Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic Algorithm for Linear Feature Extraction

Feature extraction is a commonly used technique applied before classification when a number of measures, or features, have been taken from a set of objects in a typical statistical pattern recognition task. The goal is to define a mapping from the original representation space into a new space where the classes are more easily separable. This will reduce the classifier complexity, increasing in most cases classifier accuracy. Feature extraction methods can be divided into linear and non-linear, depending on the nature of the mapping function (Lerner et al., 1998). They can also be classified as supervised or unsupervised, depending on whether the class information is taken into account or not. Feature extraction can also be used for exploratory data analysis, where the aim is not to improve classification accuracy, but to visualise high dimensional data by mapping it into the plane or the 3dimensional space. The best known linear methods are Principal Component Analysis, or PCA (unsupervised) (Fukunaga, 1990), Linear Discriminant Analysis or LDA (supervised) (Fukunaga, 1990; Aladjem, 1991; Siedlecki et al., 1988), and Independent Component Analysis or ICA (unsupervised) (Cardoso, 1993). Schematically, PCA preserves as much variance of the data as possible, LDA attempts to group patterns of the same class, while separating them from the other classes, and ICA obtains a new set of features by extracting the less correlated (in a broad sense) directions in the data set. On the other hand, well-known non-linear methods are: Sammon’s Mapping (unsupervised) (Sammon, 1969; Siedlecki et al. 1988), non-linear discriminant analysis or NDA (supervised) (Mao & Jain, 1995), Kohonen’s self-organising map (unsupervised) (Kohonen, 1990) and evolutionary extraction (supervised) (Liu & Motoda, 1998). Sammon’s mapping tries to keep the distances among the observations using hill-climbing or neural network methods (Mao & Jain, 1995; Sammon, 1969), NDA obtains new features from the coefficients of the second hidden layers of a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) (Mao & Jain, 1995) and Kohonen Maps project data in an attempt to preserve the topology. Finally, evolutionary extraction uses a genetic algorithm to find combinations of original features in order to improve classifier accuracy. These new features are obtained by multiplying, dividing, adding or subtracting the original features. In the linear methods, the mapping function is known and simple; therefore, the task is reduced to finding the coefficients of the linear transformation by maximising or minimising
Identification and H2O2 Production of Vaginal Lactobacilli from Pregnant Women at High Risk of Preterm Birth and Relation with Outcome

ABSTRACT Lactobacilli, principally the strains that are hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) producing, may have a protective effect against vaginal colonization by pathogenic species such as those that cause bacterial vaginosis. Previous reports have also suggested that H2O2-producing lactobacilli in the vagina may protect pregnant women against ascending infection of the chorioamniotic membranes and uterine cavity. We report the identification and H2O2 production of lactobacilli isolated from vaginal swabs collected at 20 weeks' gestation from a population of pregnant women at high risk of preterm birth. We also report the correlation between identification and H2O2 production in relation to the outcomes of chorioamnionitis and preterm birth. Lactobacilli were identified by partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. H2O2 production by isolates was determined by a semiquantitative method. The most commonly isolated species were L. crispatus, L. gasseri, L. vaginalis and L. jensenii. Amounts of H2O2 produced by lactobacilli varied widely. The presence of lactobacilli producing high levels of H2O2 in the vagina of this population of pregnant women was associated with a reduced risk of bacterial vaginosis at 20 weeks' gestation and subsequent chorioamnionitis. L. jensenii and L. vaginalis produced the highest levels of H2O2. We postulate that H2O2-producing lactobacilli are able to reduce the incidence of ascending infections of the uterus and the subsequent production of proinflammatory molecules which are important in the pathogenesis of chorioamnionitis and preterm birth.
Perceived social support, coping, and symptoms of distress in American and Spanish students

Abstract The aim of this study was to test whether coping responses mediated the influence of perceived social support on symptoms of anxiety/depression, social withdrawal, and aggressive behavior in American (N=349) and Spanish students (N=437). Participants completed measures of perceived support, social stress, coping, and distress. Coping partially mediated relations between perceived support and distress, with coping mediation most evident in individuals facing high levels of social stress. Decreased use of disengagement coping by individuals with high perceived support appears to partially explain the protective value of perceived social support. Multiple group covariance structure analysis showed that models linking perceived support, coping, and distress were very similar across cultures, suggesting that the mechanisms underlying decreased risk for individuals with high perceived support may be relatively independent of cultural context, and that interventions designed to increase perceived support and decrease disengagement could be appropriate in both cultures.
Nationalism, Confucianism, work ethic and industrialization in South Korea

