Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contributory Factors to Teachers' Sense of Community in Public Urban Elementary Schools

CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS TO TEACHERS' SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN PUBLIC URBAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that contribute to teachers' sense of community within public, urban, elementary schools. Because previous research has touted the benefits of teacher communities within schools (Kruse, 2001; Leana & Pil, 2006; Ware & Kitsantas, 2007) educational leaders are challenged with creating school environments that foster a sense of commitment and cohesiveness among staff within our current accountability climate in schools. Research that focuses on best practices of successful school principals in cultivating such things as teacher communities is scarce at the elementary level (Crum & Sherman, 2008). This study employed a descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional research design. The data used for this analysis was from public elementary teachers' responses to specific questions from the 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) administered through the United States Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The strength in using the SASS is that it provides a large sample of elementary teachers across the United States. In the first part of the study the independent variables of principal leadership behaviors, collaborative school structures and teacher empowerment were examined to see their influence on the dependent variable, teachers' sense of community. For the second part of the study, teachers' sense of community within a building was viewed as the independent variable to see the effect this sense of community had on teacher satisfaction and on their perception of state and district content standards (dependent variables). Hierarchical regression analysis was used on the data to determine relationships and predictabiiity of the variabies. Of ail the non-policy amenable and independent variables explored, principal leadership activities were by far the strongest predictor of teachers' sense of community. The principal leadership activities variable was also found to be the strongest predictor of satisfaction with teaching and perception of state and district standards.
New Methods for Competitive Coevolution

We consider competitive coevolution, in which fitness is based on direct competition among individuals selected from two independently evolving populations of hosts and parasites. Competitive coevolution can lead to an arms race, in which the two populations reciprocally drive one another to increasing levels of performance and complexity. We use the games of Nim and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe as test problems to explore three new techniques in competitive coevolution. Competitive fitness sharing changes the way fitness is measured; shared sampling provides a method for selecting a strong, diverse set of parasites; and the hall of fame encourages arms races by saving good individuals from prior generations. We provide several different motivations for these methods and mathematical insights into their use. Experimental comparisons are done, and a detailed analysis of these experiments is presented in terms of testing issues, diversity, extinction, arms race progress measurements, and drift.
The Effect of Graft-versus-Host Disease on T Cell Production and Homeostasis

The aim of this work was to decipher how graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) affects T cell production and homeostasis. In GVHD+ mice, thymic output was decreased fourfold relative to normal mice, but was sufficient to maintain a T cell repertoire with normal diversity in terms of Vβ usage. Lymphoid hypoplasia in GVHD+ mice was caused mainly by a lessened expansion of the peripheral postthymic T cell compartment. In 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine pulse-chase experiments, resident T cells in the spleen of GVHD+ mice showed a normal turnover rate (proliferation and half-life). When transferred into thymectomized GVHD− secondary hosts, T cells from GVHD+ mice expanded normally. In contrast, normal T cells failed to expand when injected into GVHD+ mice. Thus, the reduced size of the postthymic compartment in GVHD+ mice was not due to an intrinsic lymphocyte defect, but to an extrinsic microenvironment abnormality. We suggest that this extrinsic anomaly is consistent with a reduced number of functional peripheral T cell niches. Therefore, our results show that GVHD-associated T cell hypoplasia is largely caused by a perturbed homeostasis of the peripheral compartment. Furthermore, they suggest that damage to the microenvironment of secondary lymphoid organs may represent an heretofore unrecognized cause of acquired T cell hypoplasia.
Hourly Wages of full-time and part-time employees in Australia

This study investigates some aspects of part-time and full-time employment in Australia. The main objective is to analyze whether part-time workers receive lower hourly wages than full-time workers who have similar levels of human capital and perform similar jobs. The study is based on unit-record data from Wave I of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The results indicate that unadjusted part-time wage penalties of 21 per cent for men and seven per cent for women can be explained by selection into full-time or part-time employment and controls for human capital and type of job. There are no statistically significant adjusted wage differentials after controlling for selection into type of employment and worker- and job-specific characteristics.
A cross-linguistic study on turn-taking and temporal alignment in verbal interaction

That speakers take turns in interaction is a fundamental fact across languages and speaker communities. How this taking of turns is organised is less clearly established. We have looked at interactions recorded in the field using the same task, in a set of three genetically and regionally diverse languages: Georgian, Cabecar, and Fongbe. As in previous studies, we find evidence for avoidance of gaps and overlaps in floor transitions in all languages, but also find contrasting differences between them on these features. Further, we observe that interlocutors align on these temporal features in all three languages. (We show this by correlating speaker averages of temporal features, which has been done before, and further ground it by ruling out potential alternative explanations, which is novel and a minor methodological contribution.) The universality of smooth turn-taking and alignment despite potentially relevant grammatical differences suggests that the different resources that each of these languages make available are nevertheless used to achieve the same effects. This finding has potential consequences both from a theoretical point of view as well as for modeling such phenomena in conversational agents.
Security against sybil attack in social network

