Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dysfunctional Functions: The Case of Zambian Mathematics Education Students

This study investigated student mathematics teachers’ ability to recognise and explain their understanding of school level functions. We challenged the assumption that studying advanced mathematics automatically develops an understanding of school mathematics that is sufficient to explain concepts and justify reasoning. This case study tested this assumption by exploring the depth of pre-service mathematics student teachers’ understanding of school function concepts at the University of Zambia. The test items required calculation, as well as justification of the answers, and an explanation of the concepts. Of the 22 participants, all final year mathematics education students, 18 student teachers scored below the 50% pass mark. The average mark was 8 out of a possible 28 (27%). The majority of the participants found it difficult to explain and justify their reasoning. This study resulted in the development of a new school mathematics module for prospective mathematics teachers at the University of Zambia.
Evidence for NG2-glia Derived, Adult-Born Functional Neurons in the Hypothalamus

Accumulating evidence suggests that the adult murine hypothalamus, a control site of several fundamental homeostatic processes, has neurogenic capacity. Correspondingly, the adult hypothalamus exhibits considerable cell proliferation that is ongoing even in the absence of external stimuli, and some of the newborn cells have been shown to mature into cells that express neuronal fate markers. However, the identity and characteristics of proliferating cells within the hypothalamic parenchyma have yet to be thoroughly investigated. Here we show that a subset of NG2-glia distributed throughout the mediobasal hypothalamus are proliferative and express the stem cell marker Sox2. We tracked the constitutive differentiation of hypothalamic NG2-glia by employing genetic fate mapping based on inducible Cre recombinase expression under the control of the NG2 promoter, demonstrating that adult hypothalamic NG2-glia give rise to substantial numbers of APC+ oligodendrocytes and a smaller population of HuC/D+ or NeuN+ neurons. Labelling with the cell proliferation marker BrdU confirmed that some NG2-derived neurons have proliferated shortly before differentiation. Furthermore, patch-clamp electrophysiology revealed that some NG2-derived cells display an immature neuronal phenotype and appear to receive synaptic input indicative of their electrical integration in local hypothalamic circuits. Together, our studies show that hypothalamic NG2-glia are able to take on neuronal fates and mature into functional neurons, indicating that NG2-glia contribute to the neurogenic capacity of the adult hypothalamus.
DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DES ÉTUDES ET DES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES THE FINANCIAL CONTENT OF INFLATION RISKS IN THE EURO AREA

Recent studies emphasize that survey-based inflation risk measures are informative about future inflation and thus useful for monetary authorities. However, these data are typically available at a quarterly frequency whereas monetary policy decisions require a more frequent monitoring of such risks. Using the ECB survey of professional forecasters, we show that high-frequency financial market data have predictive power for the low-frequency survey-based inflation risk indicators observed at the end of a quarter. We rely on MIDAS regressions to handle the problem of mixing data with different frequencies that such an analysis implies. We also illustrate that upside and downside risks react differently to financial indicators.
Beyond the Classical Psychotherapeutic Setting to Better Provide Support for Caregivers of Persons with Severe Acquired Brain Injury: Some Clinical Evidence

The psychological distress of caregivers of individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI) has been well documented. In fact, there are frequent reports of family strain, depression, emotional difficulties, burden, anxiety, social isolation, loss of income and problems adjusting to new roles. Given the above background, the present paper aimed at better defining the role of the psychologist in a severe ABI rehabilitation setting through the identification of “new” practices to support caregivers. Our clinical experience with caregivers suggest the usefulness of “sewing” the psychological setting (where and how) on the basis of the specific context (in terms of chronicity and severity of injury) in which the therapeutic relationship occurs. The intervention is mainly educational in the early phase, as the psychologist can support the caregiver also outside the therapy room and essentially on the basis of his/her relationship with the survivor. It becomes purely psychological only later, because it is more classically structured and takes place inside the therapy room and is essentially based on the emotional needs of the caregivers. In conclusion, our study suggests to adapt psychological support according to caregivers needs specifically related to the rehabilitation process and phases, even informally outside the classic psychotherapeutic setting.
Cut-and-Paste File-Systems: Integrating Simulators and File-Systems

