Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Professionalism, Portfolios and the Development of School Leaders

ABSTRACT This study describes how two reform approaches-the portfolio culture and teacher professionalism-converge in the context of a system-wide programme for the professional development of school leaders. In particular, the study reports on the use of the portfolio to assist principals, deputy principals and heads of subject departments improve their performance and account for their actions. The study found that participants used their portfolios for a range of purposes: as evidence of improvement; as an organiser; as a record of achievement; as a collection of work samples. Leaders' difficulty in adopting the portfolio for professional accountability arose from a number of tensions: between theory and practice; between public and private demands of portfolios; between the practical nature of leaders' work and the reflective nature of the portfolio; between the portfolio as product and as process; between choice and compliance. It is argued that the use of the portfolio as an accountability vehicle w.
Correlates of sexually transmitted infections in young Australian women

The study examined correlates of three common sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among Australian women. The sample comprised 9582 women aged 22–27 years who took part in the second postal survey in 2000, of the young cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Self-reported rates of diagnosis in past four years were: chlamydia 1.47%(n = 141), genital herpes 1.75% (n = 168), and genital warts 3.45% (n = 331). Multivariate analyses revealed that the odds of all three STIs increased with number of male sexual partners and illicit drug use. Younger and rural women had higher odds of being diagnosed with chlamydia. The odds of both genital herpes and genital warts were higher with longer oral contraceptive pill use and higher stress, while women who had experienced violence were found to have higher odds of herpes. The identification of factors associated with common STIs among young Australian women will inform better-targeted health promotion and disease prevention programmes.
Altruism or Reciprocity: Sharing Behavior in Israeli Kindergarten Children.

DREMAN, S. B. , and GREENBAUM, CHARLES W. Altruism or Reciprocity: Sharing Behavior in Israeli Kindergarten Children. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 61-68. 120 preschool children, grouped by social class, ethnicity, and sex, were asked to share candies with classmates who had not received candies, in either a reciprocity or a nonreciprocity situation. Middle-class boys, as predicted, responded less generously in a situation in which the recipient would not know who gave the gift (nonreciprocity) than in a situation in which the recipient would know (reciprocity). Other groups were not affected by the reciprocity variation. This was attributed to the tendency of middle-class individuals, particularly males, to rely on reciprocity norms in prosocial transactions. A content analysis of reasons for sharing showed a clear relation between verbal expressions of altruism and actual altruistic behavior. Children giving altruistic answers contributed the largest amount. It is suggested that altruism is a multidimensional concept and that in the young child its expression may in part reflect differing levels of cognitive development.
Evaluation of a national surveillance unit

AIM The Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit (APSU) facilitates national active surveillance of uncommon childhood conditions. This study assessed whether it fulfilled its objectives and satisfied criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for evaluating surveillance systems. METHODS Anonymous questionnaires were sent to users of the system, individual studies were reviewed, and data were collected from independent sources. RESULTS Seven hundred and sixty six clinicians, 48 investigators, and 15 public health professionals responded to the questionnaires. Clinicians reported that the APSU was useful, 33% saying information provided by the APSU informed or changed their clinical practice. Most (88%) reported that completing monthly report cards was not a burden. Impact on policy development was limited by suboptimal dissemination of information to public health professionals. Flexibility and timeliness were limited by design. Estimated sensitivity of APSU studies ranged from 92% (congenital rubella) to 31% (drowning/near drowning). Positive predictive value of notified cases was over 70% for most studies. CONCLUSION The APSU fulfils most of its objectives and meets CDC criteria salient to these. Ways in which the APSU could be improved have been identified, as have methodological challenges and limitations in applying CDC guidelines to this type of unit.
Comparative Computational Strength of Quantum Oracles

It is an established fact that for many of the interesting problems quantum algorithms based on queries of the standard oracle bring no significant improvement in comparison to known classical algorithms. It is conceivable that there are other oracles of algorithmic importance acting in a less intuitive fashion to which such limitations do not apply. Thus motivated this article suggests a broader understanding towards what a general quantum oracle is. We propose a general definition of a quantum oracle and give a classification of quantum oracles based on the behavior of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of their queries. Our aim is to determine the computational characteristics of a quantum oracle in terms of these eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Within this framework we attempt to describe the class of quantum oracles that are efficiently simulated by the standard oracle and compare the computational strength of different kinds of quantum oracles by an adversary argument using trigonometric polynomials.
Information processing in adolescents with bipolar I disorder.

