Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The alignment between the fourth grade Lebanese science curriculum and classroom assessments

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the alignment between the fourth-grade summative classroom assessments and the ‘Matter and Energy’ unit in the Lebanese science curriculum using: content and cognitive levels. Summative assessments were collected from a sample of 17 schools. The alignment between the classroom assessments and the Lebanese science curriculum were examined using three instruments: Curriculum Coding Sheet, Items Coding Sheet, and Item Analysis Sheet. The curricular learning objectives were used for matching the test items to the learning objectives in terms of content. Findings showed moderate content alignment; further analysis revealed that public schools had higher content alignment, and they covered a wider range of topics. In terms of cognitive level, there was a low alignment between the assessments collected and the curriculum; however, there were items that had higher cognitive level. Recommendations for curriculum developers and future research are discussed in light of these findings.
124 CURRENT AND EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS OF PARKINSON ’ S DISEASE

Three decades after its introduction, levodopa remains the gold standard for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Levodopa is the most potent symptomatic antiparkinsonian agent, and it is associated with an increase in quality of life and longevity for patients with PD. Dopamine agonists are increasingly being used, not only as an adjunct to levodopa, but as early therapy aimed at reducing the risk of developing levodopa-induced motor complications. Catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors extend the elimination half-life of levodopa. They are useful as adjunctive treatment for patients with motor fluctuations to increase the time in which patients respond to the drug. There is now increasing interest in using these drugs from the start of levodopa therapy to deliver levodopa to the brain in a more continuous fashion and thereby, it is hoped, further reduce the risk of motor complications. In the advanced stages of the illness, surgical therapies are being performed with increasing frequency based on evidence that they can restore function when medications fail. Ablative, stimulation, and transplant procedures are all currently under investigation. Finally, there are a series of investigational drugs designed to provide neuroprotective effects and/or to block levodopa motor complications that are now being evaluated in the laboratory and in some instances in PD patients. Thus, therapies and investigational approaches to PD have been markedly expanded in the past several years and include treatments and treatment strategies aimed at restoring function to PD patients in the advanced stages of the illness, preventing the development of the motor complications that are the major source of disability for a large percentage of PD patients, and modifying the disease process so as to slow or halt disease progression. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive motor disorder caused
Earnings-Tenure Profiles: Tests of Agency and Human Capital Theories Using Individual Performance Data

By using a large new panel of individual data, including objective measures of worker performance, we provide some of the most rigorous evidence to date on several related dimensions of enduring debates surrounding upward-sloping earnings-tenure profiles. Most importantly we provide the first direct test of the relative validity of human capital and agency explanations in accounting for upward-sloping earnings-tenure profiles; our findings strongly support the agency view. Our second area of interest concerns employee ownership (many workers at our case are employee owners). Consistent with agency theory we find that earnings-tenure profiles for employee owners are not upward-sloping but horizontal. In addition we find that pay-performance sensitivities are substantially weaker for employee owners than for other workers. Finally we investigate the impact of residential policies in China. We find that again consistent with the agency view, earnings-tenure profiles are considerably steeper for urban workers than for migrant workers with far more limited alternative employment opportunities.
“It’s like starting all over again”. The struggles of second-career teachers to construct professional identities in Hong Kong schools

ABSTRACT Educational-policy makers worldwide are concerned with finding effective strategies to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. The recruitment of second-career teachers has been seen as one means of fulfilling this aim. Against a background of calls to better understand SCTs, this article reports the results of a qualitative study investigating the experiences of six second-career teachers in Hong Kong. Based on a theoretical framework of teacher-identity construction, discourse analysis was used to explore the participants’ perceptions of their professional development. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain detailed insights into how the teachers construct their identities-in-practice and identities-in-discourse within Hong Kong schools. The findings expose tensions between attempts the positioning of SCTs within dominant discourses as ‘traditional’ and ‘conventional’ teachers, for example, and the participants’ self-positioning in practice as ‘innovative’ and ‘risk-taking’ teachers. Ways in SCT agency, and hence identity construction, can be facilitated through the introduction of the innovative pedagogical practices which many SCTs seek to pursue in Hong Kong schools are considered.
A Mechanochemical Model of Cell Reorientation on Substrates under Cyclic Stretch

