Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preliminary Effects of the School Improvement Grant Program on Student Achievement in Texas

This paper uses school-level data from the state of Texas to test whether receiving a School Improvement Grant (SIG) has led to higher graduation, completion, or dropout rates and/or increased student achievement, as measured by standardized tests in reading, math, science, social studies, and writing. Part of this analysis tests to see if the effects of the program vary for urban versus rural schools, charter versus non-charter schools, or between demographic subgroups. This paper’s results suggest that in its first year of implementation, SIG had a negative effect on student achievement at elementary and middle schools across almost all subjects and subgroups and had little effect on achievement at high schools, although the program does appear to have had a positive effect on graduation rates. These results also suggest that rural schools saw fewer benefits from the program than urban schools, while the effects for charter schools were similar to the effects for traditional public schools. David Dickey-Griffith graduated from the McCourt School of Public Policy in May 2013. Previosly, David worked for Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, as well as the 2008 campaign of US Senator Jeff Merkley. David is currently a high school social studies teacher at Perry Street Preparatory Public Charter School in NE Washington, DC. percentage of students deemed proficient in math and English language arts (ELA). However, this claim is based on a correlation and considers only a narrow slice of school performance, i.e. “proficiency,” so the true effects of the program remain poorly understood. To date, only one study has rigorously examined the effects of SIG on student achievement. Using school-level data from California, Dee (2012) estimates that SIG had significant positive effects on a school’s Academic Performance Index, or API score—a composite measure of school performance calculated annually by the California Department of Education—in its first year of implementation, with the bulk of the gains concentrated in schools that chose to implement the Turnaround model of improvement. Unfortunately, decades of research on school improvement suggest that the success of even a well-designed intervention is highly dependent on the context in which it is implemented. Thus, since SIG grants have been awarded in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, it is far from certain whether Dee’s results are representative of the program as a whole. This is particularly true given that what we do know about SIG suggests that its implementation varies considerably by state. For example, in some states grants were awarded through a competitive process, while in others nearly every eligible school received a grant. Similarly, while in some states schools chose to implement several of the approved improvement models, in
HE COMPARISON OF HOMOSEXUAL AND HETEROSEXUAL MALES AS REGARDS THEIR DEPRESSION , EATING ATTITUDES AND SELF-ESTEEM RATIOS SAMPLE IN TURKEY

Objective: This study investigated eating disorder symptoms and psychosocial correlates of eating disorders among heterosexual males and homosexual males. Method: Men (39 heterosexual and 38 homosexual) completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE), and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-40). Findings: The homosexual males scored higher on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-40) compared to heterosexual males. At the end of the study, the eating attitude points differ between homosexuals and heterosexuals significantly, the depression and self-esteem points do not differ significantly. Discussion and Conclusion: These results are consistent with previous studies that have found support for the homosexuality hypothesis in disordered eating. Future research may benefit from exploring aspects of homosexuality that may contribute specifically to risk for disordered eating in men.
Number : 1800677 3 D computer vision and machine learning based technique for high throughput cotton boll mapping under field conditions

This study presented a multi-view imaging system with consumer-graded digital cameras to acquire images and reconstruct 3D model based on structure from motion principle in the field. A 3D point cloud data processing pipeline was proposed following three steps. First, the ground plane was removed using the RANSAC algorithm; then, a support vector machine based model was trained using color features for cotton boll segmentation from plants. At last, a 3D DBSCAN based method was developed to detect individual bolls from the segmented boll voxels. Experiments with cotton plots showed that good quality 3D model can be reconstructed and the proposed 3D boll mapping methods achieved an accuracy of around 90%, and the squared Pearson correlation was 0.95 between the sensor measurement and the ground truth. The system not only successfully estimated the total number of cotton bolls, but also provided location information for each individual bolls. This was a significant contribution compared to 2D image based methods. The 3D boll mapping information was useful for monitoring crop growth and yield prediction.
Effect of Humic Substances Addition and Foliar Spraying with Biostimulants on Growth , Yield and Quality of Potato ( Solanum Tuberosum )

