Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autonomous robot navigation in outdoor cluttered pedestrian walkways

This paper describes an implementation of a mobile robot system for autonomous navigation in outdoor concurred walkways. The task was to navigate through nonmodified pedestrian paths with people and bicycles passing by. The robot has multiple redundant sensors, which include wheel encoders, an inertial measurement unit, a differential global positioning system, and four laser scanner sensors. All the computation was done on a single laptop computer. A previously constructed map containing waypoints and landmarks for position correction is given to the robot. The robot system's perception, road extraction, and motion planning are detailed. The system was used and tested in a 1‐km autonomous robot navigation challenge held in the City of Tsukuba, Japan, named “Tsukuba Challenge 2007. ” The proposed approach proved to be robust for outdoor navigation in cluttered and crowded walkways, first on campus paths and then running the challenge course multiple times between trials and the challenge final. The paper reports experimental results and overall performance of the system. Finally the lessons learned are discussed. The main contribution of this work is the report of a system integration approach for autonomous outdoor navigation and its evaluation. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Survival in pulmonary hypertension in Spain: insights from the Spanish registry

A pulmonary hypertension (PH) registry (Spanish Registry of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension) was undertaken to analyse prevalence, incidence and survival of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) in Spain, and to assess the applicability of recent survival prediction equations. Voluntary reporting of previously diagnosed and incident PAH or CTEPH cases (July 2007–June 2008) was performed. Demographic, functional and haemodynamic variables were evaluated. 866 patients with PAH and 162 with CTEPH were included. PAH associated with toxic oil syndrome and pulmonary veno-occlusive disease were reported for the first time in a PAH registry. Estimated prevalences were as follows: PAH, 16 and CTEPH, 3.2 cases per million adult inhabitants (MAI). Estimated incidences were as follows: PAH, 3.7 and CTEPH, 0.9 cases per MAI per yr. 1-, 3- and 5-yr survival was 87%, 75% and 65%, respectively, with no differences between PAH and CTEPH. Male sex, right atrial pressure and cardiac index were independent predictors of death. Matching between observed survival and that predicted by different equations was closer when the characteristics of the cohorts were similar. Epidemiology and survival of PAH patients in the Spanish registry are similar to recent registries. Characteristics of the population from which survival prediction equations are derived influence their applicability to a different cohort. CTEPH is much less prevalent than PAH, although has a similar survival rate.
Chlorate Challenges for Water Systems

Chlorate, currently included in the US Environmental Protection Agency's monitoring of unregulated contaminants and on the contaminant candidate list, could potentially receive a regulatory determination in the near future. This article, using available literature along with past and current monitoring data, assesses the presence of chlorate in drinking water and the potential impact of its regulation. The article gives specific attention to the variety of threshold concentrations that appear most often in the literature—210, 700, and 840 μg/L—and evaluates the effect a regulatory requirement at each of these values would have on utilities. The research indicated that potential regulatory thresholds > 700 μg/L would be violated by only < 10% of utilities. The effects of regional conditions and type of disinfection used depend greatly on the adopted thresholds. Utilities in the southern region of the United States and those using chloramination are most at risk if a low maximum contaminant level is adopted.
Morphological awareness and reading comprehension: The case of an English-Turkish Bilingual Child versus a Turkish Monolingual Child

The current study aims to investigate the bilingual advantages in morphological processing and reading comprehension by comparing the performances of a 7 :4 year-old English-Turkish bilingual child and a 7:10 year-old Turkish monolingual child on two morphological awareness tasks, namely a derivation task and a decomposition task in Turkish developed for the purpose of the study, and on a reading comprehension task. The findings of the study revealed that the monolingual child outperformed the bilingual child both in morphological awareness and reading comprehension tasks. These findings supported Cummin’s threshold hypothesis suggesting that a critical level of proficiency in L2 must be reached if bilingual advantages in cognitive and linguistic functioning are to develop. Besides, the findings verified the relation between the morphological processing skills and reading comprehension.
Reimagining leaderboards: towards gamifying competency models through social game mechanics

Competency models have been widely employed within education, training and development contexts. In particular, medical education programs have become a platform of exploration around innovations in competency-based assessment. Approaches that employ dynamic, flexible models in a social context are now being sought. In this paper, we present the design of a deliberately gamifiable competency model system that encourages pre-professional development through collaborative peer appraisals. We propose a framework for incorporating social game mechanics into a competency modelling system and draw attention to how a collaborative approach to evidencing progress is a potentially fruitful solution to the threat of demotivation associated with the competitive slant of traditional leaderboards.
Experimenting with transitive verbs in a DisCoCat

