Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning Outcomes in Two Divergent Middle School String Orchestra Classroom Environments: A Comparison of a Learner-Centered and a Teacher-Centered Approach

LEARNING OUTCOMES IN TWO DIVERGENT MIDDLE SCHOOL STRING ORCHESTRA CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENTS: A COMPARISON OF A LEARNER-CENTERED AND A TEACHER-CENTERED APPROACH by Bernadette Butler Scruggs This study investigated whether and in what ways a learner-centered instrumental music education classroom environment may nurture musical growth and independence. The mixed-methods design incorporated quantitative and qualitative measures to compare performance outcomes, musical growth, and learner and teacher dispositions in learner-centered and teacher-centered middle school orchestra classrooms. Quantitative measures included a Performance Assessment Instrument and a researcher-designed survey of student perceptions and attitudes. Qualitative measures included classroom observation, student and teacher interviews, and teacher journal entries. Research participants were four teachers, two of whom taught using a teacher-centered approach, and two of whom were oriented to learner-centered classroom strategies through a professional development program taught by the researcher. The teachers implemented learner-centered or teacher-centered environments in four intact classrooms that included 155 student participants. Learner-centered methods were based on democratic (Dewey, 1938; Woodford, 2005) and constructivist (Vygotsky, 1978; Wiggins, 2001) principles as well as research and pedagogical literature detailing the characteristics of learnercentered classrooms (McCombs & Whisler, 1997; Schuh, 2004). These included peer tutoring and collaboration; student conducting, solicitation and incorporation of student input; and facilitation of student leadership. I found no differences in music performance outcomes between learner-centered and teacher-centered ensembles. However, learnercentered students exhibited increased musical growth and greater musical independence as compared with students in the teacher-centered environment, and indicated higher perceptions than teacher-centered students of choice and leadership opportunities in their classrooms. Learner-centered teachers reported increased engagement and leadership skills from their students. Results of this study indicate that music ensemble teachers can incorporate a learner-center classroom environment that engages students musically, promotes independence and leadership, and involves students in higher order thinking while attaining performance standards at or above those expected of middle-school orchestra students. LEARNING OUTCOMES IN TWO DIVERGENT MIDDLE SCHOOL STRING ORCHESTRA CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENTS: A COMPARISON OF A LEARNER-CENTERED AND A TEACHER-CENTERED APPROACH by Bernadette Butler Scruggs
A Feminist family therapist behavior checklist

Abstract This paper reports on the development and psychometric properties of an instrument for identifying feminist family therapy skills. Family therapy sessions of 60 therapists in a variety of settings were rated using the Feminist Family Therapist Behavior Checklist. The checklist was found to discriminate between self-reported feminists and nonfem-inists, between men and women, and between expert categorizations of feminist and nonfeminist therapy sessions. Additional validity and reliability data are reported. Potential uses of this checklist are discussed for clinicians, educators and researchers.
THE SKELETON OF THE MILKY WAY

Recently, Goodman et al. argued that the very long, very thin infrared dark cloud “Nessie” lies directly in the Galactic midplane and runs along the Scutum–Centaurus Arm in position–position–velocity (p–p–v) space as traced by lower-density CO ? > and higher-density NH 3 ? > gas. Nessie was presented as the first “bone” of the Milky Way, an extraordinarily long, thin, high-contrast filament that can be used to map our Galaxy’s “skeleton. ” Here we present evidence for additional bones in the Milky Way, arguing that Nessie is not a curiosity but one of several filaments that could potentially trace Galactic structure. Our 10 bone candidates are all long, filamentary, mid-infrared extinction features that lie parallel to, and no more than 20 pc from, the physical Galactic mid-plane. We use CO , ? > N 2 H + , ? > HCO + ? > , and NH 3 ? > radial velocity data to establish the three-dimensional location of the candidates in p–p–v space. Of the 10 candidates, 6 also have a projected aspect ratio of ≥50:1; run along, or extremely close to, the Scutum–Centaurus Arm in p–p–v space; and exhibit no abrupt shifts in velocity. The evidence presented here suggests that these candidates mark the locations of significant spiral features, with the bone called filament 5 (“BC_18.88-0.09”) being a close analog to Nessie in the northern sky. As molecular spectral-line and extinction maps cover more of the sky at increasing resolution and sensitivity, it should be possible to find more bones in future studies.
Teachers’ Beliefs, Classroom Atmosphere and Student Behavior1

