Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expertise in musical sight reading : A study of pianists

Musical sight reading on the piano represents a complex transcription task involving a series of overlapping perceptual, cognitive and motoric processes. It is suggested that skilled sight reading requires the development of efficient input skills, especially ‘pattern recognition’ skills, ‘prediction’ skills and the ability to generate and use auditory representations. The sight-reading ability of pianists was assessed before being tested in a series of laboratory experiments assumed to involve relatively distinct processing demands. These laboratory tasks measured (i) verbal protocols as participants previewed a piece of music to be sight read; (ii) the speed of naming individual notes; (iii) recall accuracy of briefly presented chords; (iv) the time to make a same/different judgment of two repeatedly presented sequences; (v) priming effects in a chord judgment task; (vi) same/different judgments in comparing visual musical notation with an auditory sequence; and (vii) performance in a musical problem-solving task, in which a missing bar from a phrase had to be identified. Analyses of variance conducted on individual experiments demonstrated that performance in a number, though not all, of these tasks was associated with sight-reading skill. Correlational analyses showed that performance in the pattern-recognition task requiring immediate recall of rapidly presented chords correlated most strongly with sight-reading skill. Performance in the visual–auditory comparison task, a task tapping the ability to generate auditory representations, also correlated strongly. There was a weaker statistical correlation between sight-reading skill and prime size effects in the priming task, a task thought to tap prediction ability. A multiple regression analysis in which performance on the pattern-recognition tasks was entered first into the analysis, demonstrated that the prediction of sight-reading skill was improved when performance on the visual–auditory matching task and the priming task were entered on the following two steps. These analyses indicate that the ability to use auditory representations and the development of prediction skills may be important over and above basic pattern-recognition skills in musical sight reading.
Optimal Dynamic Voltage Scaling in Energy-Limited Nonpreemptive Systems with Real-Time Constraints

Dynamic voltage scaling is used in energy-limited systems as a means of conserving energy and prolonging their life. We consider a setting in which the tasks performed by such a system are nonpreemptive and aperiodic. Our objective is to control the processing rate over different tasks so as to minimize energy subject to hard real-time processing constraints. Under any given task scheduling policy, we prove that the optimal solution to the offline version of the problem can be efficiently obtained by exploiting the structure of optimal sample paths, leading to a new dynamic voltage scaling algorithm termed the critical task decomposition algorithm (CTDA). The efficiency of the algorithm rests on the existence of a set of critical tasks that decompose the optimal sample path into decoupled segments within which optimal processing times are easily determined. The algorithm is readily extended to an online version of the problem as well. Its worst-case complexity of both offline and online problems is O(N2)
Modern templates of happiness: performing spiritualism and psychotechnics in Denmark

Inspired by Michel Foucault’s notion of subjugated knowledge, this paper elaborates an analytical framework seeking to unsettle the authority of contemporary psychology. This framework focuses on the performative dimension of psychology and other ‘psy-regimes’, namely the practices and actions that may be undertaken on the basis of these forms of knowledge. We probe this framework by exploring the emergence, utilization and demise of spiritualism (1880s to 1920s) and psychotechnics (1920s to 1960s) in Denmark. On the basis of this framework, we argue that the rise and fall of these psy-regimes may be understood neither in terms of (inadequate) epistemological rigour nor in terms of social repression, but instead as radically contingent events that correlated with particular programs and techniques seeking to promote human happiness and productivity.
Binding of the Positron Emission Tomography Tracer Pittsburgh Compound-B Reflects the Amount of Amyloid-β in Alzheimer's Disease Brain But Not in Transgenic Mouse Brain

During the development of in vivo amyloid imaging agents, an effort was made to use micro-positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in the presenilin-1 (PS1)/amyloid precursor protein (APP) transgenic mouse model of CNS amyloid deposition to screen new compounds and further study Pittsburgh Compound-B (PIB), a PET tracer that has been shown to be retained well in amyloid-containing areas of Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain. Unexpectedly, we saw no significant retention of PIB in this model even at 12 months of age when amyloid deposition in the PS1/APP mouse typically exceeds that seen in AD. This study describes a series of ex vivo and postmortem in vitro studies designed to explain this low retention. Ex vivo brain pharmacokinetic studies confirmed the low in vivo PIB retention observed in micro-PET experiments. In vitro binding studies showed that PS1/APP brain tissue contained less than one high-affinity (Kd = 1-2 nm) PIB binding site per 1000 molecules of amyloid-β (Aβ), whereas AD brain contained >500 PIB binding sites per 1000 molecules of Aβ. Synthetic Aβ closely resembled PS1/APP brain in having less than one high-affinity PIB binding site per 1000 molecules of Aβ, although the characteristics of the few high-affinity PIB binding sites found on synthetic Aβ were very similar to those found in AD brain. We hypothesize that differences in the time course of deposition or tissue factors present during deposition lead to differences in secondary structure between Aβ deposited in AD brain and either synthetic Aβ or Aβ deposited in PS1/APP brain.
Corrupting the Curriculum? The Case of Geography.

