Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Investigation of Factors Affecting Gender Differences in Standardized Math Performance: Results from U.S. and Hong Kong 15 Year Olds

Learning strategies and affective factors could have a profound impact on student standardized mathematics performance. This study investigated gender differences in affective factors, learning strategies, and preferred learning situations, and how these variables affect math achievement of 15 year olds in the United States and Hong Kong on the PISA 2003 assessment. Math self-efficacy was found to be the best predictor of math performance in both countries. A striking mismatch was identified between Hong Kong students' superior math performance and extremely low math self-concept and between U.S. students' high confidence and weak performance. In addition, U.S. students' interest in math was significantly negatively related to their math performance. Contrary to a widely reported finding that East Asian students emphasize memorization, U.S. students were found to heavily rely on memorization strategies, which was also a negative predictor of math achievement.
Career Development for Students with Disabilities in Elementary Schools: A Position Statement of the Division on Career Development

GARY M. CLARK is Professor in the Department of Special Education, University of Kansas; BETTY CLARK CARLSON is Coordinator of the Employment Specialist Program, University of Hawaii; SHERRILYN FISHER is Teacher Center Coordinator, Blue Valley School District, Overland Park, Kansas; IvA DEAN COOK is Professor at the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies; BRUNO J. D’ALONZO is Professor in the Department of Special Education/Communication Disorders, New Mexico State University.
A State-Space EMG Model for the Estimation of Continuous Joint Movements

A state-space electromyography (EMG) model is developed for continuous motion estimation of human limb in this paper. While the general Hill-based muscle model (HMM) estimates only joint torque from EMG signals in an “open-loop” form, we integrate the forward dynamics of human joint movement into the HMM, and such an extended HMM can be used to estimate the joint motion states directly. EMG features are developed to construct measurement equations for the extended HMM to form a state-space model. With the state-space HMM, a normal closed-loop prediction-correction approach such as the Kalman-type algorithm can be used to estimate the continuous joint movement from EMG signals, where the measurement equation is used to reject model uncertainties and external disturbances. Moreover, we propose a new normalization approach for EMG signals for the purpose of rejecting the dependence of the motion estimation on varying external loads. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on the human elbow joint, and the improvements of the proposed methods are verified by the comparison of the EMG-based estimation and the inertial measurement unit measurements.
Finding quality in ‘being good enough’ conversations

This article considers how a contribution based on Rorty’s philosophy can help in the understanding of quality and its assurance in higher education. The suggestion is that if quality has an edifying purpose, then it should be seen as an ongoing process and might be aptly judged as being just ‘good enough’. This position is argued for it promotes democracy and thus justifies a position of belief in the liberal values and tolerance at the core of higher education’s resistance to the new ‘value for money’ imperative for surveillance of quality.
Assessing the impact of marine wind farms on birds through movement modelling

Advances in technology and engineering, along with European Union renewable energy targets, have stimulated a rapid growth of the wind power sector. Wind farms contribute to carbon emission reductions, but there is a need to ensure that these structures do not adversely impact the populations that interact with them, particularly birds. We developed movement models based on observed avoidance responses of common eider Somateria mollissima to wind farms to predict, and identify potential measures to reduce, impacts. Flight trajectory data that were collected post-construction of the Danish Nysted offshore wind farm were used to parameterize competing models of bird movements around turbines. The model most closely fitting the observed data incorporated individual variation in the minimum distance at which birds responded to the turbines. We show how such models can contribute to the spatial planning of wind farms by assessing their extent, turbine spacing and configurations on the probability of birds passing between the turbines. Avian movement models can make new contributions to environmental assessments of wind farm developments, and provide insights into how to reduce impacts that can be identified at the planning stage.
A small-scale pilot study into language difficulties in children who offend

This small-scale pilot research project investigates the prevalence of Speech Language and Communication Difficulties in a sample of children attending a Youth Offending Service in the UK. Using the CELF-4, approximately 90% of the sample displayed some form of language difficulty and, overall, this population displayed mild to moderate difficulties in this area. Youth Offending Team staff questionnaires were also analysed and it was found that staff have little understanding of the difficulties presented by the children on their caseloads, despite reporting that they felt confident in this area. Implications for practice and potential roles for educational psychologists are discussed.
Renal Denervation Prevents Immune Cell Activation and Renal Inflammation in Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertension.