ness of teachers' belief systems affect their overt resourcefulness, dictatorialness and punitiveness in the classroom. In addition, the results show that the classroom behavior of the teacher and the behavior of the students are significantly related. Clearly, this relationship does not tell us the nature of the causality. Theoretically, the teacher's behavior could determine the childrens' behavior, the reverse could be true, both could be determined by a third factor, such as the organizational climate, or the effects could be produced by the interaction among all of these factors. The possibility that the relationship between teachers' and students' behavior is a result of organizational climate is minimized by the fact that the concrete and abstract teachers, while selected from the same organizational climates, nevertheless differed markedly in their classroom behaviors, as did their students. Further, while students no doubt affect the behavior of their teachers, it appears more likely that, because of her socially prescribed power, her influence is greater and more direct than theirs. The obtained differences between concrete and abstract teachers probably would have been accentuated had the group of more abstract teachers been comprised only of clear instances of System 4. Instead unclear instances, together with cases of System 3, were combined with clear instances of System 4 to constitute the abstract group in this study. Yet, if our experiences from the earlier (Harvey, and others, 1966) and the present study are typical, a large sample of teachers would be necessary to yield an adequate number of clear cases of System 4. Of the 292 teachers to whom
Analyzing communities and their evolutions in dynamic social networks

We discover communities from social network data and analyze the community evolution. These communities are inherent characteristics of human interaction in online social networks, as well as paper citation networks. Also, communities may evolve over time, due to changes to individuals' roles and social status in the network as well as changes to individuals' research interests. We present an innovative algorithm that deviates from the traditional two-step approach to analyze community evolutions. In the traditional approach, communities are first detected for each time slice, and then compared to determine correspondences. We argue that this approach is inappropriate in applications with noisy data. In this paper, we propose FacetNet for analyzing communities and their evolutions through a robust unified process. This novel framework will discover communities and capture their evolution with temporal smoothness given by historic community structures. Our approach relies on formulating the problem in terms of maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation, where the community structure is estimated both by the observed networked data and by the prior distribution given by historic community structures. Then we develop an iterative algorithm, with proven low time complexity, which is guaranteed to converge to an optimal solution. We perform extensive experimental studies, on both synthetic datasets and real datasets, to demonstrate that our method discovers meaningful communities and provides additional insights not directly obtainable from traditional methods.
International History, Religious History, Catholic History: Perspectives for Cross-Fertilization (1830—1914)

The essay explores what recent trends in international and religious (in particular, Catholic) history have to offer one another. On the one hand, the transformation of imperial history into global history and a new attention for the role of non-state actors in international politics are opening the eyes of international historians to religion as one of the main forces shaping the modern world. On the other hand, historians of religion are rediscovering the essentially transnational nature of their subject, and its enmeshment with politics at every turn. In the history of Catholicism, this takes the form of an aggiornamento of 'old-fashioned' themes such as ultramontanism, missionary expansion and the papacy. After having drifted apart for half a century, the two subdisciplines thus increasingly appear as natural allies in reconsidering the master narrative of modernity. The concept of 'religious internationalism', illustrated here through its Catholic variety, allows us to 'think together' the different aspects of religion's transformation into worldwide mass movements, and to grasp the key role of religion in creating a global public sphere that was conditioned by international politics, but in turn also refashioned the international system.
Multiple intelligences and the success of expatriation: The roles of contingency variables

Although, prior studies have discussed how the various intelligences of expatriates (IQ – intellectual intelligence, CQ – cultural intelligence, and EQ – emotional intelligence) could contribute to their success on foreign assignments, they tend to discuss each of these separately. By asserting that all of these intelligences operate within expatriates simultaneously, this study then examines how they contribute to the success of expatriation. Moreover, this work also investigates under what conditions multiple intelligences can magnify their effects. By adopting a qualitative study approach including, in-depth interviews of experts, employers and expatriates, this study reveals that the use of multiple intelligences is contingent upon expatriates’ commitment toward the organization, social support, functional interaction, and assignment tenure. Key words: Cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, social supports, commitment, functional interaction, assignment tenure.
Metacognitive instruction for helping less-skilled listeners

This article reports on a small-scale study of the effect of metacognitive instruction on listeners� comprehension. Twenty adult, Japanese, advanced level EFL learners participated in a task sequence, or �pedagogical cycle�, of predicting, monitoring, problem identification, and evaluating in each of five listening lessons aimed at promoting their comprehension of television news items. A comparison of pre-test and post-test scores illustrated that three of four less-skilled listeners made notable gains across the five lessons, whereas only one of four more-skilled listeners improved. Findings add support to the view that metacognitive instruction utilizing a pedagogical cycle may help less-skilled listeners to develop their listening ability, though there seems to be a threshold for higher skill levels beyond which effects are minimal.
The retinal nerve fiber layer, choroidal thickness, and central macular thickness in morbid obesity: an evaluation using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography.

OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of morbid obesity on retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness, central macular thickness (CMT), retinal ganglion cell (RGC), choroidal thickness (CT), central corneal thickness (CCT), and intraocular pressure (IOP). PATIENTS AND METHODS Sixty-seven patients defined as having morbid or class III obesity (BMI ≥ 40; Group 1) scheduled to undergo sleeve gastrectomy surgery and 29 nonobese patients (BMI 18.50-24.99; Group 2) underwent complete ophthalmic examination for measurement of IOP, CT, RNFL thickness, CMT, RGC, and CCT. RNFL thickness, CMT, and RGC were measured using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). CT measurement was performed using the enhanced depth imaging technique of the SD-OCT. The group data were analyzed and compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and Student's t-test. The relationship between the clinical ocular variables and obesity was analyzed using the Spearman's rank correlation test. RESULTS The mean IOP and CCT of Group 1 were found to be significantly higher (p < 0.001) and the mean RNFL, RGC, and CT significantly lower (p < 0.05) than those of Group 2. While Group 2 was found to have a slightly larger cup-to-disc ratio and Group 1 to have a thinner CMT, the differences between Groups 1 and 2 regarding these variables were not found to be statistically significant (p = 0.322 and p = 0.072, respectively). The results of Spearmen correlation analysis indicated the existence of a moderately positive correlation between IOP and BMI (p < 0.001; r = 0.5-0.6). CONCLUSIONS We have demonstrated by SD-OCT that morbid obesity may have a significant influence on RNFL, RGC, and CT. Morbid obesity may induce inflammatory, hormonal, and metabolic changes.
Implementation of the NICE Guidelines for Venous Thromboprophylaxis; A National Survey of Hip Surgeons

The 2007 United Kingdom National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) thromboprophylaxis guidelines concerning hip arthroplasty remain contentious in spite of significant evidence. A survey among British Hip Society members was performed to investigate the impact of these guidelines. Information on thromboprophylactic measures before and after guideline publication was gathered for three categories; Total Hip Replacement (THR), hip fracture and high-risk patients (as defined by NICE). The response rate was 185/250 (74%). All responders used thromboprophylaxis, but only 44%, 22% and 7% indicated they were currently acting in accordance with guidance for THR, high risk and hip fracture groups respectively. Only 19%, 14% and 14% had changed their practice since publication of the guidance in THR, high risk and hip fracture groups respectively. The effects of national guidance in influencing thromboprophylactic protocols have therefore been limited. The reasons were not investigated in this survey.
Opsin-G11-Mediated Signaling Pathway for Photic Entrainment of the Chicken Pineal Circadian Clock

Light is a major environmental signal for entrainment of the circadian clock, but little is known about the intracellular phototransduction pathway triggered by light activation of the photoreceptive molecule(s) responsible for the phase shift of the clock in vertebrates. The chicken pineal gland and retina contain the autonomous circadian oscillators together with the photic entrainment pathway, and hence they represent useful experimental models for the clock system. Here we show the expression of G11α, an α subunit of heterotrimeric G-protein, in both tissues by cDNA cloning, Northern blot, and Western blot analyses. G11α immunoreactivity was colocalized with pinopsin in the chicken pineal cells and also with rhodopsin in the outer segments of retinal photoreceptor cells, suggesting functional coupling of G11α with opsins in the clock-containing photosensitive tissues. The physical interaction was examined by coimmunoprecipitation experiments, the results of which provided evidence for light- and GTP-dependent coupling between rhodopsin and G11α. To examine whether activation of endogenous G11 leads to a phase shift of the oscillator, Gq/11-coupled m1-type muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) was ectopically expressed in the cultured pineal cells. Subsequent treatment of the cells with carbamylcholine (CCh), an agonist of mAChR, induced phase-dependent phase shifts of the melatonin rhythm in a manner very similar to the effect of light. In contrast, CCh treatment induced no measurable effect on the rhythm of nontransfected (control) cells or cells expressing Gi/o-coupled m2-type mAChR, indicating selectivity of the G-protein activation. Together, our results demonstrate the existence of a G11-mediated opsin-signaling pathway contributing to the photic entrainment of the circadian clock.
Triaging content severity in online mental health forums

In recent years, social media has become a significant resource for improving healthcare and mental health. Mental health forums are online communities where people express their issues, and seek help from moderators and other users. In such forums, there are often posts with severe content indicating that the user is in acute distress and there is a risk of attempted self‐harm. Moderators need to respond to these severe posts in a timely manner to prevent potential self‐harm. However, the large volume of daily posted content makes it difficult for the moderators to locate and respond to these critical posts. We propose an approach for triaging user content into four severity categories that are defined based on an indication of self‐harm ideation. Our models are based on a feature‐rich classification framework, which includes lexical, psycholinguistic, contextual, and topic modeling features. Our approaches improve over the state of the art in triaging the content severity in mental health forums by large margins (up to 17% improvement over the F‐1 scores). Furthermore, using our proposed model, we analyze the mental state of users and we show that overall, long‐term users of the forum demonstrate decreased severity of risk over time. Our analysis on the interaction of the moderators with the users further indicates that without an automatic way to identify critical content, it is indeed challenging for the moderators to provide timely response to the users in need.
Do Adults Show an Effect of Delayed First Language Acquisition When Calculating Scalar Implicatures?

