Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Damunwha Students’ Funds of Knowledge in English: A Qualitative Case Study in the South Korean Context

This study explores the interface between multicultural, or Damunwha, students’ households and English learning in the Korean context. Korea is a relatively homogeneous nation in terms of its ethnic and cultural diversity. In this context, students whose parent(s) are not Korean are labeled as Damunwha students. Despite their minority position, the students have accumulated multilingual and multicultural funds of knowledge, the experience and culture unique to their households. Their use of funds of knowledge in English learning was analyzed from an ecological perspective, which emphasizes learners’ active agency in learning. Two junior-high school students from international marriage families and two other students from immigrant worker families participated in this study. Qualitative data analysis indicated that their funds of knowledge for English were twofold: their home languages and connections to home language communities. Their funds of knowledge were significantly influenced by family relationships and socio-economic status. The funds of knowledge contributed to the students’ English learning only if the students realized the meaningfulness of their funds of knowledge. The study has implications for increasing the role of multicultural education in general curriculum and building conducive home-school relationship by making home visits.
Transfinite Iris: resolving an existential dilemma of step-indexed separation logic

Step-indexed separation logic has proven to be a powerful tool for modular reasoning about higher-order stateful programs. However, it has only been used to reason about safety properties, never liveness properties. In this paper, we observe that the inability of step-indexed separation logic to support liveness properties stems fundamentally from its failure to validate the existential property, connecting the meaning of existential quantification inside and outside the logic. We show how to validate the existential property—and thus enable liveness reasoning—by moving from finite step-indices (natural numbers) to transfinite step-indices (ordinals). Concretely, we transform the Coq-based step-indexed logic Iris to Transfinite Iris, and demonstrate its effectiveness in proving termination and termination-preserving refinement for higher-order stateful programs.
Endothelial Dysfunction and Extra-Articular Neurological Manifestations in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic, inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects about 1% of the global population, with a female–male ratio of 3:1. RA preferably affects the joints, with consequent joint swelling and deformities followed by ankylosis. However, evidence has accumulated showing that patients suffering from RA can also develop extra-articular manifestations, including cardiovascular disease states, neuropathies, and multiorgan dysfunction. In particular, peripheral nerve disorders showed a consistent impact in the course of the disease (prevalence about 20%) mostly associated to vasculitis of the nerve vessels leading to vascular ischemia, axonal degeneration, and neuronal demyelination. The pathophysiological basis of this RA-associated microvascular disease, which leads to impairment of assonal functionality, is still to be better clarified. However, endothelial dysfunction and alterations of the so-called brain-nerve barrier (BNB) seem to play a fundamental role. This review aims to assess the potential mechanisms underlying the impairment of endothelial cell functionality in the development of RA and to identify the role of dysfunctional endothelium as a causative mechanism of extra-articular manifestation of RA. On the other hand, the potential impact of lifestyle and nutritional interventions targeting the maintenance of endothelial cell integrity in patients with RA will be discussed as a potential option when approaching therapeutic solutions in the course of the disease.
Sensitivity of Alternaria blight pathogen (Alternaria brassicicola) to fungicides and its effects on yield contributing parameters of mustard

Alternaria leaf blight caused by Alternaria brassicicola is an important disease of mustard in Bangladesh. Twelve commercial fungicides were assessed against Alternaria brassicicola Bangladeshi isolate PMIL-5 using poison food technique. Among these fungicides, three fungicides viz. Contaf 5EC (Hexaconazol 50%), Rovral 50 WP (Iprodione 50%) and Autostin 50WP (Carbendazim 50%) showed highly sensitive to A. brassicicola isolate PMIL-5 and inhibited the total mycelial growth at the lowest concentration 0.0125% in in vitro condition. Other fungicides were either partially effective or ineffective. Two fungicides viz. Contaf 5EC and Rovral 50WP were selected based on their in vitro performance sprayed in the field onto foliage of mustard plants in four different concentrations (0.0125%, 0.025%, 0.05% and 0.1%) to evaluate the Alternaria leaf blight incidence and severity and some yield contributing parameters in treated and control plots. Among the used fungicides, double spray of Contaf 5EC @0.1% concentration at 45 and 55 DAS showed better results in minimizing disease occurrence and frequency of Alternaria leaf blight disease as well as a significant positive impact on the yield parameters of mustard variety BARI Sharisha 14 in the field.
Quantitative Approaches to Italian / Dialect Family Interactions: Considerations of Methodology and Language Transmission in a Contact Situation