RATIONALE Inflammation and adaptive immunity play a crucial role in the development of hypertension. Angiotensin II and probably other hypertensive stimuli activate the central nervous system and promote T-cell activation and end-organ damage in peripheral tissues. OBJECTIVE To determine if renal sympathetic nerves mediate renal inflammation and T-cell activation in hypertension. METHODS AND RESULTS Bilateral renal denervation using phenol application to the renal arteries reduced renal norepinephrine levels and blunted angiotensin II-induced hypertension. Bilateral renal denervation also reduced inflammation, as reflected by decreased accumulation of total leukocytes, T cells, and both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the kidney. This was associated with a marked reduction in renal fibrosis, albuminuria, and nephrinuria. Unilateral renal denervation, which partly attenuated blood pressure, only reduced inflammation in the denervated kidney, suggesting that this effect is pressure independent. Angiotensin II also increased immunogenic isoketal-protein adducts in renal dendritic cells (DCs) and increased surface expression of costimulation markers and production of interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-1β, and IL-6 from splenic DCs. Norepinephrine also dose dependently stimulated isoketal formation in cultured DCs. Adoptive transfer of splenic DCs from angiotensin II-treated mice primed T-cell activation and hypertension in recipient mice. Renal denervation prevented these effects of hypertension on DCs. In contrast to these beneficial effects of ablating all renal nerves, renal afferent disruption with capsaicin had no effect on blood pressure or renal inflammation. CONCLUSIONS Renal sympathetic nerves contribute to DC activation, subsequent T-cell infiltration and end-organ damage in the kidney in the development of hypertension.
An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development.

ENRIGHT, ROBERT D. , and SUTTERFIELD, SARA J. An Ecological Validation of Social Cognitive Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 156-161. 2 classrooms of first graders (N = 40) were administered Damon's moral judgment measure, Shure and Spivack's social problem solving measure, and the Stanford-Binet vocabulary. Concurrently, 2 observers recorded in the children's school environment incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times a child was approached by peers. A positive relationship was predicted between moral development and frequency of success, proportion of success, and amount of times the child was approached by others. Negative relationships were predicted between morality and frequency of unsuccessful responses, proportion of such responses, and derogation. The same predictions were made for social problem solving and the behavioral variables. Vocabulary was the discriminant cognitive variable, thus no relationship to behavior was predicted. Results confirmed the positive relationship of the moral variable with proportion of successes and amount of time S was approached by peers. Further, the predicted negative relationship between the moral variable and proportion of unsuccessful outcomes held. When vocabulary was partialled out, these relationships did not hold for social problem solving reasoning. As expected, vocabulary did not relate to competent social behavior. The results support moral judgment as an ecologically valid social cognitive construct.
Role of receptor binding in toxicity, immunogenicity, and adjuvanticity of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin

The role of receptor binding in the toxicity, immunogenicity, and adjuvanticity of the heat-labile enterotoxin of Escherichia coli (LT) was examined by comparing native LT and LT(G33D), a B-subunit receptor binding mutant, with respect to the ability to bind to galactose and to GM1, toxicity on mouse Y-1 adrenal tumor cells, the ability to stimulate adenylate cyclase in Caco-2 cells, enterotoxicity in the patent mouse model, and oral immunogenicity and adjuvanticity. In contrast to native LT, LT(G33D) was unable to bind to the galactosyl moiety of Sepharose 4B or GM1 but did retain the lectin-like ability to bind to immobilized galactose on 6% agarose beads. LT(G33D) had no enterotoxicity in the patent mouse model but exhibited residual toxicity on mouse Y-1 adrenal tumor cells and had an ability equivalent to that of native LT to stimulate adenylate cyclase in Caco-2 cells (5,000 versus 6,900 pmol per mg of protein). In addition, LT(G33D) was unable to serve as an effective oral adjuvant for induction of immunoglobulin G or A directed against a coadministered antigen. Furthermore, LT(G33D) elicited negligible serum and mucosal antibody responses against itself. These data indicate that the toxicity, immunogenicity, and oral adjuvanticity of LT are dependent upon binding of the B subunit to ganglioside GM1.
research paper series China and the World Economy Research Paper 2006 / 33 Economic Growth in the Presence of FDI : The Perspective of Newly Industrialising Economies

Although FDI is widely believed to have a positive effect on economic growth, the exact mechanism of how FDI impacts upon the development process of the newly industrialising economies is far from being well understood. This paper presents and tests two propositions on the role of FDI in economic growth from a newly industrialising economy’s perspective. First, FDI is a mover of production efficiency because it helps reduce the gap between the actual level of production and a steady state production frontier. Second, FDI being embedded with advanced technologies and knowledge is a shifter of the host country’s production frontier. Due to its dual role as a mover of production efficiency and a shifter of production frontier, FDI is a powerful driver of economic growth for a newly industrialising economy to catch up with the world’s most advanced countries. China’s economic success over the past decades provides an ideal example to test the hypotheses. JEL: F21 E23 D51 C23
Response of bispectral index to neuromuscular block in awake volunteers.

