Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on Learner Autonomy Among Ethnic Preparatory Students

The purpose of the paper is to probe into autonomous learning awareness and behavior amongst ethnic preparatory undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as the factors that may exert influence on learner autonomy. A questionnaire survey is conducted in experimental classes and 822 valid papers are recovered. The statistics collected are processed by SPSS for Windows 13.0. The results show that the longer the education experience is, the higher the level of autonomous learning awareness and behavior is. Compared with urban and county students, rural students and pastoral students show higher level of learner autonomy. Autonomous learning ability of ethnic preparatory students is in positive correlation with their academic achievement.
PUBLIC HEALTH GOALS FOR CHEMICALS IN DRINKING WATER URANIUM August 2001

Environmental Assessment) and the faculty members of the University of California with whom the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment contracted through the University of California Office of the President for their peer reviews of the public health goal documents, and gratefully acknowledge the comments received from all interested parties. This Public Health Goal (PHG) technical support document provides information on health effects from contaminants in drinking water. PHGs are developed for chemical contaminants based on the best available toxicological data in the scientific literature. These documents and the analyses contained in them provide estimates of the levels of contaminants in drinking water that would pose no significant health risk to individuals consuming the water on a daily basis over a lifetime. (OEHHA) to perform risk assessments and publish PHGs for contaminants in drinking water based exclusively on public health considerations. Section 116365 specifies that the PHG is to be based exclusively on public health considerations without regard to cost impacts. The Act requires that PHGs be set in accordance with the following criteria: 1. PHGs for acutely toxic substances shall be set at levels at which no known or anticipated adverse effects on health will occur, with an adequate margin of safety. 2. PHGs for carcinogens or other substances which can cause chronic disease shall be based upon currently available data and shall be set at levels which OEHHA has determined do not pose any significant risk to health. 3. To the extent the information is available, OEHHA shall consider possible synergistic effects resulting from exposure to two or more contaminants. 4. OEHHA shall consider the existence of groups in the population that are more susceptible to adverse effects of the contaminants than a normal healthy adult. 5. OEHHA shall consider the contaminant exposure and body burden levels that alter physiological function or structure in a manner that may significantly increase the risk of illness. 6. In cases of insufficient data to determine a level of no anticipated risk, OEHHA shall set the PHG at a level that is protective of public health with an adequate margin of safety. 7. In cases where scientific evidence demonstrates that a safe dose-response threshold for a contaminant exists, then the PHG should be set at that threshold. 8. The PHG may be set at zero if necessary to satisfy the requirements listed above. 9. OEHHA shall consider exposure to contaminants in media …
Pesticide Urinary Metabolite Levels of Children in Eastern North Carolina Farmworker Households

Background In this investigation we documented the pesticide urinary metabolite levels of farmworker children in North Carolina, determined the number of different metabolites detected for each child, and delineated risk factors associated with the number of metabolites. Methods Urine samples were collected from 60 Latino farmworker children 1–6 years of age (34 female, 26 male). Interviews were completed by their mothers in Spanish. We analyzed urine samples for 14 pesticide metabolites, including the organophosphate pesticides chlorpyrifos, coumaphos, diazinon, isazaphos, malathion, pirimiphos, and parathion and its methyl counterpart; a common metabolite of at least 18 pyrethroid insecticides; the repellent DEET; and the herbicides 2,4,5-trichlorphenoxyacetic acid, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, acetochlor, atrazine, and metolachlor. Predictors included measures of paraoccupational, residential, and environmental exposure, child characteristics, and mother characteristics. Results Thirteen metabolites were present in the urine samples. Organophosphate pesticide metabolites were detected in a substantial proportion of children, particularly metabolites of parathion/methyl parathion (90.0%; geometric mean 1.00 μg/L), chlorpyrifos/chlorpyrifos methyl (83.3%; geometric mean 1.92 μg/L), and diazinon (55.0%; geometric mean 10.56 μg/L). The number of metabolites detected ranged from 0 to 7, with a mode of 4 detected (28.3%). Boys, children living in rented housing, and children with mothers working part-time had more metabolites detected. Conclusions Children in farmworker homes experience multiple sources of pesticide exposure. Pesticides may remain in their environments for long periods. Environmental and occupational health changes are needed to address these exposures. Research is needed with more precise measures of exposure and on the health effects of concurrent exposure to multiple pesticides.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Results of this experiment demonstrate that individualists and collectivists react differently to minority influence. Based on the distinction between objectivity and preference norms in the minority influence literature, we hypothesize that individualism and collectivism influence (A) responses to minority influence (focusing on the target of influence) and (B) effectiveness of minority influence (focusing on the influence agent). Our results replicate past research and demonstrate improved decision quality for individuals exposed to a minority perspective. Moreover, minority influence targets with high horizontal individualism and low horizontal collectivism made higher quality decisions. Influence targets with high vertical collectivism demonstrated higher quality decisions when the influence agent held a high status position in the group. Results also demonstrate that influence agents with high vertical individualism experienced less role stress than those with low vertical individualism. Finally, influence agents with low role stress were more effective in influencing the decision making of others. We discuss our findings in terms of boundary conditions to the minority influence process. q 2000 Academic Press
Metagenomic Analysis of Hot Springs in Central India Reveals Hydrocarbon Degrading Thermophiles and Pathways Essential for Survival in Extreme Environments

