Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of Japanese ELL Students in Mainstream Classrooms

In today’s educational arena, English Language Learner (ELL) children have to exert a great deal of energy to be accepted by their mainstream peers. They often shun their primary languages and cultural practices in an effort to become assimilated into the mainstream. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current socialization practices experienced by particular Japanese ELL intermediate schoolchildren in Masonville (pseudonym), East Tennessee. Much of my interest was sparked by Vygotsky’s (1978) work on the sociality of learning. Through this qualitative research study, I was able to present an in-depth understanding of issues surrounding these children and describe how the children, parents, and classroom teachers dealt with these issues. The participants in the study were five Japanese ELL children, their mothers, and two mainstream classroom teachers. I used a naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Data were collected through two individual interviews with each of the participants and 10 unobtrusive classroom observations of each participant student. Focusing on the analyses of observations of and interviews with the five participant students, I was able to identify and discuss five themes: the differences of school cultural tendencies, emotional support of friends and teachers, identity and selfconfidence, parental support, students’ access to resources, and anxiety over the children’s development in Japanese. The participant students perceived major differences between American schools and Japanese schools, yet, bonds between the Japanese students and the emotional support they received from peers and teachers were helpful in easing the children’s challenges they experienced in their new school life. iv They maintained a strong Japanese ethnic identity and degree of self-confidence due to their belief that diligent work would always lead to success. The five Japanese students were academically successful, and supported by their families, who spared neither time nor effort and provided abundant resources for their children. Finally, both the children and their parents experienced anxiety over readjustment to the Japanese school system upon re-entering Japan. Their anxiety mainly came from the delay of the children’s development in Japanese and their perceptions of the difference of the two cultures between the U.S. and Japan.
Differential patterns of allelic loss in estrogen receptor‐positive infiltrating lobular and ductal breast cancer

The two main histological types of infiltrating breast cancer, lobular (ILC) and the more common ductal (IDC) carcinoma are morphologically and clinically distinct. To assess the molecular alterations associated with these breast cancer subtypes, we conducted a whole‐genome study of 166 archival estrogen receptor (ER)‐positive tumors (89 IDC and 77 ILC) using the Affymetrix GeneChip® Mapping 10K Array to identify sites of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) that either distinguished, or were shared by, the two phenotypes. We found single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of high‐frequency LOH (>50%) common to both ILC and IDC tumors predominately in 11q, 16q, and 17p. Overall, IDC had a slightly higher frequency of LOH events across the genome than ILC (fractional allelic loss = 0.186 and 0.156). By comparing the average frequency of LOH by chromosomal arm, we found IDC tumors with significantly (P < 0.05) higher frequency of LOH on 3p, 5q, 8p, 9p, 20p, and 20q than ILC tumors. We identified additional chromosomal arms differentiating the subtypes when tumors were stratified by tumor size, mitotic rate, or DNA content. Of 5,754 informative SNPs (>25% informativity), we identified 78 and 466 individual SNPs with a higher frequency of LOH (P < 0.05) in ILC and IDC tumors, respectively. Hierarchical clustering of these 544 SNPs grouped tumors into four major groups based on their patterns of LOH and retention of heterozygosity. LOH in chromosomal arms 8p and 5q was common in higher grade IDC tumors, whereas ILC and low‐grade IDC grouped together by virtue of LOH in 16q. Published 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Minimizing Regret on Reflexive Banach Spaces and Learning Nash Equilibria in Continuous Zero-Sum Games

We study a general version of the adversarial online learning problem. We are given a decision set $\mathcal{X}$ in a reflexive Banach space $X$ and a sequence of reward vectors in the dual space of $X$. At each iteration, we choose an action from $\mathcal{X}$, based on the observed sequence of previous rewards. Our goal is to minimize regret, defined as the gap between the realized reward and the reward of the best fixed action in hindsight. Using results from infinite dimensional convex analysis, we generalize the method of Dual Averaging (or Follow the Regularized Leader) to our setting and obtain general upper bounds on the worst-case regret that subsume a wide range of results from the literature. Under the assumption of uniformly continuous rewards, we obtain explicit anytime regret bounds in a setting where the decision set is the set of probability distributions on a compact metric space $S$ whose Radon-Nikodym derivatives are elements of $L^p(S)$ for some $p > 1$. Importantly, we make no convexity assumptions on either the set $S$ or the reward functions. We also prove a general lower bound on the worst-case regret for any online algorithm. We then apply these results to the problem of learning in repeated continuous two-player zero-sum games, in which players' strategy sets are compact metric spaces. In doing so, we first prove that if both players play a Hannan-consistent strategy, then with probability 1 the empirical distributions of play weakly converge to the set of Nash equilibria of the game. We then show that, under mild assumptions, Dual Averaging on the (infinite-dimensional) space of probability distributions indeed achieves Hannan-consistency. Finally, we illustrate our results through numerical examples.
ANALISIS PENGARUH QUALITY OF WORK LIFE (QWL) TERHADAP KINERJA DAN KEPUASAN KERJA KARYAWAN PT. BANK BRI SYARIAH CABANG PEKANBARU