Formal and distributional semantic models offer complementary benefits in modeling meaning. The categorical compositional distributional model of meaning of Coecke et al. (2010) (abbreviated to DisCoCat in the title) combines aspects of both to provide a general framework in which meanings of words, obtained distributionally, are composed using methods from the logical setting to form sentence meaning. Concrete consequences of this general abstract setting and applications to empirical data are under active study (Grefenstette et al., 2011; Grefenstette and Sadrzadeh, 2011). In this paper, we extend this study by examining transitive verbs, represented as matrices in a DisCoCat. We discuss three ways of constructing such matrices, and evaluate each method in a disambiguation task developed by Grefenstette and Sadrzadeh (2011).
Why can’t everyone pass? Context responsive teaching and learning in urban primary schools

Abstract This qualitative scoping study explored how a small sample of teachers in urban primary schools in Jamaica responded to meeting the needs of students with low levels of reading. Data from interviews and observation, analysed through the lens of human learning theory and culturally responsive pedagogy, provided thick descriptions of participants’ shared views of context responsive teaching and learning. Findings suggested that context responsive teaching and learning was enacted by catering to students’ unmet physical, academic and emotional needs (a whole child approach) as means of improving their performance. The findings further indicated that individual teacher agency was the main means of responding to the situated context. Arguments are made that curriculum reform seeking to improve urban students’ performance needs to include strategies for meeting their unmet physical, and emotional needs in addition to the academic needs. The paper concludes that this can help to reduce the challenges that prevent students from performing well in urban contexts.
Ionization Properties and Elemental Abundances in Damped Lyα Systems

We analyze extant data of Al+2, Al+, and other low ions with the aim of studying the ionization properties of damped Lyα systems (DLAs) from the analysis of the ratio R(Al+2/Al+) ≡ N(Al+2)/N(Al+). We find the good correlations log N(Al+)-log N(Si+) and log N(Al+)-log N(Fe+) that we use to indirectly estimate N(Al+) from N(Si+) and/or N(Fe+) measurements. In this way, we determine the ratio R(Al+2/Al+) for a sample of 20 DLAs. Contrary to common belief, the ratio can attain relatively high values (up to 0.6), suggesting that the gas of the intermediate ionization state plays an important role in DLAs. On the other hand, the lack of any trend between abundance ratios, such as Si/H and Si/Fe and R(Al+2/Al+) indicates that abundances are not severely influenced by ionization effects. We find a log R(Al+2/Al+)-log N(H0) anticorrelation that we use in conjunction with idealized photoionization equilibrium calculations to constrain the ionization properties and to predict ionization corrections in DLAs. We consider two possible origins for the species of the low- and intermediate-ionization state: (1) neutral regions devoid of Al+2 and/or (2) partially ionized, Al+2-bearing regions. The log R(Al+2/Al+)-log N(H0) anticorrelation can be naturally explained in terms of a two-region model with a soft, stellar-type ionizing radiation field. We present abundance ionization corrections for 14 elements of astrophysical interest derived with different types of ionizing spectra. For most of these elements, the corrections are generally below measurements errors, which is contrary to the predictions of recent models presented in the literature. We briefly discuss the potential effects of inaccuracies in the Al recombination rates used in the photoionization calculations.
Calibration of the galaxy cluster M-500-Υ-x relation with XMM-Newton

The quantity YX, the product of the X-ray temperature TX and gas mass Mg, has recently been proposed as a robust low-scatter mass indicator for galaxy clusters. Using precise measurements from XMM-Newton data of a sample of 10 relaxed nearby clusters, spanning a YX range of 10 13 -10 15 MkeV, we investigate the M500-YX relation. The M500-YX data exhibit a power law relation with slope α = 0.548 ± 0.027, close to the self-similar value (3/5) and independent of the mass range considered. However, the normalisation is ∼20% below the prediction from numerical simulations including cooling and galaxy feedback. We discuss two effects that could contribute to the normalisation offset: an underestimate of the true mass due to the hydrostatic equilibrium assumption used in X-ray mass estimates, and an underestimate of the hot gas mass fraction in the simulations. A comparison of the functional form and scatter of the relations between various observables and the mass suggest that YX may indeed be a better mass proxy than TX or Mg,500.
The Influences of Perceived Value on Consumer Purchase Intention : The Moderating Effect of Advertising Endorser

