Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Institutional strategies to involve first-year students in service

Providing entering students with an educational culture that promotes academic success is a high priority for campus administrators and faculty. It is estimated that one third of all first-year students drop out of the college they first enter (Levitz & Noel, 1998). Although this national average has remained fairly consistent over the past 20 years, retention has become a more important issue for higher education because of the pressure of increased public accountability and an ever-competitive allocation of shrinking public resources. Furthermore, colleges and universities have an internal imperative—for both ethical reasons and institutional health—to exert their best effort to retain students (Bean, 1986). Improving retention is ethically demanded because students who do not persist to graduation receive fewer benefits from their truncated educational experiences. They may exit the system having made a significant financial investment and accruing debt with little return. At the institutional level, tuition income is lost when students drop out, and recruiting new students to replace those who have left adds to the cost of attrition. Additionally, institutional reputation is diminished if retention rates are low, potentially contributing to lower faculty and staff morale (Bean, 1986). A campus environment that strategically focuses on first-year success, and at the same time takes seriously the importance of civic engagement, holds great potential for providing meaningful educational experiences that can improve retention. As Tinto (1999) suggests, students who are active learners, both in and out of the classroom, are more likely to persist:
A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism within the Acetyl-Coenzyme A Carboxylase Beta Gene Is Associated with Proteinuria in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

It has been suggested that genetic susceptibility plays an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. A large-scale genotyping analysis of gene-based single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes identified the gene encoding acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase beta (ACACB) as a candidate for a susceptibility to diabetic nephropathy; the landmark SNP was found in the intron 18 of ACACB (rs2268388: intron 18 +4139 C > T, p = 1.4×10−6, odds ratio = 1.61, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.33–1.96). The association of this SNP with diabetic nephropathy was examined in 9 independent studies (4 from Japan including the original study, one Singaporean, one Korean, and two European) with type 2 diabetes. One case-control study involving European patients with type 1 diabetes was included. The frequency of the T allele for SNP rs2268388 was consistently higher among patients with type 2 diabetes and proteinuria. A meta-analysis revealed that rs2268388 was significantly associated with proteinuria in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes (p = 5.35×10−8, odds ratio = 1.61, 95% Cl: 1.35–1.91). Rs2268388 was also associated with type 2 diabetes–associated end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in European Americans (p = 6×10−4, odds ratio = 1.61, 95% Cl: 1.22–2.13). Significant association was not detected between this SNP and nephropathy in those with type 1 diabetes. A subsequent in vitro functional analysis revealed that a 29-bp DNA fragment, including rs2268388, had significant enhancer activity in cultured human renal proximal tubular epithelial cells. Fragments corresponding to the disease susceptibility allele (T) had higher enhancer activity than those of the major allele. These results suggest that ACACB is a strong candidate for conferring susceptibility for proteinuria in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Temptation at work: a field experiment on willpower and productivity

Temptations are a largely unavoidable part of life. Resisting them is usually seen as a virtuous behavior. Recent research in social psychology, however, suggests that using willpower to delay gratification can detrimentally impact performance on immediately subsequent tasks. Using standard economic theory, we develop a model connecting willpower to productivity. When delaying gratification is difficult, the model predicts exposure to a tempting good detrimentally impacts productivity, while when delaying gratification is easy, exposure to temptation can lead to productivity gains. We then report data from a field experiment with children of different ages. Since the research in child development has established that younger children have difficulty delaying gratification, while after age 10 children become skilled at doing so, we exploited this exogenous variation to test the predictions of our model. Our results suggest that a prohibited temptation affects work productivity in a way consistent with theory: it is negative for the youngest children (aged under 8) and positive for the oldest (aged above 10). We also observe a significantly different impact by gender. It thus seems that prohibiting a temptation needs not eliminate its impact on productivity, a result of importance to anyone interested in designing policies to promote efficiency.
The Skilled Facilitator Approach

The Skilled Facilitator approach is a values-based, systemic approach to facilitation. It is designed to help groups increase the quality of decisions, increase commitment to decisions, reduce effective implementation time, improve working relationships, improve personal satisfaction in groups, and increase organizational learning. It accomplishes this in a way that creates collaborative relationships between the facilitator and the group and within the group itself. In this chapter, I identify the key elements of the approach and explain how they fit together.
Colour perception and the use of video playback experiments in animal behaviour

LEO J. FLEISHMAN*, WILLIAM J. McCLINTOCK†, RICHARD B. D’EATH‡, DAVID H. BRAINARD§ & JOHN A. ENDLER** *Department of Biological Sciences, Union College †Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California at Santa Barbara, U.S.A. ‡Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh §Department of Psychology, University of California at Santa Barbara, U.S.A. **Department of Zoology and Tropical Ecology, James Cook University, Australia
Semi-automatic Segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis Lesion Based Active Contours Model and Variational Dirichlet Process