BACKGROUND The bispectral index (BIS) monitor is a quantitative electroencephalographic (EEG) device that is widely used to assess the hypnotic component of anaesthesia, especially when neuromuscular blocking drugs are used. It has been shown that the BIS is sensitive to changes in electromyogram (EMG) activity in anaesthetized patients. A single study using an earlier version of the BIS showed that decreased EMG activity caused the BIS to decrease even in awake subjects, to levels that suggested deep sedation and anaesthesia. METHODS We administered suxamethonium and rocuronium to 10 volunteers who were fully awake, to determine whether the BIS decreased in response to neuromuscular block alone. An isolated forearm technique was used for communication during the experiment. Two versions of the BIS monitor were used, both of which are in current use. Sugammadex was used to antagonise the neuromuscular block attributable to rocuronium. RESULTS The BIS decreased after the onset of neuromuscular block in both monitors, to values as low as 44 and 47, and did not return to pre-test levels until after the return of movement. The BIS showed a two-stage decrease, with an immediate reduction to values around 80, and then several minutes later, a sharp decrease to lower values. In some subjects, there were periods where the BIS was <60 for several minutes. The response was similar for both suxamethonium and rocuronium. Neither monitor was consistently superior in reporting the true state of awareness. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the BIS monitor requires muscle activity, in addition to an awake EEG, in order to generate values indicating that the subject is awake. Consequently, BIS may be an unreliable indicator of awareness in patients who have received neuromuscular blocking drugs. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRY NUMBER ACTRN12613000587707.
Efficient Distributed Downlink Scheduling for Wireless Cellular Networks: A POMDP Framework

We propose a decentralized downlink scheduling protocol for wireless cellular networks that allows each base station to control its transmission power. On the beginning of each scheduling period, neighbor base stations exchange their local system states, i.e., channel, traffic and position statistics of their local mobile users. But on each slot of the current scheduling period, the base stations may not be able to receive full information from neighbor cells. Therefore, to enable the base stations to make optimal decisions, for user scheduling and transmission power control, we develop an analytical optimization framework, based on the theory of Partially Observable Markov Decision Process. To help a base station, this decision-theoretic approach uses the history of observations about neighbor base stations system statistics and their scheduling policies. Simulations show that our approach is more efficient than existing centralized scheduling approaches which due to the high complexity they do not allow base stations to communicate with each other.
The Relationship between Attentional Blink and Psychological Refractory Period

This study examined the relationship between attentional blink (AB) and psychological refractory period (PRP) using a conventional AB procedure combined with a requirement of speeded responses to the second target (T2). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, as with PRP, memory retrieval of targets is not a necessary condition for the occurrence of AB in terms of accuracy and that AB occurred in the speed data. Experiment 3 further indicated that the PRP-like speed data were not due to the first target serving as a warning signal that triggered preparation of responses to T2. Experiment 4 manipulated T2 stimulus intensity to be normal or low. Results showed an underadditive interaction between stimulus intensity and lag position in the speed data, whereas an overadditive interaction was found in the accuracy data, suggesting 2 sources of interference leading to AB: the single-channel bottleneck and resource-limited visual-processing capacity.
Neopterin and cardiovascular disease: growing evidence for a role in patient risk stratification.

Compelling evidence has emerged in recent years regarding the implications of inflammation in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and its complications (1). The growing appreciation of the role of inflammation in atherogenesis, atheromatous plaque growth, and plaque disruption has triggered interest as to whether circulating inflammatory biomarkers may help to identify subjects at risk of future cardiovascular events. Of all currently available biomarkers, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP)1 appears to have the best profile as an independent predictor of increased coronary risk (2). Despite being a nonspecific acute-phase reactant, hsCRP has been shown in large epidemiological and clinical studies to be an independent predictor of cardiovascular events (3), i.e., myocardial infarction, stroke, and death in patients with angina (4) and apparently healthy subjects. Because hsCRP is not a specific marker of vascular inflammation, however, the search for highly sensitive and specific markers of risk continues unabated. Evidence from our group (5)(6)(7)(8) and others (9)(10) in recent years indicates that neopterin, an immune modulator produced by activated macrophages, may be useful for cardiovascular risk stratification in patients with coronary artery disease. In this issue of Clinical Chemistry , Grammer et al. (11 …
Low molecular weight cyclin E is specific in breast cancer and is associated with mechanisms of tumor progression

