Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“Bad Students Go to Vocational Schools!”: Education, Social Reproduction and Migrant Youth in Urban China

China’s second-generation rural-to-urban migrant youth, who grew up in their parents’ adopted cities, are still denied urban residential status and suffer from the institutional closure of higher education opportunities. This article explores in ethnographic detail the experiences and subjectivities of migrant youth in Shanghai who since 2008 have been channeled to secondary vocational schools. It highlights the direct involvement of the local state in reproducing a social hierarchy in which migrant youth provide cheap labor for manufacturing and low-skilled service industries. It reveals how contention over the limited choice of majors and career trajectories persists between state intention, market demand and individual aspirations. The time and space provided by vocational schooling enable migrant students to gain urban habitus and form networks across boundaries. Vocational schools have thus become a unique site for studying education and class reproduction in a late-socialist context.
Measurement errors and scaling relations in astrophysics: a review

This review article considers some of the most common methods used in astronomy for regressing one quantity against another in order to estimate the model parameters or to predict an observationally expensive quantity using trends between object values. These methods have to tackle some of the awkward features prevalent in astronomical data, namely heteroscedastic (point‐dependent) errors, intrinsic scatter, non‐ignorable data collection and selection effects, data structure and non‐uniform population (often called Malmquist bias), non‐Gaussian data, outliers, and mixtures of regressions. We outline how least square fits, weighted least squares methods, Maximum Likelihood, survival analysis, and Bayesian methods have been applied in the astrophysics literature when one or more of these features is present. In particular we concentrate on errors‐in‐variables regression and we advocate Bayesian techniques. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining 6: 15–33, 2013
Large-joint damage in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis and its association with treatment strategy and damage of the small joints.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of large-joint damage and the association with small-joint damage in patients with RA after 8 years of low DAS (≤2.4)-targeted treatment with different treatment strategies. METHODS Radiological data of 290 patients participating in the BeSt study, a randomized trial comparing initial monotherapy and initial combination therapy strategies, were used. Radiographs of large joints were scored using the Larsen score and of the small joints using the Sharp-van der Heijde score. With multivariate logistic regression analysis, an association between total damage of the small joints and of the large joints was investigated. RESULTS After 8 years of treatment, damage was observed in 12% of shoulders, 10% of elbows, 26% of wrists, 13% of hips, 18% of knees and 7% of the ankles. Damage in one or more large joints was found in 64% of patients, with a median score of 1. No difference was found between initial monotherapy or combination therapy strategies. There was a significant association between damage progression in small joints and damage to one or more large joints (OR 1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.04). CONCLUSION After 8 years of DAS-targeted treatment in early RA patients, large-joint damage was found in 64% of patients and was associated with small-joint damage. Continued DAS-targeted treatment is probably more important in damage suppression than initial treatment strategy. Patients with more damage to hands and feet also have more damage to the large joints.
Selbstbeurteilung von Aufmerksamkeitsdefiziten bei Alzheimer-Kranken mit sehr leichter Demenz

Zusammenfassung: Die Selbstbeurteilung von Aufmerksamkeitsdefiziten wurde bei 14 Patienten mit Alzheimer-Demenz in einem sehr fruhen Stadium (MMST > 24) und 14 hinsichtlich Geschlecht, Alter und Schulbildung gematchten sowie hinsichtlich der Depressivitat vergleichbaren Kontrollpersonen psychometrisch erfast. Als Mesinstrument wurde der “Fragebogen Erlebter Defizite der Aufmerksamkeit (FEDA)” (Zimmermann, Messner, Poser & Sedelmeier, 1991) eingesetzt. Es zeigte sich, das die nicht-depressiven Patienten mit beginnender Alzheimer-Demenz signifikant starker ausgepragte Beschwerden angaben als gesunde Altere. Mit Hilfe des FEDA-Gesamtwertes konnten 12 Patienten und 11 Kontrollpersonen richtig zugeordnet werden, die Trefferquote betrug somit 82 %. Die Ergebnisse dieser explorativen Studie weisen darauf hin, das die psychometrisch erfaste Selbstbeurteilung von Aufmerksamkeitsdefiziten in der Fruherkennung einer Demenz bei Alzheimer-Krankheit neben anderen Befunden diagnostisch relevante Information beitragen kann.
Cortical Correlates of Fitts’ Law