Two field experiments were conducted at private farm in Ismailia Governorate during two winter seasons of 2017 and 2018 to study the response of potato tuber (Solanum tuberosum L. cv Spunta) to application of humic substances from different sources i.e, potassium humate (solid HKS and liquid HKL) and humic acid (HA) and foliar spray with bio-stimulants of. , dry yeast, compost tea and seaweed extract. HA combined compost tea in increased plant height with highest value of 60.3 cm plant. Humic substances and biostimulants increased, total chlorophyll, vitamin C, starch and protein with highest value due to HA with combined foliar spray with seaweed extract.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN THE IRANIAN EFL CLASSROOMS : FROM THEORY TO TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICE

The purpose of this panel study was to investigate whether student teachers in Iran who were doing their master’s studies in TEFL practiced critical pedagogy in their classrooms, and to study their beliefs about critical pedagogy and its challenges. Thirty-four student teachers who were employed by the government and private sectors and took courses in Methodology, Syllabus Design and Materials Development, and ESP at a state and a private university in Iran agreed to participate in the research. After loss of individuals, thick narrative data were collected from the remaining twenty-eight participants during the two semesters of the same academic year. The participants’ beliefs, discussions, interviews, written comments, and reports on their individual practice in their own classrooms were carefully recorded and analyzed for any changes in behavior patterns during the two semesters. QSR NVivo-11 was used to categorize and summarize the written and transcribed narratives besides the careful content analysis of the same. Results revealed that the participants considered critical www.epitomejournals. com Impact Factor 3.656, Vol. III, Issue VI, June 2017, ISSN: 2395-6968 100 MF Dr. Pramod Ambadasrao Pawar, Editor-in-Chief ©EIJMR, All rights reserved. pedagogy as a move forward to liberating teachers and students, and as a consciousness raising approach toward social and political issues of their context of teaching. The participants also argued that critical pedagogy would jeopardize the teachers’ career, and the critical pedagogues have to accept the consequences if they opt for it. Finally, the participants who were officially employed by the government sector mostly preferred not to practice critical pedagogy compared to those working in the private sector. The debatable findings of this study may be helpful for teacher educators who believe in and/or practice critical pedagogy to reflect more on the language teaching context they work in and then decide whether or not, to what extent, and how they can or should advocate critical pedagogy in teacher training programs.
Isolation , screening and confirmative identification of high Hypocrellin A-Producing Shiraia bambusicola isolates

The main objective of this study was to obtain high hypocrellin A (HA)-producing isolates of fungus Shiraia bambusicola. Fungal cultures were obtained from stromata of presumably S. bambusicola, found on Pleioblastus sp. , Brachystachyum sp. and Phyllostachys sp. bamboos by isolation of single spore, multispores and stroma tissue. Appropriate HA sampling time and screening procedure were elucidated by selecting representative isolates to determine their mycelia biomass and HA content. Both morphological characteristics and ITS sequences were analyzed for confirmative identification of the isolates. Altogether 32 isolates of the fungus were obtained from Anhui and Zhejiang province of southern China in this study. All isolates were found to produce HA but its content in the single spore isolates were much lower than that of the isolates from multispore and stroma tissue during the sampling time at the 11 to 13 days of fermentation. The GZAAS2.0629 isolate was screened out as the highest HA yielding. It was confirmatively identified as S. bambusicola based on morphological and ITS sequence analysis.
Compton Particles and Quantum Forces in a holo-fractal universe