: We propose a new semi-automatic segmentation based Active Contour Model and statistic prior knowledge of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Lesions in Regions Of Interest (RIO) within brain Magnetic Resonance Images(MRI). Reliable segmentation of MS lesion is important for at least three types of practical applications: pharmaceutical trails, making decision for drug treatment, patient follow-up. Manual segmentation of the MS lesions in brain MRI by well qualiﬁed experts is usually preferred. However, manual segmentation is hard to reproduce and can be highly cost and time consuming in the presence of large volume of MRI data. In other hand, automated segmentation methods are signiﬁcantly faster yielding reproducible results. However, these methods generally produced segmentation results that agree only partially with the ground truth segmentation provided by the expert. In this paper, we propose a new semi-automatic segmentation based Active Contour model for MS lesion that combines expert knowledge with a low computational cost to produce more reliable MS segmentation results. In particular, the user selects coarse RIO that encloses potential MS lesions and a sufﬁcient background of the healthy White Matter tissues (WM). Having this two class statistic properties, we propose to extract texture features corresponding to health and MS lesion. The results draw showed a signiﬁcant improvement of the proposed model.
Study the task completion time of the Benchmarks @1GHz, 2GHz and 3GHz processors

The AMD Opteron series processor are having 64-bit operating environment. The high-performance computing (HPC) community has helped processor manufacturers to implement a high performance and low cost processor with reduced instruction set (RISC) like. This paper explains the variation of task completion time with respect to different benchmarks in SPEC CPU INT 2006 benchmark suite using AMD Opteron 2000+ and AMD Opteron 8000+ Series performance scores. We have also calculated Memory wait time @1GHz, @2GHz and@3GHz processor frequency. The benchmarks 429.mcf, 445.gobmk, 456.hmmer, 458.sjeng, 464.h264ref and 483.xalancbmk shows less memory wait time @1GHz, @2GHz and@3GHz processor frequency. The other six benchmarks in INT suite shows high memory wait time. Among all benchmarks 483.xalancbmk (XSLT Processor) and 456.hmmer (Search a Gene Sequence Database) shows high performance on AMD Opteron 2000+ and AMD Opteron 8000+ Series.
The Learning Cycle of Individual Digital Competency in Organizations

These days, a person's competency of knowledge and utilization impacts the improvement of company's competitiveness. However, indeed, it seems to be very hard to "recognise" and "discover" them, so that frequently those people who possess competencies are not able to detect them, and have neither method nor tools to help them. Accordingly, this study based on previous research about competency development defines the competency development level and the type of learning with data verification. Furthermore, it will be the foundation for a companypsilas competitiveness with a sustained competency development.
Mining Academic Data Using Visual Patterns

The Mexican Educative System collects thousands of records each year, related with student performance to support academic decisions. In this paper the data analysis, structures and different visual alternatives are used to discover student trajectories and mobility patterns. A model and a software tool have been developed and complemented with available visualization tools to enable visual pattern detection. The development has been tested with samples of data from several Mexican states and the results encourage the proposal to be used as an alternative to discover data patterns following a visual approach. The implementation of the proposal facilitates timely detection of student progress and bottlenecks for the teacher to provide students with supplementary materials and guides focused towards knowledge acquisition, skills and master concepts, techniques, tools management or production and development of innovative ideas.
The Glycosylation Pathway of Eimeria tenella Is Upregulated during Gametocyte Development and May Play a Role in Oocyst Wall Formation

ABSTRACT Sexual-stage glycoproteins of Eimeria are important components of the oocyst wall, a structure that ensures the efficient transmission of these and related parasites. In this study, the primary enzyme in the glycosylation pathway of Eimeria tenella, glucosamine:fructose-6-phosphate aminotransferase (EtGFAT), has been characterized as a macrogamete-specific protein. Although the transcription of EtGFAT was observed early in macrogamete development, protein expression was restricted to mature macrogametes, prior to their conversion into unsporulated oocysts. Genes coding for three other enzymes required for N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) synthesis were also transcribed during E. tenella macrogamete development. Gene transcription of the enzyme responsible for the O-linked transfer of GalNAc to proteins, EtGalNAc-T, was upregulated primarily in unsporulated oocyst stages, and accordingly, a significant increase in GalNAc levels was observed in E. tenella gametocytes and oocysts. Gam56 and Gam82, two well-characterized glycoproteins of Eimeria macrogametes and the oocyst wall, contain high levels of GalNAc and represent probable targets of GalNAc O linkage. It appears that the glycosylation pathway, specifically relating to the formation of GalNAc O links, is dramatically upregulated in E. tenella sexual stages and may play a role in directing a number of macrogamete proteins to the developing oocyst wall.
A population model for $\Lambda$-coalescents with neutral mutations