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui analisis pengaruh Quality of Work Life (QWL) terhadap kinerja dan kepuasan kerja karyawan PT. Bank BRI Syariah Cabang Pekanbaru. Metode penelitian ini adalah metode deskriptif dengan pendekatan kuantitatif. Model yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah model kausalitas atau hubungan pengaruh. Untuk menguji hipotesis yang diajukan, digunakan teknik analisis SEM (Stuctural Equation Model) dengan analisis data menggunakan pendekatan Partial Least Square (PLS) dan sebagai pembanding menggunakan pendekatan Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) sebagai program analisis dalam penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian ini menyimpulkan : 1) Quality of Work Life berpengaruh terhadap kinerja karyawan dimana karyawan yang memiliki Quality of Work Life tinggi akan semakin dapat meningkatkan kinerjanya. 2) Quality of Work Life juga berpengaruh terhadap kepuasan kerja dimana karyawan yang memiliki Quality of Work Life tinggi akan semakin dapat meningkatkan kinerjanya, dan 3) Quality of Work Life berpengaruh terhadap kinerja dengan mediasi kepuasan kerja karyawan dimana karyawan yang memiliki Quality of Work Life tinggi dengan mediasi kepuasan kerja yang tinggi juga akan meningkatkan kinerjanya. Kata Kunci : Quality of Work Life, Kinerja Karyawan, Kepuasan Kerja, Bank Syariah.
Interstellar extinction in the direction of the Aquila Rift

The distance dependence of interstellar extinction in the direction of the Aquila Rift is investigated using 473 stars observed in the Vilnius photometric system. The front edge of the dark clouds in the area is found to be at $225\pm55$ pc and the thickness of the cloud system is about 80 pc. The maximum extinction A V in the clouds is close to 3.0 mag. Two stars with larger extinction are found and discussed. Since the new distance of the clouds is larger than the previously accepted distance, the cloud system mass should be increased to $2.7\times10^5~M_{\odot}$ which is close to the virial mass estimated from the CO velocity dispersion. Additional arguments are given in favor of the genetic relation between the Serpens and the Scorpio-Ophiuchus dark clouds.
Entropy in Tribology: in the Search for Applications

The paper discusses the concept of entropy as applied to friction and wear. Friction and wear are classical examples of irreversible dissipative processes, and it is widely recognized that entropy generation is their important quantitative measure. On the other hand, the use of thermodynamic methods in tribology remains controversial and questions about the practical usefulness of these methods are often asked. A significant part of entropic tribological research was conducted in Russia since the 1970s. Surprisingly, many of these studies are not available in English and still not well known in the West. The paper reviews various views on the role of entropy and self-organization in tribology and it discusses modern approaches to wear and friction, which use the thermodynamic entropic method as well as the application of the mathematical concept of entropy to the dynamic friction effects (e.g., the running-in transient process, stick-slip motion, etc.) and a possible connection between the thermodynamic and information approach. The paper also discusses non-equilibrium thermodynamic approach to friction, wear, and self-healing. In general, the objective of this paper is to answer the frequently asked question “is there any practical application of the thermodynamics in the study of friction and wear? ” and to show that the thermodynamic methods have potential for both fundamental study of friction and wear and for the development of new (e.g., self-lubricating) materials.
Using the MCF10A/MCF10CA1a Breast Cancer Progression Cell Line Model to Investigate the Effect of Active, Mutant Forms of EGFR in Breast Cancer Development and Treatment Using Gefitinib

Background Basal-like and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) share common molecular features, poor prognosis and a propensity for metastasis to the brain. Amplification of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) occurs in ~50% of basal-like breast cancer, and mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have been reported in up to ~ 10% of Asian TNBC patients. In non-small cell lung cancer several different mutations in the EGFR tyrosine kinase domain confer sensitivity to receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, but the tumourigenic potential of EGFR mutations in breast cells and their potential for targeted therapy is unknown. Materials and Methods Constructs containing wild type, G719S or E746-A750 deletion mutant forms of EGFR were transfected into the MCF10A breast cells and their tumorigenic derivative, MCF10CA1a. The effects of EGFR over-expression and mutation on proliferation, migration, invasion, response to gefitinib, and tumour formation in vivo was investigated. Copy number analysis and whole exome sequencing of the MCF10A and MCF10CA1a cell lines were also performed. Results Mutant EGFR increased MCF10A and MCF10CA1a proliferation and MCF10A gefitinib sensitivity. The EGFR-E746-A750 deletion increased MCF10CA1a cell migration and invasion, and greatly increased MCF10CA1a xenograft tumour formation and growth. Compared to MCF10A cells, MCF10CA1a cells exhibited large regions of gain on chromosomes 3 and 9, deletion on chromosome 7, and mutations in many genes implicated in cancer. Conclusions Mutant EGFR enhances the oncogenic properties of MCF10A cell line, and increases sensitivity to gefitinib. Although the addition of EGFR E746-A750 renders the MCF10CA1a cells more tumourigenic in vivo it is not accompanied by increased gefitinib sensitivity, perhaps due to additional mutations, including the PIK3CA H1047R mutation, that the MCF10CA1a cell line has acquired. Screening TNBC/basal-like breast cancer for EGFR mutations may prove useful for directing therapy but, as in non-small cell lung cancer, accompanying mutations in PIK3CA may confer gefitinib resistance.
Coarse Grained Exponential Variational Autoencoders

