Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Curriculum Reforms Affect Classroom Teaching in Geography? The Case Study of Switzerland

The Swiss national curriculum for upper secondary schools requires geography to be taught according to new paradigms concerning subject contents and learning methodology. Today, nearly 10 years after the new curriculum was enacted, the question arises whether the paradigmatic changes were acknowledged by geography teachers and integrated into their teaching. This paper explores what teachers teach today in geography classes, relating it to teachers’ constructs of the images of geography. The paper further describes to what extent the interests of teachers and students in the subject diverge. The paper concludes with considerations of the implications for curriculum improvements, teaching methodology and teacher education.
Novel Method for Border Irregularity Assessment in Dermoscopic Color Images

Background. One of the most important lesion features predicting malignancy is border irregularity. Accurate assessment of irregular borders is clinically important due to significantly different occurrence in benign and malignant skin lesions. Method. In this research, we present a new approach for the detection of border irregularities, as one of the major parameters in a widely used diagnostic algorithm the ABCD rule of dermoscopy. The proposed work is focused on designing an efficient automatic algorithm containing the following steps: image enhancement, lesion segmentation, borderline calculation, and irregularities detection. The challenge lies in determining the exact borderline. For solving this problem we have implemented a new method based on lesion rotation and borderline division. Results. The algorithm has been tested on 350 dermoscopic images and achieved accuracy of 92% indicating that the proposed computational approach captured most of the irregularities and provides reliable information for effective skin mole examination. Compared to the state of the art, we obtained improved classification results. Conclusions. The current study suggests that computer-aided system is a practical tool for dermoscopic image assessment and could be recommended for both research and clinical applications. The proposed algorithm can be applied in different fields of medical image analysis including, for example, CT and MRI images.
A Study of Job Burnout among University Teachers

This study investigated the levels of job burnout among 300 university teachers including Lecturers, Readers and Professors. Using Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator's Survey, the results indicated that lecturers have high level of emotional exhaustion and are found to be significantly different on emotional exhaustion from professors and readers. Readers show less emotional exhaustion as compared to lecturers but high emotional exhaustion as compared to professors. Readers are not found to be significantly different from professors. The three groups are not found to be significantly different on depersonalisation and personal accomplishment.
Serum Magnesium and Mortality in Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients

Background and Aim: The study aimed to investigate the potential contributing effect of serum magnesium on mortality in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. Methods: The patients receiving regular MHD in March 2013 were involved. Baseline data including clinical data, anthropometrics and biochemical measurement were collected. After being followed for 36 months, the time of death and reason were recorded. Results: One hundred and thirty-five MHD patients were enrolled in the study and analyzed, with mean serum magnesium of 1.11 ± 0.15 mmol/l. The level of serum magnesium in 64 patients was normal (47.4%), and it was elevated in 71 of the 135 patients (52.6%). And none of MHD patients had hypomagnesemia. The levels of serum albumin (Alb), urea nitrogen, creatinine (Cr), uric acid and phosphorus were significantly higher, but high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP) and lipoprotein A were significantly lower in hypermagnesemia group compared to the normal serum magnesium group (p < 0.05). Serum Alb, serum Cr, serum phosphorus and Hs-CRP were related factors of hypermagnesemia by multivariate logistic regression analysis (p < 0.05). During the 36 months of follow-up, 27 patients died (20.0%), of whom 55.6% died of cardiovascular (CV) events. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that cumulative incidence of CV mortality were significantly higher in the normal serum magnesium group than in the hypermagnesemia group (p = 0.027); however, there was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Serum magnesium was elevated, which was related with nutrition and inflammation markers including serum Alb, serum Cr, serum phosphorus and Hs-CRP. Lower serum magnesium is a risk factor of CV mortality in MHD patients. Intervention studies are needed to clarify whether magnesium supplementation is beneficial for improving patient prognosis, when MHD patients had inflammatory and malnutrition.
DNA Sequence Profiles of the Colorectal Cancer Critical Gene Set KRAS-BRAF-PIK3CA-PTEN-TP53 Related to Age at Disease Onset