Sybil (fake) accounts penetrate the OSN security by hosting multiple threats. Multiple social-graph-based defence schemes have been proposed till date which can effectively detect and isolate the sybils based on the ground truth of limited social connections between non-sybil (honest) and sybil users. In real world scenario, sybils may elude these defenses by imploring many social connections to real users. This situation may degrade the performance of social graph based sybil detection schemes. So, existing social graph based sybil identification further requires new solutions. A new approach would be more convincing if it enriches the structure of a social graph with more information about the behavioural analysis of its users. In this paper, we have proposed a sybil node identification (SNI) method based on classical social graph based sybil detection scenario and SNI-B which is the extension to SNI by incorporating user behavioural aspects. Our Simulation results show that social graph based SNI outperform if combined with behavioural aspects (SNI-B), of users even in case of implored sybil connections over the time.
The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox

The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox Author(s): Paul A. David Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 80, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Second Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1990), pp. 355-361 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor. org/stable/2006600 Accessed: 08/12/2010 01:40
Does it Matter if You are Observed by Others? Evidence from Donations in the Field

We investigate whether people's donations in the field are affected by the presence of others. In the analysis, we distinguish between individuals who arrived at a national park alone and those who arrived as members of a group. We also investigated the effect of donations being made in the presence of a third party made in the presence of a third party. We find that donations are significantly more frequent for individuals who are members of a group. When a third party is present, we find that the total donations by individuals who are a part of a group are significantly higher than those of lone travelers, mainly because of the increased probability of donating.
Macroeconomic Effects of Social Security Privatization in a Small Unionized Economy

This paper analyses the effects of a pension system privatization in a unionized economy. Using an overlapping-generations framework we show that in an environment characterized by unemployment, a reform towards a private pension system in the steady state may result in lower levels of employment and capital stock. In this case even if the privatization increases the welfare of all future generations, the reduction in the welfare of the elderly due to reduced pension benefits may be greater and a Pareto improving transition to a private system may not be feasible. On the other hand if the reform leads to higher employment then a Pareto-improving pension privatization scheme can be constructed.
Volatility as a Choice

Human beliefs, while always remaining in equilibrium, serve as a an equilibrium selector and determine the degree of aggregate volatility. Fully rational and risk averse economic agents expect macro-level dynamics to be characterized by a specific degree of volatility. Given this expectation the agents respond rationally by building up higher buyer stock savings in response to perceived volatility. The economy, given the change in individual behavior, responds, the process of physical capital formation is endogenously altered, and it displays volatility that is in line with the initial expectation of rational economic agents. As a result, the beliefs, while being self-confirming, determine endogenously the degree of volatility at the aggregate level.
An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of GPA on Perceived Improvement of Higher Order Cognitive Skills

Colleges of Business have experienced high growth rates in the past decade and many colleges are imposing minimum grade point average (GPA) requirements for students entering and remaining in the College. A primary reason for this requirement, presumably, is that students with a high GPA are of a high caliber and are more inclined than those with a low GPA to demonstrate higher-order cognitive skills. However, it is not clear whether the link is valid. This study hypothesizes that, compared to students with a lower GPA, students with a high GPA, and who are taught in the same way, will have a greater tendency to perceive improved higher-order cognitive skills. We conducted an experiment in which use of multimedia instructional materials was the common method of instruction to groups of students with high GPA and low GPA at two large universities. We obtained the students’ perceptions on improved higher-order cognitive skills from their answers to questions on a survey. A regression analysis of the data revealed that the relationship between the GPA and perceived higher-order cognitive skills improvement was highly significant (p = 0.001). This leads to several conclusions and recommendations for the College of Business faculty members and administration.
A Note on the Need to Account for Spatial Dependence: A Case of Migratory Flows in Spain

The potential existence of spatial dependence in the relevant literature on migratory flows has not been dealt with sufficiently. This paper tries to fill this gap by applying spatial statistic techniques to the Spanish case. First, the paper shows that there is indeed spatial dependence in some of the variables conventionally included in migration equations. Second, these variables are filtered to remove spatial dependence. Third, in order to evaluate the influence of spatial dependence on migration, a conventional migration equation is estimated with both actual and filtered data, revealing key differences. Spatial dependence clearly matters in migration analysis.
Biochar Supported Nanoscale Iron Particles for the Efficient Removal of Methyl Orange Dye in Aqueous Solutions