Variational autoencoders (VAE) often use Gaussian or category distribution to model the inference process. This puts a limit on variational learning because this simplified assumption does not match the true posterior distribution, which is usually much more sophisticated. To break this limitation and apply arbitrary parametric distribution during inference, this paper derives a \emph{semi-continuous} latent representation, which approximates a continuous density up to a prescribed precision, and is much easier to analyze than its continuous counterpart because it is fundamentally discrete. We showcase the proposition by applying polynomial exponential family distributions as the posterior, which are universal probability density function generators. Our experimental results show consistent improvements over commonly used VAE models.
Event-related brain potentials in the study of visual selective attention.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) provide high-resolution measures of the time course of neuronal activity patterns associated with perceptual and cognitive processes. New techniques for ERP source analysis and comparisons with data from blood-flow neuroimaging studies enable improved localization of cortical activity during visual selective attention. ERP modulations during spatial attention point toward a mechanism of gain control over information flow in extrastriate visual cortical pathways, starting about 80 ms after stimulus onset. Paying attention to nonspatial features such as color, motion, or shape is manifested by qualitatively different ERP patterns in multiple cortical areas that begin with latencies of 100-150 ms. The processing of nonspatial features seems to be contingent upon the prior selection of location, consistent with early selection theories of attention and with the hypothesis that spatial attention is "special. "
Beyond modelling: an integrated environment supporting co-execution of tasks and systems models

This paper focuses on the articulations of task models and system models. Tasks models are meant to be used by human factor specialists whilst system models are supposed to be produced by software engineers. However, tasks models and systems models represent two different views on how users interacting with a computing system to reach a goal. This paper presents an integration framework aiming to take full advantage of task models and system models that have been developed initially in a separated manner and how these two views can be integrated at the model level and additionally at the tool level. The main contribution of the paper lies in the definition of such integration at the tool level to be used at runtime (while the user is operating the system). Indeed, thanks to this integration contextual help can be offered to the users supporting the construction of the mental bridge between what they have to do (defined in the tasks model) and what the interactive system allows (defined in the system model). The approach, the tools and the integration are presented on a case study of a Weather Radar System (WXR) embedded in aircraft cockpits.
Characterizing the social diversity of bilingualism using language entropy

Abstract Bilingual and multilingual individuals exhibit variation in everyday language experience. Studies on bilingualism account for individual differences with measures such as L2 age of acquisition, exposure, or language proficiency, but recent theoretical perspectives posit that the relative balance between the two or more languages throughout daily life (i.e., interactional context) is a crucial determinant for language representation, access, and control. We propose an innovative measure to characterize this construct by using entropy to estimate the social diversity of language use. Language entropy is computed from commonly-collected language history data and generalizes to multilingual communicative contexts. We show how language entropy relates to other indices of bilingual experience and that it predicts self-report L2 outcome measures over and above classic measures of language experience. Thus, we proffer language entropy as a means to characterize individual differences in bilingual (and multilingual) language experience related to the social diversity of language use.
Jitter, shimmer, and noise in pathological voice quality perception

Although jitter, shimmer, and noise characterize all voice signals, their perceptual importance has not been established psychoacoustically. To determine which of these acoustic attributes is important in listeners’ perceptions of the inharmonic component in pathologic voices, copies of natural pathological voices were synthesized parametrically using seven different models of the inharmonic part of the voice source: jitter only, shimmer only, noise only, jitter plus shimmer, jitter plus noise, shimmer plus noise, and jitter plus shimmer plus noise. Listeners then compared pairs of these stimuli and judged whether they were the same or different. Listeners also compared synthetic and natural stimuli, to determine the extent to which different aspects of the inharmonic part of the source improved or worsened the quality of the match to the original natural voice sample. Preliminary results suggest that jitter and shimmer may not be perceptually important features of most pathological voices, despite their long history as acoustic measures of voice. In contrast, it appears that listeners perceive spectrally shaped additive noise as the critical inharmonic acoustic element contributing to pathologic voice quality. [Research supported by NIDCD. ]
Relationships between phosphatidic acid and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases in activated human blood mononuclear cells

