Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic evaluation of e-learning systems: an experimental validation

The evaluation of e-learning applications deserves special attention and evaluators need effective methodologies and appropriate guidelines to perform their task. We have proposed a methodology, called eLSE (e-Learning Systematic Evaluation), which combines a specific inspection technique with user-testing. This inspection aims at allowing inspectors that may not have a wide experience in evaluating e-learning systems to perform accurate evaluations. It is based on the use of evaluation patterns, called Abstract Tasks (ATs), which precisely describe the activities to be performed during inspection. For this reason, it is called AT inspection. In this paper, we present an empirical validation of the AT inspection technique: three groups of novice inspectors evaluated a commercial e-learning system applying the AT inspection, the heuristic inspection, or user-testing. Results have shown an advantage of the AT inspection over the other two usability evaluation methods, demonstrating that Abstract Tasks are effective and efficient tools to drive evaluators and improve their performance. Important methodological considerations on the reliability of usability evaluation techniques are discussed.
Bone mineral density, biochemical markers and skeletal fractures in haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND End-stage renal disease is often associated with altered bone metabolism. METHODS In order to investigate the determinant factors of bone mineral density (BMD) and the risk factors of fractures, we studied 70 patients; 26 women (23 post-menopausal) and 44 men, (mean+/-SD) aged 60.5+/-14.3 years, treated by standard haemodialysis (HD) for 6.4+/-6.8 years. Main circulating bone biochemical markers were assessed and BMD was measured with a Lunar DPX densitometer at five sites. BMD results are expressed as a function of age and gender (Z-score). RESULTS Mean Z-score was markedly decreased at the mid-radius (-2.75+/-1.23) whereas it was normal at the femoral neck (-0.42+/-1.13) and lumbar spine (0.02+/-2.13), and total body (-0.62+/-1.53). Time on HD was negatively correlated to the Z-score at the mid-radius and total body but not at the other sites. Serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), whole PTH or cyclase activating PTH (CAP) and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase concentrations were negatively correlated with Z-scores at all sites. Twenty-one out of 70 patients had sustained a total of 27 fractures since the beginning of dialysis therapy (seven ribs, seven ankles, six vertebrae, three humerus, two wrists and two hips). They had a total body Z-score significantly lower than that of patients without fractures, -1.34+/-1.54 vs -0.37+/-1.46, respectively (P<0.031); however, their Z-scores at the other sites were not different. They were on HD for longer time, 10.4+/-9.5 vs 5.0+/-5.1, respectively (P<0.003), and the relative risk of skeletal fractures was 6.4 times greater after 10 years of HD. The seven patients with rib fractures had a decreased Z-score at most of the sites but not at the mid-radius. Rib fractures but no other fractures were associated with markedly decreased body weight, fat mass and serum leptin levels. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, the Z-score at the mid-radius was decreased in HD patients and correlated with high serum PTH but not with fractures. Bone fractures were associated with the time passed on HD and with a low total body Z-score. Rib fractures were frequent and associated with a poor nutritional state.
Generative Graph Prototypes from Information Theory

In this paper we present a method for constructing a generative prototype for a set of graphs by adopting a minimum description length approach. The method is posed in terms of learning a generative supergraph model from which the new samples can be obtained by an appropriate sampling mechanism. We commence by constructing a probability distribution for the occurrence of nodes and edges over the supergraph. We encode the complexity of the supergraph using an approximate Von Neumann entropy. A variant of the EM algorithm is developed to minimize the description length criterion in which the structure of the supergraph and the node correspondences between the sample graphs and the supergraph are treated as missing data. To generate new graphs, we assume that the nodes and edges of graphs arise under independent Bernoulli distributions and sample new graphs according to their node and edge occurrence probabilities. Empirical evaluations on real-world databases demonstrate the practical utility of the proposed algorithm and show the effectiveness of the generative model for the tasks of graph classification, graph clustering and generating new sample graphs.
Topic modeling for conference analytics

This work presents our attempt to understand the research topics that characterize the papers submitted to a conference, by using topic modeling and data visualization techniques. We infer the latent topics from the abstracts of all the papers submitted to Interspeech2014 by means of Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Pertopic word distributions thus obtained are visualized through word clouds. We also compare the automatically inferred topics against the expert-defined topics (also known as tracks for Interspeech2014). The comparison is based on an information retrieval framework, where we use each latent topic as a query and each track as a document. For each latent topic, we retrieve a ranked list of tracks scored by the degree of word overlap. Each latent topic is associated with the top-scoring track. This analytic procedure was applied to all submissions to Interspeech2014 and sheds some interesting light in terms of providing an overview of topic categorization in the conference, popular versus unpopular topics, emerging topics and topic compositions. Such insights are potentially valuable for understanding the technical content of a field and planning the future development of its conference(s).
Social Network Centrality and Sexual Experience Among a Household Sample of Urban African American Adolescents 1