An alternative physical model for fundamental particles, fundamental forces & black holes is presented based on classical physics, an unconventional variant of quantum physics as well as holographic & fractal principles whereby the presented model is primarily based on work from Horst Thieme and Nassim Haramein. In this document their models are combined, refined and extended into a joint model that is wider in scope and which also adopts some elements from the work of Randell Mills and Erik Verlinde. The deduced equations produce a good number of interesting results and new understandings which might be perceived as controversial, though, with regard to contemporary physics. The presented content covers a broad range of topics in physics to demonstrate the model’s wide applicability and to spark more future research. In particular it is shown that entropy plays an even larger and more fundamental role in physics than currently acknowledged and that the Planck units are more than an arbitrary system of units.
Molecular docking : current advances and challenges

Automated molecular docking aims at predicting the possible interactions between two molecules. This method has proven useful in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery providing atomistic insights into molecular recognition. Over the last 20 years methods for molecular docking have been improved, yielding accurate results on pose prediction. Nonetheless, several aspects of molecular docking need revision due to changes in the paradigm of drug discovery. In the present article, we review the principles, techniques, and algorithms for docking with emphasis on protein-ligand docking for drug discovery. We also discuss current approaches to address major challenges of docking.
Utilização de Subespaços Livres de Descoerência em Comunicações Quânticas Incondicionalmente Seguras

We show how to use decoherence-free subspaces over collective-noise quantum channels to convey classical information in perfect secrecy. We also show that if some symmetry conditions are guaranteed, the maximum rate on which such secret communications take place is equal to the ordinary capacity of a quantum channel to convey classical information. These results characterize a new technique to convey classical messages via quantum channels with unconditional security. Keywords— Decoherence-Free Subspaces; Secrecy Capacity; Unconditional Security.
Mixed-Layer Model Solutions of Equilibrium States of Stratocumulus-Topped Boundary Layers

The influence of clouds on the radiation feedback of the atmosphere is not well understood. To gain more understanding a Mixed-Layer Model (MLM) for the stratocumulus-topped boundary layer is used to study steady-state solutions. For this purpose the three mixed-layer equations for qt, θl and zi that fully describe the atmospheric boundary layer are provided and are closed with simple though realistic parameterizations for the surface and entrainment fluxes of moisture and heat. It is shown that the entrainment parameterization of Nicholls Turton results in a numerical model and that a second parameterization, that of Moeng, is used to obtain a very simple and less realistic, yet very illustrative analytical model. Both models are conclusively used to analyse the influence of some key atmospheric variables, most notably the free atmosphere conditions and the sea surface temperature (SST). A complete description of the free atmosphere is setup and with the MLM multiple simulations for different combinations of free atmosphere humidity and temperature are performed. It is shown that both these conditions significantly effect the steady-state solutions for, in particular, the cloud thickness. A dry and warm free atmosphere corresponds with thin clouds and a moist and cool free atmosphere with thick clouds. Within this investigation the large-scale horizontal advection is introduced. It is shown that while it does not effect the steady-state solutions much it does provide more realistic solutions in which the vertical flux gradients of moisture and heat are represented better, and can therefore be more efficiently used in, for instance, intercomparisons of single column models. The main scope of the thesis is to research the effect of a climate change on the steady-state solutions. To research this effect the original solutions are perturbed by an increase of the sea surface temperature of 2 degrees. The effect this increase has on the thickness of the cloud layer is studied and it is shown that effectively four regimes can be distinguished: the cloud thickens, the cloud thins, the boundary layer becomes decoupled and the boundary layer is always decoupled. These four regimes will all have a different feedback effect on the climate change as they either positively or negatively influence the radiation balance of the atmosphere. It is however also shown that the way the free atmosphere changes when the SST changes could change these respective scenarios such that only a thickening or a decoupled regime is found.
Deep Energy: Task Driven Training of Deep Neural Networks