This paper considers influences on the contemporary school curriculum in England. It does so mainly through a critical analysis of one significant critique of the curriculum made by the think tank Civitas in their collection of essays asserting the ‘corruption’ of the curriculum, published in 2007. The paper places the Civitas position in a wider perspective. It then focuses on one subject critique in particular – geography – drawing from a wider selection of writings which attempt to show the distortion of school geography under pressure from ‘good causes’ such as global citizenship and sustainable development. The main conclusions of the paper are that whilst the Civitas position takes a rather restricted view of subjects which denies how the discipline has developed in recent years, there is nevertheless an important point for teachers, as curriculum-makers, to note. However, the role of the subject disciplines in the school curriculum continues to evolve. The disciplines, not least geography, are far less static than the Civitas position appears to suggest. Values education can be seen as a form of therapy; an excuse to change the individual student rather than the structure of the school or the wider society. Its strategies allow the school to extend its rationalizing ethos to the private and personal disposition of students and so prepare them for a society which readily blames the individuals for their own misfortune. contributed to a general ignorance of the world as a complex mosaic. This disengagement must be corrected… geographers once again take the lead in portraying the complex variability of and environments, avoiding both the generalization trap of treating the empirical outcomes (as against the real mechanisms) as the conse- quences of general laws of behaviour and the singularity trap of considering each place as a separate entity. Such a task, of description-in-context, is necessary to human survival.
Exploring how collaborative dialogues facilitate synchronous collaborative writing

Hui-Chin Yeh, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology Collaborative writing (CW) research has gained prevalence in recent years. However, the ways in which students interact socially to produce written texts through synchronous collaborative writing (SCW) is rarely studied. This study aims to investigate the effects of SCW on students’ writing products and how collaborative dialogues facilitate SCW. Following an initial analysis, 54 students were divided into 18 groups; six groups with higher proportions of collaborative dialogue (HCD), six groups with median proportions of collaborative dialogue (MCD), and six groups with lower proportions of collaborative dialogue (LCD). The data collected includes the students’ three reaction essays, their transcripts of text-based collaborative dialogues, and their writing process logs. The results showed that there were significant differences between the LCD, MCD, and HCD groups in terms of fluency and accuracy of their reaction essays. Through collaborative dialogues, students benefitted from text-based synchronous communications, such as clarifying their linguistic misconceptions, and receiving immediate feedback to help resolve their writing problems. The findings suggest that students could be provided with more opportunities for collaborative dialogues during the entire writing process, including the stages of generating ideas, writing reaction essays, and editing.
The suspected scaphoid injury: resource implications in the absence of magnetic resonance imaging

Introduction Undiagnosed and untreated scaphoid fractures have poorer outcomes and many patients are unnecessarily immobilised for prolonged periods of time to avoid missing occult injuries. Magnetic resonance imaging has a high sensitivity and specificity in detecting occult scaphoid fractures, but many units do not routinely use this imaging modality in the diagnostic pathway. We aimed to determine the patterns of suspected scaphoid injuries, report the process of care, and calculate the costs involved in their management. Methods We prospectively identified all adult patients referred to fracture clinic at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with a scaphoid-related injury, between October 2007 and September 2008. Clinical notes were examined retrospectively. We defined three injury groups: true fractures, occult fractures, and suspected scaphoid injuries. We analysed patient demographics, treatment timelines, and the treatment costs involved. Results Fracture clinic received 537 scaphoid-related referrals. There were 87 true fractures, 43 occult fractures, and 407 suspected injuries, incurring average treatment costs of £1,173, £773, and £384 respectively. Occult fractures accounted for 33% of all confirmed scaphoid fractures. The majority of scaphoid-related referrals (76%) were never proven to have a scaphoid fracture, and many were unnecessarily immobilised. The costs involved in the treatment of suspected scaphoid injuries were found to be higher than the cost of magnetic resonance imaging (£97). Conclusion In this group of suspected scaphoid injury, we believe the introduction of an early magnetic resonance imaging protocol would lead to an earlier definitive diagnosis and potentially a more cost-effective service.
Active learning for sound event classification by clustering unlabeled data

This paper proposes a novel active learning method to save annotation effort when preparing material to train sound event classifiers. K-medoids clustering is performed on unlabeled sound segments, and medoids of clusters are presented to annotators for labeling. The annotated label for a medoid is used to derive predicted labels for other cluster members. The obtained labels are used to build a classifier using supervised training. The accuracy of the resulted classifier is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The evaluation made on a public environmental sound dataset shows that the proposed method outperforms reference methods (random sampling, certainty-based active learning and semi-supervised learning) with all simulated labeling budgets, the number of available labeling responses. Through all the experiments, the proposed method saves 50%–60% labeling budget to achieve the same accuracy, with respect to the best reference method.
Leadership lost