Jonathan M. Ellen 2 Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Margaret M. Dolcini Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco Natasha D. Bir Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Gary W. Harper Department of Psychology, DePaul University Susan Watson Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco Thomas Valente School of Medicine, University of Southern California
CHiLL : A Framework for Composing High-Level Loop Transformations

This paper describes a general and robust loop transformation framework that enables compilers to generate efficient code on complex loop nests. Despite two decades of prior research on loop optimization, performance of compiler-generated code often falls short of manually optimized versions, even for some well-studied BLAS kernels. There are two primary reasons for this. First, today’s compilers employ fixed transformation strategies, making it difficult to adapt to different optimization requirements for different application codes. Second, code transformations are treated in isolation, not taking into account the interactions between different transformations. This paper addresses such limitations in a unified framework that supports a broad collection of transformations, (permutation, tiling, unroll-and-jam, data copying, iteration space splitting, fusion, distribution and others), which go beyond existing polyhedral transformation models. This framework is a key element of a compiler we are developing which performs empirical optimization to evaluate a collection of alternative optimized variants of a code segment. A script interface to code generation and empirical search permits transformation parameters to be adjusted independently and tested; alternative scripts are used to represent different code variants. By applying this framework to example codes, we show performance results on automaticallygenerated code for the Pentium M and MIPS R10000 that are comparable to the best hand-tuned codes, and significantly better (up to a 14x speedup) than the native compilers.
Changes in some factors of the innate immunity and serum zinc and iron concentrations in pigs following intravenous administration of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide.

The changes in some factors of the innate immunity (phagocytosis, complement, lysozyme); haematological parameters-leukocytes, erythrocytes, differential white blood cell counts, haemoglobin, haematocrit and the serum concentrations of the microelements zinc and iron in six 2- to 3-months-old female piglets after the intravenous administration of lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli 0111:B4 were determined. It was found out that 1 h after the administration of lipopolysaccharide at the dosage rate of 10 microg/kg body weight resulted in a decrease in the phagocytic parameters, i.e. the phagocytic number and the index of phagocytic activity, which was followed by an increase in their values between post treatment hours 2 and 4. The leukocyte counts had decreased by hour 2 after the injection, but thereafter increased, and at post treatment hour 72, a leukocytosis was observed. The differential white blood cell counts were characterized by a shift to the left between hours 2 and 4 and a statistically significant increase in lymphocyte counts at hour 48 of the experiment. The serum zinc concentrations were increased an hour after the lipopolysaccharide application; after which their average values were lower. The haemolytic activities (CH50) of the classical and the alternative pathways of complement activation decreased. The haemolytic activity (CH50) for the classical pathway began to increase at hour 48 following the treatment. Significant changes were not observed in lysozyme activity, serum iron concentrations or the related haematological parameters (erythrocytes and haemoglobin).
Automatic Calculation of SUSY-particle Production )

AbstractWe introduce a new method to treat Majorana fermions and interactions with fermion-number violation on the GRACE system which has been developed for the automatic com-putation of the matrix elements for the processes of the standard model. Thus we haveconstructed a system for the automatic computation of cross-sections for the processes of theminimal SUSY standard model (MSSM). 1 Introduction At the theoretical point of view, it has been a promising hypothesis that there exists a symmetry calledsupersymmetry (SUSY) between bosons and fermions at the uniﬁcation-energy scale. It, however, is abroken symmetry at the electroweak-energy scale. Thus the relic of SUSY is expected to remain as a richspectrum of SUSY particles, partners of usual matter fermions, gauge bosons and Higgs scalars, namedsfermions, gauginos and higgsinos, respectively [1]. The quest of these new particles has already been one of the most important pursuits to the presenthigh-energyphysics[2]. Although suchparticleshavenot yet been discovered, massesofthem areexpectedto be O(10
Nonsupersymmetric Flux Vacua and Perturbed N=2 Systems

