Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digital breast tomosynthesis using an amorphous selenium flat panel detector

A prototype breast tomosynthesis system has been developed, allowing a total angular view of ±25°. The detector used in this system is an amorphous selenium direct-conversion digital flat-panel detector suitable for digital tomosynthesis. The system is equipped with various readout sequences to allow the investigation of different tomosynthetic data acquisition modes. In this paper, we will present basic physical properties -- such as MTF, NPS, and DQE -- measured for the full resolution mode and a binned readout mode of the detector. From the measured projections, slices are reconstructed employing a special version of filtered backprojection algorithm. In a phantom study, we compare binned and full resolution acquisition modes with respect to image quality. Under the condition of same dose, we investigate the impact of the number of views on artifacts. Finally, we show tomosynthesis images reconstructed from first clinical data.
Vowel production in infant-directed speech : an assessment of hyperarticulation and distributional learning

and lay summary This thesis considers two related research questions that are relevant to vowel production in infant-directed speech (IDS). The first of these research questions determines the extent to which caregivers intentionally clarify vowel distinctions which correspond to differences in word meaning when they address infants in order to promote language learning. The second research question determines the extent to which infants can learn these distinctions by observing statistical regularities in the acoustic input that they receive. In order to observe the modifications that speakers make when they address infants and the effect that these modifications have on infants’ learning of the distinctions between vowel sounds, I carried out an acoustic analysis of vowel production data sampled from a large naturalistic corpus of American English caregivers speaking to both infants and adults. This comparative analysis of infantand adult-directed speech (IDS and ADS) extends previous research in that it applies multiple measures of discriminability to high dimensional acoustic data which details the properties of all of the categories in the system. Though speakers produced a greater dispersion between vowels when they addressed infant learners than adults, their vowel production in IDS was also more variable than ADS. Because of this, the modifications that characterise IDS are not consistent with pedagogical accounts of this register. In order to assess whether infants can identify distinctions from the statistical properties of the input, I applied a series of learning models to the acoustic data that was sampled from each register. Models applied to both IDS and ADS failed to recover the identity of vowels in American English. These results suggest that vowel distinctions cannot solely be learnt by observing the statistical regularities of the input. This research indicates that phonetic data must be examined closely in order to determine the intentions behind the modifications that caregivers make in IDS. The learning models presented here inform current theories of perceptual development by indicating that perceptual learning additionally requires the consideration of infants’ early knowledge of multiple levels of linguistic structure. Further to this, this thesis demonstrates that the successful cases of vowel learning in laboratory contexts cannot be trivially generalised to allow learners to discover distinctions in the input that they are exposed to.
Base Erosion, Profit Shifting and Developing Countries

International corporate tax issues have now risen to prominence in public debate. But while there is considerable empirical evidence for advanced countries on the cross-country fiscal externalities at their heart, there is almost none for developing countries. This paper uses panel data for 173 countries over 33 years to explore their magnitude and nature, focusing particularly on developing countries and applying a new method to distinguish between spillover effects through real decisions and through avoidance, and to quantify the revenue impact of the latter. The results suggest that spillover effects on the tax base are if anything a greater concern for developing countries than for advanced - and a significant one.
Navigating Intersections

Older experienced drivers are at a greater risk of fatal crash involvement at intersections than middle-aged experienced drivers. The present cross-sectional study asked older and middle-aged drivers to maneuver various types of intersections (left turn at a 4-way intersection, right turn at a T-intersection and straight through an intersection) in a driving simulator and measured their frequency of glances towards latent and materializing hazards. Results replicate and extend the original findings by Romoser and Fisher (2009). First, the older drivers executed a smaller proportion of primary glances and secondary glances towards target zones where a latent or materializing hazard occurs than middle-aged experienced drivers. Second, older drivers who executed fewer glances toward the hazard were more likely to crash while navigating intersections. These findings provide further evidence for age-related differences in visual scanning for information critical to road safety at intersections. From a practical standpoint, practitioners can utilize better remedial measures in lieu of these age-specific shortcomings.
Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of Turbulent Geophysical Flows