The current gold standard in solving image processing and computer vision tasks is using supervised learning of deep neural networks (DNNs), requiring large-scale datasets of input-output pairs. In many scenarios in which the output is an image – e.g., medical image analysis, image denoising, deblurring, super-resolution, dehazing, segmentation and optical flow estimation – the collection of labelled image pairs for training is either time-consuming or limited to simple degradation models. Indeed, there is an increasing body of work targeted at weakly supervised training, accompanied with different unsupervised loss functions. This work dives into the regime of Deep-Energy, a task-driven training approach that substitutes the generic loss with minimization of energy functions using DNNs. Such energy functions, often formulated as a combination of a data-fidelity term along with an application-specific prior, are essentially unsupervised as they do not assume knowledge of the output image. As opposed to classic energy minimization, where computationally-intensive inference is performed for each new image, our network, once trained, can compute the output with a single forward-pass operation. By incorporating application-specific domain knowledge to the loss function, we are able to use real-world images, thus decreasing the dependency on pixel-wise labelled data or synthetic datasets. We demonstrate our approach on three different applications: seeded segmentation, image matting and single image dehazing, showing clear benefits of both speedup and improved accuracy versus the classical energy minimization approach, and competitive performance with respect to fully supervised alternatives.
CHAPTER 45 COMPOSITES IN CONSTRUCTION

For the past few decades, the aerospace industry was the major user for fiberreinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials. Recently, civil engineers and the construction industry began to realize the potential of these materials in providing remedies for many problems associated with the deterioration and corrosion of infrastructures. Civil engineers have dealt with different types of composite materials for decades, including wood (natural composites), plywood (laminated natural composites), and concrete (particulate composites). Polymer composites are ‘‘engineered’’ materials that encompass a wide range of materials where two or more, physically distinct and mechanically separable, components are combined together to form a new material that possesses properties that are notably different from those of its individual constituents. The primary load-carrying component is the fibers, while the matrix acts as a binder, an environmental protector, and stress distribution phase of the laminate. Fibers are available in different types, grades, and shapes. Typical types of structural fibers include glass (E, S, AR grades), aramid (Kevlar), and carbon fibers with different grades. Two types of polymers are available, namely thermoplastic and thermoset polymers. In most of the structural application, thermoset resins are preferred. Examples of ther-
Association between Esthetic Parameter and Patient Satisfaction Level with Implant-Supported Dental Prosthesis in Anterior Region

The increasing popularity of dental implants has resulted in rising expectations towards anterior dental implants. The self-evaluation Orofacial Esthetic Scale (OES) measures an individual’s satisfaction level towards his/her appearance, meanwhile Pink Esthetic Score and White Esthetic Score (PES/WES) evaluates soft tissue and restoration aspects of anterior dental implants. The yet-undefined association between esthetic parameter and patient satisfaction level causes some difficulties for dentists to produce esthetic restorations that suit every patient’s wishes. We examined the association between esthetic parameters and patient satisfaction level with anterior dental implants. Thirty-three individuals (≥17years old) with anterior dental implants evaluated their satisfaction level using OES questionnaire. Intraoral photographs of six anterior teeth from each subject were assessed using PES/WES index. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the association between esthetic parameter and satisfaction level, and effect of sex, implant location, and age >35years. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the effect of age 17–35years. A medium-strength (r=0.501) positive correlation existed between esthetic parameter and satisfaction level (P=0.03), and this had the greatest impact on female (P=0.03), age >35years (P=0.01), and maxillary central incisor (P=0.01) groups. A significant correlation exists between esthetic parameter and patient satisfaction level. Clinical article (J Int Dent Med Res 2019; 12(2): 533-557)
PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION MOTIONS IN PATENT LITIGATION

An injunction is "an order that is directed to a party, enforceable by contempt, and designed to accord or protect some or all of the substantive relief sought by a complaint in more than temporary fashion. " [n2] A preliminary injunction is a provisional injunction issued pending the disposition of a litigation, [n3] the purpose of which is to "preserve the status quo and to protect the respective rights of the parties pending a determination on the merits. " [n4]
Number 2 Exchange processes and watermass modi cations along the subarctic front in the North Paci c : Oxygen consumption rates and net carbon ux

