Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Language and Literacy Multilevel Constructs in Young Nonmainstream American English Speakers: Examining Relationships between Latent Variables

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY MULTILEVEL CONSTRUCTS IN YOUNG NONMAINSTREAM AMERICAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS: EXAMINING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LATENT VARIABLES by Souraya Mansour Mitri According to the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP, 2013), children from race and language minority groups continue to perform significantly lower than their peers on reading achievement tests. Current perspectives suggest that multiple factors (e.g., household income, parent education) likely contribute to the achievement gap between African American children and their White peers and children from low income and middle income households (Barton & Coley, 2010; Chatterji, 2006; Jencks & Phillips, 1998), leading to multiple approaches (e.g., Head Start Early Reading First) to prevent or alleviate the trend (Barnett, Coralon, Fitzgerald, & Squires, 2011). However, African American children continue to perform lower than their White peers, and continue to be over-represented in special services. It has become increasingly important to understand the contributors to early reading development among African American children. The purpose of this study was to provide a descriptive view of early language and literacy among typically developing children in prekindergarten who speak nonmainstream American English at child and classroom levels. Approximately 673 typically developing children in 95 prekindergarten classrooms were included in this study from a larger cross-sectional study. Results support a model with language, literacy, and dialect as separate constructs at the child level while language and literacy as one construct and dialect as the second construct at the classroom level. Language and literacy were highly related but distinct at the child level but perfectly correlated at the classroom level. The dialect construct was moderately and negatively related to language and literacy at both levels.
Maladaptive Schemas as a Predictor of Residential Treatment Outcomes in Females with Eating Disorders

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . v LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . xi CHAPTER I. PROBLEM STATEMENT . 1 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . 6 Background and Significance . 6 Cognitive Processes . 12 III. METHOD . 23 Brief Overview of Study Design and Location . 23 Procedure . 26 Data Collection . 30 Data Analysis . 32 IV. RESULTS . 37 Results for Hypothesis 1: Maladaptive Schemas as Predictors of Eating Disorder Symptom Severity . 39 Results for Hypothesis 2: Change in Eating Disorder Symptomatology as a Factor of Change in Maladaptive Schema Activity . 45 Relationship of Maladaptive Schemas to Length of Stay in Treatment . 54 V. DISCUSSION . 58 Relationship of Maladaptive Schemas to Admit and Discharge Symptomatology . 59 Relationship Between Changes in Maladaptive Schemas to Changes in Symptomatology Across Time . 62 Relationship Between Maladaptive Core Beliefs and Time in Residential Treatment . 64 viii Page Summary of Findings . 67 Limitations . 69 Conclusions and Recommendations . 71 REFERENCES . 73 APPENDICES . 81 Appendix A: YSQ-S3 . 82 Appendix B: AH Online Assessment Behavior Observations . 89 Appendix C: Consent Form . 91 Appendix D: Facility Research Permission Letter . 95 CURRICULUM VITAE . 97
Compliance: clear communication’s critical

Non-compliance can be subdivided into voluntary and involuntary types. Voluntary non-compliance is patients deciding not to use their medication. Involuntary non-compliance refers to situations where medications are used incorrectly, such as eye drops missing the conjunctival sac, using incorrect medication, or following an incorrect regime. The impact of non-compliance is particularly important for patients with chronic diseases such as glaucoma.1 We collected data from patients in our clinic to try to ascertain the frequency and nature of any discrepancies between the drop regimes patients were using and what their notes said their current regimes should be. …
Table of Contents.

x BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE 1 Electrophysiological Evidence of a Temperature/Taste Interaction Behavioral Evidence Supporting a Taste/Temperature Interaction Thermal Stimulus Control Preference for Thermal Stimuli Avoidance Behavior to a Thermal Cue (or Conditioned Temperature Aversion Discrimination of Thermal Stimuli Generalization of a Thermal Aversion Relative Saliency for Thermal and Gustatory Cues Relative Extinction Times of Thermal and Gustatory Aversions GENERAL METHODS 10 Subjects Apparatus Water Testing Preference Testing Conditioned Aversion Testing EXPERIMENT 1: SHORT-TERM PREFERENCE TO WATER AT DIFFERENT THERMAL CUES 12 EXPERIMENT 2: EXPRESSION OF A CONDITIONED TEMPERATURE AVERSION 15
Principles and Methods for Face Recognition and Face Modelling