Fitts’ law describes the fundamental trade-off between movement accuracy and speed: it states that the duration of reaching movements is a function of target size (TS) and distance. While Fitts’ law has been extensively studied in ergonomics and has guided the design of human–computer interfaces, there have been few studies on its neuronal correlates. To elucidate sensorimotor cortical activity underlying Fitts’ law, we implanted two monkeys with multielectrode arrays in the primary motor (M1) and primary somatosensory (S1) cortices. The monkeys performed reaches with a joystick-controlled cursor toward targets of different size. The reaction time (RT), movement time, and movement velocity changed with TS, and M1 and S1 activity reflected these changes. Moreover, modifications of cortical activity could not be explained by changes of movement parameters alone, but required TS as an additional parameter. Neuronal representation of TS was especially prominent during the early RT period where it influenced the slope of the firing rate rise preceding movement initiation. During the movement period, cortical activity was correlated with movement velocity. Neural decoders were applied to simultaneously decode TS and motor parameters from cortical modulations. We suggest that sensorimotor cortex activity reflects the characteristics of both the movement and the target. Classifiers that extract these parameters from cortical ensembles could improve neuroprosthetic control.
E-cadherin and APC compete for the interaction with beta-catenin and the cytoskeleton

beta-Catenin is involved in the formation of adherens junctions of mammalian epithelia. It interacts with the cell adhesion molecule E- cadherin and also with the tumor suppressor gene product APC, and the Drosophila homologue of beta-catenin, armadillo, mediates morphogenetic signals. We demonstrate here that E-cadherin and APC directly compete for binding to the internal, armadillo-like repeats of beta-catenin; the NH2-terminal domain of beta-catenin mediates the interaction of the alternative E-cadherin and APC complexes to the cytoskeleton by binding to alpha-catenin. Plakoglobin (gamma-catenin), which is structurally related to beta-catenin, mediates identical interactions. We thus show that the APC tumor suppressor gene product forms strikingly similar associations as found in cell junctions and suggest that beta-catenin and plakoglobin are central regulators of cell adhesion, cytoskeletal interaction, and tumor suppression.
Common Variants of the ACE Gene and Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in a Danish Population: A Case-control Study

Objective The intron 16 insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene has been associated with rupture of intracranial aneurysms, but the effect of haplotypes within ACE has not been studied. This study investigated whether ACE haplotypes including the I/D polymorphism are associated with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Methods The hypothesis was tested with a case-control design in 176 patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and with 498 hospital controls. Through the pairwise tagging principle, single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs4291 A/T, rs4295 C/G, rs4305 C/T, rs4311 C/T, rs4331 T/C, rs4343 C/T) in the ACE gene were genotyped along with the I/D polymorphism. Haplotypes were estimated using the PHASE software. Results Fifty-five haplotypes were identified with 3 of these having a frequency above 5%: ACCCCIT (41.6±0.4%), TGTTTDC (32.1±0.5%), and ACCTTDC (9.5±0.2%). No significant difference in distribution of alleles, genotypes, haplotypes, or haplotype pairs between the 2 populations was found. Specifically, we could not reproduce previously reported associations between the ACE I genotype and intracranial aneurysms. When subdivided into groups of aneurysm location, we found a trend toward an association between homozygotes of the ACCCCIT haplotype and middle cerebral artery aneurysms, odds ratio=2.9 (1.0 to 7.6), which however proved insignificant (P=0.22) after correction for multiple testing. Conclusion In this Danish population, ACE haplotypes and the I/D polymorphism did not contribute significantly to the overall risk of intracranial aneurysm rupture. Larger studies are needed to delineate the association between ACE polymorphism and ruptured middle cerebral artery aneurysms.
Development of sample preparation, presentation procedure and sensory descriptive analysis of green tea

ABSTRACT Although the infusing condition of green tea is critical in determining green tea quality, the green tea industries lack a validated standardized tea preparation procedure. The objectives were (1) to develop an effective sample preparation and presentation procedure to conduct an objective sensory analysis; and (2) to elucidate the effects of green tea types and infusing conditions on the sensory characteristics of green tea. The optimum infusing times for green tea at two temperatures (60 and 80C) were determined using the just-about-right scale evaluated by consumers. Then, a descriptive analysis was conducted. The panelists developed 16 descriptors, and determined the reference samples and the tasting procedure. The optimum infusing time–temperature combinations are approximately 3 min at 60C or 1 min at 80C. The intensity of fermented-like flavor increased, but cut grass and floral flavor decreased with the lower-graded tea leaf. Samples infused at 60C–3 min were sweeter but less bitter than samples at 80C–1 min. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The sample preparation method and evaluating conditions developed in this study have been validated using both analytical and consumer studies. The protocols showed to be powerful in discriminating the sensory characteristics between the samples when conducting objective sensory analyses. The sensory lexicons and standards established should be useful to researchers and product developers who are working with flavors of green tea. Additionally, the sample preparation method and evaluation procedure introduced in this study are relatively straightforward, thus, making it possible for the general sensory scientist group to use an effective standardized method when conducting objective sensory analyses of green tea.
Language and Schooling.