Language acquisition involves learning not only grammatical rules and a lexicon but also what people are intending to convey with their utterances: the semantic/pragmatic component of language. In this article we separate the contributions of linguistic development and cognitive maturity to the acquisition of the semantic/pragmatic component of language by comparing deaf adults who had either early or late first exposure to their first language (ASL). We focus on the particular type of meaning at the semantic/pragmatic interface called scalar implicature, for which preschool-age children typically differ from adults. Children’s behavior has been attributed to either their not knowing appropriate linguistic alternatives to consider or to cognitive developmental differences between children and adults. Unlike children, deaf adults with late language exposure are cognitively mature, although they never fully acquire some complex linguistic structures and thus serve as a test for the role of language in such interpretations. Our results indicate an overall high performance by late learners, especially when implicatures are not based on conventionalized items. However, compared to early language learners, late language learners compute fewer implicatures when conventionalized linguistic alternatives are involved (e.g., ). We conclude that (i) in general, Gricean pragmatic reasoning does not seem to be impacted by delayed first language acquisition and can account for multiple quantity implicatures, but (ii) the creation of a scale based on lexical items can lead to ease in alternative creation that may be advantageously learned early in life and that this may be one of several factors contributing to differences between adults and children on scalar implicature tasks.
Assessment of Sleep-Related Breathing Disorders in Patients With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Background Respiratory failure is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in neuromuscular diseases. Although clinical findings and respiratory function tests aid in diagnosing sleep-related breathing disorders, polysomnography is the gold standard for the diagnosis of these disorders. We aimed to investigate the role of sleep-wake symptoms and clinical findings of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in predicting sleep-related breathing disorders through the comparison of polysomnography findings. In addition, we evaluated the sleep architecture of our patients. Methods A total of 35 children (12 patients with DMD and 23 controls) were included in this cross-sectional study. Activity status and clinical severity of the patients were determined by history and clinical findings such as scoliosis, obesity. All subjects were hospitalized for one night in the Sleep Unit and their polysomnography examinations were performed. Sleep, breathing, arousals and limb movements were scored manually according to the American Sleep Disorders Association criteria. Results Nocturnal and daytime symptoms were present in 50% of patients with DMD, 40.8% were wheelchair-bound and 58% had scoliosis. Obstructive sleep apnea was noted in 16.6% of patients with DMD. The apnea-hypopnea index, leg movement index were significantly higher in the DMD group as compared to the control group (P < 0.05). The number of desaturations, total arousal index and the percentage of total superficial sleep were significantly higher in patients with wheelchair, scoliosis, sleep-wake symptoms. Conclusions Being wheelchair-bound or having scoliosis do not predict sleep-related breathing disorders, so patients with DMD should be followed-up via polysomnography. Sleep-wake symptoms should be carefully questioned in these patients and symptomatic patients should be referred to pediatric respiratory units.
Highly Conserved Regions within the Spike Proteins of Human Coronaviruses 229E and NL63 Determine Recognition of Their Respective Cellular Receptors

ABSTRACT We have recently demonstrated that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) receptor angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) also mediates cellular entry of the newly discovered human coronavirus (hCoV) NL63. Here, we show that expression of DC-SIGN augments NL63 spike (S)-protein-driven infection of susceptible cells, while only expression of ACE2 but not DC-SIGN is sufficient for entry into nonpermissive cells, indicating that ACE2 fulfills the criteria of a bona fide hCoV-NL63 receptor. As for SARS-CoV, murine ACE2 is used less efficiently by NL63-S for entry than human ACE2. In contrast, several amino acid exchanges in human ACE2 which diminish SARS-S-driven entry do not interfere with NL63-S-mediated infection, suggesting that SARS-S and NL63-S might engage human ACE2 differentially. Moreover, we observed that NL63-S-driven entry was less dependent on a low-pH environment and activity of endosomal proteases compared to infection mediated by SARS-S, further suggesting differences in hCoV-NL63 and SARS-CoV cellular entry. NL63-S does not exhibit significant homology to SARS-S but is highly related to the S-protein of hCoV-229E, which enters target cells by engaging CD13. Employing mutagenic analyses, we found that the N-terminal unique domain in NL63-S, which is absent in 229E-S, does not confer binding to ACE2. In contrast, the highly homologous C-terminal parts of the NL63-S1 and 229E-S1 subunits in conjunction with distinct amino acids in the central regions of these proteins confer recognition of ACE2 and CD13, respectively. Therefore, despite the high homology of these sequences, they likely form sufficiently distinct surfaces, thus determining receptor specificity.