Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scaffolding knowledge integration through curricular depth

The three interconnected levels of this research characterize how students develop deeper understanding in a complex science topic. The first investigation analyzes the impact of progressively more streamlined versions of the Computer as Learning Partner (CLP) curriculum. This cross-semester investigation analyzes subject matter posttest data for 3000 students who studied one of four versions of the CLP curriculum. The second investigation follows 50 students across their 8th grade CLP semester and into high school. This within-semester analysis maps the knowledge integration of two fairly successful and two less successful students in addition to focusing on the entire cohort. The third investigation analyzes student learning across a novel five-day laboratory/simulation project. Together, these cross-semester, within-semester, and project-level analyses clarify the paths through which students integrate their ideas in response to instruction that emphasizes knowledge integration. To facilitate these analyses, this research develops three new ways to represent connections among student ideas. Summary Tables present accessible overviews of case study students' progress in core topic areas across each interview. Distilled Interview Tables enumerate ideas held at each level of sophistication, displaying trends in sophistication and integration of ideas, clarifying contradictions, and identifying appearance of new ideas. Conceptual Element Maps chart connections and level of integration in further detail, highlighting the paths through which students reorganize and connect the elements within their conceptual ecologies and highlighting areas of strength and weakness. These new representations aid in the identification of appropriate targeted curricular interventions. In addition to the methodological contributions, this work makes theoretical contributions to the conceptual change literature and the depth of coverage literature. Contributions to the conceptual change literature address the debate over student knowledge structure coherence. In particular, this work compares conceptual change perspectives characterizing student understanding as categorical and theory-like with conceptual change perspectives characterizing student knowledge as repertoires of independent ideas that students cue, apply, and connect according to context. More broadly, this work demonstrates the importance of curricular depth in supporting student knowledge integration. Analysis and application of these results culminate in the proposal and testing of a concrete strategy to increase such curricular support for students in our schools.
A Note on Thresholds for QTL Interval Mapping Tests

The problem of mapping quantitative trait loci ( QTL) using genetic marker information is of great interest to the mapping community. There are many statistical methods available for detecting and/or locating QTL, all of which depend on assumptions about the distribution of the quantitative trait values. The distribution of the trait values is affected by sample size, genetic marker density, missing data patterns, environmental noise, etc., all of which affect the distribution of the test statistic used to detect/locate QTL. Failure of the test statistic distribution to follow a standard statistical distribution is the subject of current research. It is necessary to understand the behavior of the test statistic under the null hypothesis so that a critical value may be obtained for the purpose of declaring the presence of a QTL. In this paper we discuss the choices available for obtaining critical values (threshold values) for QTL detection tests using interval mapping procedures. We investigate the effect of deviations from normality of the trait values on the threshold value by comparing analytical approximations to empirical threshold values for simulated backcross and F2 populations, along with an experimental F2 population.
A functional specialization hypothesis for designing genetic algorithms

Intensive studies of genetic algorithms (GAs) make the GAs really effective techniques applicable to hard optimization problems. These studies suggest two key points in designing optimizers using the GAs: first, GAs should be designed so as to maintain the diversity of the population well; second, they should be designed so as to inherit good characteristics from parents well. The paper tries to make these observations more concrete guidelines for designing GAs. First, an alternative picture that captures the search process of the GA as evolution of the probability distribution function of the population is proposed. Then, based on this picture, a functional specialization hypothesis that specifies the roles of selection and crossover operators is proposed as guidelines to design GAs. Then, the state-of-the-art selection and crossover operators for continuous search spaces are introduced along the proposed guidelines. Further, crossover operators for discrete search spaces are also discussed from this viewpoint.
Implementation of piecewise-linear DC analysis in APLAC

Recently, we have developed many extensions to the piecewise-linear (PWL) DC analysis method. In this paper, working solutions are proposed for filling the gap between the academically oriented method and real-world DC-simulation problems. Thanks to the solutions proposed, our PWL DC analysis method is, finally, general and efficient enough to be implemented in a general-purpose circuit simulator. This paper describes the APLAC implementation of our PWL DC analysis method. The method is combined with the conventional DC analysis method of APLAC in a robust and user-friendly manner. The operation of the APLAC implementation is demonstrated with simulation examples.
Integrating Musicological Knowledge into a Probabilistic Framework for Chord and Key Extraction

In this contribution a formerly developed probabilistic framework for the simultaneous detection of chords and keys in polyphonic audio is further extended and validated. The system behaviour is controlled by a small set of carefully defined free parameters. This has permitted us to conduct an experimental study which sheds a new light on the importance of musicological knowledge in the context of chord extraction. Some of the obtained results are at least surprising and, to our knowledge, never reported as such before.
Teachers' teaching status and achievements of students of teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science in English (PPSMI) in primary and rural secondary schools.

