Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning to use student ideas in elementary science teaching: The influence of mentor teachers in preservice teachers' developing meanings

This study explores the influence of mentor teachers in the meanings and practices that two elementary preservice teachers adopted about eliciting and using student ideas, while learning to teach science in the university science methods course and in the field placement classroom. Prior research on teacher development has shown that the high-leverage practice of eliciting and using student ideas can support preservice teachers in thinking about common problems of practice. I used four core problems of practice to examine the meanings and practices that preservice teachers adopted in eliciting and using student ideas as they planned, enacted and reflected on methods course assignments in the field placement classroom. Using sociocultural and situative perspectives on learning, I identified two factors that influenced the sense that preservice teachers constructed and the practices that they adopted about eliciting and using student ideas. These factors were mentor teacher’s perspectives on learning and goals for student learning. I also examined three mechanisms by which mentor teacher’s perspectives and goals influenced preservice teacher meanings and practices about eliciting and using student ideas in instruction, including mentor teacher’s classroom practice, the nature and foci of mentor teacher and preservice teacher conversations and mentor teacher’s use of preservice teachers’ ideas in their conversations about instruction. The results suggest that preservice teachers come to make sense of and use student ideas in their instruction in ways that closely align with those of their mentors. They also indicate that preservice teachers’ integration of experiences from different learning-to-teach contexts in making sense of student ideas may be related to the degree of alignment between mentor teachers’ perspectives and goals and the perspectives and goals of the science methods
Detection of stepping stone attack under delay and chaff perturbations

Network based attackers often relay attacks through intermediary hosts (i.e., stepping stones) to evade detection. In addition, attackers make detection more difficult by encrypting attack traffic and introducing delay and chaff perturbations into stepping stone connections. Several approaches have been proposed to detect stepping stone attacks. However, none of them performs effectively when delay and chaff perturbations exist simultaneously. In this paper, we propose and analyze algorithms which represent that attackers cannot always evade detection only by adding limited delay and independent chaff perturbations. We provide the upper bounds on the number of packets needed to confidently detect stepping stone connections from non-stepping stone connections with any given probability of false attribution. We compare our algorithms with previous ones and the experimental results show that our algorithms are more effective in detecting stepping stone attacks in some scenarios
A Self‐learning Framework for Statistical Ground Classification using Radar and Monocular Vision

Reliable terrain analysis is a key requirement for a mobile robot to operate safely in challenging environments, such as in natural outdoor settings. In these contexts, conventional navigation systems that assume a priori knowledge of the terrain geometric properties, appearance properties, or both, would most likely fail, due to the high variability of the terrain characteristics and environmental conditions. In this paper, a self‐learning framework for ground detection and classification is introduced, where the terrain model is automatically initialized at the beginning of the vehicle's operation and progressively updated online. The proposed approach is of general applicability for a robot's perception purposes, and it can be implemented using a single sensor or combining different sensor modalities. In the context of this paper, two ground classification modules are presented: one based on radar data, and one based on monocular vision and supervised by the radar classifier. Both of them rely on online learning strategies to build a statistical feature‐based model of the ground, and both implement a Mahalanobis distance classification approach for ground segmentation in their respective fields of view. In detail, the radar classifier analyzes radar observations to obtain an estimate of the ground surface location based on a set of radar features. The output of the radar classifier serves as well to provide training labels to the visual classification module. Once trained, the vision‐based classifier is able to discriminate between ground and nonground regions in the entire field of view of the camera. It can also detect multiple terrain components within the broad ground class. Experimental results, obtained with an unmanned ground vehicle operating in a rural environment, are presented to validate the system. It is shown that the proposed approach is effective in detecting drivable surface, reaching an average classification accuracy of about 80% on the entire video frame with the additional advantage of not requiring human intervention for training or a priori assumption on the ground appearance.
Hepatoid carcinoma of the ovary without staining for alpha-fetoprotein

Primary hepatoid carcinoma of the ovary (HCO) is a rare type of ovarian tumor that resembles hepatocellular carcinoma both histologically and immunohistochemically in its staining for alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). We describe a 51-year-old woman who presented to our hospital complaining of abdominal pain. Computed tomography scan revealed a large tumor in the pelvis. She underwent total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy with tumorectomy. A right ovarian mass measuring 9×8×6 cm was found. Histological diagnosis was hepatoid carcinoma of the right ovary. But, immunohistochemically, tumor cells were not immunoreactive for AFP and there was no elevation of serum AFP level. This is the first report of an ovarian carcinoma with typical histologic features of HCO with negative staining for AFP and normal level of serum AFP in the world.
“Everything happened so quickly” Living through events immediately before and after initial breast cancer diagnosis: an exploratory study of the experiences of a group of women in Cape Town, South Africa

