Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Explaining motivational antecedents of citizenship behavior among preservice teachers

A typical preservice teacher will experience demanding teaching situations during practicum. In such situations, interpersonal support from fellow students may be an important factor if experiences gained during teaching practice are to make a constructive contribution to personal growth for the teacher. Human support from other preservice teachers can bridge a gap that can be filled only to a limited extent by practice supervisors, who also have a role in assessing the students’ practice periods. The phenomenon of preservice teachers helping their co-students—even though, strictly speaking, they have no formal responsibility in this area—is called citizenship behavior here. Structural equation modeling of questionnaire data collected among Norwegian preservice teachers shows that performance approach motivation is the factor most strongly associated with citizenship behavior. Intrinsic motivation is also a significant factor, both as a direct and an indirect effect, via study absorption. The self-efficacy of preservice teachers in teaching situations also has a robust association with citizenship behavior, while experiences involving pupil engagement problems in teaching situations have a negative effect on self-efficacy. Pupil engagement problems also have an adverse impact on absorption.
New approaches to catheter navigation for interventional radiology simulation

For over 20 years, interventional methods have improved the outcomes of patients with cardiovascular disease. However, these procedures require an intricate combination of visual and tactile feedback and extensive training. In this paper, we describe a series of novel approaches that have led to the development of a high-fidelity simulation system for interventional neuroradiology. In particular, we focus on a new approach for real-time deformation of devices such as catheters and guidewires during navigation inside complex vascular networks. This approach combines a real-time incremental Finite Element Model (FEM), an optimization strategy based on substructure decomposition, and a new method for handling collision response in situations where the number of contact points is very large. We also briefly describe other aspects of the simulation system, from patient-specific segmentation to the simulation of contrast agent propagation and fast volume-rendering techniques for generating synthetic X-ray images in real time. Although currently targeted at stroke therapy, our results are applicable to the simulation of any interventional radiology procedure.
Better bitmap performance with Roaring bitmaps

Bitmap indexes are commonly used in databases and search engines. By exploiting bit‐level parallelism, they can significantly accelerate queries. However, they can use much memory, and thus, we might prefer compressed bitmap indexes. Following Oracle's lead, bitmaps are often compressed using run‐length encoding (RLE). Building on prior work, we introduce the Roaring compressed bitmap format: it uses packed arrays for compression instead of RLE. We compare it to two high‐performance RLE‐based bitmap encoding techniques: Word Aligned Hybrid compression scheme and Compressed ‘n’ Composable Integer Set. On synthetic and real data, we find that Roaring bitmaps (1) often compress significantly better (e.g., 2×) and (2) are faster than the compressed alternatives (up to 900× faster for intersections). Our results challenge the view that RLE‐based bitmap compression is best. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Detailed neuropsychological evaluation in a patient with Floating Harbor syndrome

The Floating Harbor syndrome is a rare genetic disease characterized by a triad of clinical signs: specific dysmorphic facial features, short stature with delayed bone age, and language and speech disorders. These signs are, in most cases, associated with borderline normal intelligence to moderate delay concerning intellectual functioning. We report an extensive neuropsychological evaluation for an adult female patient and show, in particular, a severe visuospatial impairment. We discuss this deficit in the light of the previous reported cases and suggest that visuospatial abilities should be explored more systematically.
A Fusion Protein Consisting of the Vaccine Adjuvant Monophosphoryl Lipid A and the Allergen Ovalbumin Boosts Allergen-Specific Th1, Th2, and Th17 Responses In Vitro

Background. The detoxified TLR4-ligand Monophosphoryl Lipid A (MPLA) is the first approved TLR-agonist used as adjuvant in licensed vaccines but has not yet been explored as part of conjugated vaccines. Objective. To investigate the immune-modulating properties of a fusion protein consisting of MPLA and Ovalbumin (MPLA : Ova). Results. MPLA and Ova were chemically coupled by stable carbamate linkage. MPLA : Ova was highly pure without detectable product-related impurities by either noncoupled MPLA or Ova. Light scattering analysis revealed MPLA : Ova to be aggregated. Stimulation of mDC and mDC : DO11.10 CD4+ TC cocultures showed a stronger activation of both mDC and Ova-specific DO11.10 CD4+ TC by MPLA : Ova compared to the mixture of both components. MPLA : Ova induced both strong proinflammatory (IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α) and anti-inflammatory (IL-10) cytokine responses from mDCs while also boosting allergen-specific Th1, Th2, and Th17 cytokine secretion. Conclusion. Conjugation of MPLA and antigen enhanced the immune response compared to the mixture of both components. Due to the nonbiased boost of Ova-specific Th2 and Th17 responses while also inducing Th1 responses, this fusion protein may not be a suitable vaccine candidate for allergy treatment but may hold potential for the treatment of other diseases that require a strong stimulation of the host's immune system (e.g., cancer).
Session 4: CVD, diabetes and cancer A dietary portfolio for management and prevention of heart disease

