Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control Beliefs as Mediators of School Connectedness and Coping Outcomes in Middle Adolescence

The external and internal resources that individuals bring to the coping process have been the focus of increasing theoretical and empirical research. Within the framework of conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002) this study examines the interplay between school-, teacher- and peer-connectedness, and mastery, coping self-efficacy and coping behaviours in a sample of 300 9th and 10th grade high-school students. Structural equation modelling analyses supported predictions that coping self-efficacy and mastery mediate the effects of school connectedness factors on the utilisation of nonproductive coping strategies. While coping self-efficacy partially mediated the relationships between school connectedness factors and productive coping behaviours, contrary to expectations this relationship was not partially mediated by mastery. These results support a cognitive mediational model of coping resources and may have implications for school-based intervention programs that promote positive coping in adolescence.
Non-formal and informal learning conditions as experienced and perceived by technical staff and HR professionals

The purpose of the paper is to investigate what are the non-formal and informal learning conditions as these are experienced on a daily basis by technical staff and perceived by HR managers in the aviation sector in Lithuania. Qualitative empirical research using in-depth, semistructured interviews with two HR managers and eight technical employees of the two largest Lithuanian aviation companies was conducted. The research results have revealed that, despite the fact that the learning conditions were rather favorable in the analyzed companies, there were certain gaps between the perceptions of the HR managers and the experiences of technical staff, especially as concerns the areas of high degree of exposure to changes and managerial responsibilities.
Snow density along the route traversed by the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition 2007/08

Abstract During the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic traverse expedition of 2007/08, we measured the surface snow density at 46 locations along the 2800 km long route from Syowa station to Wasa station in East Antarctica. The mean snow density for the upper 1 (or 0.5) m layer varied from 333 to 439 kg m-3 over a region spanning an elevation range of 365-3800 ma.s. l. The density variations were associated with the elevation of the sampling sites; the density decreased as the elevation increased, moving from the coastal region inland. However, the density was relatively insensitive to the change in elevation along the ridge on the Antarctic plateau between Dome F and Kohnen stations. Because surface wind is weak in this region, irrespective of elevation, the wind speed was suggested to play a key role in the near-surface densification. The results of multiple regression performed on the density using meteorological variables were significantly improved by the inclusion of wind speed as a predictor. The regression analysis yielded a linear dependence between the density and the wind speed, with a coefficient of 13.5 kg m-3 (m s-1)-1. This relationship is nearly three times stronger than a value previously computed from a dataset available in Antarctica. Our data indicate that the wind speed is more important to estimates of the surface snow density in Antarctica than has been previously assumed.
Total Phenols, Antioxidant Capacity and Antibacterial Activity of Manuka Honey Extract.

Aims: To evaluate total phenols content (TPC), antioxidant capacity (TAC) and antibacterial activityof Manuka honey extract (MHE) and to compare such properties with those for unfractionatedManuka honey.Study Design: In vitro study.Place and Duration of Study: School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, UK.Between September 2016 and September 2017.Methodology: MHE was prepared by solvent extraction using ethyl acetate. TPC was determinedby Folin-Ciocalteu assay. The iron (III) reducing antioxidant capacity (IRAC) method was used todetermine TAC. Antibacterial activity was evaluated using disc diffusion assay and 96-well microtiter plate methods with absorbance measured at 600 nm.Results: The TPC for MHE was 30-fold higher than the value for Manuka honey (33420 ± 1685 mgvs. 1018 ± 78 mg GAE/kg) while TAC values were ~100-times greater (83,198 ± 7064 vs. 793 ± 104 TEAC, respectively). Antibacterial activity assessed by disc diffusion for Manuka honey (18.5mm on S. aureus and 20 mm on E. coli) was two times greater than for MHE (9mm for both S. aureus and E. coli). The 96-well microtiter plate assay confirmed the greater antibacterial activity for Manuka honey compared to equal concentrations MHE.Conclusion: A polyphenol-rich Manuka honey extract with a high total antioxidant capacity, showedlittle or no antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus in contrast with unfractionated Manukahoney.
Who Makes the Transition to College? Why We Should Care, What We Know, and What We Need to Do