This article provides information on an aspect of the author’s research on colored women’s experiences of breast cancer and deals specifically with events immediately before and after the initial diagnosis. The experiences of this group of South African women have remained largely undocumented. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 colored women. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed using thematic content analysis. The main themes that emerged relate to the discovery of the lump, reaction time, response to diagnosis, the question of whether a lumpectomy or a mastectomy should be conducted, counseling and family reactions. The findings show, inter alia, that these women are not accorded sufficient time to deal with the magnitude of the diagnosis and that access to appropriate counseling is insufficient. This study has implications for health professionals and for women in general and suggests further areas of investigation within the field of breast cancer research.
Functional Connectivity Alterations in Epilepsy from Resting-State Functional MRI

The study of functional brain connectivity alterations induced by neurological disorders and their analysis from resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rfMRI) is generally considered to be a challenging task. The main challenge lies in determining and interpreting the large-scale connectivity of brain regions when studying neurological disorders such as epilepsy. We tackle this challenging task by studying the cortical region connectivity using a novel approach for clustering the rfMRI time series signals and by identifying discriminant functional connections using a novel difference statistic measure. The proposed approach is then used in conjunction with the difference statistic to conduct automatic classification experiments for epileptic and healthy subjects using the rfMRI data. Our results show that the proposed difference statistic measure has the potential to extract promising discriminant neuroimaging markers. The extracted neuroimaging markers yield 93.08% classification accuracy on unseen data as compared to 80.20% accuracy on the same dataset by a recent state-of-the-art algorithm. The results demonstrate that for epilepsy the proposed approach confirms known functional connectivity alterations between cortical regions, reveals some new connectivity alterations, suggests potential neuroimaging markers, and predicts epilepsy with high accuracy from rfMRI scans.
Regulation of Fibrinolysis in Plasma by TAFI and Protein C Is Dependent on the Concentration of Thrombomodulin

Summary Thrombin activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI) is a carboxypeptidase B-like proenzyme, that after activation down regulates fibrinolysis. TAFI is activated by thrombin in the presence of the cofactor thrombomodulin (TM). By stimulation of TAFI activation TM down regulates fibrinolysis, however TM is also a cofactor in the activation of protein C. Activated protein C (APC) can up regulate fibrinolysis by limiting the activation of TAFI via the attenuation of thrombin production. We studied these counteracting fibrinolytic properties of TM in plasma by measuring the activation of TAFI during tissue factor induced coagulation. TAFI activation was stimulated at low concentrations of TM but decreased at higher concentrations of TM. Similarly, the clot lysis times increased at low concentrations of TM but decreased at higher concentrations of TM. The reduction of TAFI activation at high TM concentrations was found to be dependent on a functional protein C pathway. The concentration of TM is therefore an important factor in the regulation of TAFI activation and in the regulation of fibrinolysis. High concentrations of TM result in up regulation of fibrinolysis, whereas low concentrations of TM have a down regulatory effect on fibrinolysis. These results suggest that fibrinolysis might be differentially regulated by TM in different parts of the body depending on the local TM concentration in the vasculature. Abbreviations: TAFI, thrombin activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor; TAFIa, activated TAFI; CPI, carboxypeptidase inhibitor from potato tubers; tPA, tissue-type plasminogen activator; TM, thrombo-modulin; TM4-6, Thrombomodulin fragment containing EGF domains 4 to 6; HMEC, human microvascular endothelial cell.
Usefulness of repeated fine-needle cytology in the follow-up of non-operated thyroid nodules.

OBJECTIVE The usefulness of repeated fine-needle cytology (FNC) in thyroid nodules with benign cytology remains unknown. We analyzed the relevance of repeated FNC to detect suspicious or malignant (S/M) cytologies and carcinomas. DESIGN A retrospective study (1983-2004) was conducted in our endocrinology department. METHODS We reviewed the reports of 895 adequate FNC performed in 298 patients (298 nodules) during a mean follow-up of 5 years. We compared the nodules with at least one suspicious or malignant FNC (S/M nodules) with nodules with repeatedly benign (RB) FNC (RB nodules). RESULTS Among the nodules with initial benign cytology, we found 35 nodules with one or more later suspicious or malignant results. The interval between the first FNC and the first S/M FNC was 2.9 years. The probability for a nodule to have a repeated benign FNC decreases with time and with the number of FNC. We did not find any clinical or ultrasonographic characteristics related to an S/M cytology. Seven cancers were detected by the second or the third FNC with S/M results. The proportion of cancers among S/M nodules was similar when S/M cytology appears during the first, the second, or the third FNC. CONCLUSIONS We suggest to repeat FNC up to three adequate samples in the follow-up of thyroid nodules so as not to miss the presence of malignant neoplasm.
Correlated Radial Velocity and X-Ray Variations in HD 154791/4U 1700+24