This study is done through observation of the teaching and learning process in classrooms involving 183 Primary School Teachers and 241 Rural Secondary School Teachers. The main objectives of the study are to; (1) measure teachers' teaching status in Science and Mathematics subjects, (2) evaluate students potential in mastering the contents or in Science and Mathematics achievement, and to (3) determine the status of Computer Technology usage cum the teaching support materials in Science and Mathematics subjects. A total of 4410 primary school students and 4946 secondary school students are involved in the study by sitting for two types of Standard Tests for the primary schools, i.e. the Science and Mathematics while in the secondary students' case, 5 types of Standard Tests are implemented, i.e. Mixed Science, Modern Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics and Additional Mathematics. The primary schools are categorized in 7 types of schools, while the secondary schools on the other hand are categorized in 6 types of schools. The results of the study shows that 42.5 percent of primary school teachers and 50.8 percent of secondary school teachers failed in the English Language Proficiency Level Evaluation. This situation is critical as it directly affects the pedagogy and teaching efficiency using English as the teaching medium. The teachers teaching observation status through the researchers shows that the beginning of teacher's teaching is average (min=5.1), interaction between teachers and students are also average (min=5.2), interaction between students and teachers are poor (min=3.8), Computer Technology usage is at average level (min=5.7) and the English Language within teachers are average (min=5.5). Generally, the teachers' teaching status is poor (min=4.9;sp=1.8) and the level of Computer Technology usage as teaching support materials are at average level (min=5.7;sp=1.7). The results of the study shows that the PPSMI teachers possess average competency (min=5.3). The effectiveness in the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics mainly relies on the teachers' command in the English language. Students in urban schools produced better achievement results compared to the students in rural schools based on 12 tested subjects tested, whereby students in rural schools are left behind in 10 subjects (except in Physics 1 and Chemistry 1) with the average mark difference of between 3.3 to 19.7. Through the whole study, students in secondary schools and primary schools in rural areas are behind in PPSMI.
Congestion control in high speed networks using fuzzy logic control

The tremendous growth of the internet and the advances of computer technology have been pushing forward computer networks for high speed and broad bandwidth. As the internet becomes increasingly heterogeneous, the issue of congestion control becomes ever more important. The large increase in traffic demands and the relentless demand for network capacity have produced a need for new flexible types of congestion control. Congestion being a non-linear and dynamic problem in the Internet Fuzzy Controller can be used to deal with this problem. Congestion can be controlled at core and bottleneck router differently. Fuzzy logic helps to increase throughput, reduction in packet drop and delays.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Monet ; a next-Generation DBMS Kernel For Query-Intensive Applications

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Open Textbook Proof-of-Concept via Connexions

To address the high cost of textbooks, Rice University’s Connexions and the Community College Open Textbook Project (CCOTP) collaborated to develop a proof-of-concept free and open textbook. The proof-of-concept served to document a workflow process that would support adoption of open textbooks. Open textbooks provide faculty and students with a low cost alternative to traditional publishers’ textbooks and can help to make higher education more affordable. Connexions provides a publishing platform for open textbook projects. The CCOTP acted as a liaison between community college faculty, open textbook authors, and Connexions. Challenges to the production and adoption of open textbooks include 1) faculty members’ and students’ expectations of high production quality and ancillaries for open textbooks, 2) methods for documenting and maintaining control over various versions, and 3) the process of converting existing open content to digital and accessible formats. Connexions holds promise as a means to overcome these challenges. Connexions identified lessons learned about open textbook production, such as the importance of a style guide, the advantage of assembly-line workflow, and the importance of naming conventions and standard math authoring tools, Connexions also identified lessons learned about open textbook use by students and faculty, e.g., the value of availability and customizability, the importance of interactivity, the difference in how faculty and students view modularity, and the importance of textbook reading navigational aids. The authors note that the CCOTP recommends using Connexions as the common repository for open textbook content in an effort to provide greater national and international access.
Concordances in the classroom : a resource book for teachers

