Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
State and Private Schools in England and Wales

State and Private Schools in England and Wales Abstract This paper investigates the educational success of students at different types of state and private school in England and Wales. The investigation is based on a large -scale panel study which includes prior measures of students’ social backgrounds and cognitive skills. After controlling for intake to the schools, it is found that stude nts at state grammar schools and private schools achieved superior educational outcomes to students at comprehensive schools. Significant differences persist after taking account of various school characteristics. The private school advantage in attainmen t compared to state comprehensives is not found to be significantly greater than the state grammar school advantage. This has important implications for the explanation of these ‘school effects’.
SUMOylation, Arc and the regulation homeostatic synaptic scaling

Neurons compensate for changes in network activity by altering the sensitivity of transmission across collections of synapses by up- or downregulating the number of synaptic AMPA receptors. We recently reported that, in parallel to increasing AMPA receptor surface expression, suppression of network activity with TTX increases protein SUMOylation by decreasing levels of the deSUMOylating enzyme SENP1. SUMOylation of the immediate early gene product Arc is required for synaptic scaling. These results reveal a previously unsuspected role for protein SUMOylation in activity-dependent AMPA receptor trafficking and the regulation of neuronal network activity, processes which play important roles in neurodegenerative disease.
Mixed-mode simulations to check stability of an adaptive constant on-time DC-DC converter

In this paper we consider performances of a version of a constant on-time (COT) DC/DC converter. There is a renewed interest in COT converters since they offer interesting features such as speed and low cost implementation. The duty cycle of these converters is varied by acting on the working frequency and this introduces problems in modeling, in deriving transfer functions and in studying stability properties. Largely adopted averaging methods, that assume that the control loop bandwidth is much smaller than the converter switching frequency, risk to be no longer applicable since COT converters do not satisfy this hypothesis. Also conventional methods and techniques that exploit Floquet theory and variational model can not be applied since differential algebraic equations modeling switching converters show discontinuities in the vector field (switching). In this paper we use saltation matrices to allow the application of consolidated numerical techniques to the specific case of COT converters and, more in general, to the broad class of switching converters modeled by mixed analog/digital models.
A Combining Classifiers Approach for Detecting Email Spams

Email is a rapid and cheap communication medium for sending and receiving information where spam is becoming a nuisance for such communication. A good spam filtering cannot only be achieved by high performance accuracy but low false positive is also necessary. This paper presents a combining classifiers approach with committee selection mechanism where the main objective is to combine individual decisions of the good classifiers for utmost classification outcome in spam classification domain. In this context, three different classifiers have been selected i.e. "Boosted Bayesian", "Boosted Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machine (SVM). For combining classifiers, boosted bayesian and boosted naïve bayes are chosen as members of committee and SVM is taken as the president. The member of committee have been selected from our previous study where we have identified boosting with adaboost improves the performance of probabilistic classifier. Results show the best results of novel combining classifier approach in compression with individual classifiers compared in terms of good performance accuracy and low false positives. In addition, greedy step wise feature search method is found to be good in this study.
Probing Cool and Warm Infrared Galaxies Using Photometric and Structural Measures

We have analyzed a sample of nearby cool and warm infrared (IR) galaxies using photometric and structural parameters. The set of measures include far-infrared color [C = log(S60 μm/S100 μm)], total IR luminosity (LTIR), radio surface brightness, and radio, near-infrared, and optical sizes. In a given luminosity range cool and warm galaxies are considered as those sources that are found approximately 1 σ below and above the mean color in the far-infrared C-LTIR diagram. We find that galaxy radio surface brightness is well correlated with color whereas size is less well correlated with color. Our analysis indicates that IR galaxies that are dominated by cool dust are large, massive spirals that are not strongly interacting or merging and presumably the ones with the least active star formation. Dust in these cool objects is less centrally concentrated than in the more typical luminous and ultraluminous IR galaxies that are dominated by warm dust. Our study also shows that low-luminosity early-type unbarred and transitional spirals are responsible for the large scatter in the C-LTIR diagram. Among highly luminous galaxies, late-type unbarred spirals are predominately warm, and early-type unbarred and barred spirals are systematically cooler. We highlight the significance of the C-LTIR diagram in terms of local and high-redshift submillimeter galaxies.
An efficient high dimensional supervised feature selection method based on non-negative matrix factorization

Feature selection is helpful to extract the important information from a given dataset. In addition to identify the significant features, to extract the mutual information between features is also an important issue in feature selection. Nonnegative matrix factorization has been proven capable to extract the mutual information between features. In this paper, we introduce an efficient supervised feature selection method based on NMF.
Communication Service Provider's Choice between OSPF and IS-IS Dynamic Routing Protocols and Implementation Criteria Using OPNET

