Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between Follicular Fluid Leptin and Serum Insulin Levels in Nonoverweight Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Aims. We evaluated the links between leptin and visfatin levels and fertilization rates in nonoverweight (NOW) women with PCOS (NOW-PCOS) from Apulia undergoing in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (IVF). Materials and Methodology. We recruited 16 NOW women with PCOS (NOW-PCOS) and 10 normally ovulating NOW women (control-NOW). All women underwent IVF. Androgens, 17-β-estradiol (17β-E2), and insulin levels were measured in plasma and/or serum and leptin and visfatin levels were assayed in both serum and follicular fluid (FF-leptin, FF-visfatin). Results. In NOW-PCOS, both serum and FF-leptin were significantly lower than in control-NOW. In NOW-PCOS, significant correlations were found between BMI and serum leptin and insulinemia and FF-leptin. By contrast, in control-NOW, FF-leptin levels were not correlated with insulinemia. Serum visfatin levels were not significantly different in NOW-PCOS and control-NOW, but FF-visfatin levels were 1.6-fold higher, although not significantly, in NOW-PCOS than in control-NOW. Conclusions. Both serum leptin levels and FF-leptin are BMI- and insulin-related in Southern Italian NOW-PCOS from Apulia. In line with other reports showing that FF-leptin levels are predictive of fertilization rates, lower than normal FF-leptin levels in NOW-PCOS may explain their lower fertilization rate and this may be related to the level of insulin and/or insulin resistance.
Similarities and Differences of the Narrative Structure of Western and Chinese Short Narratives

The author chooses both Chinese and English short narratives as samples to analyze their narrative structures so as to testify one presupposition that Chinese people and western people are different in ways of thinking that can be reflected in the narrative structures of their writing. Twelve Chinese short narratives and ten English short narratives are listed from ancient to modern time in their chronological order. The author divides each sample into narrative units in the light of the theory of structuralist narratology and defines the relations between narrative units with different relation definitions according to the Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). On this theoretical basis, the author illustrates all the diagrams of 22 samples with marked relation definitions, which are sorted out and rated so as to compare and contrast the logical relations in those Chinese and western narrative frameworks. The conclusion proves that the narrative frameworks of both English and Chinese short narratives are generally similar to each other in structure from ancient times except for a few differences in modern times. English short narratives tend to emphasize originality and individuality, as well as logical reasoning and linear order for westerners tend to be increasingly thinking for clarity and logical consistency since Socrates and Aristotle. Meanwhile, Chinese people tend to be thinking and writing in a spiral and complete circle echoing the traditional yin-and-yang principle and five-element principle until the “May 4th of 1918”, during which Chinese opened their mind to accept westerner’s science and democracy.
Quality-retaining OLED dynamic voltage scaling for video streaming applications on mobile devices

This paper developed a dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) technique for the power management of the OLED display on mobile devices in video streaming applications. An optimal voltage control scheme is proposed under input constraints. Fine-grained DVS technique is applied to maximize the power saving by leveraging the locality of the display content. The display quality is retained by monitoring structural-similarity-index (SSIM) during the optimization, subject to the hardware constraints like voltage regulator response time. Simulation results on four typical video test benchmarks show that the proposed technique saves 19.05%~49.05% OLED power on average while maintaining a high display quality (SSIM >; 0.98) all the time. The power saving efficiency of the proposed technique varies at different display resolutions, refresh rates, and display contents.
A Role of Phase-Resetting in Coordinating Large Scale Neural Networks During Attention and Goal-Directed Behavior

Short periods of oscillatory activation are ubiquitous signatures of neural circuits. A broad range of studies documents not only their circuit origins, but also a fundamental role for oscillatory activity in coordinating information transfer during goal directed behavior. Recent studies suggest that resetting the phase of ongoing oscillatory activity to endogenous or exogenous cues facilitates coordinated information transfer within circuits and between distributed brain areas. Here, we review evidence that pinpoints phase resetting as a critical marker of dynamic state changes of functional networks. Phase resets: (1) set a “neural context” in terms of narrow band frequencies that uniquely characterizes the activated circuits; (2) impose coherent low frequency phases to which high frequency activations can synchronize, identifiable as cross-frequency correlations across large anatomical distances; (3) are critical for neural coding models that depend on phase, increasing the informational content of neural representations; and (4) likely originate from the dynamics of canonical E-I circuits that are anatomically ubiquitous. These multiple signatures of phase resets are directly linked to enhanced information transfer and behavioral success. We survey how phase resets re-organize oscillations in diverse task contexts, including sensory perception, attentional stimulus selection, cross-modal integration, Pavlovian conditioning, and spatial navigation. The evidence we consider suggests that phase-resets can drive changes in neural excitability, ensemble organization, functional networks, and ultimately, overt behavior.
Bilingual creativity in Saudi stand‐up comedy

