Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Surveillance of Learning: A Critical Analysis of University Attendance Policies

Universities have recently strengthened their class attendance policies along with associated practices that intensify the surveillance of learning: a series of administrative and pedagogic strategies that monitor the extent to which students conform with behavioural expectations associated with learning. Drawing on university policy statements, the paper identifies implicit arguments underpinning attendance requirements for students in higher education. These include demonstrating the accountability of publicly funded higher education, a concern for the pastoral and academic welfare of students and their appropriate preparation for expectations associated with workplace and professional practice. In a critique it is argued that attendance policies promote presenteeism as part of the discourse of learnerism. Such rules further infantilise students rather than developing their capacity to make informed choices as adults thereby failing to respect their academic freedom.
Double Trace Deformations, Infinite Extra Dimensions and Supersymmetry Breaking

It was recently shown how to break supersymmetry in certain $AdS_3$ spaces, without destabilizing the background, by using a ``double trace'' deformation which localizes on the boundary of space-time. By viewing spatial sections of $AdS_3$ as a compactification space, one can convert this into a SUSY breaking mechanism which exists uniformly throughout a large 3+1 dimensional space-time, without generating any dangerous tadpoles. This is a generalization of a Visser type infinite extra dimensions compactification. Although the model is not Lorentz invariant, the dispersion relation is relativistic at high enough momenta, and it can be arranged such that at the same kinematical regime the energy difference between between former members of a SUSY multiplet is large.
i-Vector/HMM Based Text-Dependent Speaker Verification System for RedDots Challenge

Recently, a new data collection was initiated within the RedDots project in order to evaluate text-dependent and text-prompted speaker recognition technology on data from a wider speaker population and with more realistic noise, channel and phonetic variability. This paper analyses our systems built for RedDots challenge – the effort to collect and compare the initial re-sults on this new evaluation data set obtained at different sites. We use our recently introduced HMM based i-vector approach, where, instead of the traditional GMM, a set of phone speciﬁc HMMs is used to collect the sufﬁcient statistics for i-vector extraction. Our systems are trained in a completely phrase-independent way on the data from RSR2015 and Libri speech databases. We compare systems making use of standard cepstral features and their combination with neural network based bottle-neck features. The best results are obtained with a score-level fusion of such systems.
Cultural Identity and Learning to Teach in a Diverse Community

Teacher educators face the challenge not only of recruiting candidates of diverse backgrounds but of preparing these candidates to be effective teachers. This study looks at the influence of cultural identity (ethnicity, social class, and community membership) on the learning of three preservice teachers. One of the preservice teachers was a Japanese American, an outsider to the low-income Hawaiian community served by the teacher education program. The other two were of Hawaiian ancestry and insiders to the community. The findings suggest that preservice teachers who differ in terms of cultural identity may gain different benefits from participation in a program designed to prepare them to teach in a diverse community. For outsiders, critical understandings may develop as a result of field experiences. For insiders, critical understandings may evolve as a result of course readings, class discussions, and written reflections.
"STUDENTS" VIEWS OF MEXICAN NATIONALS AS ENGLISH TEACHERS"

SUMMARY This paper discusses the impact that the status as non-native English speakers (NNESs) has had in six Mexican nationals as teachers of the foreign language. The idea of the native speaker as the ideal teacher of English is explored from the non-native English teachers‟ (NNESTs) perspectives and experiences, based on the way they are perceived by their students. Through interviews in the form of personal narratives, NNESTs‟ life stories were collected in order to analyse the experiences and challenges that they face in the profession as non-native speakers. The data shows that NNESTs are confronted with issues of credibility and acceptance on the part of their students based on factors of nativeness and ethnicity. This of course has an impact in the NNESTs‟ professional and personal lives.
Isolation of an 1,3‐1,4‐β‐glucan degrading Enterococcus faecium strain from the intestinal tract of chicken and partial characterization of its novel 1,3‐1,4‐β‐glucanase

An Enterococcus faecium strain with a novel endo 1,3–1,4‐endo‐β‐glucanase (lichenase, E.C. 3.2.1.73) was isolated from the intestinal tract of broiler chicken. The enzyme was secreted into the culture medium and acted exclusively on mixed linked 1,3‐1,4‐β‐glucans as determined with a reducing sugar assay. The purified enzyme has its isoelectric point at pI 4.8, maximum activity was determined at pH 6.5 and 40 °C. Thermal stability of the enzyme was low, but high pH stability and high residual activity was observed after incubation in digesta samples from the chicken intestine. Multiple lichenase activities were obtained from culture supernatants on SDS/PAGE and native zymograms, but it is concluded that the lichenase consists of one active protein at 30.5 kD and additional polypeptides of unknown function.
Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism

Abstract: This article examines the current debate about the nature of democracy and discusses the main theses of the approach called 'deliberative democracy' in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forwardby Jurgen Habermas. While agreeing with them as regards to the need to develop a more of democracy than the one offered by the 'aggregative' model, I submit that they do not provide an adequate understanding of the main task of democracy. No doubt, by stating that democracy cannot be reduced to a question of procedures to mediate among conflicting interests, deliberative democrats defend a conception of democracy that presents a richer conception of politics. But, albeit in a different way thanthe view they criticize, their vision is also a rationalist one which leaves aside the crucial role played by 'passions' and collective forms of identifications in the field of politics. Moreover, in their attempt to reconcile the liberal tradition with the democratic one, deliberative democrats tend to erase the tension that exist between liberalism and democracy and they are therefore unable to come to terms with the conflictual nature of democratic politics. The main thesis that I put forward in this article is that democratic theory needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of 'agonistic pluralism' can help us to better envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today: how to create democratic forms of identifications that will contribute to mobilize passions towards democratic designs. ;
Complexity of relationship representations in working models :: effects of attachment style and gender.

COMPLEXITY OF RELATIONSHIP REPRESENTATIONS IN WORKING MODELS: EFFECTS OF ATTACHMENT STYLE AND GENDER SEPTEMBER 1995 JULIA FISHTEIN, B.A., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY M.S., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Paula R. Pietromonaco Recent work has documented that different models of attachment are connected to different beliefs and feelings and that these models are moderated by gender and are continuous from childhood to adulthood, but little is known about their underlying cognitive organization. The present study focused on whether working models of attachment were associated with differences in the complexity of relationship representations and whether these representations are moderated by gender. Men and women with secure and insecure attachment styles sorted adjectives to describe both their romantic partner and their caregiver relationships. Consistent with predictions, insecure individuals showed more negative complexity of representation than did secure individuals and women showed more overall and positive complexity than did men. Also consistent with predictions, all individuals showed similarity in complexity for both partner and parent, suggesting that there is continuity in working models of attachment. Overall, these findings suggest that working models of attachment are linked to the way in which individuals organize relationship information, but that this link must be evaluated in the context of other social variables such as
The impact of a TSH receptor gene polymorphism on thyroid‐related phenotypes in a healthy Danish twin population

Objectives The Asp727Glu polymorphism in the TSH receptor (TSHR) gene is associated with serum TSH levels. However, the proportion of genetic variation accounted for by this polymorphism is unknown. In this study, we (1) examined the association of the Asp727Glu polymorphism with thyroid size, serum levels of TSH, thyroid hormones, and thyroid antibodies in 1241 healthy Danish twin individuals and (2) assessed the contribution of the polymorphism to the trait variation and the genetic variance.
Artery-vein separation via MRA-An image processing approach

Presents a near-automatic process for separating vessels from background and other clutter as well as for separating arteries and veins in contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiographic (CE-MRA) image data, and an optimal method for three-dimensional visualization of vascular structures. The separation process utilizes fuzzy connected object delineation principles and algorithms. The first step of this separation process is the segmentation of the entire vessel structure from the background and other clutter via absolute fuzzy connectedness. The second step is to separate artery from vein within this entire vessel structure via iterative relative fuzzy connectedness. After seed voxels are specified inside the artery and vein in the CE-MRA image, the small regions of the bigger aspects of artery and vein are separated in the initial iterations, and further detailed aspects of artery and vein are included in later iterations. At each iteration, the artery and vein compete among themselves to grab membership of each voxel in the vessel structure based on the relative strength of connectedness of the voxel in the artery and vein. This approach has been implemented in a software package for routine use in a clinical setting and tested on 133 CE-MRA studies of the pelvic region and two studies of the carotid system from 6 different hospitals. In all studies, unified parameter settings produced correct artery-vein separation. When compared with manual segmentation/separation, the authors' algorithms were able to separate higher order branches, and therefore produced vastly more details in the segmented vascular structure. The total operator and computer time taken per study is on the average about 4.5 min. To date, this technique seems to be the only image processing approach that can be routinely applied for artery and vein separation.
Scaling Deep Learning on GPU and Knights Landing clusters