Background/Context In the last several decades, a college education, in particular the bachelor's degree, has become the key to higher earnings, and overall, to a middle-class lifestyle in the United States. In an increasingly globalized economy, privileging information and communication technologies, it is more than likely that this emphasis on higher education in the American labor market will continue in the future. While we know much about the increasing link between a college education and social mobility, writ large, we know considerably less about who actually makes the transition to college, how this occurs, and why. Despite the strides made, large numbers of individuals are not making the transition to college. Among those who are, there are important differences in the kinds of postsecondary institutions they are attending, and in completion rates, with attendant implications for social mobility. Purpose This article has two purposes: (1) to synthesize the key facets of our knowledge base of how to expand the college pipeline and relatedly, to outline particular areas that have been under-examined across the disciplines; (2) to provide future directions that will allow us to better address this important inquiry along substantive and methodological lines. Research Design This article draws on disciplinary papers commissioned by the Social Science Research Council's Transitions to College Committee. The discussion of preparation is framed around the contributions from the fields of anthropology, and political science; access vis-à-vis history, sociology, and demography; paying for college vis-à-vis economics; and completion vis-à-vis the field of higher education. Conclusions/Recommendations The article calls for an overall integrative model, e.g., K-16 and interdisciplinary, improved coverage in large-scale datasets, and a more refined mixed methods approach to attend to notable gaps in our understandings of the transition to college. Across disciplines, a key substantive gap is variation along the lines of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, gender, and age across domains, which needs to be illuminated.
Corporate Ownership, Internet Penetration and Internet Financial Reporting: Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Manuscript type: Research paper. Research aims: This study aims to examine how the individual effect of company-level ownership structure and the joint-effect of company-level ownership structure with country-level Internet penetration, can impact on Internet Financial Reporting (IFR). Design/ Methodology/ Approach: An index consisting of 35 IFR items was used to collect information from 152 listed financial com- panies from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. These companies were from Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Data were analysed using regression analysis. Research findings: The findings imply that companies with high government and family ownerships have lower extent of IFR. High quality IFR is evident in companies located in countries with a strong Internet penetration. However, the association between corporate ownership structure and IFR is not influenced by the country’s Internet penetration. Theoretical contributions/ Originality: Our study is the first cross- country comparative analysis that utilises data from the GCC coun- tries to explore the determinants of the IFR. This study incorporates company-level governance and country-level institutional factors which are relevant and unique in the context of the GCC to add to the existing evidence that had mainly concentrated on a single-country setting or the developed market. Practitioner/ Policy implications: The findings of this study, which are related to the negative impact of government and family ownership on IFR can be attributed to the regulators in the GCC countries. It is recommended that the GCC improve its enforcement of legal protection for shareholders so as to protect the minority shareholders’ interests. Research limitation: Future cross-country analysis on IFR can focus on other emerging markets that differ from the GCC. In addition, these studies can consider other relevant company-level governance aspects such as managerial ownership and country-level institutional factors such as cyber security risks as variables. Keywords: Ownership, Internet Penetration, Gulf Cooperation Council. JEL Classification: G11, G02, C91
VComputeBench: A Vulkan Benchmark Suite for GPGPU on Mobile and Embedded GPUs

GPUs have become immensely important computational units on embedded and mobile devices. However, GPGPU developers are often not able to exploit the compute power offered by GPUs on these devices mainly due to the lack of support of traditional programming models such as CUDA and OpenCL. The recent introduction of the Vulkan API provides a new programming model that could be explored for GPGPU computing on these devices, as it supports compute and promises to be portable across different architectures. In this paper we propose VComputeBench, a set of benchmarks that help developers understand the differences in performance and portability of Vulkan. We also evaluate the suitability of Vulkan as an emerging cross-platform GPGPU framework by conducting a thorough analysis of its performance compared to CUDA and OpenCL on mobile as well as on desktop platforms. Our experiments show that Vulkan provides better platform support on mobile devices and can be regarded as a good cross-platform GPGPU framework. It offers comparable performance and with some low-level optimizations it can offer average speedups of 1.53x and 1.66x compared to CUDA and OpenCL respectively on desktop platforms and 1.59x average speedup compared to OpenCL on mobile platforms. However, while Vulkan’s low-level control can enhance performance, it requires a significantly higher programming effort.
PERFORMANCE OF MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND NONLINEAR NEURAL NETWORKS AND FUZZY LOGIC TECHNIQUES IN MODELLING HOUSE PRICES

House price prediction continues to be important fo r government agencies insurance companies and real estate industry. This study investigates the perfor mance of house sales price models based on linear a nd non-linear approaches to study the effects of selec ted variables. Linear stepwise Multivariate Regress ion (MR) and nonlinear models of Neural Network (NN) and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy (ANFIS) are developed and compared. The GIS methods are used to integrate the data for the study area (Bathurst, Australia). While it was expected that the nonlinear methods wo uld be much better the analysis shows NN and ANFIS are only slightly better than MR suggesting q uestions about high R 2 often found in the literature. While structural data and macro-finance variables m ay contribute to higher R 2 performance comparison was the goal of this study and besides the Australi an data lacked structural elements. The results sho w that MR model could be improved. Also, the land value and location explained at best about 45% of the sale price variation. The analysis of price forecasts ( within the 10% range of the actual prediction) on average revealed that the non-linear models perform ed slightly better (29%) than the linear (26%). Th e inclusion of social data improves the MR prediction in most of the suburbs. The suburbs analysis shows the importance of socially based locations and also variance due to types of housing dominant. In general terms of R 2 , the NN model (0.45) performed only slightly bette r than ANFIS 0.39) and better than MR (0.37); but the linear MRsoc performed bett er (0.42). In suburb level, the NN model (7/15) performed better than ANFIS (3/15) but the linear M R (5/15) was better than ANFIS. The improved linear MR (6/15) performed nearly as well as the no n-linear NN. Linear methods appear to just as precise as the the more time consuming non linear methods in most cases for accounting for the differences and variation. However, when a much more in depth analysis is required non linear methods may prove to be more valuable. More research is nee ded in the area of house price modelling including more structural elements, modern buyer beliefs and the nature and type of risks noted in modern times.
Massive outflow properties suggest AGN fade slowly