The presence of organic contaminants in industrial effluents is an environmental concern of increasing global importance. One innovative technology for treating contaminated industrial effluents is nanoscale zero-valent iron supported on biochar (nZVI/BC). Based on Transmission Electron Microscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller characterizations, the nZVI was well dispersed on the biochar and aggregation was dramatically reduced. Methyl orange (MO) served as the representative organic contaminant for verifying the effectiveness of the composite. Using decolorization efficiency as an indicator of treatment effectiveness, increasing doses of nZVI/BC yielded progressively better results with 98.51% of MO decolorized by 0.6 g/L of composite at an nZVI/BC mass ratio of 1:5. The superior decolorization efficiency of the nZVI/BC was attributed to the increase in the dispersion and reactivity of nZVI while biochar increasing the contact area with contaminant and the adsorption of composites. Additionally, the buffering function of acid-washed biochar could be in favor of maintaining the reactivity of nZVI. Furthermore, the aging nZVI/BC for 30 day was able to maintain the removal efficiency indicating that the oxidation of nZVI may be delayed in the presence of biochar. Therefore, the composite of nZVI/BC could represent an effective functional material for treating wastewater containing organic dyes in the future.
Tone Pair Similarity and the Perception of Mandarin Tones by Mandarin and English Listeners

Previous work [1]–[5] has provided evidence that the perception of lexical tones by native speakers of Mandarin can be more categorical than that of naïve foreign listeners, for the tone pairings T1-T2, T2-T4, T1-T4 and T3-T4. The present study extended this work by testing Mandarin and naïve English listeners’ perception of all six possible pairwise combinations of the four Mandarin tones, using identification and AXB discrimination tasks. The results revealed significant differences in perception across tone pairs, highlighting potential challenges for language learning. They also confirmed that Mandarin listeners were more categorical in their perception than the naïve listeners, who showed higher discrimination accuracy than Mandarin listeners. The latter finding contrasts with previous results for naïve French speakers’ perception of Mandarin tone [2], and is consistent with an effect of native-language suprasegmental patterns on foreign-language tone perception.
Quantitative Determination of Metabolic Fluxes during Coutilization of Two Carbon Sources: Comparative Analyses withCorynebacterium glutamicum during Growth on Acetate and/or Glucose

ABSTRACT Growth of Corynebacterium glutamicum on mixtures of the carbon sources glucose and acetate is shown to be distinct from growth on either substrate alone. The organism showed nondiauxic growth on media containing acetate-glucose mixtures and simultaneously metabolized these substrates. Compared to those for growth on acetate or glucose alone, the consumption rates of the individual substrates were reduced during acetate-glucose cometabolism, resulting in similar total carbon consumption rates for the three conditions. By13C-labeling experiments with subsequent nuclear magnetic resonance analyses in combination with metabolite balancing, the in vivo activities for pathways or single enzymes in the central metabolism of C. glutamicum were quantified for growth on acetate, on glucose, and on both carbon sources. The activity of the citric acid cycle was high on acetate, intermediate on acetate plus glucose, and low on glucose, corresponding to in vivo activities of citrate synthase of 413, 219, and 111 nmol · (mg of protein)−1 · min−1, respectively. The citric acid cycle was replenished by carboxylation of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) and/or pyruvate (30 nmol · [mg of protein]−1 · min−1) during growth on glucose. Although levels of PEP carboxylase and pyruvate carboxylase during growth on acetate were similar to those for growth on glucose, anaplerosis occurred solely by the glyoxylate cycle (99 nmol · [mg of protein]−1 · min−1). Surprisingly, the anaplerotic function was fulfilled completely by the glyoxylate cycle (50 nmol · [mg of protein]−1 · min−1) on glucose plus acetate also. Consistent with the predictions deduced from the metabolic flux analyses, a glyoxylate cycle-deficient mutant ofC. glutamicum, constructed by targeted deletion of the isocitrate lyase and malate synthase genes, exhibited impaired growth on acetate-glucose mixtures.
Oral misoprostol for preventing postpartum haemorrhage in home births in rural Bangladesh: how effective is it?