Training neural networks has become a big bottleneck. For example, training ImageNet dataset on one Nvidia K20 GPU needs 21 days. To speed up the training process, the current deep learning systems heavily rely on the hardware accelerators. However, these accelerators have limited on-chip memory compared with CPUs.We use both self-host Intel Knights Landing (KNL) clusters and multi-GPU clusters as our target platforms. From the algorithm aspect, we focus on Elastic Averaging SGD (EASGD) to design algorithms for HPC clusters.We redesign four efficient algorithms for HPC systems to improve EASGD’s poor scaling on clusters. Async EASGD, Async MEASGD, and Hogwild EASGD are faster than existing counterpart methods (Async SGD, Async MSGD, and Hogwild SGD) in all comparisons. Sync EASGD achieves 5. 3X speedup over original EASGD on the same platform. We achieve 91.5% weak scaling efficiency on 4253 KNL cores, which is higher than the state-of-the-art implementation. CCS CONCEPTS • Computing methodologies → Massively parallel algorithms;
DETERMINING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE COMPONENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The main objective of this study is to determine the relationships between the components of organizational commitment (such as, affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment) and job performance with the samples drawn from the private organizations in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This study adopted a survey design, thus, the data were collected from 187 executives, who were working at different private organizations within the city of Chittagong. The respondents were asked to rate their own commitment towards their own organizations along with their own job performance with the help of printed self-rated survey instruments. Organizational commitment was measured by Meyer and Allen’s (1997) Questionnaire while job performance was assessed by Tsui et al.’s (1997) Scale. This study used convenience sampling techniques. Descriptive, correlation, and regression analyses were used to clarify the relationships. Results reported a positive correlation between affective commitment and job performance as well as normative commitment and job performance while a nonsignificant relationship was found between continuance commitment and job performance. An important implication of the study is that supervisors should take initiative to increase their own and others’ organizational commitment to improve employee job performance. The most important limitation was in using convenience samples which may limit the generalizability of the results. Future research directions are also discussed.
Size and dielectric properties of skeletal stem cells change critically after enrichment and expansion from human bone marrow: consequences for microfluidic cell sorting

The capacity of bone and cartilage to regenerate can be attributed to skeletal stem cells (SSCs) that reside within the bone marrow (BM). Given SSCs are rare and lack specific surface markers, antibody-based sorting has failed to deliver the cell purity required for clinical translation. Microfluidics offers new methods of isolating cells based on biophysical features including, but not limited to, size, electrical properties and stiffness. Here we report the characterization of the dielectric properties of unexpanded SSCs using single-cell microfluidic impedance cytometry (MIC). Unexpanded SSCs had a mean size of 9.0 µm; larger than the majority of BM cells. During expansion, often used to purify and increase the number of SSCs, cell size and membrane capacitance increased significantly, highlighting the importance of characterizing unaltered SSCs. In addition, MIC was used to track the osteogenic differentiation of SSCs and showed an increased membrane capacitance with differentiation. The electrical properties of primary SSCs were indistinct from other BM cells precluding its use as an isolation method. However, the current studies indicate that cell size in combination with another biophysical parameter, such as stiffness, could be used to design label-free devices for sorting SSCs with significant clinical impact.
Visual capture and the experience of having two bodies – Evidence from two different virtual reality techniques

In neurology and psychiatry the detailed study of illusory own body perceptions has suggested close links between bodily processing and self-consciousness. One such illusory own body perception is heautoscopy where patients have the sensation of being reduplicated and to exist at two or even more locations. In previous experiments, using a video head-mounted display, self-location and self-identification were manipulated by applying conflicting visuo-tactile information. Yet the experienced singularity of the self was not affected, i.e., participants did not experience having multiple bodies or selves. In two experiments presented in this paper, we investigated self-location and self-identification while participants saw two virtual bodies (video-generated in study 1 and 3D computer generated in study 2) that were stroked either synchronously or asynchronously with their own body. In both experiments, we report that self-identification with two virtual bodies was stronger during synchronous stroking. Furthermore, in the video generated setup with synchronous stroking participants reported a greater feeling of having multiple bodies than in the control conditions. In study 1, but not in study 2, we report that self-location – measured by anterior posterior drift – was significantly shifted towards the two bodies in the synchronous condition only. Self-identification with two bodies, the sensation of having multiple bodies, and the changes in self-location show that the experienced singularity of the self can be studied experimentally. We discuss our data with respect to ownership for supernumerary hands and heautoscopy. We finally compare the effects of the video and 3D computer generated head-mounted display technology and discuss the possible benefits of using either technology to induce changes in illusory self-identification with a virtual body.
VALIDAÇÃO DO WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION INSTRUMENT TO ASSESS QUALITY OF LIFE BREF EM PACIENTES RENAIS