We present evidence for approximately 400 day variations in the radial velocity of HD 154791 (V934 Her), the suggested optical counterpart of 4U 1700+24. The variations are correlated with the previously reported ≈400 day variations in the X-ray flux of 4U 1700+24, which supports the association of these two objects, as well as the identification of this system as the second known X-ray binary in which a neutron star accretes from the wind of a red giant. The HD 154791 radial velocity variations can be fitted with an eccentric orbit with period 404 ± 3 days, amplitude K = 0.75 ± 0.12 km s-1, and eccentricity e = 0.26 ± 0.15. There are also indications of variations on longer timescales ≳2000 days. We have reexamined all available All-Sky Monitor (ASM) data following an unusually large X-ray outburst in 1997-1998 and confirm that the 1 day averaged 2-10 keV X-ray flux from 4U 1700+24 is modulated with a period of 400 ± 20 days. The mean profile of the persistent X-ray variations was approximately sinusoidal, with an amplitude of 0.108 ± 0.012 ASM counts s-1 (corresponding to 31% rms). The epoch of X-ray maximum was approximately 40 days after the time of periastron, according to the eccentric orbital fit. If the 400 day oscillations from HD 154791/4U 1700+24 are due to orbital motion, then the system parameters are probably close to those of the only other neutron star symbiotic-like binary, GX 1+4. We discuss the similarities and differences between these two systems.
Variations in the origin of superior laryngeal artery

The superior laryngeal artery is the principal artery supplying the laryngeal mucosa, musculature, and glands. Knowledge of variations in the origin of superior laryngeal artery could prove to be very useful during reconstructive surgeries of the larynx, partial laryngectomy, laryngeal transplantation, and also during procedures like super-selective intra-arterial chemotherapy for laryngeal and hypolaryngeal cancers. However, relatively few studies have been done on the superior laryngeal artery in comparison to its clinical importance. The present study was aimed at documenting the prevalence of variable origin of the superior laryngeal artery within the carotid triangle. Sixty hemi-necks obtained from 30 South Indian cadavers were dissected and studied for variations in the origin of superior laryngeal artery. It was observed that the superior laryngeal artery took origin from superior thyroid in 91.7% cases. Variable origin from the external carotid artery was noted in 5% cases. The superior laryngeal artery was found to arise from the lingual artery in one case alone (1.7%). In addition to the above findings, a very rare variation of superior laryngeal artery arising from the ascending pharyngeal (1.7%) was also observed in the hemi-neck of one cadaver. All the variations that were observed were unilateral and on the left side. These findings may help provide further insight to the anatomists, radiologists and surgeons and can help improve performances during surgical manipulations of the larynx.
Intraocular Lens Power Calculation Using IOLMaster and Various Formulas in Short Eyes

Purpose To evaluate the predictability of intraocular lens (IOL) power calculations using the IOLMaster and four different IOL power calculation formulas (Haigis, Hoffer Q, SRK II, and SRK/T) for cataract surgery in eyes with a short axial length (AL). Methods The present study was a retrospective comparative analysis which included 25 eyes with an AL shorter than 22.0 mm that underwent uneventful phacoemulsification with IOL implantation from July 2007 to December 2008 at Seoul National University Boramae Hospital. Preoperative AL and keratometric power were measured by the IOLMaster, and power of the implanted IOL was determined using Haigis, Hoffer Q, SRK II, and SRK/T formulas. Postoperative refractive errors two months after surgery were measured using automatic refracto-keratometry (Nidek) and were compared with the predicted postoperative power. The mean absolute error (MAE) was defined as the average of the absolute value of the difference between actual and predicted spherical equivalences of postoperative refractive error. Results The MAE was smallest with the Haigis formula (0.37 ± 0.26 diopter [D]), followed by those of SRK/T (0.53 ± 0.25 D), SRK II (0.56 ± 0.20 D), and Hoffer Q (0.62 ± 0.16 D) in 25 eyes with an AL shorter than 22.0 mm. The proportion with an absolute error (AE) of less than 1 D was greatest in the Haigis formula (96%), followed by those in the SRK II (88%), SRK-T (84%), and Hoffer Q (80%). Conclusions The MAE was less than 0.7 D and the proportion of AE less than 1 D was more than 80% in all formulas. The IOL power calculation using the Haigis formula showed the best results for postoperative power prediction in short eyes.
Urban ageing: technology, agency and community in smarter cities for older people

Despite the widespread popularity of smart cities in policy and research fields, and the ever-increasing ageing population in urban areas, ageing issues have seldom been addressed in depth in smart city programs. The main focus has hitherto been on making physical environments 'older people friendly'. We review studies in environmental gerontology, policies and HCI that show the multifaceted relationship between ageing and cities. We discuss two case studies with scenarios of engagement of older people in urban areas we undertook in the past 4 years. By drawing upon the results, we propose a vision of smart city that conceives of older people as embedded in intergenerational urban communities and capable of creating new engagement situations by reconfiguring IT-driven scenarios to their interests and social practices. This paper aims at expanding the current visions of smart cities for older people by building along three main dimensions: technology, agency and community.
Gender Differences in Language Use: An Analysis of 14,000 Text Samples