This chapter focuses on the principles behind methods currently used for face recognition, which have a wide variety of uses from biometrics, surveillance and forensics. After a brief description of how faces can be detected in images, we describe 2D feature extraction methods that operate on all the image pixels in the face detected region: Eigenfaces and Fisherfaces ﬁrst proposed in the early 1990s. Although Eigenfaces can be made to work reasonably well for faces captured in controlled conditions, such as frontal faces under the same illumination, recognition rates are poor. We discuss how greater accuracy can be achieved by extracting features from the boundaries of the faces by using Active Shape Models and, the skin textures, using Active Appearance Models, originally proposed by Cootes and Talyor. The remainder of the chapter on face recognition is dedicated such shape models, their implementation and use and their extension to 3D. We show that if multiple cameras are used the the 3D geometry of the captured faces can be recovered without the use of range scanning or structured light. 3D face models make recognition systems better at dealiing with pose and lighting variation
Approximation algorithms for scheduling on multiple machines

We develop a single rounding algorithm for scheduling on unrelated parallel machines; this algorithm works well with the known linear programming, quadratic programming, and convex programming-relaxations for scheduling to minimize completion time, makespan, and other well-studied objective functions. We obtain the following applications for the general setting of unrelated parallel machines: (i) a bicriteria algorithm for a schedule whose weighted completion-time and makespan simultaneously exhibit the current-best individual approximations for these criteria (3/2 and 2, respectively); (ii) better-than-two approximation guarantees for scheduling under the L/sub p/ norm for all 1 < p < /spl infin/, improving on the 2-approximation algorithms of Azar & Epstein; and (iii) the first constant-factor multicriteria approximation algorithms that handle the weighted completion-time and any given collection of integer L/sub p/ norms. Our algorithm yields a common generalization of rounding theorems due to Karp et al and Shmoys & Tardos; among other applications, this yields an improved approximation for scheduling with resource-dependent processing times studied by Grigoriev et al.
Combined Complexity of Repair Checking and Consistent Query Answering

Inconsistent databases (i.e., databases violating some given set of integrity constraints) may arise in many applications such as, for instance, data integration. Hence, the handling of inconsistent data has evolved as an active field of research. In this paper, we consider two fundamental problems in this context: Repair Checking (RC) and Consistent Query Answering (CQA). So far, these problems have been mainly studied from the point of view of data complexity (where all parts of the input except for the database are considered as fixed). While for some kinds of integrity constraints, also combined complexity (where all parts of the input are allowed to vary) has been considered, for several other kinds of integrity constraints, combined complexity has been left unexplored. Moreover, a more detailed analysis (keeping other parts of the input fixed - e.g., the constraints only) is completely missing. The goal of our work is a thorough analysis of the complexity of the RC and CQA problems. Our contribution is a complete picture of the complexity of these problems for a wide range of integrity constraints. Our analysis thus allows us to get a better understanding of the true sources of complexity.
Computers and Mathematics with Applications a Sampling Theorem for Non-bandlimited Signals Using Generalized Sinc Functions

A ladder shaped filter of two real parameters a 1 , a 2 ∈ (−1, 1) is introduced in this note. The impulse response of the corresponding Linear Time Invariant (LTI) system is a generalized Sinc function of two parameters. Consequently a generalized Shannon-type sampling theorem is established for a class of non-bandlimited signals with special spectrum properties associated with a ladder shaped filter of two parameters. Finally, a mathematical characterization for the class of non-bandlimited signals satisfying the generalized sampling theorem is offered. These signals are restrictions to the real line of certain analytic functions in stripped domains symmetric about the real axis in the complex plane. For these signals, their spectra in higher frequency bands are measured by the spectrum of their base bands.
A small and slim printed Yagi antenna for mobile applications

In this paper, we propose a slim printed Yagi antenna. The length of the proposed antenna is reduced by 43% compared with a typical dipole antenna applying the meander structure. In addition, the spacing between the antenna and the reflector is designed as 0.01lambda. A folded dipole and a lumped balun transformer were adopted to compensate the low radiation resistance caused by the reduced spacing. Finally, the performance of the proposed antenna was verified through application on vehicle GPS systems (1.575GHz).
Frailty Is Independently Associated With Short-Term Outcomes for Elderly Patients With Non – ST-Segment Elevation – Myocardial Infarction

The following are highlights from the new series, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes Topic Review. This series will summarize the most important manuscripts, as selected by the Editor, that have published in the Circulation portfolio. The objective of this new series is to provide our readership with a timely, comprehensive selection of important papers that are relevant to the quality and outcomes and general cardiology audience. The studies included in this article represent the most significant research in the area of cardiovascular disease in the elderly. (Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2012;5:e17-e26.)
Madras COOPERATIVE TASK PLANNING OF MULTI-ROBOT SYSTEMS