BACKGROUND Cognitive models of bipolar I disorder (BD) may aid in identification of children who are especially vulnerable to chronic mood dysregulation. Information-processing biases related to memory and attention likely play a role in the development and persistence of BD among adolescents; however, these biases have not been extensively studied in youth with BD. METHODS We administered the self-referent encoding task and the dot-probe task to adolescents with bipolar I disorder (BD, n = 35) and a demographically similar healthy comparison group (HC, n = 25) at baseline, and at a 1-year follow-up in a subset of this cohort (n = 22 per group). RESULTS At both baseline and 1-year follow-up, there were significant interactions of group (BD, HC) and valence of stimulus (positive, negative adjective) on endorsement and recall of self-referent adjectives. HC adolescents endorsed and recalled more positive self-referent adjectives at baseline and follow-up while adolescents with BD endorsed and recalled more negative self-referent adjectives at baseline but not follow-up. Over time, depression symptomatology was associated with impaired memory for positive self-referent adjectives. There were no group differences in attentional bias at either time points. CONCLUSIONS Adolescents with BD exhibit bias away from endorsement and recall of positive adjectives, which remained stable over time and independent of mood state.
The Effect of Choice-Making as an Intervention for Problem Behavior

Supporting people with disabilities in expressing preferences and making choices is a core value in positive behavior support. Indeed, in recent years, the field has increasingly focused its attention on the importance of making choices and the potential benefits of choice-making opportunities in enhancing the quality of life of people with disabilities. In addition, an emerging database is suggesting that providing opportunities to make choices can serve as an intervention for decreasing problem behavior. The authors of this article examine the efficacy of the use of choice-making as an intervention for reducing problem behavior through a meta-analysis of single-subject research studies using choice-making as an intervention. A search of the PsycINFO and ERIC databases yielded 13 studies that met the meta-analysis criteria, with interventions affecting 30 participants. The impact of choice interventions was evaluated using the percentage nonoverlapping data and percentage zero data metrics. Overall, providing choice opportunities resulted in clinically significant reductions in the number of occurrences of problem behavior. The authors discuss the benefits of utilizing choice as an intervention and provide future directions for research in this area.
Whiteness, power relations, resistance and the 'practical' recognition of Indigenous rights in Newcastle

While fleeting references are made to Australian Federal Government policy shifts in light of different rationalities and modes of state governance, the paper is essentially a study of whiteness, power relations and resistance in Newcastle, Australia. It is framed within a discussion of the importance of history to local Kooris and Gooris in the struggle for the recognition of Indigenous rights. Specifically, the paper examines how local Koori and Goori discourses and practices expose and disrupt whiteness, as relations of power, in negotiations for the recognition of Awabakal sites and acknowledgement of local Awabakal history. That is, ‘faced with a relationship of power, a whole field of responses, reactions, results, and possible inventions open up’ (Foucault 1994: 340). The paper draws on field notes, documentary analysis, participant observation data and interview data collected while conducting a two year sociological ethnography of the recognition of Indigenous rights in Newcastle. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2009 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved. ]
Statistical Analysis for the Soccer Matches of the First Bundesliga

Statistical analysis for the soccer matches of the First Bundesliga; i.e., the first national soccer league of Germany, during the period Aug. 5 to Nov. 27, 2011 is made in order to see which parameters are more important for the result of a match. It is found that the goal efficiency, defined by the number of goals divided by the number of shots, is by far the most important parameter. The parameters of the second to the fourth importance are the number of shots, the number of passes and the number of ball contacts respectively. The present analysis shows that the quality of shots, represented by the goal efficiency, is more important than the quantity of shots for winning a soccer game. Regarding the long time dispute over the issue whether “direct play” or “possession play” is more effective, the present result favours “direct play” because it has higher goal efficiency compared to “possession play” according to the literature. Nevertheless, the length of passing sequence may not be the major factor related to the goal efficiency. Effective use of team possessions to create favourable shooting conditions may be more important for raising the goal efficiency. Much further analysis remains to be carried out in this direction.
Reconsidering the Problem of ‘Bogus’ Refugees with ‘Socio-economic Motivations’ for Seeking Asylum

Abstract ‘Bogus’ asylum seekers are widely alleged to be ‘abusing’ the UK’s system, whilst similar perceptions exist more widely among industrialized host states. This article examines physical mobility for the purpose of claiming asylum, and whether it is meaningful to claim that the UK asylum route is being misused or abused by ‘bogus’ refugees with ‘socio-economic motivations’. It examines procedural and definitional challenges to existing framings of the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ forms of asylum mobility, and tests assumptions behind what it means to be ‘bogus’ or ‘genuine’ with reference to original empirical data. This article asks how different asylum mobilities are contested and made meaningful at the ‘gate’, presenting a challenge to such framings to reconsider the nature of what ‘problem’ exists.
AKAP79/150 Impacts Intrinsic Excitability of Hippocampal Neurons through Phospho-Regulation of A-type K+ Channel Trafficking