This paper presents th implementation criteria to be made when th choice is between OSPF and IS-IS protocols that ar link state protocols and use the same Dijkstra algorithm for computing the best path through the network. Here a comparison is made between different parameters and a detailed simulation study is performed on the network with OSPF and IS-IS routing protocols and it has been shown that IS-IS provides a better network and router convergence time, less bandwidth requirements and better throughput and queuing delay compared to OSPF. OSPF and IS-IS are the dynamic routing protocols being used in the practical networks to propagat network topology information to the neighboring routers. There have been a large number of dynamic routing protocols available but choice of the right protocol for routing is dependent on many parameters critical being network convergence time, scalability, memory and CPU requirements, security and bandwidth requirement etc.
Mindfulness Meditation and Self-Regulation on Smartphone Application by Educators: A Qualitative Case Study

The purpose of the instrumental case study was to explore how educators use a mindfulness meditation application called Calm on their smartphones. The self-regulation theory, as viewed from the perspective of Roy Baumeister, guides this study in exploring educators’ self-regulation using a smartphone application. The study answers the central question and four research questions: CQ) How do educators use a mindfulness meditation application called Calm on their smartphone? RQ1) How do individuals seeking to modify their behavior use the mindfulness meditation smartphone application? RQ2) How does an individual’s motivation to attain a goal shape one’s use of the mindful meditation smartphone application? RQ3) How does mindful meditation guide individuals in monitoring thoughts and actions that precede the dismantling of one’s goal? RQ4) How does mindfulness meditation cultivate willpower while building one’s inner capacity to control mind wandering? The study will also show how educators choose to use their smartphone when it is equipped with a mindfulness meditation application. Studies have shown that educators are more stressed today than they have been in the past and have less free time because of additional educational duties. Mindfulness mediation is proven to reduce stress and create awareness. Ten educators in the Washington, D.C. area participated in the study. Data was collected and analyzed through weekly journal submissions, a focus group, and interviews. The four themes of the study were time management, life commitments, overcome distractions, and the benefits from meditation application.
Association between IL17 Polymorphisms and Risk of Cervical Cancer in Chinese Women

Interleukin-17 (IL-17) is a proinflammatory cytokine that is associated with inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and even tumors. Previous studies revealed that a large group of human malignant tumors have abnormally high IL-17 expression. In the present study, we analyzed two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IL17A (rs2275913) and IL17F (rs763780) in 311 cervical cancer patients and 463 controls using TaqMan assays. Our results indicated that the frequencies of AA genotype and A allele of rs2275913 were significantly different between the cervical cancer patients and controls (P = 0.008, OR = 1.32, 95% CI, 1.07–1.62). Stratified analyses revealed that the polymorphism of rs2275913 was also associated with positive peritumor intravascular cancer emboli and high clinical stage. The genotype and allele frequencies of rs763780 did not show any difference between patients and controls or relate to patient clinical characteristics. Collectively, these findings suggested that IL17 gene polymorphism rs2275913 was associated with the susceptibility as well as positive peritumor intravascular cancer emboli and high clinical stage of cervical cancer in Chinese women.
Financial Development and Financing Constraints: International Evidence from the Structural Investment Model

This article provides evidence that financial development impacts growth by reducing financing constraints that would otherwise distort efficient allocation of investment. The financing constraints are inferred from the investment Euler equation by assuming that the firm's stochastic discount factor is a function of the firm's financial position (specifically, the stock of liquid assets). The magnitude of the changes in the cost of capital is twice as large in a country with a low level of financial development as in a country with an average level of financial development. The size effect, business cycles, and legal environment effects are also considered. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
Cutting Edge: Slamf8 Is a Negative Regulator of Nox2 Activity in Macrophages

Slamf8 (CD353) is a cell surface receptor that is expressed upon activation of macrophages (MΦs) by IFN-γ or bacteria. In this article, we report that a very high NADPH oxidase (Nox2) enzyme activity was found in Slamf8−/− MΦs in response to Escherichia coli or Staphylococcus aureus, as well as to PMA. The elevated Nox2 activity in Slamf8−/− MΦs was also demonstrated in E. coli or S. aureus phagosomes by using a pH indicator system and was further confirmed by a reduction in the enzyme activity after transfection of the receptor into Slamf8-deficient primary MΦs or RAW 264.7 cells. Upon exposure to bacteria or PMA, protein kinase C activity in Slamf8−/− MΦs is increased. This results in an enhanced phosphorylation of p40phox, one key component of the Nox2 enzyme complex, which, in turn, leads to greater Nox2 activity. Taken together, the data show that, in response to inflammation-associated stimuli, the inducible receptor Slamf8 negatively regulates inflammatory responses.
Influenza Vaccination Generates Cytokine-Induced Memory-like NK Cells: Impact of Human Cytomegalovirus Infection