Differences in the ways that men and women use language have long been of interest in the study of discourse. Despite extensive theorizing, actual empirical investigations have yet to converge on a coherent picture of gender differences in language. A significant reason is the lack of agreement over the best way to analyze language. In this research, gender differences in language use were examined using standardized categories to analyze a database of over 14,000 text files from 70 separate studies. Women used more words related to psychological and social processes. Men referred more to object properties and impersonal topics. Although these effects were largely consistent across different contexts, the pattern of variation suggests that gender differences are larger on tasks that place fewer constraints on language use.
Representable correcting terms for possibly underflowing floating point operations

Studying floating point arithmetic, authors have shown that the implemented operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and square root) can compute a result and an exact correcting term using the same format as the inputs. Following a path initiated in 1965, many authors supposed that neither underflow nor overflow occurred in the process. Overflow is not critical as this kind of exception creates persisting nonnumeric quantities. Underflow may be fatal to the process as it returns wrong numeric values with little warning. Our new conditions guarantee that the correcting term is exact when the result is a number. We have validated our proofs against Coq automatic proof checker. Our development has raised many questions, some of them were expected while other ones were surprising.
The HOMER Study: The Effect of Increasing the Dose of Metronidazole When Given with Omeprazole and Amoxicillin to Cure Helicobacter pylori Infection

Background. Helicobacter pylori eradication with omeprazole, amoxycillin, and metronidazole is both effective and inexpensive. However, eradication rates with different dosages and dosing vary, and data on the impact of resistance are sparse. In this study, three different dosages of omeprazole, amoxycillin, and metronidazole were compared, and the influence of metronidazole resistance on eradication was assessed.
Seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection among children of low socioeconomic level in São Paulo

ABSTRACT CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Helicobacter pylori infection is mainly acquired during childhood, and is associated with significant morbidity in adults. The aim here was to evaluate the seroprevalence and risk factors of H. pylori infection among children of low socioeconomic level attended at a public hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. DESIGN AND SETTING: Cross-sectional study, among patients attended at an outpatient clinic. METHODS: 326 children were evaluated (150 boys and 176 girls; mean age 6.82 ± 4.07 years) in a cross-sectional study. Patients with chronic diseases or previous H. pylori treatment, and those whose participation was not permitted by the adult responsible for the child, were excluded. The adults answered a demographic questionnaire and blood samples were collected. The serological test used was Cobas Core II, a second-generation test. Titers > 5 U/ml were considered positive. RESULTS: H. pylori infection was diagnosed in 116 children (35.6%). Infected children were older than uninfected children (7.77 ± 4.08 years versus 5.59 ± 3.86 years; p < 0.0001). The seroprevalence increased from 20.8% among children aged two to four years, to 58.3% among those older than 12 years. There were no significant relationships between seropositivity and gender, color, breastfeeding, number of people in the home, number of rooms, bed sharing, living in a shantytown, maternal educational level, family income or nutritional status. In multivariate analysis, the only variable significantly associated with H. pylori seropositivity was age. CONCLUSION: Infection had intermediate prevalence in the study population, and age was associated with higher prevalence.
Empowerment and Microfinance: A socioeconomic study of female garment workers in Dhaka City

This paper is an endeavor to depict the reasons for migration and involving with garments industry, adequacy, sources and utilization of credit, and empowerment of the female garments workers in a selected area of Dhaka City. Primary data were collected from 60 respondents in two categories such as: 30 helpers and 30 operators, randomly. Descriptive statistics such as percentage and arithmetic mean were applied to analyze the data and to describe socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents. Poverty, search for job and husbands’ work in Dhaka, financial help to family, secure more income and assure basic needs were the main reasons for involving with garments industry. Average amount applied for loan was Tk. 5650.00 and average amount of loan received was Tk. 4450.00 which was 78.23% of total applied amount in the category of ‘Helper’. On the other hand, average amount applied for loan was Tk. 10540.00 and average amount of loan received was Tk. 7670.00 which was 72.77% of total applied amount in the category of ‘Operator’. About 94% respondents (Helper) keep their earnings and spend independently; this figure was about 97% for operator. Level of income, human and social capital improved in both helper and operator categories but savings decreased 66.67% and 40% respectively. In the areas of decision making like food selection, treatment, visit to relatives, family planning all the cases vastly improved. This study recommended measures for improving the prevailing microfinance facilities, to a great extent, to achieve female workers’ empowerment and satisfaction at the maximum level