A resource book for teachers who are interested in using computers in the classroom. Concordancing is a way of processing written text which makes it easy to analyze and it is a useful tool for teachers and students. The book explains the techniques of concordancing and suggests ways of using it in the teaching of vocabulary, grammar and literature. Sample activities are included. The book is divided into six chapters, each of which is sub-divided into smaller units and there is a section on "do it yourself concordances".
The Literariness of Media Art

“Language can be this incredibly forceful material—there’s something about it where if you can strip away its history, get to the materiality of it, it can rip into you like claws” (Hill in Vischer 1995, 11). This arresting image by media artist Gary Hill evokes the nearly physical force of language to hold recipients in its grip. That power seems to lie in the material of language itself, which, with a certain rawness, may captivate or touch, pounce on, or even harm its addressee. Hill’s choice of words is revealing: ‘rip into’ suggests not only a metaphorical emotional pull but also the literal physicality of linguistic attack. It is no coincidence that the statement comes from a media artist, since media artworks often use language to produce a strong sensorial stimulus. Media artworks not only manipulate language as a material in itself, but they also manipulate the viewer’s perceptual channels. The guises and effects of language as artistic material are the topic of this book, The Literariness of Media Art.
Microwave transistors: Theory and design

Microwave transistors are useful as small-signal amplifiers to 6 GHz and power amplifiers to 4 GHz. Nearly all microwave transistors are of the silicon planar type. Power transistors use three types of geometries--interdigitated, overlay, and mesh--while small-signal transistors use interdigitated only. The general theory of the frequency response of transistors is reviewed, including active and inactive elements. A condensed description of the design and processing steps for a silicon microwave transistor is given. A final section deals with the types of high-frequency measurements used in the design and analysis of transistors.
Graffiti and street art: reading, writing and representing the city

Graffiti and street art images are ubiquitous, and they enjoy a very special place in collective imaginary due to their ambiguous nature. Sometimes enigmatic in meaning, often stylistically crude and aesthetically aggressive, yet always visually arresting, they fill our field of vision with texts and images that no one can escape. As they take place on surfaces and travel through various channels, they provide viewers an entry point to the subtext of the cities we live in, while questioning how we read, write and represent them. This book is structured around these three distinct, albeit by definition interwoven, key frames. The contributors of this volume critically investigate underexplored urban contexts in which graffiti and street art appear, shed light on previously unexamined aspects of these practices, and introduce innovative methodologies regarding the treatment of these images. Throughout, the focus is on the relationship of graffiti and street art with urban space, and the various manifestations of these idiosyncratic meetings. In this book, the emphasis is shifted from what the physical texts say to what these practices and their produced images do in different contexts.
Crítica Bibliotecológica: Revista de las Ciencias de la Información Documental

Published the 2nd issue of the 6th volume (Jul-Dec 2013) of our international bilingual English & Spanish journal, totally open access free of charge for everyone in all the processes & peer reviewed journal (reviewed by 32 experts from 19 countries of the 5 continents): Library andn Information Science Critique (aka: LIS Critique): Journal of the Sciences of Information Recorded in Documents. We are about to enter our 6 anniversary in 2014 and counting. Ten issues fully edited by Zapopan Muela (Founder, Director & Editor-in-Chief) since its foundation on May 31st, 2008 and counting. The deadline extended for the Vol. 7 No. 1 (Jan-June 2014) is August 15, 2014. Thank you for reading us, may you send your manuscripts for the next issue as well (we accept articles, essays, & book reviews). And many thanks to E-LIS for making possible to host our journal as a permanent archive.
Persian Signature Verification using Convolutional Neural Networks

The style of people’s handwritten signature is a biometric feature used in person authentication. In this paper, an offline signature verification scheme based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is proposed. CNN focuses on the problems of feature extraction without prior knowledge on the data. The classification task is performed by Multilayer perceptron network (MLP). This method is not only capable of extracting features relevant to a given signature, but also robust with regard to signature location changes and scale variations when compared to classical methods. The proposed method is evaluated on a dataset of Persian signatures gathered originally from 22 people. The simulation results reveal the efficiency of the suggested algorithm.
Proposal of a new index for predicting communication performance for intra-EMC

