Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond a Tolerance of Ambiguity: Symbolic Competence as Creative Uncertainty and Doubt

Author(s): Richardson, Diane | Abstract: Tolerance of ambiguity has been referred to as “the indispensable component of symbolic competence” (Kramsch, 2006, p. 251) and the recommendation was later made for college-level language instructors interested in emphasizing symbolic competence in their classrooms to “bring up every opportunity to show complexity and ambiguity” (Kramsch, 2011, p. 364). Within foreign language (FL) education, however, there is often a tendency to encourage negotiation of meaning in intercultural communication as a means of overcoming ambiguity. Yet ambiguity is an integral attribute of poetic and academic language as well as of day-to-day interactions, and embodies the very experience of language learning. Thus, FL pedagogies that incorporate the notion of symbolic competence emphasize that ambiguity—that is, multiplicity or indeterminacy of meaning—is not to be reduced, solved, or overcome. Rather, it should be promoted in order to emphasize the creative, productive side of the accompanying uncertainty and doubt. This can lead to the enhancement of creative abilities in learners—abilities that may be useful in navigating the ever-changing language game in which they are engaged.This article makes the case for FL education to move beyond a pedagogy that simply tolerates ambiguity, to one that wholeheartedly embraces it so as to promote and activate symbolic competence. Drawing from a curriculum-development project for an intermediate German language and culture class at a large public university in the southwestern United States, I explore the three types of ambiguity that were highlighted in that course; namely, ambiguity of genre, ambiguity of perspective, and ambiguity of silence as they are experienced in and through a variety of literary and non-literary texts. The course focused on the ambiguity of a seemingly familiar genre, the fairy tale, and how learners’ understanding of this genre became more nuanced by engaging with multiple versions, perspectives, and cultural narratives related to it—from a variety of sources, including celebrity interviews, medieval literature, and sports discourse, among others. Based on the analysis of student reflections to various tasks and assessments, this article illustrates which moments of ambiguity learners identified, how they reacted to those ambiguities, and how this contributed to the enhancement of their symbolic competence.
The Disk and Extraplanar Environment of NGC 247

The stellar content of the spiral galaxy NGC 247 is investigated using deep visible and near-infrared images. The main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) in the inner 12 kpc of the disk corresponds to an age of ~6 Myr. A mean star formation rate (SFR) of 0.1 M☉ yr-1 during the past 16 Myr is computed from star counts. The color of the red supergiant plume does not change with radius, suggesting that the mean metallicity of young stars does not vary by more than ~0.1 dex. The number of bright main-sequence stars per local stellar mass density climbs toward larger radii out to a distance of 12 kpc; the scale lengths that characterize the radial distributions of young and old stars in the disk thus differ. The density of bright main-sequence stars with respect to projected H I mass gradually drops with increasing radius. The population of very young stars disappears in the outer disk; the MSTO at galactocentric radii between 12 and 15 kpc corresponds to ~16 Myr, while between 15 and 18 kpc the age is ≥40 Myr. Red giant branch (RGB) stars are resolved at a projected minor-axis galactocentric distance of ~12 kpc. There is a broad spread in metallicity among the RGB stars, with a mean [M/H] ~ -1.2. The RGB tip occurs at i′ = 24.5 ± 0.1, indicating that the distance modulus is 27.9 ± 0.1. Luminous AGB stars with an age ~3 Gyr are also seen in this field.
The Shape of Australian Real Estate Return Distributions and Comparisons to the United States

Investment risk models with variance provide a better description of distribution of individual property returns in the Property Council of Australia data base from 1985 to 1996 than normally distributed risk models. The shape of the distribution of Australian property returns is virtually indistinguishable from the shape of United States property returns in the NCREIF Property Index for the years 1980 to 1992. Australian real estate investment risk is heteroscedastic, like its US counterpart, but the characteristic exponent of the investment risk function is constant across time and property type. It follows that portfolio management and asset diversification techniques that rely upon finite-variance statistics are as ineffectual for the Australian real estate market as they have been found to be for the United States.
H-2D Ligand Expression by Ly49A+ Natural Killer (NK) Cells Precludes Ligand Uptake from Environmental Cells