Kv4.2, as the primary α-subunit of rapidly inactivating, A-type voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels expressed in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal dendrites, plays a critical role in regulating their excitability. Activity-dependent trafficking of Kv4.2 relies on C-terminal protein kinase A (PKA) phosphorylation. A-kinase-anchoring proteins (AKAPs) target PKA to glutamate receptor and ion channel complexes to allow for discrete, local signaling. As part of a previous study, we showed that AKAP79/150 interacts with Kv4.2 complexes and that the two proteins colocalize in hippocampal neurons. However, the nature and functional consequence of their interaction has not been previously explored. Here, we report that the C-terminal domain of Kv4.2 interacts with an internal region of AKAP79/150 that overlaps with its MAGUK (membrane-associated guanylate kinase)-binding domain. We show that AKAP79/150-anchored PKA activity controls Kv4.2 surface expression in heterologous cells and hippocampal neurons. Consistent with these findings, disrupting PKA anchoring led to a decrease in neuronal excitability, while preventing dephosphorylation by the phosphatase calcineurin resulted in increased excitability. These results demonstrate that AKAP79/150 provides a platform for dynamic PKA regulation of Kv4.2 expression, fundamentally impacting CA1 excitability.
Maternal Sensitivity and Child Wariness in the Transition to Kindergarten

Objective. This study tested maternal sensitivity as a moderator of the stability of wary behavior between 15 months and the transition to school. Design. Observational data from 15-month-old children and their mothers, kindergarten teacher reports, and maternal reports during the transition to kindergarten from 215 children from 3 sites (North Carolina, Virginia, and Arkansas) of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD; 1994), Study of Early Child Care are used. Results. Findings indicate significant stability of inhibition from 15 months to the transition to kindergarten and a significant interaction between maternal sensitivity and 15-month wariness in predicting inhibition in the transition to kindergarten. Among children who displayed wariness at 15 months, greater maternal sensitivity was associated with less inhibition during the transition to kindergarten. For children who did not display wariness at 15 months, there was no relation between maternal sensitivity and inhibition in the transition to kindergarten. Conclusions. These findings suggest moderate stability of this early temperamental characteristic and point to the importance of responsive parenting in its modification.
The composite absolute penalties family for grouped and hierarchical variable selection

Extracting useful information from high-dimensional data is an important focus of today's statistical research and practice. Penalized loss function minimization has been shown to be effective for this task both theoretically and empirically. With the virtues of both regularization and sparsity, the $L_1$-penalized squared error minimization method Lasso has been popular in regression models and beyond. In this paper, we combine different norms including $L_1$ to form an intelligent penalty in order to add side information to the fitting of a regression or classification model to obtain reasonable estimates. Specifically, we introduce the Composite Absolute Penalties (CAP) family, which allows given grouping and hierarchical relationships between the predictors to be expressed. CAP penalties are built by defining groups and combining the properties of norm penalties at the across-group and within-group levels. Grouped selection occurs for nonoverlapping groups. Hierarchical variable selection is reached by defining groups with particular overlapping patterns. We propose using the BLASSO and cross-validation to compute CAP estimates in general. For a subfamily of CAP estimates involving only the $L_1$ and $L_{\infty}$ norms, we introduce the iCAP algorithm to trace the entire regularization path for the grouped selection problem. Within this subfamily, unbiased estimates of the degrees of freedom (df) are derived so that the regularization parameter is selected without cross-validation. CAP is shown to improve on the predictive performance of the LASSO in a series of simulated experiments, including cases with $p\gg n$ and possibly mis-specified groupings. When the complexity of a model is properly calculated, iCAP is seen to be parsimonious in the experiments.
Me: A Self-Concept Scale for Gifted Students

The purpose of this research was to develop a self-concept scale for gifted students. An effort was made to develop items which focused on gifted children's talents and abilities and associated or related behaviors. Preliminary developmental analyses for 224 gifted girls and 188 boys in Grades 3 through 6 indicate promising reliability and possibly good validity.
Ballistic transport and electrostatics in metallic carbon nanotubes

We calculate the current and electrostatic potential drop in metallic carbon nanotube wires self-consistently by solving the Green's function and electrostatics equations in the ballistic case. About one-tenth of the applied voltage drops across the bulk of a nanowire, independent of the lengths considered here. The remaining nine-tenths of the bias drops near the contacts, thereby creating a nonlinear potential drop. The scaling of the electric field at the center of the nanotube with length (L) is faster than 1/L (roughly 1/L/sup 1.25-1.75/). At room temperature, the low bias conductance of larger-diameter nanotubes is larger than 4e/sup 2//h due to occupation of noncrossing subbands. The physics of conductance evolution with bias due to Zener tunneling in noncrossing subbands is discussed.
Severity of Scorpion Stings in the Western Brazilian Amazon: A Case-Control Study