CHD is the leading cause of worldwide mortality. The prevalence of heart disease has been linked to the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle and the increased dietary dependence on saturated fats from animal sources and the intake of refined foods. Elevated blood cholesterol level is one of the major risk factors for CHD. While cholesterol-lowering drug therapy (statins) has been effective in reducing the risk of heart disease, there are those individuals who are unwilling or because of muscle pains or raised levels of liver or muscle enzymes are unable to take cholesterol-lowering medication. Fortunately, there is evidence linking a number of dietary components to CHD risk reduction. The strength of this evidence has prompted various regulatory bodies to advocate diet as the first line of defence for primary prevention of heart disease. It was therefore decided to combine four dietary components that have been shown to lower blood cholesterol concentrations (nuts, plant sterols, viscous fibre and vegetable protein) in a dietary portfolio in order to determine whether the combined effect is additive. In a metabolically-controlled setting this dietary portfolio has proved to be as effective as a starting dose of a first-generation statin cholesterol-lowering medication in reducing the risk of CHD. The dietary portfolio has also been shown to be effective in sustaining a clinically-significant effect in the long term under a ‘real-world’ scenario. However, success of the diet depends on compliance and despite the accessibility of the foods adherence has been found to vary greatly. Overall, the evidence supports the beneficial role of the dietary portfolio in reducing blood cholesterol levels and CHD risk.
On the equivalence of Gaussian and log-linear HMMs

The acoustic models of conventional state-of-the-art speech recognition systems use generative Gaussian HMMs. In the past few years, discriminative models like for example Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) have been proposed to refine the acoustic models. CRFs directly model the class posteriors, the quantities of interest in recognition. CRFs are undirected models, and CRFs do not assume local normalization constraints as HMMs do. This paper addresses the issue to what extent such less restricted models add flexiblity to the model compared with the generative counterpart. This work extends our previous work in that it provides the technical details used for showing the equivalence of Gaussian and log-linear HMMs. The correctness of the proposed equivalence transformation for conditional probabilities is demonstrated on a simple concept tagging task.
Resilience in Youth: Evidence From a Forced Migration in China

This paper uses the send-down movement during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to study the impact of forced migration during youth on individuals’ outcomes in later years. The massive send-down movement (1968-1978) forced more than 16 million urban youths to move to rural areas to carry out agricultural field work. I utilize a rich set of family background information when the youths were 18 years old, and compare the send-downs with their closest counterparts—non-send-downs. Multiple surveys provide consistent evidence that the send- downs are 7 percentage points more likely to have had re-schooling after their return to urban areas; children of the send-downs are 9 percentage points more likely to attend college and have 0.5 more years of education. Evidence also suggests that compared to the non-send-downs, the send-downs spend more on their children’s education. This paper presents a unique outcome of resilience for youths after forced migration.
AmbientDB: P2P data management middleware for ambient intelligence

The future generation of consumer electronics devices is envisioned to provide automatic cooperation between devices and run applications that are sensitive to people's likings, personalized to their requirements, anticipatory of their behavior and responsive to their presence. We see this 'ambient intelligence' as a key feature of future pervasive computing. We focus here on one of the challenges in realizing this vision: information management. This entails integrating, querying, synchronizing and evolving structured data, on a heterogeneous and ad-hoc collection of (mobile) devices. Rather than hard-coding data management functionality in each individual application, we argue for adding high-level data management functionalities to the distributed middleware layer. Our ambientDB P2P database management system addresses this by providing a global database abstraction over an ad-hoc network of heterogeneous peers.
Track before Detect algorithm for tracking extended targets applied to real-world data of X-band marine radar

This communication presents the application of a Track before Detect technique for tracking extended targets in cluttered environment using a high resolution marine radar. The algorithm makes use of a particle filtering approach and assumes that the target shape is an ellipse. We compute numerically the posterior probability of the target presence jointly with the estimation of the target state, augmented with its geometrical parameters (length and width), that could be used for target classification. The results of tests with real-world data are reported, and a comparison, when possible, with the ground truth is also provided.
Rapid forecast of tsunami wave heights from a database of pre‐computed simulations, and application during the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in French Polynesia