We have implemented an integrated and configurable file system called the Pegasus fie-systems (PFS) and a trace-driven file-system simulator called Patsy. Patsy is used for off-line analysis of file-system algorithms, PFS is used for on-line file-system data storage. Algorithms are first analyzed in Patsy and when we are satisfied with the performance results, migrated into PFS for on-line usage. Since Patsy and PFS are derived from a common cut-and-paste filesystem framework, this migration proceeds smoothly. We have found this integration quite useful: algorithm bottlenecks have been found through Patsy that could have led to performance degradations in PFS. Off-line simulators are simpler to analyze compared to on-line file-systems because a work load can repeatedly be replayed on the same off-line simulator. This is almost impossible in on-line filesystems since it is hard to provide similar conditions for each experiment run. Since simulator and file-system are integrated (hence, use the same code), experiment results from the simulator have relevance in the real system. This paper describes the cut-and-paste framework, the instantiation of the framework to PFS and Patsy and finally, some of the experiments we conducted in Patsy.
When on-the-fly erasure code makes late video decoding happen

This paper proposes "LD-Tetrys" (Late Decoding Tetrys), a solution based on an on-the-fly erasure code that attempts to solve the problem of late decoded packets usually considered as lost by the video decoder. LD-Tetrys has the following advantages: i) it drastically improves the trade-off between throughput and quality without modifying the codecs or adding complexity at the encoder side ii) it allows a simple but robust configuration. The only cost is a minor modification of the decoding process and a slight increase in the video decoding complexity. Last but not least, LD-Tetrys requires a much smaller playout buffer to obtain the same perceived video quality, bringing benefits for interactive applications.
Infinite volume limits of high-dimensional sandpile models

We study the Abelian sandpile model on Z. In d ≥ 5 we prove existence of the infinite volume addition operator, almost surely w.r. t the infinite volume limit μ of the uniform measures on recurrent configurations. We prove the existence of a Markov process with stationary measure μ, and study ergodic properties of this process. The main techniques we use are a connection between the statistics of waves and uniform two-component spanning trees and results on the uniform spanning tree measure on Z . Key-words: Abelian sandpile model, wave, addition operator, two-component spanning tree, loop-erased random walk, tail triviality.
Automatic Paraphrase Discovery based on Context and Keywords between NE Pairs

Automatic paraphrase discovery is an important but challenging task. We propose an unsupervised method to discover paraphrases from a large untagged corpus, without requiring any seed phrase or other cue. We focus on phrases which connect two Named Entities (NEs), and proceed in two stages. The first stage identifies a keyword in each phrase and joins phrases with the same keyword into sets. The second stage links sets which involve the same pairs of individual NEs. A total of 13,976 phrases were grouped. The accuracy of the sets in representing paraphrase ranged from 73% to 99%, depending on the NE categories and set sizes; the accuracy of the links for two evaluated domains was 73% and 86%.
Short DNA Fragments Are a Hallmark of Heavy Charged-Particle Irradiation and May Underlie Their Greater Therapeutic Efficacy

Growing interest in proton and heavy ion therapy has reinvigorated research into the fundamental biological mechanisms underlying the therapeutic efficacy of charged-particle radiation. To improve our understanding of the greater biological effectiveness of high-LET radiations, we have investigated DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) following exposure of plasmid DNA to low-LET Co-60 gamma photon and electron irradiation and to high-LET Beryllium and Argon ions with atomic force microscopy. The sizes of DNA fragments following radiation exposure were individually measured to construct fragment size distributions from which the DSB per DNA molecule and DSB spatial distributions were derived. We report that heavy charged particles induce a significantly larger proportion of short DNA fragments in irradiated DNA molecules, reflecting densely and clustered damage patterns of high-LET energy depositions. We attribute the enhanced short DNA fragmentation following high-LET radiations as an important determinant of the observed, enhanced biological effectiveness of high-LET irradiations.
‘My Muslim Kurdish brother’: colonial rule and Islamist governmentality in the Kurdish region of Turkey

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the role of Islamist state discourse and policies in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Academic works on Islamism often address settings where Islamist movements and political parties operate as anti-colonial and oppositional entities. However, this article discusses how Islamist ideology has become an instrument of governmentality to maintain and legitimize colonial rule in the Kurdish region of Turkey under the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP). After contextualizing the Kurdish issue as an internal colonization process since the beginning of the Turkish Republic, the paper focuses on the AKP period to analyse the use of an Islamic discourse of unity and brotherhood and attempts to foster the rise of a loyal conservative civil society among the Kurds. Thus, it argues that the internal colonial paradigm remains fully relevant to analysis of the Kurdish issue during the last decade and that neoliberal Islamist governmentality should be understood as a strategy complementary to repression, to increase popular support for the government and marginalize opposition.
Gaussian approximations and multiplier bootstrap for maxima of sums of high-dimensional random vectors