The accurate and efficient numerical simulation of geophysical flows is of great interest in numerical weather prediction and climate modeling as well as in numerous critical areas and industries, such as agriculture, construction, tourism, transportation, weather-related disaster management, and sustainable energy technologies. Oceanic and atmospheric flows display an enormous range of temporal and spatial scales, from seconds to decades and from centimeters to thousands of kilometers, respectively. Scale interactions, both spatial and temporal, are the dominant feature of all aspects of general circulation models in geophysical fluid dynamics. In this thesis, to decrease the cost for these geophysical flow computations, several types of multiscale methods were systematically developed and tested for a variety of physical settings including barotropic and stratified wind-driven large scale ocean circulation models, decaying and forced two-dimensional turbulence simulations, as well as several benchmark incompressible flow problems in two and three dimensions. The new models proposed here are based on two classes of modern multiscale methods: (i) interpolation based approaches in the context of the multigrid/multiresolution methodologies, and (ii) deconvolution based spatial filtering approaches in the context of large eddy simulation techniques. In the first case, we developed a coarse-grid projection method that uses simple interpolation schemes to go between the two components of the problem, in which the solution algorithms have different levels of complexity. In the second case, the use of approximate deconvolution closure modeling strategies was implemented for large eddy simulations of large-scale turbulent geophysical flows. The numerical assessment of these approaches showed that both the coarse-grid projection and approximate deconvolution methods could represent viable tools for computing more realistic turbulent geophysical flows that provide significant increases in accuracy and computational efficiency over conventional methods.
Efficient conditional privacy-preserving and authentication scheme for secure service provision in VANET

Vehicle Ad hoc NETworks (VANET) can enhance traffic safety and improve traffic efficiency through cooperative communication among vehicles, roadside infrastructure, and traffic management centers. To guarantee secure service provision in VANET, message authentication is important. Moreover, a vehicle user's private information can also be leaked during service provision. A protection mechanism is needed to prevent such leakage. Therefore, we propose a conditional privacy-preserving and authentication scheme for secure service provision in VANETs. The proposed scheme not only satisfies the security requirements of VANETs, but also optimizes the calculation process of signature generation and verification. We carry out a detailed comparative analysis. The result shows that the proposed scheme is more efficient than existing schemes in terms of communication overhead and computational cost. Therefore, our scheme is suitable for secure service provision in VANETs.
Comparison between Face-to-Face Teams and Virtual Teams with Respect to Compliance with Directives

This article portrays a study where the compliance was measured in virtual vs. face-to-face (FTF) teams1. To measure the influence of the virtuality level on the team members’ reaction to instructions, an experiment was designed, in which a team task with a set of instructions was given to 150 subjects who participated in virtual or non-virtual (FTF) task solving meetings. The study’s main finding indicates that while the virtual team members showed a high degree of compliance with the directive to distribute the labor among themselves and to appoint a chairperson, the non-virtual team members showed a low degree of compliance. It seems that the use of the “formality” variable may explain the compliance of the virtual team members as opposed to the lower level of compliance among members of the non-virtual teams. The knowledge that communication technology influences the compliance atmosphere is a point that deserves further research.
Examining the Effects of Family and Community Violence on African American Adolescents: The Roles of Violence Type and Relationship Proximity to Violence

The current study examined the unique and interactive effects of family and community violence across types of violence (weapon, physical, and death) and relationship proximity (self, family/friend, and strangers) in African American adolescents (mean age = 12.63, SD = 0.99, 54% female). Items from the community violence and family violence measures were categorized into a three-factor model of cross-contextual violence exposure that characterized violence by type and relationship proximity. Results of structural equation modeling showed that the proposed model fit the current data, and all three factors of violence significantly predicted symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Exposure to violence directed at a friend or family member significantly predicted anxiety beyond the other domains. The interaction between being victimized and the victimization of acquaintances or strangers predicted depressive symptoms. Finally, latent profile analysis revealed a two-class model: low-exposure and high-exposure groups, with the high-exposure group reporting more mental health symptoms.
On-line Crowdsourcing: Motives of Customers to Participate in Online Collaborative Innovation Processes

The large-scale adoption of the Internet and social media make transactions and interactions between businesses and customers easy, inexpensive, and highly efficient. Online crowdsourcing and co-creation with customers are developments increasingly seen as attractive alternatives to traditional forms of innovation management. Online customers are willing to spend time and effort on collaborative innovation trajectories and so have a say in the development of new products and services. Identifying and recruiting capable and innovation-minded co-creation partners online is one of the main challenges of such collaborative innovation-focused processes; understanding the attitudes and motives of innovation-minded customers are the first steps in enticing and recruit these as innovation partners. In this study, we identify and classify customer motives for participating in online co-creation processes in two European countries: Spain and The Netherlands. More than a quarter of online customers are active co-creators and two co-creator profiles were identified in both countries, based the levels of motivation predisposition; Spanish online customers are more involved and enthusiastic co-creators than Dutch customers. The study confirms that financial motives are not the main reason for co-creation; highly motivated customers are motivated by product-related benefits, while hedonic benefits are the most important triggers for less motivated co-creators.
Milk and Its Products: Effect on Salivary pH

