Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Whole-life costing in construction: A state of the art review

This report is a state of the art review of whole life costing in the construction industry. It is the first of a series reporting on-going research undertaken within the research project ‘Developing an integrated database for whole life costing applications in construction’. This project is funded by the EPSRC and undertaken by a unique collaboration between two teams of researchers from the Robert Gordon University and the University of Salford. The fundamental basics of whole life costing (WLC) are introduced. First, the historical development of the technique is highlighted. Then, the suitability of various WLC approaches and techniques are critically reviewed with emphasis on their suitability for application within the framework of the construction industry. This is followed by a review of WLC mathematical models in the literature. Data requirements for WLC are then discussed. This includes a review of various economic, physical, and quality variables necessary for an effective WLC analysis of construction assets. Data sources within the industry are also highlighted with emphasis on current data collection and recording systems. In addition, the requirements of a data compilation procedure for WLC are outlined. The necessity of including the analysis of uncertainty into WLC studies is discussed. Attempts to utilise various risk assessment techniques to add to the quality of WLC decision-making are reviewed with emphasis on their suitability to be implemented in an integrated environment. Essential requirements for the effective application of WLC in the industry are outlined with emphasis on the design of the cost breakdown structure and information management throughout various life cycle phases. Then, directions for further future research are introduced.
Typical magnitude and spatial extent of crowding in autism

Enhanced spatial processing of local visual details has been reported in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC), and crowding is postulated to be a mechanism that may produce this ability. However, evidence for atypical crowding in ASC is mixed, with some studies reporting a complete lack of crowding in autism and others reporting a typical magnitude of crowding between individuals with and without ASC. Here, we aim to disambiguate these conflicting results by testing both the magnitude and the spatial extent of crowding in individuals with ASC (N = 25) and age- and IQ-matched controls (N = 23) during an orientation discrimination task. We find a strong crowding effect in individuals with and without ASC, which falls off as the distance between target and flanker is increased. Both the magnitude and the spatial range of this effect were comparable between individuals with and without ASC. We also find typical (uncrowded) orientation discrimination thresholds in individuals with ASC. These findings suggest that the spatial extent of crowding is unremarkable in ASC, and is therefore unlikely to account for the visual symptoms reported in individuals with the diagnosis.
Evaluating Climate Model Simulations of the Radiative Forcing and Radiative Response at Earth’s Surface

We analyze the radiative forcing and radiative response at Earth’s surface, where perturbations in the radiation budget regulate the atmospheric hydrological cycle. By applying a radiative kernel-regression technique to CMIP5 climate model simulations where CO2 is instantaneously quadrupled, we evaluate the intermodel spread in surface instantaneous radiative forcing, radiative adjustments to this forcing, and radiative responses to surface warming. The cloud radiative adjustment to CO2 forcing and the temperature-mediated cloud radiative response exhibit significant intermodel spread. In contrast to its counterpart at the top of the atmosphere, the temperature-mediated cloud radiative response at the surface is found to be positive in some models and negative in others. Also, the compensation between the temperature-mediated lapse rate and water vapor radiative responses found in top-of-atmosphere calculations is not present for surface radiative flux changes. Instantaneous radiative forcing at the surface is rarely reported for model simulations; as a result, intermodel differences have not previously been evaluated in global climate models. We demonstrate that the instantaneous radiative forcing is the largest contributor to intermodel spread in effective radiative forcing at the surface. We also find evidence of differences in radiative parameterizations in current models and argue that this is a significant, but largely overlooked, source of bias in climate change simulations.
Impact of an educational intervention on provider knowledge, attitudes, and comfort level regarding counseling women ages 40–49 about breast cancer screening