Stand-up comedy is one of those art forms in which linguistic creativity can be seen in its most extravagant form, as stand-up comedians mainly rely on their creative use of language to interact with their audience. This paper explores bilingual creativity in stand-up comedy in Saudi English as an emerging variety. It investigates the form and function of bilingual creativity processes employed by Saudi comedians performing in English, and sets out to answer such questions as: What are the common forms of bilingual creativity in Saudi English stand-up comedy and what functions do they serve; what cultural conceptualizations do these forms and functions evoke, and what are the implications of this study for researching bilingual creativity in world Englishes?
Binocular Stereo Vision Based Face Recognition Using Sparse Representation

An effective and fast face recognition method that is capable of dealing with faces under variable pose and illumination conditions has been proposed in this paper. First, the face is detected and the eyes are located automatically by the two cameras, eyes located in the two cameras are matched and the pose angle of the face is calculated. Then, the frontal face is generated according to the pose angle with the method of Binocular Stereo Vision. After that, Sparse Representation method is performed on the frontal face in order to be robust to the different illuminating conditions. Experimental results show that our pose angle calculation method is precise and practical, and our face recognition method can maintain good performance with varying pose as well as varying lighting conditions.
Influencing Academic Motivation: The Effects of Student–Faculty Interaction

Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, we examined the influence of student–faculty interactions on student academic motivation over 4 years of college. Results suggest that several forms of student–faculty interaction, such as quality of faculty contact, frequency of faculty contact, research with faculty, personal discussion with faculty, and out-of-class interactions with faculty, have a positive influence on academic motivation, even when controlling for a host of student background characteristics and institutional characteristics, including a precollege measure of academic motivation.
Autodestructive syndromes: A literature review

Background: The phenomenon 'autodestructive behaviour' is becoming an increasingly serious disease and cost factor in a wide range of medical fields. The present paper presents a survey of the literature on autodestructive behaviour, excluding psychotic, substance-induced or organic brain disorders. Starting out with a conceptual overview, the paper goes on to look into the epidemiology of autodestructive behaviour and the forms in which it manifests itself. Method: A literature search was conducted in Medline, Psycinfo and Psyndex using the search terms 'artifact', 'artificially induced', 'autodestructive', 'self-mutilation', 'factitious', 'self-harm', 'self-induced', 'self-inflicted', 'self-injuring' and 'self-mutilation' for the period from 1977 to 2003. Results: Five of a total of 18 empirical studies describe the simultaneous occurrence of direct and indirect forms of autodestructive behaviour. Reported prevalence rates range from 0.032% to 9.36%. The ratio of females to males was found to be 2:1 (average age: 31.5 years; SD: 9.3 years); in contrast, the gender ratio was reversed for Munchausen's syndrome. The case history data presented are patchy and differ in terms of their priorities. We found a large number of codiagnoses, which seems to indicate that personality and dependence disorders, or substance misuse, are characteristic of both direct and indirect forms of autodestructive behaviour. Conclusions: The task at hand is to use a yet-to-be-developed nomenclature and adequately operational diagnostic criteria to work out standardised survey instruments that do justice to the heterogeneity of this disorder complex.
Getting From Here to There! : Testing the Effectiveness of an Interactive Mathematics Intervention Embedding Perceptual Learning

We describe an interactive mathematics technology intervention From Here to There! (FH2T) that was developed by our research team. This dynamic program allows users to manipulate and transform mathematical expressions. In this paper, we present initial findings from a classroom study that investigates whether using FH2T improves learning. We compare learning gains from two different instantiations of FH2T (retrieval practice and fluid visualizations), as well as a control group, and investigate the role of prior knowledge and content exposure in FH2T as possible moderators of learning. Findings, as well as implications for research and practice are discussed.
Who Are ‘Long-term English Learners’? Using Classroom Interactions to Deconstruct a Manufactured Learner Label