This article examines the sociological significance of sociolinguistic research in the area of education. The goal of my examination is to demonstrate that the study of language use in naturally occurring situations (I) contributes to an understanding of the role of language in education, (2) contributes to an understanding of the role of schoolng in social stratification, and (3) contributes to sociological theory by revealing issues not otherwise available for sociological analysis. In the body of the article, sociolinguistic studies of language use in contrasting settings are reviewed, and studies which suggest that language is the medium through which stratification occurs in schools are discussed. Before reviewing selected sociolinguistic studies in educational settings, I will place this line of research in the context of social sirati cation theories and the historical period of the work.
Perception of basic education school teachers towards inclusive education in the Hohoe District of Ghana

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perception of basic school teachers towards inclusive education in the Hohoe District of Ghana. The research makes use of a descriptive survey design, which engaged both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. A sample size of 100 respondents, comprising of 60 male teachers and 40 female teachers, was drawn from a population of 600 for the study. A purposive sampling technique is employed to find participants for the study. The outcome of the research reveals that even though the basic school teachers in the Hohoe District were exposed to the policy of inclusive education, they identify factors impeding the policy implementation comprising: inadequate facilities available for the teachers to implement the policy of inclusion and a lack of adequate training for teachers to be equipped with how to take care of students with disabilities in their classrooms. It is also found that the Ghana Education Service and other stakeholders of education pay mere lip service to the provision of services to inclusive school environments. The researchers suggest that the Ghana Education Service must provide regular in‐service training to the teachers for them to be able to address the learning needs of the disabled. Additionally, suggestions are raised for Government and other stakeholders to provide equipment and other facilities for implementation of inclusive education in Ghana.
The Relationship of Life Stress to Problem Solving: Task Complexity and Individual Differences

To examine the hypothesis that a fixed-capacity information-processing model (Kahneman, 1973) can be used to explain the relationship between problem-solving errors and life stress as moderated by state anxiety and private body consciousness (PBC; Miller, Murphy & Buss, 1981), we administered a series of simple (two-term) and more complex (three-term) analogies to undergraduate subjects. The results indicated that performance on the two-term problems was unrelated to the individual-difference variables, to life stress, or to the strategies employed. On three-term problems, however, students high in life stress, state anxiety, and private body consciousness performed more poorly and were more likely to employ nonsystematic scanning of alternative solutions to the analogies. Moreover, non-systematic scanning appeared to mediate the relationship between the individual-difference variables and performance. The data fit a model in which life stress and state anxiety have the potential to consume scarce cogniti.
‘Lucky this is anonymous.’ Ethnographies of reception in men’s magazines: a ‘textual culture’ approach

In this article I address the contribution that a study of reader reception might make to our understanding of the cultural meanings of the discourses to be found in and around men’s magazines. Reception is a cultural site often neglected in linguistic analyses of popular cultural texts, which are commonly treated as discrete, autonomous and ahistorical within these approaches. Conversation Analysis of unstructured interviews with magazine readers is one means of accessing contexts of reception, which, unlike many ethnographic approaches, is properly reflexive about the ontological status of its data. The drawback of a strict ethnomethodological approach, however, is its limited ability in recreating the original context of reading: the interview is arguably a situated account rather than a transparent report of reception. In order to expand the terms of ‘context’ for these interviews, therefore, the article proposes a triangulated method whereby the discourses and categories identified in talk can be intertextually linked (and indeed are sometimes intertextually indexed within the talk itself) to other communicative contexts in the circuit of culture, such as the magazine text, media debates, editorial identities and everyday talk. This ‘textual culture’1 approach to the analysis of popular culture effectively aims to analyse with ethnographic breadth and in discursive depth, the various, intersecting sites of culture within which the material text is formed - of which reception serves as the focal point for this article - and mirrors recent developments in Critical Discourse Analysis.
Nifedipine prevents the pressor response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation in patients with coronary artery disease