Abstract The “economic miracle” of South Korea has been well documented by many scholars, but most studies have focused on the cooperative relations between the state and entrepreneurial elites, with little attention being given to the accomplishments and contribution of Korean labor to industrial development. To date there has been no comprehensive sociological study as to how workers in South Korea were “ideologically” mobilized and motivated to commit their labor power to the process of industrialization. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, this article offers an analysis of the role of Confucianism and nationalism in the state-sponsored ideology of work in South Korea during its economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s. It is argued here that both the workers' voluntary participation in industrial work and the harmony in the workplace, which were two of the most essential factors in the nation's remarkable economic success during the 1960s and 1970s, were intimately linked to a new ideology of work and entrepreneurship which combined nationalism and pro-growth Confucian precepts. The article will thus sociologically examine ways in which ideas about work in South Korea have incorporated nationalist ideals and Confucianism, and analyze the relevance of this ideology of work to the nation's phenomenal economic growth.
Examining what we mean by collaboration in collaborative action research: a cross-case analysis

The purpose of this paper is to report on the nature of collaboration in a multi-year, large-scale collaborative action research project in which a teachers’ federation (in Ontario, Canada), university researchers and teachers partnered to investigate teacher-selected topics for inquiry. Over two years, 14 case studies were generated involving six university researchers and 61 teacher researchers. As teacher researchers collected their topic-specific data, university researchers worked in parallel on case studies at the 14 sites in an attempt to gain insights into the types and value of collaboration in collaborative action research. University researchers gathered 20–30 points of data for each case-study site (including teacher researcher final reports as well as journal entries, focus group interviews, field notes, video footage and questionnaires). Through comprehensive cross-case analysis, researchers were able to examine common traits as well as relationships between the nature of the teams, the nature of the projects and their relative success, to highlight conditions that led to robust collaborations. Through pattern matching, hypothesised events were compared with observations to test the claim that a triad of relationships between the team, the team lead and the researchers functioned as a positive collaborative force that propelled teacher team success in a generative ethos, even when faced with substantial challenges.
Rapid Reversal of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy and Intracardiac Volume Overload in Patients With Resistant Hypertension and Hyperaldosteronism: A Prospective Clinical Study

We have shown previously that patients with resistant hypertension and hyperaldosteronism have increased brain natriuretic peptide suggestive of increased intravascular volume. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that hyperaldosteronism contributes to cardiac volume overload. Thirty-seven resistant hypertensive patients with hyperaldosteronism (urinary aldosterone ≥12 &mgr;g/24 hours and plasma renin activity ≤1.0 ng/mL per hour) and 71 patients with normal aldosterone status were studied. Both groups had similar blood pressure and left ventricular mass, whereas left and right ventricular end-diastolic volumes measured by cardiac MRI were greater in high versus normal aldosterone subjects (P<0.05). Spironolactone treatment (19 patients in the high aldosterone group and 15 patients from the normal aldosterone group participated in the follow-up) resulted in a significant decrease in clinic systolic blood pressure, right and left ventricular end diastolic volumes, left atrial volume, left ventricular mass, and brain natriuretic peptide at 3 and 6 months of follow-up in patients with high aldosterone, whereas in those with normal aldosterone status, spironolactone decreased blood pressure and left ventricular mass without changes in ventricular or atrial volumes or plasma brain natriuretic peptide. Hyperaldosteronism causes intracardiac volume overload in patients with resistant hypertension in spite of conventional thiazide diuretic use. Mineralocorticoid receptor blockade induces rapid regression of left ventricular hypertrophy irrespective of aldosterone status. In subjects with high aldosterone, mineralocorticoid receptor blockade induces a prominent diuretic effect compared with a greater vasodilatory effect in subjects with normal aldosterone status.
A packaged learning process: The consolidated approach

Social work educators do not have the luxury of teaching one concept at a time. With this in mind, the authors present a method of combining different content areas within one teaching exercise. Practice faculty can combine several concepts by using case studies to teach assessment skills and treatment issues of populations-at-risk. By assigning students an assessment of a case study character who is a member of a population at risk, the lecturer teaches a new skill and in the process students acquire additional knowledge about that population. The techniques use: (1) a genogram and an ecomap assessment of a woman in a short story; and (2) a problem-solving schematic assessment of a woman in a case study. The teaching techniques involve four steps: individual assignments, small group analysis, class assignments, and full class discussion. Class discussions revealed that students did gain knowledge of women's issues while acquiring practice skills. These strategies are appropriate for use in foundation or advanced social work curricula.
Milano nera: Representing and Imagining Milan in Italian Noir and Crime Fiction