We present a case study of a child’s language development by analyzing production in both input and output. Our corpus comprises 35-hour tapings (90 000 tokens) of dyadic and multiparty interactions between Francesco, his parents and his extended family members who are from Veneto (Italy), while Francesco was 17-30 months old. In this region, two genetically related languages – Veneto dialect and Italian are spoken along a continuum and there are numerous zones of overlapping, blurring the borders of the languages in contact. We draw from a psycholinguistic approach to study the child’s development and from a sociolinguistic approach to include the observed contact phenomena in our research design. The aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, we aim to understand how Francesco acquires his language(s) from a variable environment. Secondly, we aim to present a new methodological approach to quantitative studies conducted in contact situations. We discuss how the interplay of similarities (given the presence of cognates) and contrasts (the juxtaposition of Italian and Veneto in utterances) in the input may contribute to the maintenance of multilingualism in the younger generations’ repertoires.
Researching policy implementation: Interview data analysis in institutional contexts

In this paper I am concerned with the analysis of semi-structured interview data that emerge from an inquiry rooted in institutional environments. The examples of data used to illustrate the procedures of analysis come from research carried out in Further Education Colleges in England. The focus is on individual actors (managers and teachers), mediating change within organizations. This focus provides scope for the exploration of social manifestations of political action. A number of epistemological questions arise with respect to the data and the nature of knowledge that is accessible through their analysis. The paper is practically oriented in that it presents an example of data analysis as part of researching the implementation of policy at the level of institutions, and the enactment of such a policy by individuals. The consideration of different traditions underpinning research and specific methodological techniques for data analysis has resulted in identification of a set of theoretically informed procedures that provide a framework for de-constructing, interpreting, and synthesizing interview data into accounts of policy implementation in the field. These procedures are presented and exemplified, while the theoretical assumptions underlying them and their implications for further research are discussed.
Coherent semiclassical states for loop quantum cosmology

The spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmological model with a massless scalar field in loop quantum cosmology admits a description in terms of a completely solvable model. This has been used to prove that: (i) the quantum bounce that replaces the big bang singularity is generic; (ii) there is an upper bound on the energy density for all states, and (iii) semiclassical states at late times had to be semiclassical before the bounce. Here we consider a family of exact solutions to the theory, corresponding to generalized coherent Gaussian and squeezed states. We analyze the behavior of basic physical observables and impose restrictions on the states based on physical considerations. These turn out to be enough to select, from all the generalized coherent states, those that behave semiclassical at late times. We study then the properties of such states near the bounce where the most ``quantum behavior'' is expected. As it turns out, the states remain sharply peaked and semiclassical at the bounce and the dynamics is very well approximated by the ``effective theory'' throughout the time evolution. We compare the semiclassicality properties of squeezed states to those of the Gaussian semiclassical states and conclude that the Gaussians are better behaved. In particular, the asymmetry in the relative fluctuations before and after the bounce are negligible, thus ruling out claims of so-called ``cosmic forgetfulness. ''
Changes in Prudential Policy Instruments - A New Cross-Country Database

This paper documents the features of a new database that focuses on changes in the intensity in the usage of several widely used prudential tools, taking into account both macro-prudential and microprudential objectives. The database coverage is broad, spanning 64 countries, and with quarterly data for the period 2000Q1 through 2014Q4. The five types of prudential instruments in the database are: capital buffers, interbank exposure limits, concentration limits, loan to value (LTV) ratio limits, and reserve requirements. A total of nine prudential tools are constructed since some useful further decompositions are presented, with capital buffers divided into four sub-indices: general capital requirements, real state credit specific capital buffers, consumer credit specific capital buffers, and other specific capital buffers; and with reserve requirements divided into two sub-indices: domestic currency capital requirements and foreign currency capital requirements. While general capital requirements have the most changes from the cross-country perspective, LTV ratio limits and reserve requirements have the largest number of tightening and loosening episodes. We also analyze the instruments’ usage in relation to the evolution of key variables such as credit, policy rates, and house prices, finding substantial differences in the patterns of loosening or tightening of instruments in relation to business and financial cycles.
Factors Influencing Changes in Potato and Potato Substitute Demand

Despite the rapid rise in complex carbohydrate consumption over the last twenty-five years, fresh potato consumption has fallen by over 50%. Fresh potato growers and retailers alike need to know whether these changes reflect consumer responses to changing relative prices or incomes, or whether they are due to changes in consumer tastes. This paper uses a linear approximation almost ideal demand system (LA/AIDS) to investigate the effect of relative prices, expenditures, and a set of socioeconomic variables on complex carbohydrate demand. Estimation results show that the socioeconomic variables explain some of the changes in demand, but a significant amount remains as evidence of a change in consumer tastes.
High Precision Indoor Visible Light Positioning Algorithm Based on Double LEDs Using CMOS Image Sensor