To study the adaptation of natural killer (NK) cells to their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I environment we have established a novel mouse model with mosaic expression of H-2Dd using a Cre/loxP system. In these mice, we noticed that NK cells expressing the inhibitory receptor for Dd, Ly49A, were specifically underrepresented among cells with low Dd levels. That was due to the acquisition of Dd molecules by the Ly49A+ NK cells that have lost their Dd transgene. The uptake of H-2D molecules via the Ly49A receptor was restricted to strong ligands of Ly49A. Surprisingly, when Ly49A+ NK cells were Dd+, uptake of the alternative ligand Dk was not detectable. Similarly, one anti-Ly49A mAb (A1) bound inefficiently when Ly49A was expressed on Dd+ NK cells. Concomitantly, functional assays demonstrated a reduced capacity of Ly49A to inhibit H-2bDd as compared with H-2b NK cells, rendering Ly49A+ NK cells in Dd+ mice particularly reactive. Minor reductions of Dd levels and/or increases of activating ligands on environmental cells may thus suffice to abrogate Ly49A-mediated NK cell inhibition. The mechanistic explanation for all these phenomena is likely the partial masking of Ly49A by Dd on the same cell via a lateral binding site in the H-2Dd molecule.
Comparison of Serum Zinc and Copper levels in Children and adolescents with Intractable and Controlled Epilepsy

Objective Trace elements such as zinc and copper have physiological effects on neuronal excitability that may play a role in the etiology of intractable epilepsy. This topic has been rarely discussed in Iranian epileptic patients. This study with the analysis of serum zinc and copper levels of children and adolescents with intractable and controlled epilepsy may identifies the potential role of these two trace elements in the development of epilepsy and intractability to antiepileptic drug treatment. Materials & Methods Seventy patients between the ages of 6 months to 15 years that referred to Children’s Medical Center with the diagnosis of epilepsy, either controlled or intractable to treatment enrolled in the study. After informed parental consent the levels of serum zinc and copper were measured with atomic absorption spectrophotometer and analyzed with SPSS version 11. Results 35 patients were enrolled in each group of intractable (IE) and controlled epilepsy (CE). 71.45% of the IE and 25.72% of the CE group had zinc deficiency that was statistically significant. 48.58% of the IE and 45.72 of the CE group were copper deficient, which was not statistically significant. Conclusion Our findings showed significant low serum zinc levels of patients with intractable epilepsy in comparison with controlled epilepsy group. We recommend that serum zinc level may play a role in the etiology of epilepsy and intractable epilepsy therefore its measurement and prescription may be regarded in the treatment of intractable epilepsy.
OPA and stable throughput analyzing for MIMO Cognitive communication systems

This paper studied the performance gain of multi-antenna technology in asymmetry Cognitive Radio (CR) interference communication systems. The main contributions include: 1. the derivation of the closed-form expressions of outage and throughput performance for Licensed User (LU) and Cognitive User (CU) in both ideal (detection is always correct) and real (detection error occurs) cognitive MIMO flat Rayleigh fading channels; 2. analyzing of the state-of-art power allocation algorithms and the throughputs; 3. designing of the Optimal Power Allocation (OPA) algorithm for CR MIMO systems while guaranteed the stability of the LU. Numerical results verified the theory analyses and the results show that the multi-antenna gain improves the overall system performance. Moreover, the OPA algorithm maximizes both of the LU and CU's maximum average throughputs while guarantees stability of the whole systems.
Reliable Identification of Compton-thick Quasars at z ≈ 2: Spitzer Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy of HDF-oMD49

Many models that seek to explain the origin of the unresolved X-ray background predict that Compton-thick active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are ubiquitous at high redshift. However, few distant Compton-thick AGNs have been reliably identified to date. Here we present Spitzer IRS spectroscopy and 3.6-70 μm photometry of a z = 2.211 optically identified AGN (HDF-oMD49) that is formally undetected in the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N) survey. The Spitzer IRS spectrum and spectral energy distribution of this object is AGN dominated, and a comparison of the energetics at X-ray wavelengths to those derived from mid-infrared (mid-IR) and optical spectroscopy shows that the AGN is intrinsically luminous (L2–10 keV ≈ 3 × 1044 ergs s−1) but heavily absorbed by Compton-thick material (NH≫ 1024 cm−2); i.e., this object is a Compton-thick quasar. Adopting the same approach that we applied to HDF-oMD49, we found a further six objects at z ≈ 2–2.5 in the literature that are also X-ray weak/undetected but have evidence for AGN activity from optical and/or mid-IR spectroscopy, and show that all of these sources are likely to be Compton-thick quasars with L2–10 keV > 1044 ergs s−1. On the basis of the definition of Daddi et al., these Compton-thick quasars would be classified as mid-IR excess galaxies, and our study provides the first spectroscopic confirmation of Compton-thick AGN activity in a subsample of these z ≈ 2 mid-IR-bright galaxies. Using the four objects that lie in the CDF-N field, we estimate the space density of reliably identified Compton-thick quasars [Φ ≈ (0.7–2.5) × 10−5 Mpc−3 for L2–10 keV > 1044 ergs s−1 objects at z ≈ 2–2.5] and show that Compton-thick accretion was probably as ubiquitous as unobscured accretion in the distant universe.
Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation

Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions. Nevertheless, organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice. We examine one such study. We then relate its conclusions to compatible investigations of learning and of innovation to argue that conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work. By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three.
Developing Communities of Instructional Practice: Lessons From Cincinnati and Philadelphia

reformers have increasingly invested in the development of communities within schools as a central strategy to improve teaching and student learning. These communities come in various guises, including small schools, small learning communities, and teacher teams. Two assumptions about how these communities will enhance the quality of instruction underlie the push for these more intimate learning environments. First, supporters believe that teachers will get to know their students better and therefore be more able to respond to students’ learning needs. Second, advocates contend that small communities will encourage teachers to collaborate more in order to improve their instructional practices. Thus, the theory of action underlying the development of teacher communities is that the fostering of these kinds of teacher communities will instigate improvements in the quality of instruction, which will lead to enhanced student learning. This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs examines the merit of these assumptions and the conditions under which communities of teachers can improve their instructional practices and bring about enhanced student learning.
Observations on Gaussian bases for Schrodinger's equation

One of the few methods for generating efficient function spaces for multi-D Schrodinger eigenproblems is given by Garashchuk and Light in J.Chem.Phys. 114 (2001) 3929. Their Gaussian basis functions are wider and sparser in high potential regions, and narrower and denser in low ones. We suggest a modification of their approach based on the following observation: In very steep potential regions, wide, sparse, Gaussians should be avoided even if their centers have high potential values. Our numerical results illustrate that a dramatic improvement in accuracy may be obtained in this way. We also compare the errors of collocation to those of a Galerkin approach, test a criterion for scaling Gaussian widths based on deviation from orthogonality of collocation eigenfunctions, and suggest a criterion for scaling Gaussian widths based on Hamiltonian trace minimization.
Neural Correlates of Promotion and Prevention Goal Activation: An fMRI Study using an Idiographic Approach

Regulatory focus theory [Higgins, E. T. Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 12801300, 1997] postulates two social-cognitive motivational systems, the promotion and prevention systems, for self-regulation of goal pursuit. However, the neural substrates of promotion and prevention goal activation remain unclear. Drawing on several literatures, we hypothesized that priming promotion versus prevention goals would activate areas in the left versus right prefrontal cortex (PFC), respectively, and that activation in these areas would be correlated with individual differences in chronic regulatory focus. Sixteen participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while engaged in a depth-of-processing task, during which they were exposed incidentally to their own promotion and prevention goals. Task-related cortical activation was consistent with previous studies. At the same time, incidental priming of promotion goals was associated with left orbital PFC activation, and activation in this area was stronger for individuals with a chronic promotion focus. Findings regarding prevention goal priming were not consistent with predictions. The data illustrate the centrality of self-regulation and personal goal pursuit within the multilayered process of social cognition.
DESIGN UNDER UNCERTAINTY EMPLOYING STOCHASTIC EXPANSION METHODS

Non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) and stochastic collocation (SC) methods are attractive techniques for uncertainty quantification (UQ) due to their strong mathematical basis and ability to produce functional representations of stochastic variability. PCE estimates coefficients for known orthogonal polynomial basis functions based on a set of response function evaluations, using sampling, linear regression, tensor-product quadrature, or Smolyak sparse grid approaches. SC, on the other hand, forms interpolation functions for known coefficients, and requires the use of structured collocation point sets derived from tensor product or sparse grids. When tailoring the basis functions or interpolation grids to match the forms of the input uncertainties, exponential convergence rates can be achieved with both techniques for general probabilistic analysis problems. Once PCE or SC representations have been obtained for a response metric of interest, analytic expressions can be derived for the moments of the expansion and for the design derivatives of these moments, allowing for efficient design under uncertainty formulations involving moment control (e.g., robust design). This paper presents two approaches for moment design sensitivities, one involving response function expansions over both design and uncertain variables and one involving response derivative expansions over only the uncertain variables. These approaches present a trade-off between increased dimensionality in the expansions (and therefore increased simulation runs required to construct them) with global expansion validity versus increased data requirements per simulation with local expansion validity. Given this capability for analytic moments and their sensitivities, we explore bilevel, sequential, and multifidelity formulations for OUU. Initial experiences with these approaches is presented for a number of benchmark test problems.
30 Seconds or Free ! Contingent Contracts in Electronic Commerce ∗