Abstract This essay focuses on the way in which Milan and its periphery in particular have been represented by successive generations of Milanese noir and crime writers. Most writers have mirrored and reinforced the idea of Milan as a city of strong contrasts surrounded by an undesirable periphery, which traditionally has been viewed, from both a socio-political and aesthetic perspective, as the locus of isolation, alienation and criminality. Yet works by some contemporary writers (Dazieri and Biondillo) also show signs of a new acceptance and understanding of urban life in the post-modern city, which has influenced the relationship between centre and periphery. The transformation of Milan in the post-industrial era into a città diffusa, with its polycentric nature and easy access to all areas of the city, becomes, in the narrative of these writers, a metaphor for a new aesthetics and way of life in the post-postmodern age.
Concurrent and Predictive Validity of the Student Engagement Instrument

The Student Engagement Instrument (SEI) is a self-report measure of cognitive and affective engagement with school. Prior SEI validation studies have focused primarily on construct validity through analyses of internal consistency, factor analysis, and measurement invariance. Results are presented here from a two-pronged study of the criterion validity of SEI scores. Using a middle school sample (N = 35,900), concurrent validity was assessed through analyses of group differences in SEI scores across student subgroups expected to differ in cognitive and affective engagement levels: behaviorally disengaged versus non-disengaged, high-risk versus low-risk disability status, and high versus low academic achievement. Next, through multiple logistic regression analyses, the 4-year predictive validity of SEI scores for on-time graduation and dropout was assessed in a cohort of first-time ninth graders (N = 11,588). Nearly all SEI factors demonstrated directionally consistent associations with each criterion, including considerable long-term predictive associations with both dropout and on-time graduation.
Conflict Management Considering a Smooth Transition of Aircraft Into Adjacent Airspace

A new framework for conflict resolution in air traffic control is studied using air traffic complexity, which ensures conflict avoidance among aircraft and smooth transition of aircraft into adjacent airspace. The air traffic complexity is modeled as deviations in heading angle or speed of the aircraft inside a sector to resolve any conflict induced by the entering aircraft. For conflict management in multisector planning, a two-level hierarchical architecture is proposed. In the higher level, the maneuver constraints of the aircraft are constructed to minimize complexity for the neighboring sectors. In the lower level, the conflict avoidance problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming considering the maneuver constraints, which are defined in the higher level. With the two-level hierarchical architecture, the aircraft can find the optimal solution to resolve conflicts among the aircraft and reduce the air traffic complexity of the neighboring sectors. The performance of the proposed conflict management is demonstrated using numerical simulations.
Proportional Reasoning Ability and Concepts of Scale: Surface area to volume relationships in science

The National Science Education Standards emphasise teaching unifying concepts and processes such as basic functions of living organisms, the living environment, and scale. Scale influences science processes and phenomena across the domains. One of the big ideas of scale is that of surface area to volume. This study explored whether or not there is a correlation between proportional reasoning ability and a student's ability to understand surface area to volume relationships. Students' knowledge of surface area to volume relationships was assessed pre and post to a one‐week instructional intervention involving investigations about surface area to volume as a limiting factor in biological and physical systems. Results showed that proportional reasoning scores of middle school students were correlated to pre‐test and post‐test assessment scores, and a paired‐sample t‐test found significant differences from pre‐test to post‐test for the surface area to volume assessment. Relationships between proportional reasoning, visualisation abilities and success in solving surface to volume problems are discussed. The implications of the results of this study for learning concepts such as magnitudes of things, limits to size, and properties of systems that change depending on volume and surface are explored.
Methods of Estimation for Markets in Disequilibrium

This paper is concerned with the econometric problems associated with estimating supply and demand schedules in disequilibrium markets. Tbe general problem is that in the absence of aa equilibrium condition the ex ante demand and supply quantities cannot in general be equated to the observed quantity traded in the market. Four methods of estimation, differing primarily in tbW use of information on price-setting behavior, are developed in this paper. The first method is a generalization of an earlier method developed by R. Quandt and is based upon the maximization of a likelihood function. The method does not require any specitic assnm,,tion about pricwettin~ behatior,. and it allows the sample separation (into demand and supply regimes) to be estimated along with the ce.ztlMent estimates. The second and third methods use the change in price as a qualirotiue proxy in determining the sample separation. The fourth method uses the change in price as a quantitative proxy for the amount of excess demand (supply) in the market. In the final section of the paper the four methods arc used to estimate a model of the housing attd mortgage market in an effort to gauge the potential usefulnesr of each of the methods.
Differences in suggestibility between 5–6 and 10–11 year olds: The relationship with self confidence