INTRODUCTION Dental caries is a major dental public health problem and is the most prevalent oral disease among lower age group across the world. It is estimated that around 95% of the world’s population is affected by dental caries. In India, 23% of 12 year olds suffer from this condition. The role of nature of saliva as an etiological factor behind dental caries cannot be denied. The mechanism of salivary role has been the aim of study by countless investigators, either for direct reasons or because of suspected causal relationship with tooth decay. The properties and functions of saliva, as well as role of saliva in oral health have been discussed extensively in textbooks and numerous publications.
The integration of PBL and cooperative script to empower critical thinking skills of biology students

One of the factors lead to the low critical thingking skill is the implementation of teacher center learning. The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of the implementation of Problem-based Learning integrated with Cooperative Script to students’ critical thinking skills. This quasi-experimental research was done in senior high schools of Samarinda, Indonesia. The design used in this research was nonequivalent pretest - posttest control group design. The sample was the class XI students of natural science. The treatment was done in the odd semester in 2016/2017 academic year. The data analysis used was independent-samples t-test (α = 0.05). The results of the data analysis showed that the tvalue (16.57) > ttable (2.00). The mean value of students’ critical thinking skills in the experimental group was 77.28 which means 62% higher than those who were in the control group (47.60). Thus, it can be concluded that the implementation of Problem-based Learning integrated with Cooperative Script gives the significant effect to the students' critical thinking skills.
Cordon tolling for mixed traffic flow

This study develops a cordon tolling model for mixed traffic flow including motorcycle and automobile trips with multiple origins to one destination. A simultaneous differential equation system is employed to solve two trip functions with elastic demand. This model can thus analyze the interaction between different road users on the same road. No-toll equilibrium, optimal pricing by maximizing welfare, and cordon tolling solutions are analyzed. It is shown that the tolls of automobile trips and motorcycle trips are related to the size of the modes for any location of users in the first-best optimum regime. In the case of the Taipei metropolitan area, the cordon pricing scheme yields a similar relation for the tolls of both modes regardless of the differences in the parameters of demand and cost for the two types of trips. This study can provide a reference for decision-making for transportation policies in some Asian cities with mixed traffic of motorcycles and automobiles.
Catch-Up Growth and Inter-industry Productivity Spillovers: Evidence from Trade Data

Where and when does export-led growth work? This paper estimates the importance of inter-industry productivity spillovers for the export-led growth of developing countries. My empirical strategy is based on a standard quantitative trade model that features sector-level gravity in trade flows. Applying the framework to four decades of trade data, I find clear evidence of spillovers, which are larger for skill-intensive sectors. The estimates imply that patterns of sectoral specialization play a quantitatively important role in accounting for the slow convergence of labor productivity in tradable sectors. Quantitative exercises suggest that export-led growth works for poorer countries with an initial comparative advantage in manufacturing, as these countries can use foreign demand from richer countries to reallocate labor towards sectors with high spillovers.
“Look at me!” Parental use of mobile phones at the playground

Research suggests that parent–child communication is rapidly changing as a result of the massive adoption of mobile devices and their penetration into interpersonal interaction within the family. Accordingly, this study aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of the impact of mobile device use on the quality of parent–child interaction in early childhood, based on ethnographic observations of 60 families at two playgrounds in the United States. The research findings suggest that parental behavior can be classified along a continuum of high engagement, divided engagement, and disengagement, often dependent upon whether and how parents use their mobile phone. Though mobile phones were not the only distracting factor during playground visits, their use was more highly correlated with parents’ disengagement from their children as compared to other distractors. Parents’ mobile phone use also corresponded to two main consequences for their children: safety concerns and emotional concerns, both resulting in missed opportunities for social learning. The results of this study call for closer attention to parental uses of mobile phones in public spaces.
Prospective Primary School Teachers’ Conception Change on States of Matter and Their Changes through Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy

This preliminary study aims at developing a program to improve teacher candidate students’ conceptions on the topic of states of matter and their changes by using Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy. This study employs pre-experimental method. The subjects involved were third-semester students of a primary school teacher education study program (Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar PGSD) in a university in West Java, Academic Year 2017/2018. The research instrument was a five-tiered diagnostic test in the form of multiple-choice. The instrument had gone through expert and empirical validation processes, which were provided before and after the implementation of the POE strategy. The data obtained were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics (t-test). The results showed that the use of POE strategy was able to improve the students’ comprehension on the concept of states of matter and their changes either at macroscopic level (N-gain 0.32, p=0.00), submicroscopic level (verbal N-gain 0.44; p=0.00, and visual Ngain 0.49; p=0.00), or symbolic level (N-gain 0.41; p= 0.00). The acquired N-gain indicated the need for further research to improve the course program of states of matter and their changes using the POE strategy to obtain higher N-gain that indicates the need for improvement of the program, including the processes and aids of the course.
Teachers' Perspectives on Their Role in Fostering Supportive Relationships with Their Students

TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THEIR ROLE IN FOSTERING SUPPORTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR STUDENTS Jamee Carroll, B.S. Marquette University, 2018 Adolescence is a critical developmental period when the risk for developing several mental health disorders and problem behaviors increases. Promoting resilience, which describes healthy functioning in the presence of adversity, can be beneficial to this population (Masten, 2014). Supportive relationships with caring, competent adults contribute to the promotion of resilience in adolescents. Research demonstrates that teachers can serve in this role (Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010). While there is evidence in the literature regarding the benefits of supportive teacher-student relationships for positive youth outcomes and school climate, there is little empirical research on the factors that serve to cultivate these relationships. The current study examined teachers’ perspectives on their role in fostering supportive relationships with their students. Specifically, researchers examined associations among teachers’ beliefs about addressing student mental health needs, operating from a growth mindset, and committing to implementing programs that support student well-being and the school climate more generally, and how teachers’ beliefs were associated with students’ outcomes. It also examined whether longer implementation of a resilience-based program was associated with more positive student outcomes. Results suggested a range of effect sizes among the variables, namely a significant positive correlation among teachers’ (n = 621) and students’ (n = 4793) perspectives on school climate. Additionally, schools with longer duration of the resilience-based program were associated poorer outcomes. Potential explanations and implications are discussed.
WP / 1 7 / 5 On the Determinants of Fiscal Non-Compliance : An Empirical Analysis of Spain ’ s Regions

This paper proposes an empirical framework that distinguishes voluntary from involuntary compliance with fiscal deficit targets on the basis of economic, institutional, and political factors. The framework is applied to Spain’s Autonomous Communities (regions) over the period 2002-2015. Fiscal noncompliance among Spain’s regions has shown to be persistent. It increases with the size of growth forecast errors and the extent to which fiscal targets are tightened, factors not fully under the control of regional governments. Non-compliance also tends to increase during election years, when vertical fiscal imbalances accentuate, and market financing costs subside. Strong fiscal rules have not shown any significant impact in containing fiscal non-compliance. Reducing fiscal non-compliance in multilevel governance systems such as the one in Spain requires a comprehensive assessment of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements that looks beyond rules-based frameworks by ensuring enforcement procedures are politically credible. JEL Classification Numbers: H61, H68, H72, H77
Does Management Support Matter in Elucidating the Linkage of Individual Characteristics and E-Learning Acceptance?

This study attempts to examine the hypothesis that management support elucidates the relationship between individual characteristic and e-learning acceptance factors including perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Quantitative methodology was used in this study through survey. This study collects 306 usable questionnaires from employees of Indonesian banking industries with experience in e-learning courses. The study uses descriptive statistical data and hierarchical regression analysis. The hypotheses on individual characteristics and acceptance factors relationships were generally accepted. Management support was found to positively contribute to e-learning acceptance. Management support has also showed its importance in elucidating the relationship between tangible individual characteristics and e-learning acceptance. However, the findings show limited supports of the moderating influence of management support. Management support, in terms of consideration, policy, and facilities were valuable in developing an appropriate acceptance of e-learning application in a company. Management support shows the managers’ commitment and assurance of e-learning benefits thus strengthening employees’ willingness to use e-learning, especially for those who previously experienced in using technology-based devices. This study contributes new knowledge to the existing body of literature on e-learning adoption research by providing a more complex view of e-learning adoption.