Advertising endorser is one of the major marketing strategies for advertisers. Advertising endorser can fast build brand recognition and help consumers to understand functions and characteristics of a product or a service. In the end, consumers will memorize the product/service and produce purchase intention. The study aims to explore the effects of advertising endorser on perceived value and purchase intention. Totally, 450 copies of questionnaires were dispatched and the effective response rate was 90%. The results show that (1) perceived value is significantly affected to advertising endorser, (2) advertising endorser is significantly affected to purchase intention, (3) perceived value is significantly affected to purchase intention, and (4) advertising endorser has no moderation effect between perceived value and purchase intention.
Extracting the Names of Genes and Gene Products with a Hidden Markov Model

We report the results of a study into the use of a linear interpolating hidden Markov model (HMM) for the task of extracting technical terminology from MEDLINE abstracts and texts in the molecular-biology domain. This is the first stage in a system that will extract event information for automatically updating biology databases. We trained the HMM entirely with bigrams based on lexical and character features in a relatively small corpus of 100 MEDLINE abstracts that were marked-up by domain experts with term classes such as proteins and DNA. Using cross-validation methods we achieved an F-score of 0.73 and we examine the contribution made by each part of the interpolation model to overcoming data sparseness.
Concurrent TMS–fMRI reveals dynamic interhemispheric influences of the right parietal cortex during exogenously cued visuospatial attention

We used concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and functional MRI (TMS‐fMRI) during a visuospatial cueing paradigm in humans, to study the causal role of the right angular gyrus (AG) as a source of attentional control. Our findings show that TMS over the right AG (high vs. low intensity) modulates neural responses interhemispherically, in a manner that varies dynamically with the current attentional condition. The behavioural impact of such TMS depended not only on the target hemifield but also on exogenous cue validity, facilitating spatial reorienting to invalidly cued right visual targets. On a neural level, right AG TMS had corresponding interhemispheric effects in the left AG and left retinotopic cortex, including area V1. We conclude that the direction of covert visuospatial attention can involve dynamic interplay between the right AG and remote interconnected regions of the opposite left hemisphere, whereas our findings also suggest that the right AG can influence responses in the retinotopic visual cortex.
Tidally Induced Elongation and Alignments of Galaxy Clusters

We show that tidal interaction among galaxy clusters can account for their observed alignments and very marked elongation and, consequently, that these characteristics of clusters are actually consistent with them being formed in hierarchical clustering. The well-established distribution of projected axial ratios of clusters with richness class $R\ge 0$ is recovered very satisfactorily by means of a simple model with no free parameters. The main perturbers are relatively rich ($R\ge 1$) single clusters and/or groups of clusters (superclusters) of a wider richness class ($R\ge 0$) located within a distance of about 65 $h^{-1}$ Mpc from the perturbed cluster. This makes the proposed scheme be also consistent with all reported alignment effects involving clusters. We find that this tidal interaction is typically in the saturate regime (\ie the maximum elongation allowed for systems in equilibrium is reached), which explains the very similar intrinsic axial ratio shown by all clusters. Tides would therefore play an important role in the dynamics of large scale structures, in particular, they should be taken into account when estimating the virial mass of clusters.
Investigation of mental models for science teaching and primary school teacher candidates’ self-efficacy beliefs

This study aims to explore mental models for science teaching and primary school teacher candidates' self efficacy beliefs.The sample of this research study is composed of 108 students who are studying at the department of Primary School Teaching of Artvin Coruh University during the 2014-2015 academic year. Self-Efficacy Beliefs Inventory for Prospective Primary School Teachers in teaching science developed by Riggs and Enochs (1990) and adapted in Turkish by Bikmaz (2002)and ‘Science Teacher Illustration Form’ (DASTT-C) developed by Thomas, Pedersen and Finson (2001) have been used as data collection tools. The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS. The obtained data were analyzed using, frequency, percentage,mean, standard deviation, t-test, correlation and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) in accordance with the purpose.Various differences in variables have been identified in self-efficacy beliefs of prospective primary school teachers for science teaching and mental models for teacher candidates' for science education were examinedKeywords: Primary school teacher candidates, self-efficacy, belief about science teaching.
Speeding Melody Search With Vantage Point Trees

Melodic search engines let people find music in online collections by specifying the desired melody. Comparing the query melody to every item in a large database is prohibitively slow. If melodies can be placed in a metric space, search can be sped by comparing the query to a limited number of vantage melodies, rather than the entire database. We describe a simple melody metric that is customizable using a small number of example queries. This metric allows use of a generalized vantage point tree to organize the database. We show on a standard melodic database that the general vantage tree approach achieves superior search results for query-by-humming compared to an existing vantage point tree method. We then show this method can be used as a preprocessor to speed search for non-metric melodic comparison.
The Economics of Asset Management