Background Scorpion stings are a major public health problem in Brazil, with an increasing number of registered cases every year. Affecting mostly vulnerable populations, the phenomenon is not well described and is considered a neglected disease. In Brazil, the use of anti-venom formulations is provided free of charge. The associate scorpion sting case is subject to compulsory reporting. This paper describes the epidemiology and identifies factors associated with severity of scorpions stings in the state of Amazonas, in the Western Brazilian Amazon. Methodology/Principal Findings This study included all cases of scorpion stings in the state of Amazonas reported to the Brazilian Diseases Surveillance System from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2014. A case-control study was conducted to identify factors associated with scorpions sting severity. A total of 2,120 cases were reported during this period. The mean incidence rate in the Amazonas was 7.6 per 100,000 inhabitants/year. Scorpion stings showed a large spatial distribution in the state and represent a potential occupational health problem for rural populations. There was a positive correlation between the absolute number of cases and the altimetric river levels in the Central (p<0.001; Rs = 0.479 linear) and Southwest (p = 0.032; linear Rs = 0.261) regions of the state. Cases were mostly classified as mild (68.6%), followed by moderate (26.8%), and severe (4.6%). The overall lethality rate was 0.3%. Lethality rate among children ≤10 years was 1.3%. Age <10 years [OR = 2.58 (95%CI = 1.47–4.55; p = 0.001)], stings occurring in the rural area [OR = 1.97 (95%CI = 1.18–3.29; p = 0.033) and in the South region of the state [OR = 1.85 (95%CI = 1.17–2.93; p = 0.008)] were independently associated with the risk of developing severity. Conclusions/Significance Scorpion stings show an extensive distribution in the Western Brazilian Amazon threatening especially rural populations, children ≤10 in particular. Thus, the mapping of scorpions fauna in different Amazon localities is essential and must be accompanied by the characterization of the main biological activities of the venoms. Urban and farming planning, in parallel with awareness of workers at risk for scorpion stings on the need for personal protective equipment use should be considered as public policies for preventing scorpionism.
Affective Spectrum Disorders in an Urban Swedish Adult Psychiatric Unit: A Descriptive Study

Background. Several studies have found that patients with affective-/anxiety-/stress-related syndromes present overlapping features such as cooccurrence within families and individuals and response to the same type of pharmacological treatment, suggesting that these syndromes share pathogenetic mechanisms. The term affective spectrum disorder (AfSD) has been suggested, emphasizing these commonalities. The expectancy rate, sociodemographic characteristics, and global level of functioning in AfSD has hitherto not been studied neglected. Material and Method. Out of 180 consecutive patients 94 were included after clinical investigations and ICD-10 diagnostics. Further investigations included well-known self-evaluation instruments assessing psychiatric symptoms, personality disorders, psychosocial stress, adaptation, quality of life, and global level of functioning. A neuropsychological screening was also included. Results. The patients were young, had many young children, were well educated, and had about expected (normal distribution of) intelligence. Sixty-one percent were identified as belonging to the group of AfSD. Conclusion. The study identifies a large group of patients that presents much suffering and failure of functioning. This group is shared between the levels of medical care, between primary care and psychiatry. The term AfSD facilitates identification of patient groups that share common traits and identifies individuals clinically, besides the referred patients, in need of psychiatric interventions.
Collaborative imagining: The interactive use of gestures, talk, and graphic representation in architectural practice

Abstract This article examines the use of imagination as a communicative resource in interaction. Using actual examples of imagination in action collected during anthropological ﬁeldwork at an architecture ﬁrm in California, I develop the concept of ‘collaborative imagining’ as a social, jointly-produced activity in which the objects of thought are created and manipulated in the shared space of face-to-face interaction. Such an activity relies upon a number of semiotic resources, and the paper examines three in particular: talk, gestures, and material objects, taking into consideration the talk and gestures of all participants in an interaction as well as the material surround available to the interactants. This view suggests two new ways to think about imagination. First, imagining is not a purely individual act but is also a product of and resource for group interaction; second, the objects of imaginative thought are not necessarily mental images, but can potentially be constructed in the material world with real, material components.
Employment Sector and Volunteering: The Contribution of Nonprofit and Public Sector Workers to the Volunteer Labor Force

In capitalist societies, jobs are sorted not only by occupational status, but also by the employment sector in which they are situated. Research has demonstrated that public- and nonprofit-sector workers have more prosocial values than private-sector workers. We used recent data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Special Supplement on Volunteering to examine sector differences in the likelihood of doing volunteer work and the number of hours volunteered. Regardless of occupation or education, nonprofit-sector employees are the most likely to volunteer and with the most hours, followed by public-sector workers and the self-employed. This finding is robust across most types of volunteer work.