We present a method for the rapid estimation of tsunami wave heights, either in the deep Pacific Basin, or at specific shore locations. It uses a database of 260 pre‐computed scenarios of generic sources distributed along the Pacific trenches, and can provide an estimate of wave heights within minutes of the location of the earthquake and the estimation of its moment. The method is tested against a set of DART data, and of 51 maregraph records in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. It was used in real time to successfully predict tsunami amplitudes in Polynesia during the 2011 Tohoku alert.
A New Technique for Hand Gesture Recognition

A new method for hand gesture recognition is proposed which is based on an innovative self-growing and self-organized neural gas (SGONG) network. Initially, the region of the hand is detected by using a color segmentation technique that depends on a skin-color distribution map. Then, the SGONG network is applied on the segmented hand so as to approach its topology. Based on the output grid of neurons, palm geometric characteristics are obtained which in accordance with powerful finger features allow the identification of the raised fingers. Finally, the hand gesture recognition is accomplished through a probability-based classification method.
Tracking and segmenting people in varying lighting conditions using colour

Colour cues were used to obtain robust detection and tracking of people in relatively unconstrained dynamic scenes. Gaussian mixture models were used to estimate probability densities of colour for skin, clothing and background. These models were used to detect, track and segment people, faces and hands. A technique for dynamically updating the models to accommodate changes in apparent colour due to varying lighting conditions was used. Two applications are highlighted: (1) actor segmentation for virtual studios, and (2) focus of attention for face and gesture recognition systems. A system implemented on a 200 MHz PC tracks multiple objects in real time.
Generating Questions from Web Community Contents

Large amounts of knowledge exist in the user-generated contents of web communities. Generating questions from such community contents to form the question-answer pairs is an effective way to collect and manage the knowledge in the web. The parser or rule based question generation (QG) methods have been widely studied and applied. Statistical QG aims to provide a strategy to handle the rapidly growing web data by alleviating the manual work. This paper proposes a deep belief network (DBN) based approach to address the statistical QG problem. This problem is considered as a three-step task: question type determination, concept selection and question construction. The DBNs are introduced to generate the essential words for question type determination and concept selection. Finally, a simple rule based method is used to construct questions with the generated words. The experimental results show that our approach is promising for the web community oriented question generation.
Robustness and diversity in genetic algorithms for a complex combinatorial optimization problem

This paper deals with the study of robustness in genetic algorithms from the viewpoint of population diversity when dealing with a complex combinatorial optimization problem. In this case, robustness of algorithms for the job shop scheduling problem in the presence of processing time and number of job perturbations is studied. Three different algorithms are compared: a standard genetic algorithm and two selection level diversity control methods. Definitions of robustness and diversity are presented in order to build a framework for the study of their relations. It is concluded in this research that the key to obtaining a robust design is neither accuracy nor diversity but an exigent combination of both.
Predicting language and social outcomes at age 5 for later-born siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders

The relation between early joint attention (in which a child coordinates attention between another person and an object or event) and later language and social outcomes was examined in younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (Sibs-ASD) and younger siblings of children with typical development (Sibs-TD). Initial levels of joint attention (at a mean age of 15 months) as well as growth in levels of joint attention (between 15 months and 34 months) were used as potential predictors of outcomes at age 5. The results revealed that initial levels of initiating joint attention (IJA) were associated with language skills at outcome. In addition, growth of responding to joint attention (RJA) was associated with social skills at age 5. These patterns of associations were not significantly different between the Sibs-TD and Sibs-ASD groups. Although the Sibs-ASD group had lower joint attention scores than the Sibs-TD group at younger ages, significant group differences were not found for most measures at age 5.
The Histone Folds in Transcription Factor TFIID (*)

The transcription factor TFIID is a multimeric protein complex containing the TATA box-binding polypeptide (TBP) and TBP-associated factors. We have previously reported that the N-terminal regions of dTAF62 and dTAF42 have sequence similarities with histones H4 and H3. Here, we demonstrate that the histone-homologous regions of dTAF62 and dTAF42 form a heteromeric complex both in vitro and in a yeast two-hybrid system. Neither dTAF62 nor dTAF42 forms a homomeric complex, in agreement with a nucleosomal histone character. Moreover, circular dichroism measurements show that the heteromeric complex is dominated by α-helical secondary structure. These results strongly suggest the existence of a histone-like surface on TFIID.
An Overview of KQML: A Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language