We report a theoretical study on the cyclic stretch-induced reorientation of spindle-shaped cells. Specifically, by taking into account the evolution of sub-cellular structures like the contractile stress fibers and adhesive receptor-ligand clusters, we develop a mechanochemical model to describe the dynamics of cell realignment in response to cyclically stretched substrates. Our main hypothesis is that cells tend to orient in the direction where the formation of stress fibers is energetically most favorable. We show that, when subjected to cyclic stretch, the final alignment of cells reflects the competition between the elevated force within stress fibers that accelerates their disassembly and the disruption of cell-substrate adhesion as well, and an effectively increased substrate rigidity that promotes more stable focal adhesions. Our model predictions are consistent with various observations like the substrate rigidity dependent formation of stable adhesions and the stretching frequency, as well as stretching amplitude, dependence of cell realignment. This theory also provides a simple explanation on the regulation of protein Rho in the formation of stretch-induced stress fibers in cells.
Rotture familiari e contatti intergenerazionali nelle famiglie italiane

Alcuni studi hanno evidenziato che le rotture coniugali hanno effetti negativi sul benessere degli individui e le opportunita di vita dei loro figli; mentre altri hanno mostrato che rispetto ai genitori coniugati, quelli divorziati – ed in particolare i padri – hanno contatti meno frequenti e relazioni meno intime con i loro figli adulti. In questo studio, si analizzano gli effetti delle rotture coniugali sulle relazioni padri-figli e madri-figli all’interno della stessa famiglia. Si utilizza la base dati Famiglie e Soggetti Sociali 2009 per esaminare la frequenza dei contatti che i genitori e i figli adulti intrattengono alcuni anni dopo la separazione dei genitori. I risultati mostrano come gli svantaggi dei padri siano maggiori nelle famiglie separate che in quelle intatte. Questa disuguaglianza di genere si attenua per i figli che erano piu grandi al momento della separazione dei genitori, ed aumenta per quelli che hanno vissuto per un periodo di tempo piu lungo con la madre separata. I risultati evidenziano come l’effetto negativo delle separazioni sui contatti padri-figli sia in parte spiegato dal periodo di coabitazione in cui padri e figli vivono sotto lo stesso tetto, suggerendo quindi che la residenza condivisa ha importanti implicazioni sulle relazioni familiari successive Some studies have found that marital break-up has a negative impact on individuals’ well-being and their children’s life chances, while others have shown that divorced parents – especially fathers – have less frequent contact and lower quality of relationships with adult children than married parents. In this study, I adopt a within-family approach to investigate how the negative effect of parental divorce is distributed between father- and mother-child relationships within the same family. I use data from the Family and Social Subject Survey 2009 to examine parent-child contact frequency many years after parental divorce. In line with previous research, the results show that fathers’ disadvantages are larger among divorced than intact families. Gender inequality decreases for children who were older at the time of parental divorce and increases for those who lived with the divorced mother for longer. The findings show that the negative effect of parental divorce on father-child relationships is partly explained by the time that children and fathers spent under the same roof, thus suggesting that shared residence has important implications on later intergenerational relationships.
Pathways for tailoring the magnetostructural response of FeRh-based compounds

Materials systems that undergo magnetostructural phase transitions (simultaneous magnetic and structural phase changes) have the capability of providing exceptional functional effects (example: colossal magnetoresistance effect (CMR), giant magnetocaloric (GMCE) and giant volume magnetostriction effects) in response to small physical inputs such as magnetic field, temperature and pressure. It is envisioned that magnetostructural materials may have significant potential for environmental and economic impact as they can be incorporated into a wide array of devices ranging from sensors for energy applications to actuators for tissue engineering constructs. From the standpoint of fundamental scientific research, these materials are interesting as they serve as model systems for understanding basic spin-lattice interactions. In this work, the near-equiatomic phase of FeRh serves as a test bed for understanding the magnetostructural phenomena in intermetallic alloys due to its relatively simple crystal structure (cubic with B2 (CsCl)-type ordering) and its reported ability to undergo a first-order magnetic phase change from antiferromagnetic (AF) to ferromagnetic (FM) ordering, with an accompanying 1 % volume expansion in the unit cell near room temperature (T t ~ 350 K). Overall, three interrelated but largely unexplored aspects concerning the FeRh system have been examined here: (1) influence of nanostructuring on the magnetostructural response; (2) influence of simultaneous application of pressure and magnetic field on the magnetostructural response; (3) correlations between chemical modification of the lattice and the magnetostructural response. Bulk FeRh-based samples in this study were synthesized using the arc-melting technique and nanostructuring of the system was achieved via rapid solidification processing (melt-spinning) of the arc-melted precursor. Structure-property correlations between the parent equiatomic FeRh compound and its nanostructured/chemically-modified counterparts were examined using a ii variety of structural and magnetic probes including x-ray diffraction (synchrotron and laboratory based), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and magnetometry. Overall, the results achieved in this work provide predictive capability and pathways for tailoring the magnetostructural behavior and the associated functional response of FeRh systems for potential technological applications such as magnetic refrigeration and heat-assisted magnetic recording media. Further, insight is gained into the mechanism of magnetostructural phenomena at the fundamental atomic level. In particular, the experimental evidence obtained in this work suggests that the magnetostructural response of FeRh-based compounds depends upon both the electronic state of the system and the magnetovolume effect. Despite the success achieved in this Dissertation, many open questions regarding the first-order magnetostructural transition in FeRh systems still persist. The concluding chapter of this Dissertation provides …
Identification of 17 Pseudomonas aeruginosa sRNAs and prediction of sRNA-encoding genes in 10 diverse pathogens using the bioinformatic tool sRNAPredict2