Bertoin and Le Gall [1] introduced a certain probability measure valued Markov process that describes the evolution of a population, such that a sample from this population would exhibit a genealogy given by the so-called Λ-coalescent, or coalescent with multiple collisions, introduced independently by Pitman [9] and Sagitov [10]. We show how this process can be extended to the case where lineages can experience mutations. Regenerative compositions enter naturally into this model, which is somewhat surprising, considering a negative result by Möhle [7]. AMS 2000 Subject classification: 60G09, 60G57, 92D25.
Structural and biochemical characterization of a mitochondrial peroxiredoxin from Plasmodium falciparum

Plasmodium falciparum possesses a single mitochondrion with a functional electron transport chain. During respiration, reactive oxygen species are generated that need to be removed to protect the organelle from oxidative damage. In the absence of catalase and glutathione peroxidase, the parasites rely primarily on peroxiredoxin‐linked systems for protection. We have analysed the biochemical and structural features of the mitochondrial peroxiredoxin and thioredoxin of P. falciparum. The mitochondrial localization of both proteins was confirmed by expressing green fluorescent protein fusions in parasite erythrocytic stages. Recombinant protein was kinetically characterized using the cytosolic and the mitochondrial thioredoxin (PfTrx1 and PfTrx2 respectively). The peroxiredoxin clearly preferred PfTrx2 to PfTrx1 as a reducing partner, reflected by the KM values of 11.6 μM and 130.4 μM respectively. Substitution of the two dyads asparagine‐62/tyrosine‐63 and phenylalanine‐139/alanine‐140 residues by aspartate‐phenylalaine and valine‐serine, respectively, reduced the KM for Trx1 but had no effect on the KM of Trx2 suggesting some role for these residues in the discrimination between the two substrates. Solution studies suggest that the protein exists primarily in a homodecameric form. The crystal structure of the mitochondrial peroxiredoxin reveals a fold typical of the 2‐Cys class peroxiredoxins and a dimeric form with an intermolecular disulphide bridge between Cys67 and Cys187. These results show that the mitochondrial peroxiredoxin of P. falciparum occurs in both dimeric and decameric forms when purified under non‐reducing conditions.
Force gestures: augmenting touch screen gestures with normal and tangential forces

Force gestures are touch screen gestures augmented by the normal and tangential forces on the screen. In order to study the feasibility of the force gestures on a mobile touch screen, we implemented a prototype touch screen device that can sense the normal and tangential forces of a touch gesture on the screen. We also designed two example applications, a web browser and an e-book reader, that utilize the force gestures for their primary actions. We conducted a user study with the prototype and the applications to study the characteristics of the force gestures and the effectiveness of their mapping to the primary actions. In the user study we could also discover interesting usability issues and collect useful user feedback about the force gestures and their mapping to GUI actions.
Pronouns without NP antecedents: how do we know when a pronoun is referential?

Pronouns without explicit noun phrase antecedents pose a problem for any theory of reference resolution. We report here on an empirical study of such pronouns in the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, a corpus of spontaneous, casual conversation. Analysis of 2,046 third person personal pronouns in fourteen transcripts indicates that 330 (or 16.1%) lack NP antecedents. These pronouns fall into a variety of subtypes. 88 refer to entities that are inferable from an activated frame or script, or are otherwise easily accommodated. In 110 cases, it could refer to a fact, proposition event, activity, situation, or reason which has been evoked by a previous non-NP. 92 cases of it were classified as pleonastic. In this paper we focus on some problematic subclasses of pronouns which could be analyzed as either referring to entities of various degrees of abstractness that were introduced by or implied in previous discourse, or as non-referential, including pleonastic. Such cases include possible truncated cleft pronouns, possible truncated extraposition pronouns, and certain non-specific uses of they.
A Flexible and Efficient Protocol for Multi-Scope Service Registry Replication

