arterial Endothelin-1

Background: Patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension have a hyperkinetic systemic circulation. A number of circulating vasoactive peptides, including endothelin-1 (ET-1), are elevated and, recently, increased arterial compliance has been described in these patients. The aim of the present study was to investigate a potential relation between altered arterial compliance and arterial ET-1 in patients with cirrhosis. As ET-1 may be manipulated by somastostatin, the study includes infusion of octreotide in a subset of patients. Methods: A total of 67 patients with cirrhosis and 27 controls were studied during a haemodynamic investigation. Arterial ET-1 was determined by two different radioimmunoassays and arterial compliance was determined as the stroke volume/pulse pressure index. Results: Arterial compliance was elevated by 32%-40% in the cirrhotic patients as compared to the controls ( P < 0.005). Arterial ET-1 was elevated by 26%-170% in the cirrhotic patients ( P < 0.001). No significant relationships could be established between arterial compliance and arterial ET-1 ( r = -0.15 to 0.23, ns). Intravenous bolus injection and infusion of octreotide (100 μg + 100 μg/h, n = 9) did not significantly change either arterial compliance or arterial ET-1. Conclusion: Both arterial compliance and arterial ET-1 are substantially elevated in patients with cirrhosis, but there is no significant relation between arterial compliance and arterial ET-1 in these patients.
Dataset Construction via Attention for Aspect Term Extraction with Distant Supervision

Aspect Term Extraction (ATE) detects opinionated aspect terms in sentences or text spans, with the end goal of performing aspect-based sentiment analysis. The small amount of available datasets for supervised ATE and the fact that they cover only a few domains raise the need for exploiting other data sources in new and creative ways. Publicly available review corpora contain a plethora of opinionated aspect terms and cover a larger domain spectrum. In this paper, we first propose a method for using such review corpora for creating a new dataset for ATE. Our method relies on an attention mechanism to select sentences that have a high likelihood of containing actual opinionated aspects. We thus improve the quality of the extracted aspects. We then use the constructed dataset to train a model and perform ATE with distant supervision. By evaluating on human annotated datasets, we prove that our method achieves a significantly improved performance over various unsupervised and supervised baselines. Finally, we prove that sentence selection matters when it comes to creating new datasets for ATE. Specifically, we show that, using a set of selected sentences leads to higher ATE performance compared to using the whole sentence set.
The design of a schoolchildren identification and transportation tracking system

In Malaysia, five million children commute to school daily. There are approximately 40 percent of children use public and private vehicles to school. The busy schedule and hectic working lives of the parent are causing them not able to monitor the safety of their children in commuting to and from school. This project presents the design of a prototype, called KidBus.Tracker that tracks schoolchildren in school vehicles. The design includes the use of global positioning satellite (GPS) tracking as a way to track the school vehicle, while passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology was used to record the children's presence in the vehicle. The data logged by the hardware would then be extracted and fed to a website in real-time. Parents would be able to monitor the school vehicle's movement while their children are on board through the KidBus.Tracker website.
Evaluation of the Force‐Frequency Relationship as a Descriptor of the Inotropic State of Canine Left Ventricular Myocardium

The short-term force-frequency characteristics of canine left ventricular myocardium were examined in both isolated and intact preparations by briefly perturbing the frequency of contraction with early extrasystoles. The maximum rate of rise of isometric tension (Fmax) of the isolated trabeculae cameae was potentiated by the introduction of extrasystoles. The ratio of Fmax of potentiated to control beats (force-frequency ratio) was not altered significantly by a change in muscle length. However, exposure of the trabeculae to isoproterenol (10-7 m) significantly changed the force-frequency ratio obtained in response to a constant frequency perturbation. Similar experiments were performed on chronically instrumented conscious dogs. Left ventricular minor axis diameter was measured with implanted pulse-transit ultrasonic dimension transducers, and intracavitary pressure was measured with a high fidelity micromanometer. Atrial pacing was performed so that the end-diastolic diameters of the beats preceding and following the extrasystole could be made identical. Large increases in the maximum rate of rise of pressure (Pmax) were seen in the contraction after the extrasystoie. The ratio of Pmi of the potentiated beat to that of the control beat was not changed by a 9% increase in the end-dlastollc diameter, produced by saline infusion. Conversely, isoproterenol significantly altered this relationship in the same manner as in the isolated muscle. Thus, either in vitro or in situ, left ventricular myocardium exhibits large functional changes in response to brief perturbations in rate. The isoproterenol and length data indicate that the force-frequency ratio reflects frequency-dependent changes in the inotropic state, independent of changes in length.
Tone Mapping HDR Panoramas for Viewing in Head Mounted Displays

Head-mounted displays enable a user to view a complete environment as if he/she was there; providing an immersive experience. However, the lighting in a full environment can vary significantly. Panoramic images captured with conventional, Low Dynamic Range (LDR), imaging of scenes with a large range of lighting conditions, can include areas of under- or over-exposed pixels. High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, on the other hand, is able to capture the full range of detail in a scene. However, HMDs are not currently HDR and thus the HDR panorama needs to be tone mapped before it can be displayed on the LDR HMD. While a large number of tone mapping operators have been proposed in the last 25 years, these were not designed for panoramic images, or for use with HMDs. This paper undertakes a two part subjective study to investigate which of the current, state-of-the-art tone mappers is most suitable for use with HMDs
New lecturers’ constructions of learning, teaching and research in higher education

The latest UK White Paper has once again focused attention on the quality of learning, teaching and professional development in higher education. Underpinning the discussion is the premise that teaching excellence and professional development are essential for all academics, in particular new lecturers, which are firmly positioned within the framework of quality enhancement. The research reported in this article focuses on new lecturers’ constructs of teaching, learning and research as identified by Kelly’s personal construct theory. The elicited constructs are considered with respect to the changing demands and expectations made of new lecturers within the higher education community and the implications these may have for higher education.
The Mass of the MACHO-LMC-5 Lens Star

We combine the available astrometric and photometric data for the 1993 microlensing event MACHO-LMC-5 to measure the mass of the lens, ℳ = 0.097 ± 0.016 ℳ☉. This is the most precise direct mass measurement of a single star other than the Sun. In principle, the measurement error could be reduced as low as 10% by improving the trigonometric parallax measurement using, for example, the Space Interferometry Mission. Further improvements might be possible by rereducing the original photometric light curve using image subtraction or by obtaining new, higher precision baseline photometry of the source. We show that the current data strongly limit scenarios in which the lens is a dark (i.e., brown dwarf) companion to the observed M dwarf rather than being the M dwarf itself. These results set the stage for a confrontation between mass estimates of the M dwarf obtained from spectroscopic and photometric measurements and a mass measurement derived directly from the star's gravitational influence. This would be the first such confrontation for any isolated star other than the Sun.