We geometrically engineer Script N = 2 theories perturbed by a superpotential by adding 3-form flux with support at infinity to local Calabi-Yau geometries in type IIB. This allows us to apply the formalism of Ooguri, Ookouchi, and Park [arXiv:0704.3613] to demonstrate that, by tuning the flux at infinity, we can stabilize the dynamical complex structure moduli in a metastable, supersymmetry-breaking configuration. Moreover, we argue that this setup can arise naturally as a limit of a larger Calabi-Yau which separates into two weakly interacting regions; the flux in one region leaks into the other, where it appears to be supported at infinity and induces the desired superpotential. In our endeavor to confirm this picture in cases with many 3-cycles, we also compute the CIV-DV prepotential for arbitrary number of cuts up to fifth order in the glueball fields.
Reactive power optimization using repeated genetic algorithm and data prediction

This paper gives 3000 solutions for reactive power optimization using repeated genetic algorithm. The objective function is minimization of voltage deviations at load buses and the control actions are changes in generator excitations, capacitor switching and tap changing transformers. IEEE30 bus system is the test data and simulated on MATLAB. New data prediction algorithm is given.
THE DETERMINANTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR AND IMPLICATIONS TOWARD HOSPITAL SERVICE QUALITY

The objective of this research is to analyze the factors that of influence ofEmotional Intelligence, Emptional Labor and Transformational Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior/OCB and Service Quality.The study population number of 2,721 medical and paramedical personnel Hospital in Bekasi.The method used is descriptive survey and explanatory survey with a sample size 356 respondents, while the data analysis method used is Structural Equation Model (SEM). The results showed that Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labor, and Transformational Leadership partially and together positive and significant impact on OCB with a contribution of 46%. Furthermore Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labor, Transformational Leadership, and OCB partially or jointly positive and significant impact on Service Quality, with a contribution of 75%. Organizational Citizenship Behavior or partial OCB most dominant influence Service Quality.The model proposed in the study showed a positive effect of Emotional Intelligence, Emotional labor and Transformational Leadership on Service Quality through Organizational Citizenship Behavior.Suggestions for further research can analyze the influence of Organizational Citizenship Behavior towards another set of variables such as customer satisfaction, consumer confidence and consumer loyalty with Service Quality as an intervening variable.Research shows that the variable Organizational Citizenship Behavior with strong mediating variables influence Emotional Intelligence, Emotional labor and Transformational Leadership on Service Quality Medical and Paramedical Hospital in Bekasi.This model can be used as a useful instrument for Hospital Leaders in developing and improving Service Quality through improved behavior of medical personnel and paramedics Hospital based on the relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Emotional labor and Transformational Leadership.
Defect Prioritization in the Software Industry: Challenges and Opportunities

Defect prioritization is a decision making process wherein stakeholders determine the temporal order of open defects to be fixed. It is critical to the software development lifecycle as the decisions made during this process directly affect release planning, resource management, and maintenance costs. In fact, defect prioritization is complex as many factors need to be taken into consideration and the decisions made can be subjective or incorporate inherent knowledge and intuition of decision makers. We believe that managing the complexities of the decision making process can provide valuable support and help in uncovering any inconsistencies in the interpretation of criteria to prioritize defects. In this paper, we explore the defect triaging process in Research In Motion to gain a better understanding of the shortcomings and challenges of the current practices. Based on our findings, we sketch some research directions to improve industrial software defect prioritization.
A Case-Based System to Aid Cognition and Meta-Cognition is a Design-Based Learning Environment

Design-based learning (DBL) has many affordances for promoting deep and lasting learning of both content and complex skills. However, careful orchestration and scaffolding are usually needed to achieve its full potential. In this paper, we describe our efforts at implementing a software suite to meet the cognitive and meta-cognitive needs of learners engaged in DBL. In Study 1, our software suite gave learners the opportunity to design in simulation, to run experiments to learn the effects of variables, and it scaffolded science explanation construction. Through our analysis of study 1 we identified both cognitive and metacognitive needs that the software did not provide for. To meet these additional requirements, we added an interactive science resource and a case library to the software to provide multi-representational content material, to facilitate exploration, and to invite metacognitive reflection needed to do well at learning through design. Learners recognized what they did not understand, took initiative to explore those science concepts, and applied them in novel ways. We present here our analysis of the kinds of metacognitive help learners need to productively learn from design activities and some ways of providing that help. Our conclusion is that cognitive aid without related metacognitive aid is insufficient in a DBL environment.
Perceptual influence of elementary three-dimensional geometry: (2) fundamental object parts