sRNAs are small, non-coding RNA species that control numerous cellular processes. Although it iswidely accepted that sRNAs are encoded by most if not all bacteria, genome-wide annotations for sRNA-encoding genes have been conducted in only a few of the nearly 300 bacterial species sequenced to date. To facilitate the efficient annotation of bacterial genomes for sRNA-encoding genes, we developed a program, sRNAPredict2, that identifies putative sRNAs by searching for co-localization of genetic features commonly associated with sRNA-encoding genes. Using sRNAPredict2, we conducted genome-wide annotations for putative sRNA-encoding genes in the intergenic regions of 11 diverse pathogens. In total, 2759 previously unannotated candidate sRNA loci were predicted. There was considerable range in the number of sRNAs predicted in the different pathogens analyzed, raising the possibility that there are species-specific differences in the reliance on sRNA-mediated regulation. Of 34 previously unannotated sRNAs predicted in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 31 were experimentally tested and 17 were found to encode sRNA transcripts. Our findings suggest that numerous genes have been missed in the current annotations of bacterial genomes and that, by using improved bioinformatic approaches and tools, much remains to be discovered in ‘intergenic’ sequences.
Paid paternity leave-taking in the United States

ABSTRACT Surprisingly few studies have focused on paternity leave-taking in the US. This study utilizes data from three national datasets to provide a comprehensive examination of the attitudes, practices and predictors of paid paternity leave-taking in the US. Specifically, this study focuses on (a) describing attitudes towards fathers receiving a share of paid parental leave, (b) describing rates and lengths of paid paternity leave-taking and (c) analyzing the extent to which economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and father identities predict paternity leave-taking practices. The results indicate that most people support fathers receiving a share of paid parental leave in the US. Yet, rates of paid paternity leave-taking are relatively low and the majority of fathers who take paid leave take only one week or less. Economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and father identities that prioritize engaged fathering are positively associated with taking paid leave and taking longer periods of leave. Overall, the results emphasize that the current structure of US paternity leave policies seems to limit access to paid paternity leave and contribute to patterns of inequality due to more advantaged fathers having greater access and ability to take paid paternity leave than less advantaged fathers.
influences on muscle function and insulin sensitivity regulation by exercise training and its α PGC-1

[PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , September, 15 2010; 588 (18): 3551-3566. J Physiol H. Zeanah and David S. Criswell Vitor A. Lira, Dana L. Brown, Ana K. Lira, Andreas N. Kavazis, Quinlyn A. Soltow, Elizabeth in skeletal muscle cells α Nitric oxide and AMPK cooperatively regulate PGC-1 [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , November, 1 2010; 588 (21): 4275-4288. J Physiol Zhang, Masanobu Wada, Pasi Tavi, Jan Nedergaard, Abram Katz and Håkan Westerblad Joseph D. Bruton, Jan Aydin, Takashi Yamada, Irina G. Shabalina, Niklas Ivarsson, Shi-Jin fibres of cold-acclimated mice -stimulated mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle 2+ Increased fatigue resistance linked to Ca [PDF] [Full Text] , January, 2011; 300 (1): E1-E2. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab Charles H. Lang recipient of the APS New Investigator Award Potential therapeutic role of resistance training in diabetes: a contribution by the 2009 [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , January, 2011; 300 (1): E3-E10. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab Nathan K. LeBrasseur, Kenneth Walsh and Zoltan Arany Metabolic benefits of resistance training and fast glycolytic skeletal muscle [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , January, 2011; 110 (1): 264-274. J Appl Physiol Zhen Yan, Mitsuharu Okutsu, Yasir N. Akhtar and Vitor A. Lira angiogenesis in skeletal muscle Regulation of exercise-induced fiber type transformation, mitochondrial biogenesis, and
On the motion of vortex sheets with surface tension in three‐dimensional Euler equations with vorticity