We describe a language and protocol intended to support interoperability among intelligent agents in a distributed application. Examples of applications envisioned include intelligent multi-agent design systems as well as intelligent planning, scheduling and replanning agents supporting distributed transportation planning and scheduling applications. The language, KQML for Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language, is part of a larger DARPA-sponsored Knowledge Sharing e ort focused on developing techniques and tools to promote the sharing on knowledge in intelligent systems. e will de ne the concepts which underly KQML and attempt to specify its scope and provide a model for how it will be used. Please send comments to Tim Finin, Computer Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore MD 21228; nin@cs.umbc. edu; 410-455-3522 or to Don Mckay, Paramax Systems Corporation, PO Box 517, Paoli PA 19301; mckay@prc.unisys. com; 215-648-2256. This work is partly supported by DARPA and Rome Laboratory under USAF contract F30602-91-C-0040. **** DRAFT **** 1 **** DRAFT ****
Improved Semantic Retrieval of Spoken Content by Document/Query Expansion with Random Walk Over Acoustic Similarity Graphs

In a text context, document/query expansion has proven very useful in retrieving objects semantically related to the query. However, when applying text-based techniques on spoken content, the inevitable recognition errors seriously degrade performance even when the retrieval process is performed over lattices. We propose the estimation of more accurate term distributions (or unigram language models) for the spoken documents by acoustic similarity graphs. In this approach, a graph is constructed for each term describing the acoustic similarity among all signal regions hypothesized to be the considered term. Score propagation based on a random walk over the graph offers more reliable scores of the term hypotheses, which in turn yield more accurate term distributions (or unigram language models). This approach was applied with the language modeling retrieval approach, including using document expansion based on latent topic analysis and query expansion with a query-regularized mixture model. We extend these approaches from words to subword n-grams, and the query expansion from document-level to utterance-level and from term-based to topic-based. Experiments performed on Mandarin broadcast news showed improved performance under almost all tested conditions.
Establishment of a security system using Aspect Oriented Programming

Security systems are complex systems that perform multiple functions such as position locating of personnel, entry/exit management of personnel, entrance management, monitoring, logging, tracing, authentication, and authorization. This paper attempts to establish a security system using aspect oriented programming (AOP). Because it is possible to establish a system by completely separating the business logic and security logic of a system using AOP, there is the advantage of being able to clearly identify the roles of each module. Also, doing so enables the establishment of a more flexible system through leveraging the innate advantages of AOP, which are expansion of code reusability and implementation of efficient features.
Not Only What but Also When: A Theory of Dynamic Voluntary Disclosure

We examine a dynamic model of voluntary disclosure of multiple pieces of private information. In our model, a manager of a firm who may learn multiple signals over time interacts with a competitive capital market and maximizes payoffs that increase in both period prices. We show (perhaps surprisingly) that in equilibrium later disclosures are interpreted more favorably even though the time the manager obtains the signals is independent of the value of the firm. We also provide sufficient conditions for the equilibrium to be in threshold strategies.
Raising the Compatibility of Heterogeneous Annotations: A Case Study on

While there are several corpora which claim to have annotations for protein references, the heterogeneity between the annotations is recognized as an obstacle to develop expensive resources in a synergistic way. Here we present a series of experimental results which show the differences of protein mention annotations made to two corpora, GENIA and AImed.
File-Access Characteristics of Parallel Scientific Workloads

Phenomenal improvements in the computational performance of multiprocessors have not been matched by comparable gains in I/O system performance. This imbalance has resulted in I/O becoming a significant bottleneck for many scientific applications. One key to overcoming this bottleneck is improving the performance of multiprocessor file systems. The design of a high-performance multiprocessor file system requires a comprehensive understanding of the expected workload. Unfortunately, until recently, no general workload studies of multiprocessor file systems have been conducted. The goal of the CHARISMA project was to remedy this problem by characterizing the behavior of several production workloads, on different machines, at the level of individual reads and writes. The first set of results from the CHARISMA project describe the workloads observed on an Intel iPSC/860 and a Thinking Machines CM-5. This paper is intended to compare and contrast these two workloads for an understanding of their essential similarities and differences, isolating common trends and platform-dependent variances. Using this comparison, we are able to gain more insight into the general principles that should guide multiprocessor file-system design.