We derive a Gaussian approximation result for the maximum of a sum of high dimensional random vectors. Specifically, we establish conditions under which the distribution of the maximum is approximated by that of the maximum of a sum of the Gaussian random vectors with the same covariance matrices as the original vectors. This result applies when the dimension of random vectors (p) is large compared to the sample size (n); in fact, p can be much larger than n, without restricting correlations of the coordinates of these vectors. We also show that the distribution of the maximum of a sum of the random vectors with unknown covariance matrices can be consistently estimated by the distribution of the maximum of a sum of the conditional Gaussian random vectors obtained by multiplying the original vectors with i.i. d. Gaussian multipliers. This is the Gaussian multiplier (or wild) bootstrap procedure. Here too, p can be large or even much larger than n. These distributional approximations, either Gaussian or conditional Gaussian, yield a high-quality approximation to the distribution of the original maximum, often with approximation error decreasing polynomially in the sample size, and hence are of interest in many applications. We demonstrate how our Gaussian approximations and the multiplier bootstrap can be used for modern high dimensional estimation, multiple hypothesis testing, and adaptive specification testing. All these results contain non-asymptotic bounds on approximation errors.
The Cyberbullying Experiences Survey with New Zealand Psychology Students

Research suggests that cyberbullying continues during emerging adulthood, but is less often studied than with adolescent populations. We investigated the prevalence of cyberbullying behaviors amongst 312 New Zealand University psychology students using the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey. Most respondents reported experiencing (94.9%) and perpetrating (82.0%) some form of cyberbullying victimization in the past year, with men reporting higher rates than women. Men were also more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying. However, the criteria for having experienced cyberbullying of at least once in the last year may have been too lenient. The average scale score for victimization and perpetration suggested a fairly low prevalence of cyberbullying among our sample. Our findings supporting the reliability of the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey were consistent with previous research using similar methods.We suggest avenues for future research to explore the nature of cyberbullying among emerging adults.
Lecturers’ Perceptions of the benefits of Using Humour in Classroom

Of all topics concerning classroom instruction, the use of humour has received the least attention. While some lecturers believe that using humour creates a fun and lively classroom, others may experience different situations which hamper them from using it. Hence, this paper aims to look at the lecturers’ perception of the benefits of using humour as a teaching strategy and the relationship between socio-psychological and educational benefits which students gain from humour. This study was carried out in a Malaysian public university which regards English as a medium of instruction. 60 respondents participated in this study. The findings showed lecturers considered humour as socio-psychologically and educationally beneficial for students and there was a correlation between socio-psychological and educational benefits of using humour in the classroom.
Convergence or Divergence of Expert Mental Models: The Utility of Knowledge Structure Assessment in Training Research

In this paper we discuss the impact of differing knowledge structure measurement techniques on assessing instructor mental models for behaviors associated with Situation Awareness. Our goals were, first, to investigate the degree to which an expert model for such behaviors actually exists, and second, to determine the degree to which experts, varying along a number of dimensions, assess these behaviors using differing knowledge structure measurement techniques. The results show substantial agreement in concept relatedness across differing measures, but less agreement across differing expert groups. Our discussion focuses on the differing measures and their ability to assess the knowledge structures associated with experts differing in their training roles and we review the implications of these findings for training researchers.
Random walks on discourse spaces: a new generative language model with applications to semantic word embeddings

Semantic word embeddings use vector representations to represent the meaning of a word. Methods to create them include Vector Space Methods (VSMs) such as Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), matrix factorization, generative text models such as Topic Models, and neural nets. A flurry of work has resulted from the papers of Mikolov et al.~\cite{mikolov2013efficient}. These showed how to solve word analogy tasks very well by leveraging linear structure in word embeddings even though the embeddings were created using highly nonlinear energy based models. No clear explanation is known why such linear structure emerges in low-dimensional embeddings. This paper presents a loglinear generative model---related to~\citet{mnih2007three}---that models the generation of a text corpus as a random walk in a latent discourse space. A novel methodological twist is that the model is solved in closed form by integrating out the random walk. This yields a simple method for constructing word embeddings. Experiments are presented to support the modeling assumptions as well as the efficacy of the word embeddings for solving analogies. This simple model links and provides theoretical support for several prior methods for finding embeddings, as well as provides interpretations for various linear algebraic structures in word embeddings obtained from nonlinear techniques.
Incidence and zygosity of twin births following transfers using a single fresh or frozen embryo.