This paper develops a contingent claims approach to valuing the fee flow generated by mutual funds. The method incorporates the key empirical characteristic of mutual funds, namely the relation between fund performance and fund inflows. Using this approach, we address a number of central issues in asset management such as the risk-taking incentives of mutual funds, the value of active management, and the optimal fund contract.
Intense harvesting of eastern wolves facilitated hybridization with coyotes

Despite ethical arguments against lethal control of wildlife populations, culling is routinely used for the management of predators, invasive or pest species, and infectious diseases. Here, we demonstrate that culling of wildlife can have unforeseen impacts that can be detrimental to future conservation efforts. Specifically, we analyzed genetic data from eastern wolves (Canis lycaon) sampled in Algonquin Provincial Park (APP), Ontario, Canada from 1964 to 2007. Research culls in 1964 and 1965 killed the majority of wolves within a study region of APP, accounting for approximately 36% of the park's wolf population at a time when coyotes were colonizing the region. The culls were followed by a significant decrease in an eastern wolf mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype (C1) in the Park's wolf population, as well as an increase in coyote mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. The introgression of nuclear DNA from coyotes, however, appears to have been curtailed by legislation that extended wolf protection outside park boundaries in 2001, although eastern wolf mtDNA haplotype C1 continued to decline and is now rare within the park population. We conclude that the wolf culls transformed the genetic composition of this unique eastern wolf population by facilitating coyote introgression. These results demonstrate that intense localized harvest of a seemingly abundant species can lead to unexpected hybridization events that encumber future conservation efforts. Ultimately, researchers need to contemplate not only the ethics of research methods, but also that future implications may be obscured by gaps in our current scientific understanding.
Journal of Experimental and Integrative Medicine

Objective: The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between anemia and erythropoietin (Epo) and erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) expression. This study also investigated the relationship between Epo and EpoR expression level and the proliferation rate of cancer cells. Methods: 20 samples of breast cancer tissues were divided into two groups; anemic group (from patiens with Hb level < 12) and non-anemic group (from patients with Hb level > 12). All samples were analyzed by using immunofluorescence staining in order to examine Epo and EpoR expression. Proliferation of cancer cells were analyzed by using Hematoxylin-Eosin staining. Results: Anemic breast cancer group represented higher Epo and EpoR expression than the non-anemic group. The results also indicated that in anemic samples expression levels of Epo and EpoR were negatively correlated with the number of cancer cells. In contrast, Epo and EpoR expression levels from non-anemic samples were positively correlated with the number of cancer cells. Conclusion: These results conducted that anemia is a crucial factor of hypoxic condition. Hypoxia led by anemia cause a different control mechanism of Epo and EpoR expression and cancer cell proliferation.
Singular Differential, Integral and Discrete Equations: the Semipositone Case

Fixed point methods play a major role in the paper. In particular, we use lower type inequalities together with Krasnoselskii’s fixed point theorem in a cone to deduce the existence of positive solutions for a general class of problems. Moreover, the results and technique are applicable also to positone problems. 2000 Math. Subj. Class. 34B15, 47H30, 39A10.
Level of Parent Involvement in the Elementary and Secondary Levels

Parent involvement is very essential because it contributes to the success of children in academics and extracurricular aspects. It also hastens the implementation of school projects of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). The study was conducted to know the level of parent involvement in both the elementary and secondary levels. Descriptive research was used in the study. Results showed that the level of parent involvement in the elementary level was very high in the academics and extracurricular aspects, and high in performing their role as members of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). The level of parent involvement in the secondary level was high in the three aspects, namely academics, extracurricular, and as members of the PTA. Moreover, the findings showed that the difference between the level of parent involvement in the elementary and secondary levels was not statistically significant. This means that parents in both levels display similar level of involvement in their children's school activities and in performing their role as members of the PTA. Thus, it is evident that parents in both the elementary and secondary levels have the willingness to support their children and reach out to any activities the school imposes.
Processing the Scientific Tentativeness of Medical Research: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Research News and User Comments in Online Media

When people read medical research news on the Internet, they are confronted not only with information from the article itself but often also with comments written by other users about the article. Moreover, Internet users have the opportunity to write their own comments. In an experimental study we found that the actual scientific tentativeness of the research findings reported in a health news article as well as the empirical and the anecdotal evidence provided in other users’ skeptical comments influenced how the participants perceived scientific tentativeness and, in turn, how much they addressed this tentativeness in their own comments.