We propose a new index for predicting the optimum layout of noise sources, that is designed to improve the communication performance of digital wireless equipment. In our previous studies, we developed a design method for optimizing the layout of a noise source using the correlation between the magnetic field distribution of the noise source and that of the antenna. However, this method does not allow easy comparison between different items of equipment. In this paper, we quantitatively and visually propose a new index that can predict the signal bit error rate by using the antenna interference power, obtained from the weighted magnetic field product that has been calculated from the magnetic field distributions of the noise source and the antenna. We have confirmed that the optimal layout of the noise source can be predicted using our proposal method in digital wireless equipment to minimize intra-EMC. We have further discovered a new index in which the optimal layout of the noise source can be found in contour formatted figures with good visibility.
A simple height‐based correction for temperature downscaling in complex terrain

A new downscaling method has been developed to improve forecasts of near‐surface temperature. This involves applying a correction to forecast temperatures to account for the difference in height between the terrain in the forecast model and the real terrain, using an estimate of the lapse rate of temperature. The strongest variations in lapse rate are found to occur overnight, being a function of cloud cover and geostrophic wind speed. These variables similarly influence the night time lapse rate in the UK Met Office Unified Model forecast at 4 km resolution. Therefore, a simple algorithm has been employed to estimate the lapse rate at a given location, based on forecast model temperature and elevation fields. The algorithm has a positive impact on performance in stable conditions, compared to assuming an adiabatic lapse rate at all times. © Crown Copyright 2010. Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Estimation techniques for large-scale turbulent fluid systems

Estimation, in general, involves the determination of a probability distribution. This probability distribution describes the likelihood that any particular point in phase space accurately represents the truth state. That is, without knowing the actual state of a system, estimation strategies attempt to represent the probability of any given state using only a time history of noisy observations and, when available, an approximate dynamic model of the system of interest. For low-dimensional linear systems with Gaussian uncertainty in the initial state, state disturbances, and measurement noise the de facto solution to the estimation problem has been the Kalman Filter, which provides a method to propagate the mean and covariance forward in time, making the appropriate updates to both upon the receipt of each new measurement. Although ubiquitous within academia and industry, since many systems of interest are either of very high dimension or cannot be described by linear dynamics with Gaussian uncertainty, the Kalman Filter is inappropriately applied in many applications. The present thesis first reviews extensions of estimation theory to high-dimensional systems and demonstrates the first successful reconstruction of 3D turbulent channel flow (Re[tau] = 100), using wall information only, via the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Then a new hybrid method of estimation is described which improves estimation results for such high-dimensional systems by employing recent machine learning techniques (specifically, the Normal- Hedge algorithm) to consistently combine multiple estimators. Lastly, since the measurement operator critically determines the quality of the estimate, a gradient-base sensor/actuator placement strategy for Linear Time Invariant systems is presented. Using a test system (the Ginzburg-Landau equation) this sensor placement strategy is demonstrated by determining the optimal location for sensors in such a way that minimizes scalar metrics of the covariance matrix. With this theory clearly established, optimal sensor placements are determined for dynamic sensors in a 2D environmental plume estimation problem
Learning to Learn by Exploiting Prior Knowledge

Keywords: transfer learning ; visual object recognition ; multiclass classification ; regression ; domain adaptation ; multi-kernel learning ; online learning ; multi-task learning These Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne EPFL, n° 5587 (2013)Programme doctoral Genie electriqueFaculte des sciences et techniques de l'ingenieurInstitut de genie electrique et electroniqueLaboratoire de l'IDIAPJury: D. Floreano (president), V. Ferrari, J. Little, J.-Ph. Thiran Public defense: 2013-4-26 Reference doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-5587Print copy in library catalog Record created on 2013-04-17, modified on 2016-08-09
Methodology for measurement of fault latency in a digital avionic miniprocessor

Using a gate level emulation of a typical avionics miniprocessor, fault injection experiments were performed to (1) determine the time to detect a fault by comparison monitoring, (2) forecast a program's ability to detect faults and (3) validate the fault detection coverage of a typical self test program. To estimate time to detect, six programs ranging in complexity from 6 to 147 instructions, were emulated. Each program was executed repetitively in the presence of a single stuck at fault at a gate node or device pin. Detection was assumed to occur whenever the computed outputs differed from the corresponding outputs of the same program executed in a nonfaulted processor. Histograms of faults detected versus number of repetitions to detection were tabulated. Using a simple model of fault detection, which was based in an analog with the selection of balls in an urn, distributions of time to detect were computed and compared with those obtained empirically. A self test program of 2,000 executable instructions was designed expressly for the study. The only requirement imposed on the design was that it should achieve 95% coverage. The program was executed in the presence of a single stuck-at fault at a gate node on device pin. The proportion of detected faults are tabulated. In all experiments faults were selected at random over gate nodes or device pins.