Human NK cells are activated by cytokines, immune complexes, and signals transduced via activating ligands on other host cells. After vaccination, or during secondary infection, adaptive immune responses can enhance both cytokine-driven and Ab-dependent NK cell responses. However, induction of NK cells for enhanced function after in vitro exposure to innate inflammatory cytokines has also been reported and may synergize with adaptive signals to potentiate NK cell activity during infection or vaccination. To test this hypothesis, we examined the effect of seasonal influenza vaccination on NK cell function and phenotype in 52 previously unvaccinated individuals. Enhanced, IL-2–dependent, NK cell IFN-γ responses to Influenza A/California/7/2009 virus were detected up to 4 wk postvaccination and higher in human CMV (HCMV)-seronegative (HCMV−) individuals than in HCMV-seropositive (HCMV+) individuals. By comparison, robust NK cell degranulation responses were observed both before and after vaccination, due to high titers of naturally occurring anti-influenza Abs in human plasma, and did not differ between HCMV+ and HCMV− subjects. In addition to these IL-2–dependent and Ab-dependent responses, NK cell responses to innate cytokines were also enhanced after influenza vaccination; this was associated with proliferation of CD57− NK cells and was most evident in HCMV+ subjects. Similar enhancement of cytokine responsiveness was observed when NK cells were cocultured in vitro with Influenza A/California/7/2009 virus, and this was at least partially dependent upon IFN-αβR2. In summary, our data indicate that attenuated or live viral vaccines promote cytokine-induced memory-like NK cells and that this process is influenced by HCMV infection.
Storage capacities of committee machines with overlapping and non-overlapping receptive fields

We present theoretical investigations via the replica theory of the storage capacities of committee machines with a large number M of hidden units and spherical weights. Difficulties arise in the solution of this problem in the limit of large M. In the case of overlapping receptive fields, as the number of patterns increases, both permutation symmetry and replica symmetry are broken, which leads to the appearance of many order parameters and causes additional difficulty. We observe that the relations among these order parameters yield a set of quantities which are small in the limit of large M, making the asymptotic calculation tractable. Using the one-step replica symmetry breaking scheme, we compute the asymptotic value of the storage capacity per input unit in the limit of large M. We find that . The shift to the case of non-overlapping receptive fields can be made easily; we then find . Both values satisfy the bound of Mitchison and Durbin.
Anesthetic Sevoflurane Causes Rho-Dependent Filopodial Shortening in Mouse Neurons

Early postnatal anesthesia causes long-lasting learning and memory impairment in rodents, however, evidence for a specific neurotoxic effect on early synaptogenesis has not been demonstrated. Drebrin A is an actin binding protein whose localization in dendritic protrusions serves an important role in dendritic spine morphogenesis, and is a marker for early synaptogenesis. We therefore set out to investigate whether clinically-relevant concentrations of anesthetic sevoflurane, widely- used in infants and children, alters dendritic morphology in cultured fetal day 16 mouse hippocampal neurons. After 7 days in vitro, mouse hippocampal neurons were exposed to four hours of 3% sevoflurane in 95% air/5% CO2 or control condition (95% air/5% CO2). Neurons were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and stained with Alexa Fluor555-Phalloidin, and/or rabbit anti-mouse drebrin A/E antibodies which permitted subcellular localization of filamentous (F)-actin and/or drebrin immunoreactivity, respectively. Sevoflurane caused acute significant length-shortening in filopodia and thin dendritic spines in days-in-vitro 7 neurons, an effect which was completely rescued by co-incubating neurons with ten micromolar concentrations of the selective Rho kinase inhibitor Y27632. Filopodia and thin spine recovered in length two days after sevoflurane exposure. Yet cluster-type filopodia (a precursor to synaptic filopodia) were persistently significantly decreased in number on day-in-vitro 9, in part owing to preferential localization of drebrin immunoreactivity to dendritic shafts versus filopodial stalks. These data suggest that sevoflurane induces F-actin depolymerization leading to acute, reversible length-shortening in dendritic protrusions through a mechanism involving (in part) activation of RhoA/Rho kinase signaling and impairs localization of drebrin A to filopodia required for early excitatory synapse formation.
Scalability and performance evaluation of a JAIN SLEE-based platform for VoIP services