Visible Light Positioning (VLP) is widely recognized as a cost-effective solution for indoor positioning with increasing demand. However, the nonlinearity and highly complex relationship between three-dimensional world coordinate and two-dimensional image coordinate hinders the good performance of image-sensor-based VLP. Therefore, there is a need to develop effective VLP algorithms to locate the positioning terminal using image sensor. Besides, due to the high computational cost of image processing, most existing VLP systems do not achieve satisfactory performance in terms of real-time ability and positioning accuracy, both of which are significant for the performance of indoor positioning system. In addition, the accurate identification of the ID information of each LED (LED-ID) is important for positioning, because if the LED-ID is not recognized well, the positioning can only be achieved in a particular positioning unit and cannot be applied to a large scene with many LEDs. Therefore, an effective image-sensor-based double-light positioning system is proposed in this paper to solve the above problems. We also set up relevant experiments to test the performance of the proposed system, which utilizes the rolling shutter mechanism of the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor. Machine learning was used to identify the LED-ID for better results. Simulation results show that the proposed double-light positioning system could deliver satisfactory performance in terms of both the real-time ability and the accuracy of positioning. Moreover, the proposed double-light positioning algorithm has low complexity and takes the symmetry problem of angle into consideration, which has never been considered before. Experiments confirmed that the proposed double-light positioning system can provide an accuracy of 3.85 cm with an average computing time of 56.28 ms, making it a promising candidate for future indoor positioning applications.
Towards Structural Generalization : Factored Approximate Planning

Autonomous agents do not always have access to the amount of samples machine learning methods require. Structural assumptions like factored MDP allow to generalize experiences beyond traditional metrics to entirely new sit uations. This paper introduces a novel framework to exploit such knowledge for approximated policy iteration. At the heart of the framework a novel factored approximate planning algorithm is derived. The algorithm requires no real observations and optimizes control for given linear reward and transition models. It is empirically compared with least squares policy iteration in a continuous navigation task. Computational leverage in constructing the linear models without observing the entire state space and in representation of the solution are discussed as well.
Multiple Perspectives on Inference for Two Simple Statistical Scenarios

ABSTRACT When data analysts operate within different statistical frameworks (e.g., frequentist versus Bayesian, emphasis on estimation versus emphasis on testing), how does this impact the qualitative conclusions that are drawn for real data? To study this question empirically we selected from the literature two simple scenarios—involving a comparison of two proportions and a Pearson correlation—and asked four teams of statisticians to provide a concise analysis and a qualitative interpretation of the outcome. The results showed considerable overall agreement; nevertheless, this agreement did not appear to diminish the intensity of the subsequent debate over which statistical framework is more appropriate to address the questions at hand.
In Situ Hyperspectral Raman Imaging: A New Method to Investigate Sintering Processes of Ceramic Material at High-temperature

In the last decades, Raman spectroscopy has become an important tool to identify and investigate minerals, gases, glasses, and organic material at room temperature. In combination with high-temperature and high-pressure devices, however, the in situ investigation of mineral transformation reactions and their kinetics is nowadays also possible. Here, we present a novel approach to in situ studies for the sintering process of silicate ceramics by hyperspectral Raman imaging. This imaging technique allows studying high-temperature solid-solid and/or solid-melt reactions spatially and temporally resolved, and opens up new avenues to study and visualize high-temperature sintering processes in multi-component systems. After describing in detail the methodology, the results of three application examples are presented and discussed. These experiments demonstrate the power of hyperspectral Raman imaging for in situ studies of the mechanism(s) of solid-solid or solid-melt reactions at high-temperature with a micrometer-scale resolution as well as to gain kinetic information from the temperature- and time-dependent growth and breakdown of minerals during isothermal or isochronal sintering.
Optimal Discretionary Monetary Policy in the Open Economy: Choosing between CPI and Domestic Inflation as Target Variables

In open economy, a choice can be made between two measures of inflation for use as a target variable: CPI inflation or domestic inflation. This paper considers flexible and strict inflation targeting strategies and explores the circumstances under which a domestic inflation target is preferred to a CPI inflation target. This is done from the perspectives of the central bank and society as a whole. The quantitative results of this paper indicate that under suitable conditions the temporal properties of stochastic disturbances are instrumental in determining which inflation target is preferred. The choice of target variable from society’s viewpoint coincides almost perfectly with the choice of the central bank if the utility of the representative household serves as the welfare criterion for society. If qualitative aspects matter in the choice inflation target, then the role of temporal properties of the stochastic disturbances becomes less prominent. Policy conclusions are drawn with the help of a forward-looking model for a small open economy. This model has proper micro-foundations and exhibits two important features. First, the degree of openness affects the parameters of the IS relation and, second, under domestic inflation targeting, the existence of a direct exchange rate channel in the Phillips Curve impairs the perfect stabilising properties of monetary policy in the presence of demand-side disturbances.
Effect of Thyme Species Extracts on Performance, Intestinal Morphometry, Nutrient Digestibility and Immune Response of Broilers