Introduction Recent research by Leithwood et al. (2006) has brought to the fore once again the importance of leadership to the success of schools. Of the ‘strong claims’ they make, the first, that ‘leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning’ (ibid., p. 3), stands out as being particularly worthy of closer examination. The authors acknowledge that it will be ‘considered controversial by some’ (ibid., p. 4) and, anyway, they are talking mainly, although not exclusively, about headteachers. However, the statement could just as easily apply to heads of subject departments – those, in other words, who are primarily responsible for organising teaching and learning within a school on a day-to-day basis. Research has long accorded heads of subject departments a key middle leadership role in secondary schools. Unfortunately, as Busher and Harris (1999), among others, have found, the exact nature of this leadership is ‘blurred’ in that it is difficult to isolate its distinctive qualities.To some extent, this is a question of definition, many pages of research journals having been devoted to trying to say exactly what a head of department does, or should do; Harris (1998), for example, puts it in terms of the ways in which subject leaders can improve ineffective departments. Moreover, as Bennett et al. (2003) have highlighted (in contrast to Leithwood et al., 2006), significant gaps in the research remain, notably ‘the influence of middle leaders on teaching and learning’ (p. 1). The research presented here, which is ongoing, is an attempt to bridge this gap by identifying the precise influence of heads of department on the classroom practice of those they lead. Much of the problem – as indicated by this research – is that the nature of the relationship between middle leaders and their followers remains elusive. Researchers have tended to stress the word ‘middle’ and, for example, have seen middle leaders as performing a ‘bridging and brokering’ function (Busher and Harris, 1990: 307) or, as Busher (2005) puts it, they ‘mediate the demands and values’ of wider contexts ‘to their colleagues, students and students’ parents’ (p. 139). Moreover, the purely managerial tasks of middle leaders have often been seen to constitute the bulk of the role – again, the research presented here would tend to confirm that even middle managers themselves can give primacy to the more straightforwardly administrative side of their job. The waters have been further muddied by the marked enthusiasm among researchers and, indeed, policy-makers for ‘collegiality’ (as described by, for example, Bush, 1995) in the running of departments. Wallace (1988), for one, states that this has now become ‘the official model of good practice’ (p. 25). Kirkham (2005) points out, though, that ‘this is more aspired to than real’ (p. 160), often being no more than ‘a substitute term for professional autonomy’ (ibid). While this may be true – and is not at variance with the findings of the present Leadership lost A case study in three selective secondary schools
Meaningful work, work engagement and organisational commitment

Orientation: Meaningful work can yield benefits for organisations and lead to positive work outcomes such as satisfied, engaged and committed employees, individual and organisational fulfilment, productivity, retention and loyalty. Research purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships amongst psychological meaningfulness, work engagement and organisational commitment and to test for a possible mediation effect of work engagement on the relationship between psychological meaningfulness and organisational commitment. Motivation for the study: Managers have to rethink ways of improving productivity and performance at work, due to the diverse, and in some instances escalating, needs of employees (e.g. financial support) to uphold their interest in and enjoyment of working. Research approach, design and method: A quantitative approach was employed to gather the data for the study, utilising a cross-sectional survey design. The sample ( n = 415) consisted of working employees from various companies and positions in Gauteng, South Africa. Main findings: The results confirmed a positive relationship between psychological meaningfulness, work engagement and organisational commitment. Further, psychological meaningfulness predicts work engagement, whilst psychological meaningfulness and work engagement predict organisational commitment. Practical/managerial implications: Employers identifying their employees ’ commitment patterns and mapping out strategies for enhancing those that are relevant to organisational goals will yield positive work outcomes (e.g. employees who are creative, seek growth or challenges for themselves). Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the literature through highlighting the impact that meaningful work has on sustaining employee commitment to the organisation.
Victims' Voices

The perspectives and experiences of victims have been underrepresented in the ongoing debate about mandatory arrest laws for domestic assault. This article presents findings relevant to this policy debate. The authors interviewed 25 victims whose assailants had been arrested under the provisions of the recently passed New York Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act. The authors' focus was on the respondents' experiences with the new law and specifically their perceptions of police demeanor toward them and their assailants. A majority of the participants reported multiple encounters with law enforcement prior to the arrest event. The authors identified four categories of police demeanor—minimizing the situation, disbelieving the victim, we don't care, and macho cop—that were crucial to victims' perceptions of how they were treated by officers. The importance of police demeanor in establishing the trust of victims is discussed and related to policy issues.
Graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis by using methotrexate decreases pre‐engraftment syndrome and severe acute GVHD, and accelerates engraftment after cord blood transplantation