Massive large-scale AGN outflows are an important element of galaxy evolution, being a way through which the AGN can affect most of the host galaxy. However, outflows evolve on timescales much longer than typical AGN episode durations, therefore most AGN outflows are not observed simultaneously with the AGN episode that inflated them. It is therefore remarkable that rather tight correlations between outflow prop- erties and AGN luminosity exist. In this paper, I show that such correlations can be preserved during the fading phase of the AGN episode, provided that the AGN lumi- nosity evolves as a power law with exponent $\alpha_{\rm d} \sim 1$ at late times. I also show that subsequent AGN episodes that illuminate an ongoing outflow are unlikely to produce outflow momentum or energy rates rising above the observed correlations. However, there may be many difficult-to-detect outflows with momentum and energy rates lower than expected from the current AGN luminosity. Detailed observations of AGN out- flow properties might help constrain the activity histories of typical and/or individual AGN.
A PRACTICAL PROCEDURE TO ESTIMATE THE BEARING CAPACITY OF FOOTINGS ON SAND–APPLICATION TO 87 CASE STUDIES

Following the recent work of the authors in development and numerical verification of a new kinematic approach of the limit analysis for surface footings on non-associative materials, a practical procedure is proposed to utilize the theory. It is known that both the peak friction angle and dilation angle depend on the sand density as well as the stress level, which was not the concern of the former work. In the current work, a practical procedure is established to provide a better estimate of the bearing capacity of surface footings on sand which is often non-associative. This practical procedure is based on the results obtained theoretically and requires the density index and the critical state friction angle of the sand. The proposed practical procedure is a simple iterative computational procedure which relates the density index of the sand, stress level, dilation angle, peak friction angle and eventually the bearing capacity. The procedure is described and verified among available footing load test data.
Monotone schemes for time-dependent energy balance models

In this paper we derive a new model for the description of fast transient processes in optically sensitive semiconductors. Based on the generalised flow approach, we develop a new difference scheme for this energy balance model and show that the solution of the derived scheme satisfies the maximum principle. The model is applicable to the analysis of photodevices with fast response, and is particular useful in estimating a photo-charge response in the depletion region of photo-transistor semiconductor structures.
Can Ignorance Make Central Banks Behave

This paper presents a model in which "instrument uncertainty"-that is, an uncertain mapping from monetary policy to macroeconomic outcomes-may mitigate the inflationary bias problem that arises when efficient monetary policy rules are time- inconsistent. If the relation between monetary policy and macroeconomic outcomes is uncertain, the private sector has an incentive to scrutinize the past for clues about this relationship. This learning creates a link between past government behavior and present inflation expectations that the government can exploit to enhance its credibility. The model implies that the two conventional arguments for simple rules in monetary policy-one stressing the central bank's poor forecasting abilities and the other stressing the perils of discretion-may work at cross-purposes. Moreover, it provides an explanation of the cyclical behavior of inflation due to political cycles and of the correlation between the level and variance of inflation.
Extruded Pea (Pisum Sativum) as Alternative to Soybean Protein for Dairy Cows Feeding in Organic Alpine Farms