Abstract Differences in suggestibility and recall between 5–6 and 10–11 year olds were investigated. It was hypothesized that younger children would be more suggestible than older children and that differences in self confidence between older and younger children would influence these differences. It was also predicted that older children would recall more information than younger children, and that this age difference would be less strongly influenced by self confidence. Forty-one 5 and 6 and fifty-six 10 and 11 year olds were interviewed about a video they had witnessed. Several factual and misleading questions were asked, and the percentage of correct answers to the factual questions (to measure recall) and the percentage of incorrect answer to the misleading questions (to measure suggestibility) were calculated. The level of self confidence of the children was measured with six items of the Behavioural Academic Self Esteem Scale (BASE), reflecting self confidence. The outcomes supported the hypotheses: Younger children were more suggestible than older children and this difference disappeared when controlled for self confidence. Older children gave mere information about the event than younger children, and these age differences were, to much less extent, influenced by their self confidence.
Treadmill running exercise results in the presence of numerous myofibroblasts in mouse patellar tendons

Mechanical loading is known to alter tendon structure, but its cellular mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to determine the effect of mechanical loading on tendon cells in vivo. C57BL/6J female mice were used in a treadmill running study. The treadmill running protocol consisted of treadmill training for 1 week, followed by sustained moderate running at 13 m/min for 50 min/day, 5 days/week, for 3 weeks. Immunohistochemical staining of tendon sections of mice after treadmill running revealed that numerous cells in the tendon section expressed α‐SMA, whereas in the tendon sections of control mice, only a few cells exhibited weak α‐SMA signals. Furthermore, mouse patellar tendon cells (MPTCs) derived from treadmill running mice were generally larger in culture, proliferated faster, expressed a higher level of α‐SMA, and formed more abundant stress fibers compared to MPTCs from control mice. In addition, MPTCs from treadmill running mice generated larger traction forces (169 ± 66.1 Pa) than those from control mice (102 ± 34.2 Pa). Finally, cells from treadmill running mice produced higher levels of total collagen (516.4 ± 92.7 µg/10,000 cells) than their counterparts (303.9 ± 34.8 µg/10,000 cells). Thus, mechanical loading via treadmill running increased the presence of myofibroblasts in mouse patellar tendons. As myofibroblasts are activated fibroblasts, their presence in the tendon following treadmill running indicates that they actively repair and remodel tendon tissue under strenuous mechanical loading, leading to known changes in tendon structure. © 2009 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 27:1373–1378, 2009
Trust and Reactions to Messages of Intent in Social Dilemmas

This study examined how low- and high-trust individuals react to messages of intended behavior in a social dilemma situation. Subjects played a two-person prisoner's dilemma; the opponent was a reciprocal strategy programmed by the experimenter. During the game, subjects received a message stating that the opponent planned to be cooperative or competitive for the remainder of the game. In Study 1, low trusters reacted to the competitive message by decreasing cooperation but were unaffected by the cooperative message; high trusters reacted to the cooperative message by increasing cooperation but were unaffected by the competitive message. Study 2 showed that a period of unconditional, message-consistent behavior immediately after the message can make low and high trusters responsive to cooperative and competitive messages, respectively. However, the number of unconditional responses was crucial. The study also found that stated intention and message-inconsistent behavior affect perceptions of the opponent's trustworthiness.
Exploring social constructivism: theories and practicalities

In the drive to improve standards, the collection and dissemination of numerical data still directs much contemporary educational policy. However, recent publications and debates seemingly attempt to reorient discussion from performance to learning. In support, constructivism is often referenced as a contributor in this endeavour. However, constructivism is not a single unified theory either of knowledge or pedagogy. This article identifies one version of constructivist thinking, social constructivism, both in terms of its underlying epistemology (theory of knowledge) and related pedagogy. Contemporary educational theories are then outlined to demonstrate that many practical solutions and theoretical ideas now presented as ‘good learning and teaching’ have much in common with social constructivist thinking. Finally, the article concludes by identifying two issues that require further discussion and debate if pedagogy of a social constructivist nature is to be considered.
Peer Reviewed Article Feldenkrais-based Sensory Movement Technique and Breathing for Voice Production for the Stage

171 Breathing for Voice Production for the Stage The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a Feldenkrais-based sensory movement approach (FM) on breathing for voice production in students who are planning a career in stage performance. All participants were young adults who had no documented difficulties with breathing, voice, or speech production. However, when asked about issues they might like to change, these participants had expressed some concerns related to their breathing and voice production in their work on the stage. These concerns are detailed in Table 1. As positive results of Feldenkrais intervention have been documented in a variety of disorders (e.g., Gilman 1998; Kole & McConville 2000; Lundblad, Elert, & Gerdle 1999), it appeared possible that students who are planning a career in stage performance could benefit from this approach.