Background Mammography screening for women under the age of 50 is controversial. Groups such as the US Preventive Services Task Force recommend counseling women 40–49 years of age about mammography risks and benefits in order to incorporate the individual patient’s values in decisions regarding screening. We assessed the impact of a brief educational intervention on the knowledge and attitudes of clinicians regarding breast cancer screening. Methods The educational intervention included a review of the risks and benefits of screening, individual risk assessment, and counseling methods. Sessions were led by a physician expert in breast cancer screening. Participants were physicians and nurses in 13 US Department of Veterans Affairs primary care clinics in Alabama. Outcomes were as follows: 1) knowledge assessment of mammogram screening recommendations; 2) counseling practices on the risks and benefits of screening; and 3) comfort level with counseling about screening. Outcomes were assessed by survey before and after the intervention. Results After the intervention, significant changes in attitudes about breast cancer screening were seen. There was a decrease in the percentage of participants who reported that they would screen all women ages 40–49 years (82% before the intervention, 9% afterward). There was an increase in the percentage of participants who reported that they would wait until the patient was 50 years old before beginning to screen (12% before the intervention, 38% afterward). More participants (5% before, 53% after; P<0.001) said that they would discuss the patient’s preferences. Attitudes favoring discussion of screening benefits increased, though not significantly, from 94% to 99% (P=0.076). Attitudes favoring discussion of screening risks increased from 34% to 90% (P<0.001). The comfort level with discussing benefits increased from a mean of 3.8 to a mean of 4.5 (P<0.001); the comfort level with discussing screening risks increased from 2.7 to 4.3 (P<0.001); and the comfort level with discussing cancer risks and screening preferences with patients increased from 3.2 to 4.3 (P<0.001). (The comfort levels measurements were assessed by using a Likert scale, for which 1= not comfortable and 5= very comfortable.) Conclusion Most clinicians in the US Department of Veterans Affairs ambulatory practices in Alabama reported that they routinely discuss mammography benefits but not potential harms with patients. An educational intervention detailing recommendations and counseling methods affected the knowledge and attitudes about breast cancer screening. Participants expressed greater likelihood of discussing screening options in the future.
Analysis of UDP Traffic Usage on Internet Backbone Links

It is still an accepted assumption that Internet traffic is dominated by TCP. However, the rise of new streaming applications (e.g. IPTV such as PPStream, PPLive) and new P2P protocols (e.g. uTP) trying to avoid traffic shaping techniques (such as RST packet injection) are expected to increase the usage of UDP as transport protocol. Since UDP lacks congestion-control, this could potentially raise serious concerns about fairness and stability in the Internet. The goal of this paper is to shed some lights on the assumption that TCP is the dominant transport protocol on the Internet. We evaluate the amount of UDP and TCP traffic, in terms of flows, packets and bytes, on traces collected in the period 2002-2009 on several backbone links located in the US and Sweden. According to our best available data,the use of UDP as transport protocol is gaining popularity in the recent years, especially in terms of flow numbers. A first analysis suggests that most UDP flows use random high ports and carry few packets and little data. This indicates that the recent increases in UDP traffic are a side product of the general increase of P2P traffic, using random ports in order to evade detection and utilizing UDP as signaling traffic for establishing P2P overlay networks.
10 A Structuralist Reconstruction of Wundt ' s Three-Dimensional Theory of Emotion 1

A structuralist reconstruction of Wilhelm Wundt's three-dimensional theory ot emotion ana a sketch of its theoretical environment are presented. Wundt's theory, a quantitative theory of the structure of emotional experience, is reconstructed as a small theory-net consisting of the basic theory-element TE(WUNDT) and several specializations. The main substantive axiom of TE(WUNDT) postulates that each emotional quality, unless itself basic, results from the fusion of a characteristic "mixture" of six basic forms of feeling: Pleasure, displeasure, excitement, inhibition (tranquillization), tension, and relaxation. A second axiom holds that these basic feeling qualities are organized into three "bipolar" dimensions; and the third axiom claims that the basic emotions experienced with regard to complex objects are a fusion of the corresponding basic feelings directed at the components of the complex objects. The constraint of the theory holds that the mixtures of basic feelings characteristic for the various nonbasic emotions are the same across different admissible models. Specializations of the theory result from different possible specifications of the central fusion axiom, as well as from additional constraints requiring interindividual and transtemporal constancy.of the emotional reactions to some kinds of objects. It is suggested that only one concept of the theory, the quality function q (which assigns characteristic proportions of basic feelings to the nonbasic emotions), is T-theoretical. A link.from a theory of emotion measurement to TE{WUNDT) is sketched, and the intended applications of the theory are briefly discussed. Finally, an outline of the larger theory-net of basic emotion theories to which Wundt's theory belongs is presented.
Favourite Sounds: the Australian music field

Drawing on data from the Australian Cultural Fields survey, this article investigates the music field. Following the protocols of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), it charts the music field in Australia, mapping the cultural and social contours of those who populate this space. In this context, the article considers the notion of emerging cultural capital deployed in recent surveys on social class. The article questions the contention that the correlation between emergent cultural practices and a younger educated cohort necessitates a new class formation by returning to Bourdieu’s arguments on the connections between cultural capital, age and the relations between class fractions.
Household Saving Behavior in the Developing Economies: The Indonesian Case