The study evaluated the use of extruded pea as an alternative to soybean in the protein feeding of dairy cattle raised in organic Alpine farms. The research was carried out in a commercial organic dairy farm located in the Province of Trento (Northern Italy) and it considered two separate periods of cows’ lactation: early and late lactation. According to the traditional management practice of alpine dairy herds with the seasonal calving of the cows in early winter, the former period was carried out during the cold season when cows were housed indoors, while the latter period started after the transfer of the entire herd to an alpine pasture for the summer grazing. In both periods, 16 cows of Rendena breed were equally assigned to 2 experimental groups. The dietary forage (meadow hay in early lactation or pasture in late lactation) was supplemented to one group of cows with a Control concentrate in which soybean expeller, sunflower expeller and wheat bran were the main protein feeds. Soybean proteins were replaced by extruded peas in the Soy-free concentrate given to the other group of cows. The daily amount of concentrate was adjusted to the individual milk yield on a weekly basis adopting ratios of 0.360 and 0.125 kg of DM per kg of milk in early and late lactation periods, respectively. Cows receiving Soy-free concentrate showed a higher milk yield than the Control cows in both lactation periods (18.7 vs 17.5 kg/d in early lactation and 9.3 vs 8.6 kg/d on pasture, respectively). Milk fat and protein were not affected by the diet at any stage of lactation, while a higher concentration of milk urea was observed in milk samples taken from Soy-free cows in both periods of the study. This result could have been promoted by the higher soluble fraction of extruded pea proteins in comparison to that of soybean expeller. Cows feeding behaviour was monitored only in the early lactation period and despite of the different amount of concentrate consumed by the two groups of cows (7.0 vs 6.6 kg/cow/d for Soyfree and Control, respectively), their total time spent eating and ruminating was not affected by the diet. Based on these findings, extruded peas can be considered a valuable alternative to soybean in the protein feeding of cattle raised for organic milk production in the Alpine region.
“Show Me How Your Wrist Moves, and I Will Tell You How Active You Are!” Towards an Objective Measure of Preschoolers’ Motor Activity

Objective: Although a certain level of motor activity is considered to be typical in preschoolers, in the most severe cases it interferes with the child’s social and academic development. Valid assessment procedure of children’s motor activity is therefore a very important issue. The current study aims to validate the Triaxial Accelerometry for Preschoolers (3AAP), a method using the measurement of children’s wrist acceleration as a way to estimate their motor activity. Method: Data were collected from a community sample of 226 preschoolers and from a sample of 32 preschoolers clinically referred for externalizing behavior concerns. The participants’ motor activity was assessed using a triaxial accelerometer (a sensor worn on the wrist) in three different conditions of assessment, i.e. at school, in a lab session and during a computerized task administration. Results: The 3AAP variables, i.e. the peak, the mean level, the intra-individual variability, and the median of motor activity as well as the percentage of time spent in the lower range and conversely in the higher range of motor activity, were highly intercorrelated and normally distributed. They were significantly correlated with externalizing behavior-related scales from the CBCL, the SDQ and the UCG, and low correlations were reported with internalizing behavior-related scales from the same instruments. Test-retest correlations after a 10-week interval were moderate to high. Significant differences were displayed between the three conditions of assessment as well as between referred and normally-developing preschoolers. Conclusion: The 3AAP scores are good candidates for an objective, low-cost and reliable measurement of preschoolers’ motor activity that could be helpful both for research and clinical purposes.
Exploring the intercultural identity of Slovak-Roma schoolchildren in the UK

There is a significant body of literature about the Roma, but comparatively little exists in which their voices can be heard. This study takes an intercultural perspective to look at the identity negotiations of four self-identifying Roma-Slovak schoolchildren between the ages of 13-14 enrolled at a state academy in Kent. Interviews focused on the role of language in constructing their identities, the perceptions of others and the nature of possible conflicts. The qualitative analyses revealed five themes: Perception of Identity by Others, Adaptability, Aspirations, Self-Perceptions of Identity, and Conflict. Participants’ identities were found to be far more dynamic than the traditional binarized view of the Roma as the ‘other’ (McGarry & Agarin 2014). There is a strong element of ascription by others in terms of the nature of participants’ ethnicity and its relationship to their identity. Both their ethnic and national identity are central in the ways in which they see themselves.
The effect of previous language experience and ‘proper’ L2 input on the aspiration of English voiceless stops by Polish adult immigrants to London

Synchronic variability in the area of phonetics, phonology, vocabulary, morphology and syntax is a natural feature of any language, including English. The existence of competing variants is in itself a fascinating phenomenon, but it is also a prerequisite for diachronic changes. This volume is a collection of studies which investigate variability from a contemporary and historical perspective, in both native and non-native varieties of English. The topics include Middle English spelling variation, lexical differences between Middle English dialects, Late Middle and Early Modern English forms of address, Middle English negation patterns, the English used by Polish immigrants living in London, lexical fixedness in native and non-native English used by Polish learners, and the phenomenon of phonetic imitation in Polish learners of English. The book should be of interest to anyone interested in English linguistics, especially English phonetics and phonology as well as history of English, historical dialectology and pragmatics.
Influence of traditional processing on minerals HCL-extractability of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum).

Two cultivars of pearl millet, Ugandi and Dembi yellow, were subjected to three traditional processing methods: fermentation, sprouting and damirga preparation. The HCl-extractability of minerals from the two cultivars ranged from 16.70 to55.20%. Fermentation, damirga preparation and sprouting significantly (P#0.05) improved the HCl-extractability to 32.5–92.5, 48.9-96.4 and 44.6-89%, respectively