In the context of recent debates for and against the reality of ‘long-term English learners (LTELs)’ in US secondary schools, the diversity of these students’ classroom experiences and opportunities to develop academically valued forms of English is often overlooked. This analysis draws upon a data from middle school classrooms in the South Atlantic region of the USA and focuses particularly on the classroom experiences of six 6th-grade students classified as ‘English learners’ who have been in US schools since kindergarten. We use a multiple case study approach (Stake 2006) to analyze qualitative classroom observations completed in ‘mainstream’ classrooms alongside teacher and student interviews to examine the extent to which classroom-based peer and teacher–student interactions offer opportunities for language acquisition/development. Varied patterns of engagement and interaction were found, but most students had relatively few substantive academic discussions with peers or teachers. The diversity of our six students’ experiences, and of the language expertise they demonstrate, suggests that ‘LTEL’ obscures more than it elucidates regarding these students’ academic and linguistic strengths and needs.
A forward-backward-forward differential equation and its asymptotic properties

In this paper, we approach the problem of finding the zeros of the sum of a maximally monotone operator and a monotone and Lipschitz continuous one in a real Hilbert space via an implicit forward-backward-forward dynamical system with nonconstant relaxation parameters and stepsizes of the resolvents. Besides proving existence and uniqueness of strong global solutions for the differential equation under consideration, we show weak convergence of the generated trajectories and, under strong monotonicity assumptions, strong convergence with exponential rate. In the particular setting of minimizing the sum of a proper, convex and lower semicontinuous function with a smooth convex one, we provide a rate for the convergence of the objective function along the ergodic trajectory to its minimum value.
Do Gasoline Prices Converge in a Unified Europe with Non-Harmonized Tax Rates?

The paper presents univariate and panel unit root tests for gasoline and oil price convergence over the last decade. We test for the absolute versus relative version of the LOOP and estimate the speed of convergence as well as its development over time. Our results show that the absolute version of the LOOP cannot be supported. Constant price differences between countries remain, caused mainly by existing tax differences. The relative version of the LOOP is strongly supported by the data. The speed of convergence increased over time, but differs for gross and net-of-tax prices. We can show that national tax policy by EU member states is not (yet) threatened by arbitrage due to cross-border shopping.
Characteristics of staff–child interaction in 1–3-year-olds’ risky play in early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT Despite increased interest in children’s risk-taking in play, little is known of this aspect considering children under three years. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the concept of scaffolding to potentially describe patterns in staff–child interaction in 1–3-year-olds’ risky play. Empirical data were taken from an exploratory study, executed as a focused ethnography with multiple data collecting techniques, resulting in a sample of 198 instances of risky play. Findings indicate that scaffolding is a pertinent theoretical foundation for describing high-quality staff–child interaction in risky play, leading to increased opportunities for developmentally appropriate stimulation. Of the 171 instances where staff were present, staff did not interact at all in 70 of the instances (41%). Staff–child interaction, directly related to children’s risky play, occurred in the remaining 101 instances. Of these 101 instances, ‘Scaffolding’- and ‘Non-scaffolding’-interaction were observed in 78% and 22% of the instances, respectively. Implications are discussed.
Improving the Execution of KDD Workflows Generated by AI Planners

PDM is a distributed architecture for automating data mining (DM) and knowledge discovery processes (KDD) based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Planning. A user easily defines a DM task through a graphical interface specifying the dataset, the DM goals and constraints, and the operations that could be used within the DM process. Then, the tool automatically obtains all the possible models that solve the task by combining the different KDD actions. The models are obtained by the execution of workflows in a DM engine. In turn these workflows are automatically generated using an state-of-the-art AI planner. Since the number of potential KDD workflows that solve a DM task can be huge, PDM allows the user to set up some quality criteria (accuracy, execution time, . . . ) to prune and rank the space of workflows. These criteria can be used when planning to guide the search process towards good workflows. This requires to model the effects that each KDD action has on the criteria. The first versions of the PDM Tool included estimations made by experts, and then by a machine learning module that improves them through the analysis of execution of the generated worksflows in different datasets. This paper presents our current work on the PDM Tool for improving the estimations on those values, based on a more fine grained analysis of results.
Free-Free Emission at Low Radio Frequencies