The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) increases with age and early onset indicates an increased likelihood for genetic predisposition for this disease. The somatic genetics of tumor development in relation to patient age remains mostly unknown. We have examined the mutation status of five known cancer critical genes in relation to age at diagnosis, and compared the genomic complexity of tumors from young patients without known CRC syndromes with those from elderly patients. Among 181 CRC patients, stratified by microsatellite instability status, DNA sequence changes were identified in KRAS (32%), BRAF (16%), PIK3CA (4%), PTEN (14%) and TP53 (51%). In patients younger than 50 years (n = 45), PIK3CA mutations were not observed and TP53 mutations were more frequent than in the older age groups. The total gene mutation index was lowest in tumors from the youngest patients. In contrast, the genome complexity, assessed as copy number aberrations, was highest in tumors from the youngest patients. A comparable number of tumors from young (<50 years) and old patients (>70 years) was quadruple negative for the four predictive gene markers (KRAS-BRAF-PIK3CA-PTEN); however, 16% of young versus only 1% of the old patients had tumor mutations in PTEN/PIK3CA exclusively. This implies that mutation testing for prediction of EGFR treatment response may be restricted to KRAS and BRAF in elderly (>70 years) patients. Distinct genetic differences found in tumors from young and elderly patients, whom are comparable for known clinical and pathological variables, indicate that young patients have a different genetic risk profile for CRC development than older patients.
MSPlayer: Multi-Source and multi-Path LeverAged YoutubER

Online video streaming through mobile devices has become extremely popular nowadays. YouTube, for example, reported that the percentage of its traffic streaming to mobile devices has soared from 6% to more than 40% over the past two years. Moreover, people are constantly seeking to stream high quality video for better experience while often suffering from limited bandwidth. Thanks to the rapid deployment of content delivery networks (CDNs), popular videos are now replicated at different sites, and users can stream videos from close-by locations with low latencies. As mobile devices nowadays are equipped with multiple wireless interfaces (e.g., WiFi and 3G/4G), aggregating bandwidth for high definition video streaming has become possible. We propose a client-based video streaming solution, MSPlayer, that takes advantage of multiple video sources as well as multiple network paths through different interfaces. MSPlayer reduces start-up latency and provides high quality video streaming and robust data transport in mobile scenarios. We experimentally demonstrate our solution on a testbed and through the YouTube video service.
Descriptive social norms and charitable giving

By conducting a field experiment, we examined whether conveying descriptive social norms (e.g., " this is what most people do ") leads to more charitable giving compared to industry standard appeals. Moreover, we examined whether people are more likely to conform to the local norms of one's immediate environment than to more global norms extending beyond one's local environment. University students received a charity organization's information brochure and were asked for a monetary contribution. An experimental descriptive norm manipulation was embedded in the brochure. We found that providing people with descriptive norms increased charitable giving substantially compared with industry standard altruistic appeals (control condition). Moreover, conveying local norms were more effective in increasing charitable giving than conveying global norms. Practical implications for charity organizations and marketing are proposed.
Flux regulation strategies for hybrid excitation synchronous machines

The paper investigates methods for achieving really wide constant power speed range in electric drives. In particular, focusing the attention to hybrid excitation synchronous machines, five control strategies are presented and compared. It is shown how one of these allows for theoretically infinite constant power speed range. The strategies are also experimentally verified and a 10:1 range is demonstrated.
Confirmation of a Teacher Expectancy Model: Student Perceptions and Causal Attributions of Teaching Behaviors

Abstract This study described patterns of observed and student perceived teaching behaviors directed to high and low expectancy students and determined how students attribute causes to the teaching behaviors. Eleven certified elementary classroom teachers and their second and third-grade classes served as subjects for the study. Twenty-seven high expectancy and 33 low expectancy students were identified by having the teachers rate their students in terms of expected levels of performance for the school year. Three types of teacher feedback were recorded by trained observers: a) praise/encouragement; b) skill correction; and c) corrective behavior feedback. Students were also interviewed to see whether their perceptions of the teachers' actions were consistent with the coded dyadic interactions. In addition, interviewers asked the students to describe the causes for the teacher's actions. Each cause was classified into one of four attributional categories: a) personal causes; b) teacher causes; c) environm.
An Examination of the Relationship Between Commitments and Culture Among Five Cultural Groups of Israeli Teachers

This study examines the relationship between commitment forms (organizational commitment, occupational commitment, job involvement, work involvement, and group commitment) and cultural values (individualism versus collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity). Five groups of Israeli teachers who are assumed to represent different cultural groups (secular Jews, orthodox Jews, kibbutz teachers, Druze, and Arabs) are examined. Of the 2,269 questionnaires that are distributed in 54 schools in northern Israel, 1,328 usable questionnaires are returned, a response rate of 59%. The findings, using MANCOVA and regression analysis, show the strong effect of culture on multiple commitments. First, the five cultural groups related to commitment forms even when cultural values are controlled. Second, all of the cultural values are related to forms of commitment, and they add to the variance already explained by the cultural groups. The findings and their implications for the continuation of research on commitment and culture are discussed.
Chlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans in human tissues from general populations: a selective review