Extreme ecosystems such as hot springs are of great interest as a source of novel extremophilic species, enzymes, metabolic functions for survival and biotechnological products. India harbors hundreds of hot springs, the majority of which are not yet explored and require comprehensive studies to unravel their unknown and untapped phylogenetic and functional diversity. The aim of this study was to perform a large-scale metagenomic analysis of three major hot springs located in central India namely, Badi Anhoni, Chhoti Anhoni, and Tattapani at two geographically distinct regions (Anhoni and Tattapani), to uncover the resident microbial community and their metabolic traits. Samples were collected from seven distinct sites of the three hot spring locations with temperature ranging from 43.5 to 98°C. The 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of V3 hypervariable region and shotgun metagenome sequencing uncovered a unique taxonomic and metabolic diversity of the resident thermophilic microbial community in these hot springs. Genes associated with hydrocarbon degradation pathways, such as benzoate, xylene, toluene, and benzene were observed to be abundant in the Anhoni hot springs (43.5–55°C), dominated by Pseudomonas stutzeri and Acidovorax sp. , suggesting the presence of chemoorganotrophic thermophilic community with the ability to utilize complex hydrocarbons as a source of energy. A high abundance of genes belonging to methane metabolism pathway was observed at Chhoti Anhoni hot spring, where methane is reported to constitute >80% of all the emitted gases, which was marked by the high abundance of Methylococcus capsulatus. The Tattapani hot spring, with a high-temperature range (61.5–98°C), displayed a lower microbial diversity and was primarily dominated by a nitrate-reducing archaeal species Pyrobaculum aerophilum. A higher abundance of cell metabolism pathways essential for the microbial survival in extreme conditions was observed at Tattapani. Taken together, the results of this study reveal a novel consortium of microbes, genes, and pathways associated with the hot spring environment.
ERI and Psychological Strain Among Interns: Does Anticipating Future Career Rewards Moderate the Associations?

Abstract: According to the Effort–Reward Imbalance (ERI) model, employees may accept high-cost/low-gain conditions in their work for a certain time because they anticipate career promotion and related rewards at a later stage (i.e., strategic choice). The current study examines the associations between ERI and psychological strain among interns who seem to fit this condition. In addition, intention to work in their future profession, and therefore receive the aforementioned rewards, was investigated as a moderator of the relationships between ERI and psychological strain. A questionnaire measuring ERI, psychological strain (social dysfunction and anxiety/depression), and intention to pursue a career in accountancy was administered to 172 accounting interns. Regression analyses were conducted to test the proposed relationships and moderating hypotheses. Overcommitment (but not ERI nor ERI × overcommitment) was positively correlated with both social dysfunction and anxiety/depression. Intention moderated the relationships between overcommitment and both social dysfunction and anxiety/depression. The findings emphasize the important role of career dynamics and raise the possibility that employees may show resiliency toward ERI as well as overcommitment when they expect career rewards at a later stage.
What happens when data are fitted to the wrong equation?