We discuss free-free radio emission from ionized gas in the intergalactic medium. Because the emissivity is proportional to the square of the electron density, the mean background is strongly sensitive to the spatial clumping of free electrons. Using several existing models for the clumping of ionized gas, we find that the expected free-free distortion to the cosmic microwave background blackbody spectrum is at a level detectable with upcoming experiments such as the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission experiment. However, the dominant contribution to the distortion comes from clumpy gas at z ≲ 3, and the integrated signal does not strongly constrain the epoch of reionization. In addition to the mean emission, we consider spatial fluctuations in the free-free background and the extent to which these anisotropies confuse the search for fluctuations in 21 cm line emission from neutral hydrogen during and prior to reionization. This background is smooth in frequency space and hence can be removed through frequency differencing, but only so long as the 21 cm signal and the free-free emission are uncorrelated. We show that because the free-free background is generated primarily at low redshifts, the cross-correlation between the two fields is smaller than a few percent. Thus, multifrequency cleaning should be an effective way to eliminate the free-free confusion.
Parents’ experiences of living with an adolescent diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder

Aims:Parents of children with autism are reported to experience greater parenting stress than parents of neurotypical children. This qualitative study examined parents’ experiences of living with their adolescent with autism to ascertain their perceptions of psychological impact. In addition, parental coping strategies and the contribution of the child’s attendance at mainstream secondary school were considered.Method:Nine parents of adolescents with autism were recruited from their child’s school in the East Midlands. Individual semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed, analysed and coded using thematic and content analysis to gain insight into the stressors faced.Findings:Main themes were: difficulties parents faced; effects on relationships; impact upon self; diagnosis and support; coping strategies; school issues; and the future. Challenges faced by the parents were pervasive. The need to maintain predictability in the children’s lives created a sense of burden and restricted spontaneity in the parents’ lives. Communication and social difficulties could lead to outbursts of physical or verbal abuse towards parents. Intense mother-child relationships added to family tensions. Mainstream secondary school was perceived by some as a challenge. Parents reported being mentally and physically tired. All participants used a range of problem-focused coping strategies and humour. Social support, positive reframing and avoidant strategies were used variably. Having a diagnosis of autism helped both parents to work together and accept the child’s difficulties. Additional support was often dependent on family circumstances.Conclusions:To assist the best outcomes for young people with autism, collaborative working and clear communication within the family unit and between family, schools and support services is imperative.
What you get out of memory depends on the question you ask.

Following study, participants received 2 tests. The 1st was a recognition test; the 2nd was designed to tap recollection. The objective was to examine performance on Test 1 conditional on Test 2 performance. In Experiment 1, contrary to process dissociation assumptions, exclusion errors better predicted subsequent recollection than did inclusion errors. In Experiments 2 and 3, with alternate questions posed on Test 2, words having high estimates of recollection with one question had high estimates of familiarity with the other question. Results supported the following: (a) the 2-test procedure has considerable potential for elucidating the relationship between recollection and familiarity; (b) there is substantial evidence for dependency between such processes when estimates are obtained using the process dissociation and remember-know procedures; and (c) order of information access appears to depend on the question posed to the memory system.
Effects of Perceived Discrimination on the School Satisfaction of Brazilian High School Graduates

This paper analyzes the consequences of peer victimization for the satisfaction with schooling (“happiness”) of college-bound high school graduates in Brazil. Several types of victimization are explored including discrimination due to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and disability. We compare the satisfaction with their schooling of students planning to head to college straight from high school and older students applying for college later in life (“nontraditional students”). We conclude that students who perceived that they had been discriminated against were more dissatisfied with their school experience than those who did not, ceteris paribus, and we relate level of dissatisfaction to type of discrimination. The older student evidence reveals that this dissatisfaction wanes with time and age, however. Our conclusions are based upon ordered logistic analyses of data for 2.4 million current high school seniors and 78.7 thousand older students drawn from the Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio questionnaire (ENEM).
An experimental study of collaborative interaction tasks supported by awareness and multimodal feedback

Awareness and feedback have been identified by many researchers as key concepts to achieve fluent collaboration when performing highly interactive collaborative tasks. However, it is remarkable that few studies address the effect that adding special kinds of feedback has on user awareness and task performance. This work follows a preliminary experiment in which we already studied awareness in Collaborative Virtual Environments, evaluating the effect of visual cues in collaborative task performance and showing that users tend to make more mistakes when such feedback is not provided, that is, they are less aware of the object at hand and the task mate. These early results were promising and encouraged us to continue investigating the benefit of increasing the awareness support for tasks that require close collaboration between users, but this time analyzing more types of awareness and experimenting with visual, audio and vibrotactile feedback cues.