Aims : Evidence exists about prevention of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) by oral administration of misoprostol in low-income countries, but effectiveness of prevention by lay community health workers (CHW) is not sufficient. This study aimed to investigate whether a single dose (400 µg) of oral misoprostol could prevent PPH in a community home-birth setting and to assess its acceptability and feasibility among rural Bangladeshi women. Methods : This quasi-experimental trial was conducted among 2,017 rural women who had home deliveries between November 2009 and February 2010 in two rural districts of northern Bangladesh. In the intervention district 1,009 women received 400 µg of misoprostol immediately after giving birth by the lay CHWs, and in the control district 1,008 women were followed after giving birth with no specific intervention against PPH. Primary PPH (within 24 hours) was measured by women's self-reported subjective measures of the normality of blood loss using the ‘cultural consensus model. ’ Baseline data provided socio-economic, reproductive, obstetric, and bleeding disorder information. Findings : The incidence of primary PPH was found to be lower in the intervention group (1.6%) than the control group (6.2%) (p<0.001). Misoprostol provided 81% protection (RR: 0.19; 95% CI: 0.08–0.48) against developing primary PPH. The proportion of retained and manually removed placentae was found to be higher in the control group compared to the intervention group. Women in the control group were more likely to need an emergency referral to a higher level facility and blood transfusion than the intervention group. Unexpectedly few women experienced transient side effects of misoprostol. Eighty-seven percent of the women were willing to use the drug in future pregnancy and would recommend to other pregnant women. Conclusion : Community-based distribution of oral misoprostol (400 µg) by CHW appeared to be effective, safe, acceptable, and feasible in reducing the incidence of PPH in rural areas of Bangladesh. This strategy should be scaled up across the country where access to skilled attendance is limited.
Senescence of human skeletal muscle impairs the local inflammatory cytokine response to acute eccentric exercise

The impact of aging on the cytokine response of human skeletal muscle to exercise‐induced injury remains poorly understood. We enrolled physically active, young (23–35 years old, n=15) and old (66–78 years old, n=15) men to perform 45 min of downhill running (16% descent) at 75% VO2max. Biopsies of vastus lateralis were obtained 24 h before and 72 h after acute eccentric exercise. Transcripts for inflammatory (TNF‐α, IL‐1β) and anti‐inflammatory cytokines (IL‐6, TGF‐β1) were quantified by real‐time PCR. Before exercise, cytokine transcripts did not differ with age. At old age, exercise induced a blunted accumulation of transcripts encoding the pan‐leukocyte surface marker CD18 (young: 10.1‐fold increase, P<0.005; old: 4.7‐fold increase, P=0.02; young vs. old: P<0.05). In both age groups, CD18 transcript accumulation strongly correlated with TNF‐α (young, r=0.87, P<0.001; old, r=0.72, P=0.002) and TGF‐β1 transcript accumulation (young, r=0.80, P<0.001; old, r=0.64, P=0.008). At old age, there was no correlation between IL‐1 β and CD18 transcript accumulation. Furthermore, exercise induced IL‐6 transcript accumulation in young (3.6‐fold, P=0.057) but not in old men. Our results suggest that aging impairs the adaptive response of human skeletal muscle to eccentric exercise by differential modulation of a discrete set of inflammatory and anti‐inflammatory cytokine genes.
Narrowband acoustic identification of monospecific fish shoals

The extraction of highly discriminant features is crucial for successful species identification of fish shoals if backscattered narrowband signals do indeed contain discriminant information. Four different methods of feature extraction are described and applied to the same data, providing new descriptors expected to improve species identification. Echograms, amplitude probability density function (PDFs) and spectral features are used to describe acoustic images of single shoals. Image processing is used to improve signal shoal description, by taking into account the shoal structure and species-related spatial distribution. Three pelagic species are considered: sardine (Sardina pilchardus (Walbaum)), anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus (L.)), and horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus (L.)) detected during fisheries acoustics surveys conducted in the Bay of Biscay. A correct classification rate of 57% overall was found for data covering a mesoscale oceanographic environment and including seasonal variability. If space and time scales are reduced this value increased to 98%, emphasizing the value of non-acoustic and a priori information.
Assessing Children ' s Conceptions of AIDS 1

Assessed intuitive theories of AIDS transmission through clinical method interviews in a cross-sectional design for a sample of 205 1st; 195 3rd; and 208 5th-grade students, balanced by sex and race (black/white). Analyses of relationships between the types of theories children held and their responses to closedend questions about transmission and willingness to interact with a person with AIDS supported the validity of the interview method. Grade differences were noted for knowledge of high-risk routes, rejection of misconceptions, and cohesiveness and complexity of children's theories. Theories also differed by race and verbal abilities. Implications for most appropriate ways to assess children's understanding of illnesses and directions for future research are discussed.