Objects usually consist of parts and the question arises whether there are perceptual features which allow breaking down an object into its fundamental parts without any additional (e.g., functional) information. As in the first paper of this sequence, we focus on the division of our world along convex to concave surface transitions. Here we are using machine vision to produce convex segments from 3D-scenes. We assume that a fundamental part is one, which we can easily name while at the same time there is no natural subdivision possible into smaller parts. Hence in this experiment we presented the computer vision generated segments to our participants and asked whether they can identify and name them. Additionally we control against segmentation reliability and we find a clear trend that reliable convex segments have a high degree of name-ability. In addition, we observed that using other image-segmentation methods will not yield nameable entities. This indicates that convex-concave surface transition may indeed form the basis for dividing objects into meaningful entities. It appears that other or further subdivisions do not carry such a strong semantical link to our everyday language as there are no names for them.
A phenomenological study of reflective awareness in dreams: Characteristics of attention, memory, and anticipation

The objective of this study was to (1) document the diverse forms of cognition and attention that occur during dreaming and (2) articulate the qualitatively different profiles of the forms of cognition and attention that constitute classes or categories of reflective awareness during dreaming. Seventy introductory psychology students (68.1% females, 31.9% males, mean age = 19.8 years, SD age = 2.5 years) participated for partial course credit. Participants were asked to describe the dream that had most significantly influenced their thoughts and feelings after awakening during the preceding three months. Then, participants were asked to respond to a series of open-ended questions that captured the diverse forms of the cognitive and perceptual (including attentional and intentional) components of reflective awareness within the dream. Finally, participants were asked to complete a Dream Reflective Awareness Questionnaire regarding numerous aspects of reflective awareness during their dreams. The results revealed five clusters of dream reflective awareness, in terms of qualitatively different combinations of attention, memory, and anticipation during dreaming. It was also found that the relationships between two patterns of dream reflective awareness (i.e., depersonalization, dual perspectives) and certain attentional and cognitive categories in dreams were significant. Potential explanations for these phenomena were discussed.
Robust dynamic surface tracking control for uncertain wheeled mobile robot with skidding and slipping

This paper proposes a robust dynamic surface control (DSC) tracking method for wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) with skidding and slipping. First, a simple WMRs model is derived. This model has the simple structure to handle not only kinematics but also dynamics. Then, a tracking controller is proposed by using the DSC method. The proposed method eliminates the complexity problem in the traditional backstepping design. In addition, we use the idea of nonlinear damping in order to cancel out the disturbances. Finally, numerical simulations are included to illustrate the validity of the proposed.
The architecture and programming of the Ametek series 2010 multicomputer

During the period following the completion of the Cosmic Cube experiment [1], and while commercial descendants of this first-generation multicomputer (message-passing concurrent computer) were spreading through a community that includes many of the attendees of this conference, members of our research group were developing a set of ideas about the physical design and programming for the second generation of medium-grain multicomputers. Our principal goal was to improve by as much as two orders of magnitude the relationship between message-passing and computing performance, and also to make the topology of the message-passing network practically invisible. Decreasing the communication latency relative to instruction execution times extends the application span of multicomputers from easily partitioned and distributed problems (eg, matrix computations, PDE solvers, finite element analysis, finite difference methods, distant or local field many-body problems, FFTs, ray tracing, distributed simulation of systems composed of loosely coupled physical processes) to computing problems characterized by “high flux” [2] or relatively fine-grain concurrent formulations [3, 4] (eg, searching, sorting, concurrent data structures, graph problems, signal processing, image processing, and distributed simulation of systems composed of many tightly coupled physical processes). Such applications place heavy demands on the message-passing network for high bandwidth, low latency, and non-local communication. Decreased message latency also improves the efficiency of the class of applications that have been developed on first-generation systems, and the insensitivity of message latency to process placement simplifies the concurrent formulation of application programs. Our other goals included a streamlined and easily layered set of message primitives, a node operating system based on a reactive programming model, open interfaces for accelerators and peripheral devices, and node performance improvements that could be achieved economically by using the same technology employed in contemporary workstation computers. By the autumn of 1986, these ideas had become sufficiently developed, molded together, and tested through simulation to be regarded as a complete architectural design. We were fortunate that the Ametek Computer Research Division was ready and willing to work with us to develop this system as a commercial product. The Ametek Series 2010 multicomputer is the result of this joint effort.