Exchange processes along the subarctic front and the modi cation of subpolar water in the North Paci c are investigated using tracer data from World Ocean Circulation Experiment P14N and P17N lines. The North Paci c Current transportswater on both sides of the subarctic front from the western to eastern North Paci c. During this transport, subpolar water from the western subpolar gyre becomes warmer and saltier through the main thermocline via isopycnal mixing with subtropical water. It is shown that this modi ed subpolar water of western origin is the primary source of well-ventilatedwater to the eastern subpolar gyre. The isopycnal mixing along the subarctic front is quanti ed with a two end-member linear mixing analysis using potential temperature,which allowed estimates of oxygen consumption and nitrate remineralization on intermediate layers. Based on the oxygen consumption estimates and temporal information from transient tracers, the vertically integratedoxygen consumption rate is calculated to be 2.1 6 0.4 M my 1 in the 132–706 m depth range. This implies a net carbon  ux of approximately 19 6 4 gC my out of the euphotic zone.
EffEct of hypoxia on thE ExprEssion of gEnEs that EncodE somE igfBp and ccn protEins in U 87 glioma cElls dEpEnds on irE 1 signaling

We have studied hypoxic regulation of the expression of different insulin-like growth factor binding protein genes in U87 glioma cells in relation to inhibition of Ire1 (inositol requiring enzyme-1), a central mediator of endoplasmic reticulum stress, which controls cell proliferation and tumor growth. We have demonstrated that hypoxia leads to up-regulation of the expression of IGFBP6, IGFBP7, IGFBP10/cyr61, WISP1, and WISP2 genes and down-regulation – of IGFBP9/NOV gene at the mrNA level in control glioma cells, being more significant changes for IGFBP10/CYR61 and WISP2 genes. At the same time, inhibition of IRE1 modifies the effect of hypoxia on the expression of all studied genes: eliminates sensitivity to hypoxia the expression of IGFBP7 and IGFBP9/NOV genes, suppresses effect of hypoxia on IGFBP6, IGFBP10/cyr61, and WISP2 genes, and slightly enhances hypoxic regulation of WISP1 gene expression in glioma cells. We have also demonstrated that the expression of all studied genes in glioma cells is regulated by Ire1 signaling enzyme upon normoxic condition, because inhibition of IRE1 significantly up-regulates IGFBP7, IGFBP10/ cyr61, WISP1, and WISP2 genes and down-regulates IGFBP6 and IGFBP9/NOV genes as compared to control glioma cells. The present study demonstrates that hypoxia, which contributes to tumor growth, affects all studied IGFBP and WISP gene expressions and that inhibition of Ire1 preferentially abolishes or suppresses the hypoxic regulation of these gene expressions and thus possibly contributes to slower glioma growth. Moreover, inhibition of Ire1, which correlates with suppression of cell proliferation and glioma growth, is down-regulated expression of pro-proliferative IGFBP genes, attesting to the fact that endoplasmic reticulum stress is a necessary component of malignant tumor growth.
Minimum Delay Systems for the Modeling of Transmission Lines at EMT Power System Studies

-The Phase-Domain Line Model, or Universal Line Model (ULM), is considered one of the most advanced for timedomain analysis of EMTs in power lines and cables. This model involves two convolution processes that usually are performed through recursions. The recursive processes follow from the rational representations of both matrices, the one of characteristic admittances Yc and the one of propagation H. To attain a rational representation for matrix H, with high accuracy, it is needed to previously identify and extract from it of its modal travel-time factors. The accuracy at determining the modal travel-times to be extracted has a considerable impact on the accuracy of the synthesized rational representation of matrix H, as well as on the accuracy of the transmission-line model. This paper presents a method to determine travel-times that are optimum in the strict sense of Systems Theory. This method is based on determining the main features of systems satisfying the Paley-Wiener criterion.