Low molecular weight (LMW) isoforms of cyclin E are posttranslationally generated in breast cancer cells and are associated with aggressive disease and poor prognosis. In this study, the specificity of LMW cyclin E to cancer cells was determined by measuring cyclin E expression in tumor and non-tumor tissue from 340 breast cancer patients. Our results reveal the LMW isoforms were detected significantly more frequently in breast tumor tissue than in adjacent non-tumor breast tissues (p
A Brain-Computer Interface Based on a Few-Channel EEG-fNIRS Bimodal System

With the development of the wearable brain–computer interface (BCI), a few-channel BCI system is necessary for its application to daily life. In this paper, we proposed a bimodal BCI system that uses only a few channels of electroencephalograph (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals to obtain relatively high accuracy. We developed new approaches for signal acquisition and signal processing to improve the performance of this few-channel BCI system. At the signal acquisition stage, source analysis was applied for both EEG and fNIRS signals to select the optimal channels for bimodal signal collection. At the feature extraction stage, phase-space reconstruction was applied to the selected three-channel EEG signals to expand them into multichannel signals, thus allowing the use of the traditional effective common spatial pattern to extract EEG features. For the fNIRS signal, the Hurst exponents for the selected ten channels were calculated and composed of the fNIRS data feature. At the classification stage, EEG and fNIRS features were joined and classified with the support vector machine. The averaged classification accuracy of 12 participants was 81.2% for the bimodal EEG-fNIRS signals, which was significantly higher than that for either single modality.
Comparative evaluation of specific ELISA and RFFIT antibody assays in the assessment of dog immunity against rabies

Two techniques are currently used to evaluate the humoral immune responses to rabies vaccination: ELISA, which detects binding antibodies to viral antigens and the WHO reference rapid fluorescent focus inhibition test (RFFIT), which assays in vitro virus-neutralizing antibodies. In this study, we have comparatively evaluated antibody responses of dogs reared either in an experimental kennel or living in field conditions after vaccination with a cell culture-derived rabies vaccine. In experimental conditions, both ELISA and RFFIT techniques were well correlated. However, in field conditions, they yielded discrepant results particularly in evaluating the residual rabies immunity before vaccine administration and in identifying seroconverted dogs. After rabies vaccination in field conditions, while similar antibody titres and seroconversion rates were obtained using either technique, the discrimination of a given dog according to the seroconversion threshold depended on the assay. We concluded, that whereas in experimental conditions, ELISA and RFFIT were well correlated, in field conditions ELISA yielded upper estimates. Consequently, RFFIT, although a cumbersome test, should continue to be considered as the reference rabies antibody assay technique. A seroconversion threshold of 0·5 IU/ml should be cautiously considered and a higher threshold (1 IU/ml) could be more appropriate in the evaluation of rabies immunity in the field in order to marginalize the interfering factors.
Understanding strategic choice

What determines why some self-determination disputes develop into mass nonviolent campaigns, others turn into civil wars, and still others remain entirely in the realm of conventional politics? A great deal of work has addressed the factors that lead to violent mobilization, but less attention has been paid to understanding why disputes become violent or nonviolent, comparing these two as strategic choices relative to conventional politics. This article examines the determinants of strategy choice in self-determination disputes by analyzing how a variety of factors affect the costs and benefits of conventional political strategies, mass nonviolent campaign, and civil war. I find that civil war is more likely, as compared to conventional politics, when self-determination groups are larger, have kin in adjoining states, are excluded from political power, face economic discrimination, are internally fragmented, demand independence, and operate in states at lower levels of economic development. I find that nonviolent campaign is more likely, as compared to conventional politics, when groups are smaller, are less geographically concentrated, are excluded from political power, face economic discrimination, make independence demands, and operate in non-democracies. Examining the full set of strategies available to self-determination groups allows us to more accurately understand why these groups engage in mass nonviolent campaign and civil war.
CSR or RSC? (Beyond the Humpty Dumpty syndrome)

Purpose – Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has often been presented as a challenge for management. This is due to the fact that the CSR debate has been associated with the business practices that are linked to it. But CSR is also an approximation to the business practices that require us to question the underlying corporate business model. Therefore, as it deals with a company's business model, the term CSR at once reveals its potential and its limitations. The ambiguity of the term “social” and the risk of not combining this with the term “economic” is by no means less significant: neither is the diversity of interpretations and approaches allowed by the term “social”. Using the words of the Lewis Carrol character, Humpty Dumpty, as a metaphor–according to which a word's meaning depends on the power of the person who uses it – the purpose of this paper is to propose a shift away from talking in terms of CSR (corporate social responsibility) to talking in terms of responsible and sustainable corporat.