In many problems of data analysis it is necessary to fit the data to a mathematical equation. Random errors of measurement will be responsible for deviations between the data and the equation, but superimposed on this there may be deviations that result from the equation being an inadequate description of the system from which the data were obtained. Plots of the residual (i.e. the difference between the experimental and calculated values of the dependent variable) against each of the experimental variables have been previously used to detect a misfit between the data and the equation. In the present paper, we show that the shape of the residual plots may be used as a guide in choosing a more appropriate equation. In addition, residual plots give useful information on the error structure of the data, and hence the weighting factors that should be used in the analysis.
An Embedded Stream Processor Core Based on Logarithmic Arithmetic for a Low-Power 3-D Graphics SoC

A low-power and high-performance 4-way 32-bit stream processor core is developed for handheld low-power 3-D graphics systems. It contains a floating-point unified matrix, vector, and elementary function unit. By exploiting the logarithmic arithmetic and the proposed adaptive number conversion scheme, a 4-way arithmetic unit achieves a single-cycle throughput for all these operations except for the matrix-vector multiplication that takes 2 cycles per result, which were 4 cycles in conventional way. The processor featured by this functional unit and several proposed architectural schemes including embedded register index calculations, functional unit reconfiguration, and operand forwarding in logarithmic domain achieves 19.1% cycle count reduction for OpenGL transformation and lighting (TnL) operation from the latest work. The proposed stream processor core is integrated into a 3-D graphics SoC as a vertex shader to show its effectiveness. The entire SoC is fabricated into a test chip using 1-poly 6-metal 0.18 mum CMOS technology. The 17.2 mm2 chip contains 1.57 M transistors and 29 kB SRAM. The stream processor core takes 9.7 mm2 and dissipates 86.8 mW at 200 MHz operating frequency. It shows a peak performance of 141 Mvertices/s for geometry transformation (TFM) and achieves 17.5% performance improvement and 44.7% and 39.4% power and area reductions for the TFM from the latest work. For power management of the SoC, the chip is divided into the triple power domains separately controlled by dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). With this scheme, it shows 52.4 mW power consumption at 60 fps, 50.5% power reduction from the latest work.
Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/

Although always present in text, word sense ambiguity only recently became regarded as a problem to information retrieval which was potentially solvable. The growth of interest in word senses resulted from new directions taken in disambiguation research. This paper first outlines this research and surveys the resulting efforts in information retrieval. Although the majority of attempts to improve retrieval effectiveness were unsuccessful, much was learnt from the research. Most notably a notion of under what circumstance disambiguation may prove of use to retrieval
Using pointcut delta analysis to support evolution of aspect-oriented software

Aspect oriented programming has been proposed as a way to improve modularity of software systems by allowing encapsulation of cross-cutting concerns. To do so, aspects specify where new functionality should apply using pointcuts. Unfortunately expressions written using todays mainstream pointcut languages are fragile, as non-local changes may easily change pointcut semantics. This is a major obstacle for evolution of aspect oriented software. In this paper we introduce a delta analysis to lighten these problems.
Laplace Asymptotic Expansions for Gaussian Functional Integrals

We obtain a Laplace asymptotic expansion, in orders of $\lambda$, of $$ E^\rho_x \left\{ G(\lambda x) e^{-\lambda ^{-2} F(\lambda x)}\right\}$$ the expectation being with respect to a Gaussian process. We extend a result of Pincus and build upon the previous work of Davies and Truman. Our methods differ from those of Ellis and Rosen in that we use the supremum norm to simplify the application of the result.
The effect of alcohol intoxication on emotion perception and perceptions of ability

Alcohol-fuelled violence has become increasingly reported in and ‘exploited’ by the Australian media. While links between alcohol consumption and violence are well established, the possible mechanisms underlying these negative social behaviours are poorly understood. This study aimed to ascertain whether alcohol intoxication impairs individuals’ emotion perception abilities in a manner similar to other clinical populations, such as schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury (TBI), which demonstrate similar neuropathological profiles. A supplementary aim of the study was to examine whether accuracy of appraisals of emotion perception ability are impaired. Following quasi-random assignment to counterbalance for gender, 64 participants were administered either an alcohol (Mage = 24.55, SD = 3.38) or placebo (Mage = 22.70, SD = 4.80) beverage. Emotion perception abilities were then assessed using the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT). Insight into performance was also measured by obtaining confidence ratings from zero to 100% for each viewed emotion. The study found that alcohol intoxicated individuals were less able to correctly identify negative emotions than the non-intoxicated individuals at moderate-to-high levels of emotion intensity. They also demonstrated significantly less insight into their performance regardless of emotion type. These results offer invaluable information to further our understanding of the possible mechanisms underlying alcohol-fuelled violence.
Motivation, Resources and the Organization of the School System

This paper studies a model where student effort and talent interact with parental and teachers' investments, as well as with school system resources. The model is rich, yet sufficiently stylized to provide novel implications. It can show, for example, that an improvement in parental outside options will reduce parental and school effort, which are partially compensated through school resources. In this way, by incorporating the behavioral responses of parents, teachers and policymakers, the paper provides a rationale for the existing ambiguous empirical evidence on the effect of school resources. The paper also provides a novel microfoundation for peer effects, with empirical implications for welfare and different education policies.
The Corticospinal System: From Development to Motor Control