GVHD and graft failure are serious problems in CBT. PES after CBT also occurs frequently and is associated with transplantation‐related complications such as acute GVHD. We reviewed medical records for 70 consecutive child CBT recipients between December 1997 and April 2015. Forty‐nine patients received prophylaxis against GVHD with CsA or Tac in combination with mPSL from day +7 (mPSL group), and 21 patients received CsA or Tac with MTX on day +1 and day +3 (MTX group). Neutrophil engraftment was detected in 59 patients (84.3%). Neutrophil engraftment rate in the MTX group was significantly higher than that in the mPSL group (21/21 (100%) and 38/49 (77.6%), respectively, p = 0.027). PES developed in 35 patients, and the incidence of PES in the mPSL group was significantly higher than that in the MTX group (p = 0.036). The incidence of severe acute GVHD (grade III or IV) in the MTX group was significantly lower than that in the mPSL group (p = 0.049). Although this study was a small‐scale study, the results showed that increase in the rate of engraftment and decrease in the incidence of early immune reactions such as PES and severe acute GVHD could be achieved by early commencement of immunosuppression using MTX.
Women and men politicians: are some of the best leaders dissatisfied?

Today’s political arena calls for strong leadership. As technology facilitates information sharing, constituents are becoming more vocal in governmental affairs. Legislators are now expected to be transformational leaders who envision the future needs of constituents and are capable of negotiating, mediating, and championing these causes in an effective and credible manner. Using transformational leadership theory, this article examines the perceived leadership styles among state‐level legislators in the United States as well as the relationship between leadership style and perceptions of extra effort, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Leaders in this study described their style as transformational and perceived high extra effort from their followers. Yet, compared to women, male politicians had more positive perceptions of effectiveness and satisfaction with their leadership style. This substantiates research that women in male‐dominated careers report less self‐confidence. Future research might verify th.
Childhood Depression: Parents Talk With One Another on the ’Net

Childhood depression is a diagnosis made with increasing frequency. Mass media, including message boards on the World Wide Web, are a significant source of both conventional and unconventional ideas regarding health and illness available today, including childhood depression. This study is a discourse analysis of message board content from 66 initiating posts followed by at least six responses devoted to talk among parents about depression in their children. Parents describe their children's depression as a real and specific disease characterized by moods, behaviors, sociability, appearance, school problems, and their own ability to cope. They consider “it” to be caused both by genetics and social events and stressors. They argue that “it” needs to be treated medically, usually with pharmaceuticals and also possibly at times with psychotherapy and support groups. This portrayal reflects a very broad description of what might be considered to be depression along with a narrow range of responses, treatments reflecting critical medicalization, and pharmaceuticalization.
The Guinea-Bissau Family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex Revisited

The Guinea-Bissau family of strains is a unique group of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex that, although genotypically closely related, phenotypically demonstrates considerable heterogeneity. We have investigated 414 M. tuberculosis complex strains collected in Guinea-Bissau between 1989 and 2008 in order to further characterize the Guinea-Bissau family of strains. To determine the strain lineages present in the study sample, binary outcomes of spoligotyping were compared with spoligotypes existing in the international database SITVIT2. The major circulating M. tuberculosis clades ranked in the following order: AFRI (n = 195, 47.10%), Latin-American-Mediterranean (LAM) (n = 75, 18.12%), ill-defined T clade (n = 53, 12.8%), Haarlem (n = 37, 8.85%), East-African-Indian (EAI) (n = 25, 6.04%), Unknown (n = 12, 2.87%), Beijing (n = 7, 1.68%), X clade (n = 4, 0.96%), Manu (n = 4, 0.97%), CAS (n = 2, 0.48%). Two strains of the LAM clade isolated in 2007 belonged to the Cameroon family (SIT61). All AFRI isolates except one belonged to the Guinea-Bissau family, i.e. they have an AFRI_1 spoligotype pattern, they have a distinct RFLP pattern with low numbers of IS6110 insertions, and they lack the regions of difference RD7, RD8, RD9 and RD10, RD701 and RD702. This profile classifies the Guinea-Bissau family, irrespective of phenotypic biovar, as part of the M. africanum West African 2 lineage, or the AFRI_1 sublineage according to the spoligtyping nomenclature. Guinea-Bissau family strains display a variation of biochemical traits classically used to differentiate M. tuberculosis from M. bovis. Yet, the differential expression of these biochemical traits was not related to any genes so far investigated (narGHJI and pncA). Guinea-Bissau has the highest prevalence of M. africanum recorded in the African continent, and the Guinea-Bissau family shows a high phylogeographical specificity for Western Africa, with Guinea-Bissau being the epicenter. Trends over time however indicate that this family of strains is waning in most parts of Western Africa, including Guinea-Bissau (p = 0.048).