Advanced Telecom services typically go beyond traditional two parties telephone calls. In particular, SIP-based service creation in the Telephone-IP convergence scenario has become an important research issue. Telecom services are typically asynchronous, require low latency, high throughput and high availability: those peculiarities ask for a specific event-oriented framework. Developers can today benefit from a platform that could grant high-level APIs and standard interfaces, in order to ease the process of service development and deployment, as well as extend the service portability over multiple networks and devices. The JAIN SLEE activity tackles those issues, defining a Java-based technology for the development of telecom services and their deployment into a SLEE server. This paper focuses on some key issues relevant to the Mobicents SLEE platform, an open source implementation of the JAIN SLEE specifications. We present the results of an experimental campaign in which several SIP-based VoIP services were tested, in order to evaluate the performance and scalability of the system. Each of the tested services is characterized by a different complexity, in terms of processing and signaling flow. Moreover, we investigate some of the performance limitations that have been observed experimentally, which may relate to any Java-based telecom service.
Detailed stratigraphy and bed thickness of the Mars north and south polar layered deposits

The Mars polar layered deposits (PLD) likely hold an extensive record of recent climate during a period of high-amplitude orbit and obliquity cycles. Previous work has detected limited evidence for orbital signatures within PLD stratigraphy, but data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) permit renewed analysis of PLD stratigraphy at sub-meter scale. Topography derived from HiRISE images using stereogrammetry resolves beds previously detectable only as alternating light and dark bands in visible images. We utilize these data to measure the thickness of individual beds within the PLD, corrected for non-horizontal bed orientation. Stratigraphic columns and bed thickness profiles are presented for two sites within the NPLD, and show several sets of finely bedded units 1–2 m thick; isolated marker beds 3–4 m thick; and undifferentiated sections. Bed thickness measurements for three sites within the SPLD exhibit only one bed type based on albedo and morphology, and bed thicknesses have a larger mean and variance compared to measurements for the NPLD. Power spectra of brightness and slope derived along the measured stratigraphic sections confirm the regularity of NPLD fine bed thickness, and the lack of a dominant SPLD bed thickness. The regularity of fine bed thickness of the NPLD is consistent with quasiperiodic bed formation, albeit with unknown temporal period; the SPLD thickness measurements show no such regularity.
Wisconsin Youth Apprenticeship Program in Printing: Evaluation 1993-1995.

Wisconsin's Youth Apprenticeship Program in printing (YAP) features the following elements: competency-based curriculum and assessment systems; 2-year, part-time paid training and work experiences at one or more printing companies; work-based mentoring; technical college instruction in printing technology and some academic courses; integrated academic and vocational instruction; and collaborative school and industry oversight. The YAP was subjected to a 2-year evaluation of its shortand long-term effects. The evaluation compared the experiences of the following groups at five YAP sites: all graduating YAP seniors; all printing co-op seniors; all seniors who had been or were currently enrolled in at least one printing-related course; and students in one subject class who were not enrolled in a college preparation or vocational program. The following were among the data collection activities conducted: interviews with samples of students, graduates, employers, principals, and program coordinators; reviews of student records; and site visits. Compared with their peers, YAP graduates had maintained lower rates of absenteeism while in school and were more likely to show a strong interest in the printing industry and long-term career plans and more likely to have concrete long-term educational plans. The YAP also provided multiple benefits for participating schools and employers. (Forty-nine tables/figures are included. Four supplementary tables are appended.) (MN) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Wisconsin Youth Apprenticeship Program in Printing: Evaluation 1993-1995 By Dr Margaret Terry Orr Institute on Education and the Economy Teachers College, Columbia University For Jobs for the Future under subcontract from the Wisconsin Departments of Administration and Public Instruction U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION i CENTER (ERIC) lifThis document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have heen made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in thiS document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy J F F 4 -411Iw SOBS FOR THE FUTURE Jobs for the Future PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 Funded by the U.S. Department of Education Cooperative Demonstration Program (School to Work)
Empirical Analysis of Auctioneer Profitability in QuiBids Penny Auctions

Given the string of bankruptcies of penny auction websites over the past two years, we use empirical data to investigate whether QuiBids remains profitable. Although profitable on an auction-by-auction basis, penny auction sites have problems retaining users. In order to alleviate this problem, QuiBids has implemented a Buy-Now system, in which losing bidders can contribute money they already lost in the auction towards the purchase of the item at a slightly inflated price. We find that QuiBids makes only limited profit after accounting for Buy-Now, but is able to remain profitable due voucher bid pack auctions. We also show that a large proportion of QuiBids' revenues come from experienced bidders, suggesting that rules designed to promote consumer retention may be working as intended.