The corticospinal system is the principal motor system for controlling movements that require the greatest skill and flexibility. It is the last motor system to develop. The pattern of termination of corticospinal axons, as they grow into the spinal gray matter, bears little resemblance to the pattern later in development and in maturity. Refinement of corticospinal terminations occurs during a protracted postnatal period and includes both elimination of transient terminations and growth to new targets. This refinement is driven by neural activity in the motor cortical areas and by limb motor experience. Developing corticospinal terminals compete with each other for synaptic space on spinal neurons. More active terminals are more competitive and are able to secure more synaptic space than their less active counterparts. Corticospinal terminals can activate spinal neurons from very early in development. The importance of this early synaptic activity appears to be more for refining corticospinal connections than for transmitting signals to spinal motor circuits for movement control. The motor control functions of the corticospinal system are not expressed until development of connectional specificity with spinal cord neurons, a strong capacity for corticospinal synapses to facilitate spinal motor circuits, and the formation of the cortical motor map.
The cell-type specific connectivity of the local cortical network explains prominent features of neuronal activity

In the past decade, the cell-type specific connectivity and activity of local cortical networks have been characterized experimentally to some detail. In parallel, modeling has been established as a tool to relate network structure to activity dynamics. While the available connectivity maps have been used in various computational studies, prominent features of the simulated activity such as the spontaneous firing rates do not match the experimental findings. Here, we show that the inconsistency arises from the incompleteness of the connectivity maps. Our comparison of the most comprehensive maps (Thomson et al., 2002; Binzegger et al., 2004) reveals their main discrepancies: the lateral sampling range and the specific selection of target cells. Taking them into account, we compile an integrated connectivity map and analyze the unified map by simulations of a full scale model of the local layered cortical network. The simulated spontaneous activity is asynchronous irregular and the cell-type specific spontaneous firing rates are in agreement with in vivo recordings in awake animals, including the low rate of layer 2/3 excitatory cells. Similarly, the activation patterns evoked by transient thalamic inputs reproduce recent in vivo measurements. The correspondence of simulation results and experiments rests on the consideration of specific target type selection and thereby on the integration of a large body of the available connectivity data. The cell-type specific hierarchical input structure and the combination of feed-forward and feedback connections reveal how the interplay of excitation and inhibition shapes the spontaneous and evoked activity of the local cortical network.
Quantitative and Morphological Characteristics of the Human Corneal Endothelium in Relation to Age, Gender, and Ethnicity in Cataract Populations of South Asia

Purpose. To describe the differences of corneal endothelial cell densities, cell size variability and cell hexagonality in cataract populations of south Asia between sexes and ethnic groups. Methods. 1,235 eyes of 1,235 male and female patients 40–75 years of age with senile cataract were examined with non contact specular microscopy with semi-automated analysis technique. The cell data of the study population was analyzed in relation to age, sex, and ethnic groups. Mean arithmetic differences and the coefficient of variation of repeated observations were calculated to estimate precision of the technique utilized. The main outcome measures were corneal endothelial cell density, cell size variability and cell hexagonality. Results. The mean corneal endothelial cell density was 2,720 cells/mm2, mean cell size variability was 37.8% and percent cell hexagonality 40%. We found statistical significant difference between the three ethnic populations in all the corneal endothelial cell measurements (p < 0.0001). Females had a 2.9% greater cell density than males (p = 0.0001). There was no significant difference in mean cell density according to age. Variability of cell size, however, increased with age (p < 0.001). These findings were consistent across the three ethnic groups. Conclusions. In a total sample of 1,235 eyes distributed evenly in three cataract patient populations of south Asia, we found statistically significant differences of corneal endothelial cell densities of cell size variability and cell hexagonality between sexes and ethnic groups.
The Role of Political Education in the Formation of Teachers as Community Organizers: Lessons From a Grassroots Activist Organization

Based on a 3-year qualitative case study of political education projects within an urban teacher-led grassroots activist organization, this article explores the formation of grassroots political education and how it mediated the development of teachers as community organizers. Through a documentary and narrative account, this article argues that the mediation of political education must be understood relationally and that “teacher as community organizer” is an important and emergent paradigm in social justice teacher education. Implications for social justice teacher education and research on the development and sustainability of social justice educators are suggested.