Econometric research on the determinants of household saving based on micro data drawn from the less developed countries has lagged far behind the pace set in advanced nations. It would appear that there has been limited hypothesis-testing in the LDC's beyond macro formulations of the consumption function. Furthermore, very little of the development literature attempts to isolate the impact of structural change on aggregate personal saving, since few studies provide meaningful disaggregation. This state of affairs seems paradoxical, given the currency of W. A. Lewis's remark that the central problem in development theory is to explain an increase in domestic saving from 4 or 5 percent of national income to 12 or 15 percent.1 The dearth of empirical evidence on household saving appears all the more peculiar, given the current emphasis which marginal savings rates enjoy in a flourishing crop of growth models. Most of these ignore the sectoral components of savings, with their divergent behavior, and concentrate instead on aggregate savings performance. Per capita income, which is introduced as the independent variable, is required (a) to capture virtually all of the distributional changes underlying the growth process, and (b) to capture changes in other variables which have a significant impact on savings behavior, whether of households, corporations, or governments. The recent, and highly aggregative, Chenery-Strout model is just one example ;2 most growth models make aggregate domestic savings a simple function of per capita income, either current or lagged.3 On the one hand, this approach may yield simple, well behaved models and reasonably useful short-run forecasts. On the other hand, it offers only limited insight into the development process and contributes little to the policymaker who seeks to understand the savings decision and how he might act upon it. Furthermore, household saving is usually left in the background, while the government and corporate sector receive attention as the major contributors to high marginal saving rates. This state of affairs, if we have described it fairly, certainly cannot be
Pygmalion and the gender gap: do teacher expectations contribute to differences in achievement between boys and girls at the beginning of schooling?

ABSTRACT This study examined the role of teacher expectations in the emerging gender gaps in reading and mathematics in the first year of schooling. Therefore, we first investigated whether boys and girls differ in their vulnerability to teacher expectancy effects. Second, we analysed whether gender-specific effects of teacher expectations contribute to gender achievement gaps. Our analyses were based on 1,025 first-grade students in Germany. Among the majority of the students, boys and girls did not differ in their vulnerability to teacher expectancy effects. Further analyses examined a subgroup of students who were targets of relatively strong teacher expectation bias and who showed unexpectedly high or low achievement gains. In this specific subgroup, girls’ mathematics achievement was more adversely affected by negatively biased expectations and benefitted less from positive bias than boys’ achievement. Mediation analyses revealed that teacher expectation bias did not substantially contribute to gender gaps in reading or mathematics.
ACTITUDES HACIA LA CIENCIA DEL PROFESORADO EN FORMACIÓN DE EDUCACIÓN INFANTIL Y EDUCACIÓN PRIMARIA

Resumen: En este trabajo se examinan las actitudes hacia la ciencia de 621 estudiantes de Magisterio de Educacion Infantil y Educacion Primaria. Para recoger la informacion se empleo un cuestionario de 24 items en el que se incluyeron enunciados relacionados con la imagen hacia la ciencia y el medio ambiente, la ciencia escolar y la ensenanza de las ciencias. Tambien se analizan sus actitudes en funcion del genero, el bachillerato de procedencia, la titulacion y la formacion en didactica de ciencias recibida. Los resultados muestran que la actitud hacia la ciencia y el medio ambiente en la mayoria del futuro profesorado es positiva, ya que en casi todos los items el numero de respuestas favorables supera a las desfavorables. Sin embargo, esta tendencia cambia cuando nos referimos a la actitud frente a la ciencia escolar, donde se muestra mayor tendencia al desacuerdo, excepto cuando se pregunta si hay que aprender ciencias en la escuela. En cuanto a la actitud hacia la ensenanza de las ciencias, un 92% identifica la importancia de ensenarlas en el aula, aunque alrededor del 30% reconoce no tener los recursos y conocimientos suficientes para trabajarla con sus alumnos. La variable que influye en mayor medida en la actitud de los docentes hacia la ciencia es el bachillerato que estudiaron, apreciandose diferencias significativas en 17 de los 24 items, siendo mas favorables en aquellos que estudiaron bachillerato cientifico-tecnologico que en el resto. En la titulacion no se encontraron diferencias significativas entre los dos Grados participantes. Abstract: In this study, attitudes towards science of 621 Preschool and Primary preservice teachers are examined. In order to collect the information, we used a questionnaire of 24 items which included four blocks related to the image of science, science and environment, school science and science education. Their attitudes are also analyzed in terms of gender, their previous studies, their teaching degree and their teacher training in science education. The results show that the attitude towards science and, science and environment is positive in most of these future teachers, since in almost all items the number of favorable responses exceeds the number of unfavorable. However, this trend changes when referring to attitudes towards school science, which shows a disagree tendency. Just one exception is found when they make reference to the importance of learning science at school. As for science education, 92% identify the importance of teaching science in classroom, although about 30% admit not having enough resources and knowledge to work it. The variable with more influence in the teachers’ attitude towards science is their previous studies. Significant differences were observed in 17 of the 24 items, being more favorable in those who studied science and technology at high school. Non-significant differences are found between the two degrees involved in the study.
Turning off the “ self-destruction ” mechanism of a cell