The efficacy of sublingual nifedipine, administered one minute before anaesthetic induction, in order to minimise the pressor response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation was studied in a group of 15 patients who underwent coronary artery bypass surgery. Another group of 15 similar patients served as control. Premedication consisted of oral diazepam 5–10 mg, intramuscular morphine 0.2 mg/kg and promethazine 0.4 mg/kg. Anaesthesia was induced with morphine. 0.1–0.15 mg/kg and thiopentone 3–5 mg/kg. Laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation were facilitated with suxamethonium 1.5 mg/kg. A significant increase in blood pressure occurred during and after laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation in the control group. This increase was absent in the patients pretreated with nifedipine. The nifedipine group also maintained a lower rate‐pressure‐product than the control group during the period of study. It is concluded that nifedipine 10 mg is a useful pretreatment to prevent the pressor response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation in patients with coronary artery disease.
Fluctuation Induces Evolutionary Branching in a Mathematical Model of Ecosystems

Ecological systems are always subjected to various environmental fluctuations. They evolve under these fluctuations and the resulting systems are robust against them. The diversity in ecological systems is also acquired through the evolution. How do the fluctuations affect the evolutionary processes? Do the fluctuations have direct impact on the species diversity in ecological systems? In the present paper, we investigate the relation between the environmental fluctuation and the evolution of species diversity with a mathematical model of evolutionary ecology. In the model, individual organisms compete for a single restricted resource and the temporal fluctuation in the resource supply is introduced as the environmental fluctuation. The evolutionary process is represented by the mutational change of genotypes which determines their resource utilization strategies. We found that when the environmental state is switched form static to fluctuating conditions, the initial closely related population distributed around the genotype adapted for the static environment is destabilized and divided into two groups in the genotype space; i.e., the evolutionary branching is induced by the environmental fluctuation. The consequent multiple species structures is evolutionary stable at the presence of the fluctuation. We perform the evolutionary invasion analysis for the phenomena and illustrate the mechanisms of the branchings. The results indicate a novel process of increasing the species diversity via evolutionary branching, and the analysis reveals the mechanisims of the branching preocess as the response to the environmental fluctuation. The robustness of the evolutionary process is also discussed.
Predicting the DPP-IV Inhibitory Activity pIC50 Based on Their Physicochemical Properties

The second development program developed in this work was introduced to obtain physicochemical properties of DPP-IV inhibitors. Based on the computation of molecular descriptors, a two-stage feature selection method called mRMR-BFS (minimum redundancy maximum relevance-backward feature selection) was adopted. Then, the support vector regression (SVR) was used in the establishment of the model to map DPP-IV inhibitors to their corresponding inhibitory activity possible. The squared correlation coefficient for the training set of LOOCV and the test set are 0.815 and 0.884, respectively. An online server for predicting inhibitory activity pIC50 of the DPP-IV inhibitors as described in this paper has been given in the introduction.
Robust multiple estimator systems for the analysis of biophysical parameters from remotely sensed data

An approach based on multiple estimator systems (MESs) for the estimation of biophysical parameters from remotely sensed data is proposed. The rationale behind the proposed approach is to exploit the peculiarities of an ensemble of different estimators in order to improve the robustness (and in some cases the accuracy) of the estimation process. The proposed MESs can be implemented in two conceptually different ways. One extends the use of an approach previously proposed in the regression literature to the estimation of biophysical parameters from remote sensing data. This approach integrates the estimates obtained from the different regression algorithms making up the ensemble by a direct linear combination (combination-based approach). The other consists of a novel approach that provides as output the estimate obtained by the regression algorithm (included in the ensemble) characterized by the highest expected accuracy in the region of the feature space associated with the considered pattern (selection-based approach). This estimator is identified based on a proper partition of the feature space. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been assessed on the problem of estimating water quality parameters from multispectral remote sensing data. In particular, the presented MES-based approach has been evaluated by considering different operational conditions where the single estimators included in the ensemble are: 1) based on the same or on different regression methods; 2) characterized by different tradeoffs between correlated errors and accuracy of the estimates; 3) trained on samples affected or not by measurement errors. In the definition of the ensemble particular attention is devoted to support vector machines (SVMs), which are a promising approach to the solution of regression problems. In particular, a detailed experimental analysis on the effectiveness of SVMs for solving the considered estimation problem is presented. The experimental results point out that the SVM method is effective and that the proposed MES approach is capable of increasing both the robustness and accuracy of the estimation process.