During the past decade a considerable amount of data has been generated concerning polychlorinated dibenzodioxin (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzofuran (PCDF) levels in humans from many geographical locations. To organize these data in a useful fashion for environmental purposes and for consideration of human toxicity, selected portions of our data are presented in a somewhat atypical fashion, by percentage contribution of individual congeners to total PCDD/Fs in human tissue, and to the total dioxin equivalents (TEq). This is done to better characterize congener contributions from environmental contamination in various geographical regions at this time and health-related levels. To present the findings in a global perspective, data from widely different locations are presented including the United States, Germany, Vietnam, the former Soviet Union, Thailand, Cambodia, China, South Africa, and Guam.
Four-legged Walking Gait Control Using a Neuromorphic Chip Interfaced to a Support Vector Learning Algorithm

To control the walking gaits of a four-legged robot we present a novel neuromorphic VLSI chip that coordinates the relative phasing of the robot's legs similar to how spinal Central Pattern Generators are believed to control vertebrate locomotion [3]. The chip controls the leg movements by driving motors with time varying voltages which are the outputs of a small network of coupled oscillators. The characteristics of the chip's output voltages depend on a set of input parameters. The relationship between input parameters and output voltages can be computed analytically for an idealized system. In practice, however, this ideal relationship is only approximately true due to transistor mismatch and offsets. Fine tuning of the chip's input parameters is done automatically by the robotic system, using an unsupervised Support Vector (SV) learning algorithm introduced recently [7]. The learning requires only that the description of the desired output is given. The machine learns from (unlabeled) examples how to set the parameters to the chip in order to obtain a desired motor behavior.
Why India Cannot Plan Its Cities: Informality, Insurgence and the Idiom of Urbanization

The fast-paced growth of the Indian economy and particularly its cities has produced an urban crisis, one that is marked by the lack of adequate infrastructure and growth management as well as by sharp social divisions that are starkly etched in a landscape of bourgeois enclaves and slums. In this context, there are numerous calls for a more decisive and vigorous type of planning that can `future-proof' Indian cities. Yet, such efforts are often unsuccessful and many are fiercely challenged by social movements and forms of insurgence. This article explains this urban crisis by analyzing the structure of urban informality in India. While informality is often seen to be synonymous with poverty, this article makes the case that India's planning regime is itself an informalized entity, one that is a state of deregulation, ambiguity, and exception. This idiom of urbanization makes possible new frontiers of development but also creates the territorial impossibility of governance, justice, and development.
Can Intelligence Be Altered Through Cognitive Training?

The authors caution that in neglecting to focus on cognitive training, special educaton may be denying the very ideology on which it is built. Evidence is presented that (a) cognitive development is alterable via environmental and instructional influences; (b) cognition in handicapped populations is difficult to ascertain and is therefore being neglected; and (c) current special education treatment interventions and methodologies have in the past occluded research developments in cognitive training. It is also argued that investigations of cognitive approaches to instruction are so characterized by design flaws that no substantive conclusions can be drawn regarding the usefulness of cognitive theory. Finally, social learning theory is suggested as a means of providing special educators with valuable insights regarding the training of cognitive processes.
Glove Attributes and Their Contribution to Force Decrement and Increased Effort in Power Grip

Objective: To determine the contribution of the loss of tactile sensitivity, glove flexibility, glove thickness, and changes in finger geometry to force decrement and increased effort during gloved power grip. Background: Gloved work has been shown to increase the effort required to perform manual tasks. Method: A battery of maximal and submaximal gripping tasks was performed while grip force and surface electromyography of seven forearm muscles were recorded. Participants performed power grips while wearing three different thicknesses of rubber gloves (differing only in thickness; maximum 3.1 mm), wearing interdigital spacers between the fingers (matched to the glove thicknesses), and with a bare hand. Results: Decreases in maximum grip force compared with the bare hand were observed for the thickest glove (—31.0 ± 6.8%, p < .05) and for the thickest interdigital spacers (—9.7 ± 5.9 %, p < .05). Participants increased their grip force with increasing glove thickness for a submaximal object-lifting task (p < .01). To maintain an unloaded grip posture and to create a fixed submaximal force, participants increased muscle activation (p < .05) for all muscles with increasing glove thickness. Conclusion: Decreases in maximal grip force and increased effort in submaximal tasks could be attributed to a combination of reduced tactile sensitivity, the effort to bend the gloves, and interdigital separation. Application: Although the values obtained are specific to the rubber gloves tested, the results give insights into factors important in the design and selection of gloves.
Formation of highly porous aerosol particles by atmospheric freeze-drying in ice clouds