Introduction T he amount of data in our world has been increasing at a rapid rate in a wide variety of applied disciplines such as in fi nance (the advent of high-frequency algorithmic trading) and genetics (recent experimental advances have led to vast amounts of new data-sets). As a result, analyzing large data sets is becoming a key basis of competition, supporting new waves of productivity growth and technological innovations. The primary role of many statisticians has evolved to develop advanced and often highly complex stochastic models to determine the underlying physical phenomenon in the datasets. In many of these statistical models, it is important to estimate a variety of parameters which can accurately describe the data. For example, in the fi nancial industry, fund managers are concerned with the " price volatility " of the fi nancial assets as it helps them allocate their investments to balance the risk level. In such scenarios, this information is obtained by evaluating an integral, or a " theoretical average " , in very high-dimensional space. If a fi nancial data set consists of only a time-series of prices, the integration task has to be carried out in as much as over 1000 dimensions to arrive at a correct estimate of the price volatility In practice to calculate this integral, the analytical value is not known due to the high-dimensional nature of the integral (i.e. one cannot simply perform mathematical calculations on a computer/by hand and obtain the answer). As a result, this has lead to a substantial literature on numerical approximation of integrals, which can be roughly divided into two main groups-stochastic methods and deterministic methods. It is widely believed that stochastic numerical integration methods out-perform deterministic methods for dimensions greater than three. In general, statisticians and probabilists focus upon stochastic ideas, in particular Monte Carlo approaches. Monte Carlo methods are based on the use of random numbers and probability statistics to investigate problems, and are believed (wrongly) to always break the curse of dimensionality and accurately estimate integrals in very high-dimensions. This is true in some scenarios, but there are instances whereby the methodology has very poor performance and yields inaccurate outcomes. That is, if the dimension of the problem is d, then it is thought that the method can work well if, for some " good " behavior the cost is polynomial function of d, and work poorly if the …
An investigation of a dramatic cold outbreak over southeast Australia

Extremely cold days with temperatures well below normal are found to occur in the southern parts of Australia, as in some other places of the world (Perrin and Simmonds 1995; Wu and Chan 1997; Lagouvardos et al. 1998; Schultz et al. 1998; Garreaud 2000; Simmonds and Richter 2000; Vera and Vigliarolo 2000; Xue et al. 2000; Pagowski and Moore 2001; and references therein). These cold Aust. Met. Mag. 50 (2001) 249-261
Teachers’ Emotion Minimizing Language and Toddlers’ Social Emotional Competence

ABSTRACT Teachers in toddler classrooms are important agents of emotion socialization. The current study examined teachers’ use of emotion minimizing language in toddler classrooms and toddlers’ social emotional competence. Teachers’ emotion minimizing language is described as language that purposefully distances them from a child’s emotions and discourages children’s expression of their emotions. Research Findings: Results indicate a negative relationship between teachers’ emotion minimizing language and toddlers’ social emotional competence when program quality, child age, and child gender are controlled. Practice or Policy: Implications relevant to teacher preparation programs and professional development are discussed, with a primary focus on the methods by which teachers are trained to use language to respond to young children’s emotions.
Physical education classes improve foot function in high-school students using technological tools

The aim of this study was the evaluation of a coordinative and plyometric training program on the functionality of foot in high school students. The use of modern technologies tools was used to made attractive the didactic approach. Sixty–three students were freely recruited and randomly divided into Training Group and Control Group. Training group consisted in plyometrics, balance and strength exercises while the control’s remained off-training. Subjects were tested for balance ability, reactive-strength and dynamic-ground-contact using high technology tool. The TG significative improved the balance ability performance by 68% while CG remained unchanged. The reactive-strength index revealed a 13% gain in training group although this increase resulted not significantly different from control. The dynamic-ground-contact performance revealed in TG only a tendency of decreasing. A specific training program affected the functionality of foot even if the application of stimulus was time restricted. Moreover, the use of technologies verified an interesting use of tools in school context that could involve students proactively.