STUDY QUESTION Are all twin births following single embryo transfer (SET) monozygotic? SUMMARY ANSWER Between 1 in 10 and in 1 in 5 twins born after SET are the result of a concurrent natural conception. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY The twinning rate after SET is higher than following natural conception. Most studies of twins following SET have incorrectly assumed monozygosity or have not been able to assess the zygosity. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This study is a retrospective cohort study assessing the gender discordance of all live born twins following fresh or frozen SET. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS A total of 4701 patients in a large private IVF unit who gave birth following SET with a fresh or frozen embryo with complete follow-up. Of 137 viable twins at the 7-week ultrasound, 109 were delivered as twins. Gender discordance and Weinberg's differential rule were used to estimate dizygosity. Twin rates were compared for fresh and frozen transfers by insemination method and transfer day. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE The overall live twin birth rate was 2.3% (109/4701). Based on the 7-week scan, 2 of the twins were monochorionic monoamniotic, 62 were monochorionic diamniotic and 45 were dichorionic diamniotic. There were a total of 12 gender discordant twins (11%), 7 from the Day 2/3 transfers and 5 from Day 5 transfers. Nine of the 12 discordant twins were from natural cycle frozen embryo transfers, the remaining 3 were from fresh cycles. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION; To assess gender discordance only live born twins were studied. DNA fingerprinting of twins is a more accurate way to assess zygosity than measuring gender discordance. Same sex twins in this study are not necessarily monozygotic and the dizygotic rate in this study may therefore be higher. This rate was estimated using Weinberg's differential rule. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS As many as 1 in 5 twins born after SET may be the result of a concurrent natural conception. Couples therefore need to be counselled regarding the relative benefits and risks of intercourse in assisted reproduction technology cycles where spontaneous conception is possible. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) None. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER Not applicable.
Enhanced designs on MEMS L-switching matrix

Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) is one of the few commercial platforms for building optical switches. 2D MEMS L-switching matrix has been introduced recently to double sizes of 2D MEMS crossbar switches. The sizes of the switches are mainly limited by the Gaussian signal loss associated path difference. Though the design of L-switching matrix improves system scalability but it suffers internal blocking problem. In this paper, a rearrangeably nonblocking algorithm will be presented. Moreover, two enhanced designs are proposed to improve the overall system performance of the L-switching matrix. They are the staircase switching mechanism and redundant switching system. With the improved internal blocking probability can be minimized. Consequently, the L-switching probability can be minimized. Consequently, the L-switching matrix performs similar to an optical switching fabric with wide-sense nonblocking property.
Dopamine D4 Receptor Activation Increases Hippocampal Gamma Oscillations by Enhancing Synchronization of Fast-Spiking Interneurons

Background Gamma oscillations are electric activity patterns of the mammalian brain hypothesized to serve attention, sensory perception, working memory and memory encoding. They are disrupted or altered in schizophrenic patients with associated cognitive deficits, which persist in spite of treatment with antipsychotics. Because cognitive symptoms are a core feature of schizophrenia it is relevant to explore signaling pathways that potentially regulate gamma oscillations. Dopamine has been reported to decrease gamma oscillation power via D1-like receptors. Based on the expression pattern of D4 receptors (D4R) in hippocampus, and pharmacological effects of D4R ligands in animals, we hypothesize that they are in a position to regulate gamma oscillations as well. Methodology/Principal Findings To address this hypothesis we use rat hippocampal slices and kainate-induced gamma oscillations. Local field potential recordings as well as intracellular recordings of pyramidal cells, fast-spiking and non-fast-spiking interneurons were carried out. We show that D4R activation with the selective ligand PD168077 increases gamma oscillation power, which can be blocked by the D4R-specific antagonist L745,870 as well as by the antipsychotic drug Clozapine. Pyramidal cells did not exhibit changes in excitatory or inhibitory synaptic current amplitudes, but inhibitory currents became more coherent with the oscillations after application of PD168077. Fast-spiking, but not non-fast spiking, interneurons, increase their action potential phase-coupling and coherence with regard to ongoing gamma oscillations in response to D4R activation. Among several possible mechanisms we found that the NMDA receptor antagonist AP5 also blocks the D4R mediated increase in gamma oscillation power. Conclusions/Significance We conclude that D4R activation affects fast-spiking interneuron synchronization and thereby increases gamma power by an NMDA receptor-dependent mechanism. This suggests that converging deficits on fast-spiking interneurons may lead to decreased network function and thus aberrant gamma oscillations and cognitive decline in schizophrenia.