o WHOQOL-bref e um instrumento generico desenvolvido pelo Grupo de Qualidade de Vida da Organizacao Mundial de Saude. Avalia a Qualidade de Vida (QV), geral e de saude, em quatro dominios: fisico, psicologico, relacoes sociais e meio ambiente. Este instrumento baseia-se no pressuposto que a QV e um construto subjetivo obtido a partir da percepcao do individuo, multidimensional e composto por dimensoes positivas e negativas. Medir a confiabilidade de uma medida quantitativa e o principal criterio para investigacao de sua qualidade, sendo o Alfa de Cronbach (AC) considerado um metodo sofisticado e exato de computa-lo. Os valores para o AC variam de 0 a 1, e quanto mais proximo de 1, mais aceitavel e o instrumento. OBJETIVO: medir a confiabilidade do WHOQOL-bref. METODOLOGIA: estudo quantitativo realizado para medir a confiabilidade ou consistencia interna do instrumento, obtido atraves do software SPSS 13.0, de 120 pacientes renais. Os itens do mesmo dominio foram agrupados, e a seguir calculadas as correlacoes. Os itens da QV do WHOQOL-bref foram mantidos, e, ao se excluir uma questao de cada dominio nao se observou alteracoes nos resultados. RESULTADOS: para os dominios o AC mostra valores elevados, sendo no Dominio Fisico 0,8388, no Psicologico 0,5527, Relacoes Sociais 0,7164, e Meio Ambiente 0,6283 evidenciando boa consistencia interna do instrumento. CONCLUSAO: obtivemos o AC total da escala igual a 0,8816 sendo a variacao de erro pequena, o que nos leva a concluir que o instrumento de avaliacao possui caracteristicas satisfatorias de consistencia interna, atestando uma boa confiabilidade do instrumento para avaliar a QV em renais. Lembramos que a escolha e utilizacao do instrumento apropriado sao fundamentais para que os resultados sejam validos e clinicamente significativos
A 20-year retrospective study of the impact of expeditions on Japanese participants

While ‘lasting effects’ of outdoor experiences have been suggested, few empirical studies have traced influences more than one year after the experiences. This study examines the written responses of 67 Japanese expedition participants who took part in a British-organized overseas youth expedition 20–23 years ago, to investigate their perception of the influences of the experiences through a retrospective approach. The findings show that the vast majority of respondents (99%) considered their expedition experience to be significant in their lives, and 96% answered that this experience had influenced their present selves. The study also identified perceived key elements of the expeditions that generated the influences, such as a diverse group of people, age of participation, and the natural environment. The findings yielded two implications for practice. Organizers of overseas youth expeditions should carefully consider the social and cultural dimensions of the hosting nations as well as those of the participants. Reflection and sharing after the experiences seem to help the learning to grow, and it is worthwhile for practitioners to encourage networking and sharing among participants after programmes are completed.
Cross-lingual Ontology Alignment using EuroWordNet and Wikipedia

This paper describes a system for linking the thesaurus of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision to English WordNet and dbpedia. The thesaurus contains subject (concept) terms, and names of persons, locations, and miscalleneous names. We used EuroWordNet, a multilingual wordnet, and Dutch Wikipedia as intermediaries for the two alignments. EuroWordNet covers most of the subject terms in the thesaurus, but the organization of the cross-lingual links makes selection of the most appropriate English target term almost impossible. Precision and recall of the automatic alignment with WordNet for subject terms is 0.59. Using page titles, redirects, disambiguation pages, and anchor text harvested from Dutch Wikipedia gives reasonable performance on subject terms and geographical terms. Many person and miscalleneous names in the thesaurus could not be located in (Dutch or English) Wikipedia. Precision for miscellaneous names, subjects, persons and locations for the alignment with Wikipedia ranges from 0.63 to 0.94, while recall for subject terms is 0.62.