We analyze contingent price contracts as a mechanism for mitigating the effects of increased quality uncertainty in e-commerce. A contingent contract specifies a sequence of possible quality levels and corresponding prices. Electronic commerce infrastructure enables the capture and dissemination of information about the likelihood of each quality level. When the public probabilities differ from the firm’s private (and true) probabilities, contingent contracts can expand market size and the chance of market existence. When the market underestimates the firm’s ability to deliver quality, contingent contracts are strictly optimal, and increase both the firm’s expected margin and the fraction of buyers. Interestingly, the firm should offer a full-price rebate in this case. Conversely, when the market overestimates the firm’s ability to deliver quality, a single-price contract is strictly optimal. The results hold also under duopolistic competition: if only one firm offers contingency prices, it is able to improve profits and market share when the market underestimates its performance probability. Our results have actionable value in such diverse e-commerce contexts as electronic retailing, application service providers, electronic fitting rooms, telecommunications services, business exchanges, and online travel booking.
Unemployment and Indeterminacy

Using an efficiency-wage model, we examine the relationship between indeterminacy and unemployment insurance. It is shown that the less unemployment insurance is, the more likely equilibrium is to be indeterminate. Equilibrium can be indeterminate even without externalities or increasing returns, which makes a sharp contrast to the recent literature on indeterminacy. Our result is based on the fact that the no-shirking condition with marginal utility ofw ealth kept constant is downward sloping when income insurance is not perfect.
The canonical equation of adaptive dynamics: a mathematical view

The Darwinian evolution of a quantitative adaptive character is described as a jump process. As the variance of the distribution of mutation steps goes to zero, this process converges in law to the solution of an ordinary differential equation. In the case where the mutation step distribution is symmetrical, this establishes rigorously the socalled canonical equation first proposed by Dieckmann and Law (1996). Our mathematical approach naturally leads to extend the canonical equation to the case of biased mutations, and to seek ecological and genetic conditions under which evolution proceeds either through punctualism or through radiation.
ON THE PARAMETERS COMPUTATION OF A SINGLE SIDED TRANSVERSE FLUX MOTOR

The transverse flux (TF) motor represents a relatively new topology of electrical machines. It was first introduced and named by Weh [1] in the late '80s. By now, there have been reports on several variants of TF machines [2]. Basically there are two developments in the fields of TF machine, with or without permanent magnets as excitation. In the both cases the TF machines can be single sided or double sided. The double sided topology is quite complicated therefore the most of the prototypes on which do exist reports are single sided. Since the main feature of the TF machine should be the biggest ratio of the torque with respect to the volume, the TF machine topology with permanent magnets as excitation is the most promising one. The rotor can be built up with surface mounted permanent magnets (flat magnets rotor topology), Fig. 1a, or with permanent magnets inserted in between the flux concentrating poles (concentrating flux rotor topology), Fig 1b, [2]. The flat magnets rotor topology has the advantage of a quite well known technology since some synchronous and DC brushless machines are built up with flat magnets rotor, but the results reported until now lead to the conclusion that the single sided concentrating flux rotor machine topology offers better performances [2, 3, 4].
A botulinum toxin A treatment algorithm for de novo management of torticollis and laterocollis

Objectives Few studies have investigated the injection patterns for botulinum toxin type A for the treatment of heterogeneous forms of cervical dystonia (CD). This large, prospective, open-label, multicentre study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of 500 U botulinum toxin A for the initial treatment according to a standardised algorithm of the two most frequent forms of CD, predominantly torticollis and laterocollis. Design Patients (aged ≥18 years) with CD not previously treated with botulinum neurotoxin therapy were given one treatment with 500 U Dysport, according to a defined intramuscular injection algorithm based on clinical assessment of direction of head deviation, occurrence of shoulder elevation, occurrence of tremor (all evaluated using the Tsui rating scale) and hypertrophy of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. Results In this study, 516 patients were enrolled, the majority of whom (95.0%) completed treatment. Most patients had torticollis (78.1%). At week 4, mean Tsui scores had significantly decreased by −4.01, −3.76 and −4.09 points in the total, torticollis and laterocollis populations, respectively. Symptom improvement was equally effective between groups. Tsui scores remained significantly below baseline at week 12 in both groups. Treatment was well tolerated; the most frequent adverse events were muscular weakness (13.8%), dysphagia (9.9%) and neck pain (6.6%). Conclusions Dysport 500 U is effective and well tolerated for the de novo management of a range of heterogeneous forms of CD, when using a standardised regimen that allows tailored dosing based on individual symptom assessment. Clinical trials information (NCT00447772; clinicaltrials.gov)