Significance Aerosols cycling through clouds affect particle morphological and chemical properties, thus modifying aerosol effects on cloud microphysics and climate. Previous studies have focused on aerosol processing in warm clouds via aqueous-phase reactions. Here we investigate the physical modifications of aerosols following processing within ice clouds using a unique laboratory setup that simulates ice cloud processes. The processed particles have a porous structure due to phase separation upon freezing, subsequent glass transition, and ice sublimation. Such modified aerosols can be better ice and cloud condensation nuclei and scatter less light. These changes have implications for aerosol–cloud interactions and optical properties of aerosols in the vicinity of clouds. The cycling of atmospheric aerosols through clouds can change their chemical and physical properties and thus modify how aerosols affect cloud microphysics and, subsequently, precipitation and climate. Current knowledge about aerosol processing by clouds is rather limited to chemical reactions within water droplets in warm low-altitude clouds. However, in cold high-altitude cirrus clouds and anvils of high convective clouds in the tropics and midlatitudes, humidified aerosols freeze to form ice, which upon exposure to subsaturation conditions with respect to ice can sublimate, leaving behind residual modified aerosols. This freeze-drying process can occur in various types of clouds. Here we simulate an atmospheric freeze-drying cycle of aerosols in laboratory experiments using proxies for atmospheric aerosols. We find that aerosols that contain organic material that undergo such a process can form highly porous aerosol particles with a larger diameter and a lower density than the initial homogeneous aerosol. We attribute this morphology change to phase separation upon freezing followed by a glass transition of the organic material that can preserve a porous structure after ice sublimation. A porous structure may explain the previously observed enhancement in ice nucleation efficiency of glassy organic particles. We find that highly porous aerosol particles scatter solar light less efficiently than nonporous aerosol particles. Using a combination of satellite and radiosonde data, we show that highly porous aerosol formation can readily occur in highly convective clouds, which are widespread in the tropics and midlatitudes. These observations may have implications for subsequent cloud formation cycles and aerosol albedo near cloud edges.
A Quantitative Review of the Comprehensiveness of the Five-Factor Model in Relation to Popular Personality Inventories

Reports of associations between the five-factor model (FFM) and the scales of popular personality inventories have generated controversy regarding the comprehensiveness of the FFM. The controversy is fueled by a preoccupation with capturing scale variance and differentiating between specific scales, whereas the focus should instead be on whether the FFM captures the common variance and the dimensions that exist in personality constructs. Analyses of published data revealed that the portions of scale variance captured by the FFM (mean = 38%) were substantial when evaluated in relation to the portions of common variance that exist in most personality inventories (mean = 50%). Furthermore, interbattery factor analyses indicated that the factor structures in most personality inventories can be closely replicated using data derived solely from scale associations with the FFM. Exceptions to this finding occurred for only 2 of 28 personality inventories. The findings support the comprehensiveness of the FFM.
The Time Course of Syntactic Activation During Language Processing: A Model Based on Neuropsychological and Neurophysiological Data

This paper presents a model describing the temporal and neurotopological structure of syntactic processes during comprehension. It postulates three distinct phases of language comprehension, two of which are primarily syntactic in nature. During the first phase the parser assigns the initial syntactic structure on the basis of word category information. These early structural processes are assumed to be subserved by the anterior parts of the left hemisphere, as event-related brain potentials show this area to be maximally activated when phrase structure violations are processed and as circumscribed lesions in this area lead to an impairment of the on-line structural assignment. During the second phase lexical-semantic and verb-argument structure information is processed. This phase is neurophysiologically manifest in a negative component in the event-related brain potential around 400 ms after stimulus onset which is distributed over the left and right temporo-parietal areas when lexical-semantic information is processed and over left anterior areas when verb-argument structure information is processed. During the third phase the parser tries to map the initial syntactic structure onto the available lexical-semantic and verb-argument structure information. In case of an unsuccessful match between the two types of information reanalyses may become necessary. These processes of structural reanalysis are correlated with a centroparietally distributed late positive component in the event-related brain potential. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)