Service registries play an important role in service discovery systems by accepting service registrations and answering service queries; they can serve a wide range of purposes, such as membership services, lookup services, and search services. To provide fault tolerant, and enhance scalability, availability and performance, service registries often need to be replicated. In this paper, we present Swift (Selective anti-entropy WIth FasT update propagation), a flexible and efficient protocol for multi-scope service registry replication. As consistency is a less of concern compared with availability in service registry replication, we choose to build Swift on top of anti-entropy to support high availability replication. Swift makes two contributions as follows. First, it defines a more general and flexible form of anti-entropy called selective anti-entropy, which extends the applicability of anti-entropy from full replication to partial replication by selectively reconciling inconsistent states between two replicas, and improves anti-entropy efficiency by fine controlling update propagation within each subset. Selective anti-entropy is the first that we are aware of in using anti-entropy to support generic partial replication. Secondly, Swift integrates service registry overlay networks with selective antientropy. Different topologies, such as full mesh and spanning tree, can be used for constructing service registry overlay networks. These overlay networks are used to propagate new updates quickly so as to minimize inconsistency among replicas. We have implemented Swift for replicating multi-scope Directory Agents in the Service Location Protocol. Our experience shows that Swift is flexible, efficient, and lightweight.
A face recognition algorithm based on compressive sensing and wavelets transform

In face recognition, image brings great inconvenience to the hardware because its high degree of redundancy and a largequantity of data. This paper introduces a theory of Compressive Sensing(CS) for Face Recognition (CSFR) that a DWT is applied to the dictionary which created by all training samples, then the image is processed by CS in wavelet domain. The reconstruction is computed withOrthogonal Matching Pursuit(OMP) algorithm, and the residual(the distance between the reconstruction vector and the training vector) determines the class of thetest data. The computer experiment on ORL database shows that the CSFR algorithm based on DWT (DWT-CFSR) performs more robust and effective in face recognition than SRC and PCA algorithms.
Signals of Expertise in Public and Enterprise Social Q&A

The success of internet social question-answering (Q&A) sites has led businesses to attempt to duplicate this model in- ternally. In such systems, demand for expertise is high, mean- ing that finding high-quality answers quickly is a top priority. Prior work on expertise discovery, though, has focused on high-traffic public websites like StackExchange. Here, we show that the most predictive metadata features from public websites do not transfer well to the enterprise.
Assortment and Pricing with Demand Learning

Retailers, from fashion stores to grocery stores, have to decide what range of products to offer (assortment planning) and what prices to charge (price optimization). New business trends, such as mass customization and shorter product life cycles, make predicting demand more difficult, which in turn complicates assortment planning and price optimization. We propose and study a stochastic dynamic programming model for simultaneously making assortment and pricing decisions that incorporates demand learning using Bayesian updates. Analytical as well as computational results obtained using the model demonstrate the value of demand learning and provide managerial insights that may help improve a retailer’s profitability. keywords: assortment planning, price optimization, demand learning, Bayesian updating, stochastic dynamic programming
Bifunctional ectodermal stem cells around the nail display dual fate homeostasis and adaptive wounding response toward nail regeneration

Significance Skin appendages including hair follicles, sweat glands, and nails offer a source of regenerative support following injury. Here, we focus on the regenerative potential of the peri-nail region and reveal a population of K15-positive, label retaining cells (LRCs) within the nail proximal fold with self-renewal capabilities. Physiologically, these cells display bifunctional stem cell qualities and contribute to both the nail structure and peri-nail epidermis long term; however, upon injury, the homeostatic balance is tilted toward nail regeneration. Molecularly, reduced bone morphogenetic protein signaling tilts nail keratinocytes toward an epidermal fate. Collectively, we demonstrate the plasticity of these stem cells: bifunctional under normal homeostasis, but adaptive in response to wounding. Such principles may exist in the interface between other ectodermal organs and skin. Regulation of adult stem cells (SCs) is fundamental for organ maintenance and tissue regeneration. On the body surface, different ectodermal organs exhibit distinctive modes of regeneration and the dynamics of their SC homeostasis remain to be unraveled. A slow cycling characteristic has been used to identify SCs in hair follicles and sweat glands; however, whether a quiescent population exists in continuously growing nails remains unknown. Using an in vivo label retaining cells (LRCs) system, we detected an unreported population of quiescent cells within the basal layer of the nail proximal fold, organized in a ring-like configuration around the nail root. These nail LRCs express the hair stem cell marker, keratin 15 (K15), and lineage tracing show that these K15-derived cells can contribute to both the nail structure and peri-nail epidermis, and more toward the latter. Thus, this stem cell population is bifunctional. Upon nail plucking injury, the homeostasis is tilted with these SCs dominantly delivering progeny to the nail matrix and differentiated nail plate, demonstrating their plasticity to adapt to wounding stimuli. Moreover, in vivo engraftment experiments established that transplanted nail LRCs can actively participate in functional nail regeneration. Transcriptional profiling of isolated nail LRCs revealed bone morphogenetic protein signaling favors nail differentiation over epidermal fate. Taken together, we have found a previously unidentified ring-configured population of bifunctional SCs, located at the interface between the nail appendage organ and adjacent epidermis, which physiologically display coordinated homeostatic dynamics but are capable of rediverting stem cell flow in response to injury.