The study was performed to investigate the effect of hydroalcoholic extract of different thyme species on performance, intestinal morphometry, nutrient digestibility and immune response of male broiler chickens. A total of 160 day-old Ross 308 broiler chicks were randomly allotted to five treatments including a control basal diet or diets supplemented with 0.1% of four thyme extracts (Thymus daenensis, T. kotschyanus, T. lancifolius, and T. transcaspicus) with four replicates of eight birds each. The experiment was lasted for 28 days. There were no significant effects of treatments on broilers performance during the first three weeks of age. At fourth weeks of age and throughout the experimental period, the chickens on T. daenensis extract showed the best weight gain among the treatments (P<0.05), while feed intake and feed conversion ratio were not affected by the treatments throughout the experimental period. The birds receiving T. daenensis extract had higher jejunal villus height and villus height to crypt depth (P<0.05) than those on the control. All thyme extracts increased villus surface area (P<0.05). Supplementation of diet with T. daenensis extract improved digestibility of organic matter, dry matter, crude carbohydrate, crude ash and ether extract (P<0.05). The immune response to Newcastle disease (ND) vaccine and sheep red blood cell (SRBC) were not affected by the treatments. The results indicated that the response of broiler chickens to thyme extract depends on birds’ age and genotype of the plant.
Causal Relationship Between Career Indecision and Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy: A Longitudinal Cross-Lagged Analysis

This study surveyed 166 students when they were in Grade 8 of high school, and then again when they were in Grade 10, using measures of career indecision and career decision-making self-efficacy. Consistent with social-cognitive theories we hypothesised that changes in self-efficacy over time would be causally associated with changes in career indecision over time. Using latent variable analyses, we estimated a two-wave, longitudinal cross-lagged panel design, and found that, contrary to expectations, changes in career decision-making self-efficacy did not result in changes in career indecision, despite significant contemporaneous associations at both times. Theoretical and applied implications are highlighted.
Order effects in attributions of sporting abilities in team handball

Abstract Our study explores the role of order effects when making attributions of ability of a performer in team handball. Participants of the study were asked to view a video footage of a handball player performing a passing and throwing task ten times. Although for everyone the footage consisted of the same ten clips, half the participants viewed a declining (successful to unsuccessful) performance pattern, whereas the other half viewed an ascending pattern. After that, participants rated the observed player’s sporting abilities. The results have shown recency effects in the attributions of ability when the judgment was made by players (for most descriptors) and by coaches (for some descriptors). Streszczenie Celem niniejszej pracy było zbadanie roli efektów kolejności w dokonywaniu atrybucji umiejętności sportowych zawodnika piłki ręcznej. Uczestnicy badania zostali poproszeni, aby obejrzeć materiał filmowy, na którym sportowiec dziesięć razy wykonuje ćwiczenie związane z podawaniem i rzucaniem piłki. Każdy uczestnik obejrzał film składający się z tych samych dziesięciu powtórzeń ćwiczenia, z tym, że połowa uczestników obejrzała opadający wzorzec wykonania (od dobrego do słabego), natomiast druga połowa obejrzała wznoszący wzorzec wykonania (od słabego do dobrego). Następnie, uczestnicy badania oceniali umiejętności sportowe oglądanego zawodnika. Wyniki ujawniły efekt świeżości, gdy ocena była dokonywana przez zawodników (dla większości umiejętności) oraz trenerów (dla niektórych umiejętności). Nie było natomiast żadnych efektów kolejności w grupie laików (nieznających się na piłce ręcznej).
On the Euler-Maruyama approximation for one-dimensional stochastic differential equations with irregular coefficients

We study the strong rates of the Euler-Maruyama approximation for one dimensional stochastic differential equations whose drift coefficient may be neither continuous nor one-sided Lipschitz and diffusion coefficient is Holder continuous. Especially, we show that the strong rate of the Euler-Maruyama approximation is 1/2 for a large class of equations whose drift is not continuous. We also provide the strong rate for equations whose drift is Holder continuous and diffusion is nonconstant