We have previously shown that mitogenic activation of human PBMC rapidly increases both the intracellular phosphatidic acid (PA) level and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) activity, with time‐course responses, suggesting a causative relationship between the two events. PA also directly stimulated cAMP‐PDE activity in acellular systems. Thus the mitogenic properties of PA might be due to its ability to lower the level of cAMP, a negative effector of lymphocyte activation, through PDE activation. In this study, human PBMC were stimulated either with the mitogenic lectin ConA, the anti‐CD3 mAb OKT3, or the phorbol ester TPA. All three agonists increased the radiolabeled PA level and the PA mass in treated cells and simultaneously increased cytosolic and particulate cAMP‐and cGMP‐PDE activities, with significant positive correlations between PA accumulation and PDE activities. Furthermore, the ConA‐induced PDE activation was dose‐dependently reduced by treatment of PBMC with the diacylglycerol‐kinase inhibitor R59022. This compound also dose‐dependently lowered the PA level and inhibited the proliferative response to ConA. In addition, TPA‐induced PDE activation was totally abolished by ethanol, which strongly reduced PA accumulation in response to the phorbol ester. These data suggest that PA increase may be linked to mitogen‐induced PDE activation. Experiments performed in the presence of rolipram indicated that ConA and TPA stimulated both the rolipram‐sensitive PDE4 and the rolipram‐insensitive PDE activities, OKT3 being more active on PDE4. All three agonists stimulated the cGMP‐specific PDE5. These results suggest that PA is an important component of the mechanisms that maintain a low level of cyclic nucleotides, which is a prerequisite for an optimal lymphoproliferative response. J. Leukoc. Biol. 65: 381–390; 1999.
Is Greater Access to English Language Learning Associated With Better Performance on theTOEFL Junior® Comprehensive Test? An Exploratory Investigation

While many researchers have studied the relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) to adult learners’ English language proficiency levels, little is known about this relationship for young learners (i.e., teenagers). In this study, we investigated the degree to which access to English language learning, as reflected by learners’ SES, is associated with young learners’ English language proficiency as measured by the TOEFL Junior ® Comprehensive test. We analyzed data from 3,053 young English learners (aged 10–16years) from 9 countries. Data included TOEFL Junior scores and self-reported SES-related background information indicating starting age of learning English, number of hours spent learning English in after-school programs, length of stay in an English-speaking country, and typing in and learning English on a computer. We found that the latter three factors were significantly associated with TOEFL Junior scores, with substantial variations among countries. These findings suggest that disparities in access to and opportunities for learning may have an impact on young learners’ English proficiency levels. However, such relationships should be interpreted in the context of particular countries to arrive at more accurate interpretations and effective decisions in relation to English learning policies and practices. effect associated with number of hours typing in English on a computer, F (3, 2750) = 2.77, p < . 05 ( η p 2 = .059), and experience learning English on a computer, F (3, 2750) = 2.62, p < . 05 ( η p 2 = .019). The main effect associated with length of stay in an English-speaking country was not significant, p > . 05. Two country-related interaction effects were also significant: the interaction with length of stay in an English-speaking country, F (14, 2750) = 3.07, p < . 05 ( η p 2 = .010), and experience typing in English on a computer, F (20, 2750) = 2.16, p < . 001 ( η p 2 = .015). Further examinations of the marginal mean estimates and interactions suggest that the patterns were in fact very similar to those emerging when each of these variables was entered separately.
An integral view of the hydrographic development in the Greenland Sea over a decade

A thirteen year long time series (1993 to 2005) of basin wide transects is used to analyse the hydrographic development in the Greenland Sea and to identify the processes which are responsible for observed changes. A key feature is the structural change away from a cold water dome to a two layer structure which is related to a fresh water convergence around 1990. The ensuing changes in the upper layer, the interface, and the lower layer are discussed in detail. The upper layer increases continuously in volume and shows no unequivocal trend in any hydrographic property. All observed modifications are reversible. The interface descends steadily with time by more than 1000 m during the investigation and shows constant properties. At the end of the time series, the deep layer volume is reduced to only 50% due to the interface descent. Both temperature and salinity show unambiguous trends in this layer. The temperature increase is mainly caused by vertical advection, the salinity increase by exchange with deep Arctic waters. The observations corroborate the idea that a large single-cell continuous convection scheme dominates the volume changes of both upper and lower layer and the deep water modifications during the 90s. These changes are independent of winter convection. The export from the deep layer is concentrated at the western continental slope of the basin.