The motion of vortex sheets with surface tension has been analyzed in the setting of irrotational flows by Ambrose [1] and Ambrose and Masmoudi [2] in two dimensions, and by Ambrose and Masmoudi [3] in three dimensions. With irrotationality, the nonlinear Euler equations reduce to Poisson’s equation for the pressure function in the bulk, and the motion of the vortex sheet is decoupled from that of the fluid, thus allowing boundary integral methods to be employed. In a general flow with vorticity, the full two-phase Euler equations must be analyzed; in this instance, the motion of the two phases of fluid is coupled to the motion of the vortex sheet, and entirely new mathematical methods must be developed to obtain a well-posedness theory. In particular, a new class of approximation schemes must be employed that preserve the transport-type structure of the vorticity—an issue that, by definition, does not arise either in the irrotational theory or in the analysis of the Euler equations on fixed domains. In the general case with vorticity present in the fluid, the vortex sheet is a surface of discontinuity propagated by the fluid, representing the material interface between two incompressible inviscid fluids with densities C and , respectively. The tangential velocity of the fluid suffers a jump discontinuity along the material interface, leading to the well-known Kelvin-Helmholtz or Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities when surface tension is neglected. The velocity of the vortex sheet is the normal component of the fluid velocity, whose continuity across the material interface . t/ is enforced. In addition to incompressibility, the continuity of the normal, rather than tangential, component of velocity across . t/ is a fundamental difference between vortex sheet evolution and multi-D shock wave evolution,
Justice Preferences and the Arrow Problem

Arrow showed that there is no general way to aggregate non-interpersonally comparable preferences or welfare into either a sensible social choice or a social welfare measure. With majority rule the problem manifests itself as voting cycles. The standard response to this problem has been developing `spatial models' built on restricted preferences (or welfare). We develop an alternative family of solutions. By assuming a culturally accepted conception of justice within a utility function, we establish the possibility of sensible aggregate choice implementable via majority rule. Various assumptions regarding the form the utility function are discussed. Conditions for a Condorcet winner in a problem of pure redistribution are derived for a number of models. Some of the implications of this perspective for the theory of democracy are considered. Developing a normatively interesting social welfare function may require introducing normative concerns into the preferences of the individuals rather than just into the properties of the aggregation system.
Shielding of the Z-Component of the Magnetic Field in a 2-D Magnetizer With a Deep Yoke

Compact round rotational single sheet testers (RRSSTs) can achieve very high flux densities (~ 2 T at 60 Hz), owing to sinusoidal distribution of the magnetizing magnetomotive force (MMF), equalization of reluctance, a reduction in their diametrical size and longer stack lengths (deep yokes). The last two measures result in an increase in the magnetic field z-component (Hz), which is often reduced by shielding. This paper shows that a given shield distance is not effective in minimizing Hz over the entire flux density range. The impact of the magnetizer diametrical size and the yoke depth on Hz is also compared with shielding. Finally, this paper shows that magnetic properties contribute significantly to Hz at very high flux densities, whereas the magnetic interaction of the sample and shields, reduce the effectiveness of shielding in deep saturation at 2 T.
Efficient B-tree based indexing for cloud data processing

A Cloud may be seen as a type of flexible computing infrastructure consisting of many compute nodes, where resizable computing capacities can be provided to different customers. To fully harness the power of the Cloud, efficient data management is needed to handle huge volumes of data and support a large number of concurrent end users. To achieve that, a scalable and high-throughput indexing scheme is generally required. Such an indexing scheme must not only incur a low maintenance cost but also support parallel search to improve scalability. In this paper, we present a novel, scalable B+-tree based indexing scheme for efficient data processing in the Cloud. Our approach can be summarized as follows. First, we build a local B+-tree index for each compute node which only indexes data residing on the node. Second, we organize the compute nodes as a structured overlay and publish a portion of the local B+-tree nodes to the overlay for efficient query processing. Finally, we propose an adaptive algorithm to select the published B+-tree nodes according to query patterns. We conduct extensive experiments on Amazon's EC2, and the results demonstrate that our indexing scheme is dynamic, efficient and scalable.
The Effect of IMF and World Bank Programs on Poverty

Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but the author find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on growth. Instead, the poor benefit less from output expansion in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few adjustment loans. By the same token, the poor suffer less from an output contraction in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few adjustment loans. [Discussion Paper No. 2001/102]
Managing trust in a peer-2-peer information system

Managing trust is a problem of particular importance in peer-to-peer environments where one frequently encounters unknown agents. Existing methods for trust management, that are based on reputation, focus on the semantic properties of the trust model. They do not scale as they either rely on a central database or require to maintain global knowledge at each agent to provide data on earlier interactions. In this paper we present an approach that addresses the problem of reputation-based trust management at both the data management and the semantic level. We employ at both levels scalable data structures and algorithms that require no central control and allow to assess trust by computing an agents reputation from its former interactions with other agents. Thus the meethod can be implemented in a peer-to-peer environment and scales well for very large numbers of participants. We expect that scalable methods for trust management are an important factor, if fully decentralized peer-to-peer systems should become the platform for more serious applications than simple file exchange.