Multiple cooperating robots hold the promise of improved performance and increased fault tolerance for large-scale problems. A robot team can accomplish a given task more quickly than a single agent by executing them concurrently. A team can also make effective use of specialists designed for a single purpose rather than requiring that a single robot be a generalist. Multi-robot coordination, however, is a complex problem. An empirical study is described in the present paper that sought general guidelines for task allocation strategies. Different task allocation strategies are identified, and demonstrated in the multirobot environment. A simulation study of the methodology is carried out in a simulated grid world. The results show that there is no single strategy that produces best performance in all cases, and that the best task allocation strategy changes as a function of the noise in the system. This result is significant, and shows the need for further investigation of task allocation strategies.
Data-centric Rogue Node Detection in VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are the future of vehicular technology and Traffic Information Systems. In VANETs vehicles communicate by different types of beacon messages to inform each other of their position and speed to give them a sense of traffic around them. Vehicles can also send emergency messages in case of accidents or other hazards. The very fast moving nodes have to act quickly based on these emergency messages. However, a rogue node which sends false emergency messages can wreak havoc in the network that may even result in fatalities. This paper develops and simulates a technique to detect a rogue node that is sending false emergency messages in VANETs by cooperative exchange of data without the need of any infrastructure or revocation list. Also, the proposed mechanism will make VANETs fault tolerant and resilient against injection of false data.
Human-robot collaboration

environment human-robot teaming scenarios , such as this photo of a collaborative furniture assembly task, are at the center of a growing field of robotics and AI research: Human-Robot Collaboration. This domain combines a variety of technical areas within Human-Robot Interaction, with the goal of enabling safe, seamless , effective teamwork between groups of humans and robots. Central to this research are a host of challenges in task planning, motion planning , intention recognition, user modeling, scene recognition, and human-robot communication. These systems are expected to safely and efficiently perform complex actions, assisting humans and independently completing tasks, in a diverse range of scenarios with highly dynamic and uncertain environments.
High-Level Synthesis: Productivity, Performance, and Software Constraints

FPGAs are an attractive platform for applications with high computation demand and low energy consumption requirements. However, design effort for FPGA implementations remains high--often an order of magnitude larger than design effort using high-level languages. Instead of this time-consuming process, high-level synthesis (HLS) tools generate hardware implementations from algorithm descriptions in languages such as C/C++ and SystemC. Such tools reduce design effort: high-level descriptions are more compact and less error prone. HLS tools promise hardware development abstracted from software designer knowledge of the implementation platform. In this paper, we present an unbiased study of the performance, usability and productivity of HLS using AutoPilot (a state-of-the-art HLS tool). In particular, we first evaluate AutoPilot using the popular embedded benchmark kernels. Then, to evaluate the suitability of HLS on real-world applications, we perform a case study of stereo matching, an active area of computer vision research that uses techniques also common for image denoising, image retrieval, feature matching, and face recognition. Based on our study, we provide insights on current limitations of mapping general-purpose software to hardware using HLS and some future directions for HLS tool development. We also offer several guidelines for hardware-friendly software design. For popular embedded benchmark kernels, the designs produced by HLS achieve 4× to 126× speedup over the software version. The stereo matching algorithms achieve between 3.5× and 67.9× speedup over software (but still less than manual RTL design) with a fivefold reduction in design effort versus manual RTL design.
Relationship classification in large scale online social networks and its impact on information propagation

In this paper, we study two tightly coupled topics in online social networks (OSN): relationship classification and information propagation. The links in a social network often reflect social relationships among users. In this work, we first investigate identifying the relationships among social network users based on certain social network property and limited pre-known information. Social networks have been widely used for online marketing. A critical step is the propagation maximization by choosing a small set of seeds for marketing. Based on the social relationships learned in the first step, we show how to exploit these relationships to maximize the marketing efficacy. We evaluate our approach on large scale real-world data from Renren network, showing that the performances of our relationship classification and propagation maximization algorithm are pretty good in practice.
Protograph LDPC Codes Design Based on EXIT Analysis

In this paper, a novel extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) analysis is presented for protograph-based and multi- edge type low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. A protograph defines a subset of an LDPCC ensemble (identified by the degree distributions of the bipartite graph), introducing further constraints about the edge connections. For many codes belonging to this class, the conventional approach based on EXIT charts cannot be applied. The proposed EXIT analysis takes into account edge connections, permitting the decoding convergence evaluation for protograph-based LDPC codes, allowing the design of highly-structured capacity approaching LDPC codes.
What defines a category? Evidence that listeners' perception is governed by generalizations

Listeners draw on their knowledge of phonetic categories when identifying speech sounds, extracting meaningful structural features from auditory cues. We use a Bayesian model to investigate the extent to which their perceptions of linguistic content incorporate their full knowledge of the phonetic category structure, or only certain aspects of this knowledge. Simulations show that listeners are best modeled as attending primarily to the most salient phonetic feature of a category when interpreting a cue, possibly attending to other features only in cases of high ambiguity. These results support the conclusion that listeners ignore potentially informative correlations in favor of efficient communication.
FAB-MAP + RatSLAM: Appearance-based SLAM for multiple times of day

Appearance-based mapping and localisation is especially challenging when separate processes of mapping and localisation occur at different times of day. The problem is exacerbated in the outdoors where continuous change in sun angle can drastically affect the appearance of a scene. We confront this challenge by fusing the probabilistic local feature based data association method of FAB-MAP with the pose cell filtering and experience mapping of RatSLAM. We evaluate the effectiveness of our amalgamation of methods using five datasets captured throughout the day from a single camera driven through a network of suburban streets. We show further results when the streets are re-visited three weeks later, and draw conclusions on the value of the system for lifelong mapping.
A Chinese Meta-Font

METAFONT is Donald E. Knuth''s system for alphabet design. The system allows an entire family of fonts or "meta-fonts" to be specified precisely and mathematically so that it can be produced in different sizes and styles for different raster devices. We present a new technique for defining Chinese characters hierarchically with METAFONT. We define METAFONT subroutines for commonly used portions of strokes and then combine some of these into routines for drawing complete strokes. Parameters describe the skeletons of the strokes and the stroke routines are carefully designed to transform themselves appropriately. This allows us to handle all of the basic strokes with only 14 different routines. The stroke routines in turn are used to build up groups of strokes and radicals. Special routines for positioning control points ensure that the strokes will join properly in a variety of different styles. The radical routines are parameterized to allow them to be placed at different locations in the typeface and to allow for adjusting their size and shape. Key points are positioned relative to the bounding box for the radical, and the special positioning routines find other points that must be passed to the stroke routines. We use this method to design high quality Song style characters. Global parameters control the style, and we show how these can be used to create Song and Long Song from the same designs. Other settings can produce other familiar styles or even new styles. We show how it is possible to create completely different styles, such as Bold style, merely by substituting different stroke routines. The global parameters can be used to augment simple scaling by altering stroke width and other details to account for changes in size. We can adjust stroke widths to help even out the overall darkness of the characters. We also show how it is possible to experiment with new ideas such as adjusting character widths individually. While many of our characters are based on existing designs, the stroke routines facilitate the design of new characters without the need to refer to detailed drawings. The skeletal parameters and special positioning routines make it easy to position the strokes properly. In our previous paper, in contrast to this, we parameterized the strokes according to their boundaries and copied an existing design. The previous approach made it very difficult to create different styles with the same METAFONT program.
Method and sensor for measuring the concentration of liquid water in a moving gas

The detector includes LEDs or laser diodes (3-5) to illuminate the water drops contained in a gas volume to be measured and an optical network (9) having an arrangement of opaque optical bars. A lens (5) in a flat part of the airplane body (6) with a filter (7) and another lens (8) form an image of the measured volume on the optical network. Photo-detectors (10) detect the luminous radiation transmitted by the optical network. The frequency of appearance of water droplets in the measurement volume is a function of the number of drops per unit volume.
Computing, Communication and Sensor

This paper describes an approach of image noising and denoising by the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method with Local Pixel Grouping (LPG). PCA fully de-correlates the original data set so that the energy of the signal will concentrate on the small subset of PCA transformed dataset. As we know energy of noise evenly spreads over the whole data set, we can easily distinguish signal from noise over PCA domain. It consists of two stages: image estimation by removing the noise and further refinement of the first stage. The noise is
Quantitative control of mitochondria transfer between live single cells using a microfluidic device

ABSTRACT Quantitative control of mitochondria transfer between live cells is a promising approach for genetic manipulation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) because single mitochondrion transfer to a mtDNA-less (ρ0) cell potentially leads to homoplasmy of mtDNA. In this paper, we describe a method for quantitative control of mitochondria transfer between live single cells. For this purpose, we fabricated novel microfluidic devices having cell paring structures with a 4.1, 5.6 or 10.0 μm-length microtunnel. When cells were fused through a microtunnel using the Sendai virus envelope-based method, a strictured cytoplasmic connection was achieved with a length corresponding to that of the microtunnel. Elongation of the cytoplasmic connection led to a decrease in mitochondria transfer to the fusion partner. Moreover, some cell pairs that fused through a 10.0 μm-length microtunnel showed single mitochondrion transfer. Fused cells were spontaneously disconnected from each other when they were recovered in a normal culture medium. These results suggest that our cell fusion method can perform quantitative control of mitochondria transfer that includes a single mitochondrion transfer. Summary: We developed a novel mitochondria transfer platform using a microfluidic device, and succeeded in single mitochondrion transfer between live single cells.