Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Making Sense of Schooling, Identity, and Culture: Experiences of Turkish Students and Their Parents

ii DEDICATION . iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iv VITA . vi LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . 1 The Purpose of the Study . 5 Research Questions . 6 Significance of the Study . 6 Theoretical Framework . 8 Definitions of Terms and the Use of Descriptors . 12 Summary . 15 CHAPTER 2: IMMIGRANTS, CULTURE, IDENTITY AND SCHOOLING . 16 Introduction . 16 Immigrants and Schooling. 18 Immigrants and Cultural Identity . 22 Schooling and Immigrant Identities . 31 The Post-modern Shift in Understanding Immigrant Identities . 35 Summary . 41 viii CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. 42 Epistemological and Theoretical Stance . 42 Qualitative Research Methodology . 45 Trustworthiness. 47 Participants . 51 Timeline for the Study . 60 Particular Methods for Data Collection . 61 Analyses . 72 Summary . 77 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS. 78 Turkish Children Negotiating Culture, Identity, and Schooling . 78 Turkish Parents’ Experiences with their Children’s Schooling . 117 Negotiating Bilingualism and Bicultural Identities . 136 Summary . 167 CHAPTER 5: MAKING SENSE OF SCHOOLING, IDENTITY, AND CULTURE . 169 Reconceptualizing ThirdSpaces. 170 Implications . 192 Limitations of the Study . 201 Summary . 202 CONCLUSION . 203 REFERENCES . 205 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR PARENTS OF TURKISH STUDENTS . 220 APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR TURKISH STUDENTS . 223
Retinoid-Related Orphan Receptor γ Controls Immunoglobulin Production and Th1/Th2 Cytokine Balance in the Adaptive Immune Response to Allergen1

The retinoid-related orphan receptors (ROR) comprise a distinct subfamily of nuclear receptors with the capacity to act as both repressors and activators of transcription. RORγ, the most recently identified member of the ROR family, has been shown to be important for the development of normal lymphocyte compartments as well as organogenesis of some lymphoid organs. In this report, we examine the capacity of RORγ-deficient mice to develop an adaptive immune response to Ag using OVA-induced inflammation in mice as a model for allergic airway disease. In sham-treated mice lacking RORγ, low-grade pulmonary inflammation was observed and characterized by the perivascular accumulation of B and T lymphocytes, increased numbers of inflammatory cells in the lung lavage fluid, and polyclonal Ig activation. Following sensitization and challenge, the capacity of these animals to develop the allergic phenotype was severely impaired as evidenced by attenuated eosinophilic pulmonary inflammation, reduced numbers of CD4+ lymphocytes, and lower Th2 cytokines/chemokine protein and mRNA expression in the lungs. IFN-γ and IL-10 production was markedly greater in splenocytes from RORγ-deficient mice following in vitro restimulation with OVA compared with wild-type splenocytes, and a shift toward a Th1 immune response was observed in sensitized/challenged RORγ-deficient animals in vivo. These data reveal a critical role for RORγ in the regulation of Ig production and Th1/Th2 balance in adaptive immunity.
Pattern of microRNA expression associated with different stages of alcoholic liver disease in rat models

Emerging evidence has suggested that aberrant expression of micro (mi)RNAs contributes to the development of alcoholic liver injury (ALD). However, miRNA profiles distinguishing different stages of ALD have not yet been reported. The present study was designed to investigate the unique miRNA expression patterns at different stages of ALD in a rat model and analyze the gene functions and pathways of dysregulated miRNA-targeted genes. Using microarray and stem-loop quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses, 16 miRNAs were identified as upregulated and 13 were identified as downregulated in an alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH) group compared with the control group, while five miRNAs were identified to be upregulated and eight were identified to be downregulated in the alcoholic fatty liver (AFL) group as compared with the control group. Following further confirmation by Significance Analysis of Microarray and prediction by Prediction Analysis of Microarray, 8 and 12 types of miRNA were screened as molecular signatures in distinguishing AFL and ASH, respectively, from normal rat liver. In addition, several miRNA-target pairs were predicted by computer-aided algorithms (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery platform) and these genes may be involved in cancer signaling pathways, the Wnt signaling pathway and other signaling pathways. These results may provide novel miRNA targets for diagnosis and therapeutic intervention at different stages of ALD.
A Unified Convergence Analysis of the Multiplicative Update Algorithm for Regularized NMF with General Divergences

The multiplicative update (MU) algorithm has been used extensively to estimate the basis and coefficient matrices in nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) problems under a wide range of divergences and regularizations. However, theoretical convergence guarantees have only been derived for a few special divergences and without regularizers. We provide a conceptually simple, self-contained, and unified proof for the convergence of the MU algorithm applied on NMF with a wide range of divergences and with $\ell_1$ and Tikhonov regularizations. Our result shows the sequence of iterates (i.e., pairs of basis and coefficient matrices) produced by the MU algorithm converges to the set of stationary points of the NMF (optimization) problem. Our proof strategy has the potential to open up new avenues for analyzing similar problems.
A STUDY OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN RELATION TO SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES

The study aimed at to find out the influence of some socio-demographic variables like gender, locale, type of schools, age and experience on spiritual intelligence of secondary school teachers. For the purpose of investigation, descriptive survey method was employed. A sample of 100 male and female secondary school teachers working in Rohtak district of Haryana state was selected by random sampling technique. spiritual Intelligence scale developed by King (2008) was used for the collection of data for the present study. It was revealed from the analysis and interpretation of the present study that spiritual intelligence was not found to be influenced by any of the socio-demographic variables like gender, locale, type of schools, age and experience.
Management of Different Types of Configuration Knowledge with the K- & V-Matrix and Wiki

The K- & V-Matrix is a description language for configuration knowledge. Its focus is on small and medium sized enterprises. While easy-to-use, it allows the user to describe a significant part of this knowledge. However, although the K- & V-Matrix is a good approach, not all configuration knowledge can be managed with it. Especially when it comes to unstructured configuration knowledge, the K- & V-Matrix is not applicable. To solve this problem, an easy but effective way to describe unstructured configuration knowledge and integrate it with the K- & V-Matrix is needed. A solution to this problem, its functionalities, its integration with the K- & V-Matrix as well as the knowledge acquisition process related to it will be discussed.
Communication Skills, Social Support, and Burnout among Advocates in a Domestic Violence Agency

Intimate partner violence affects millions of lives annually. Domestic violence advocates work to alleviate this problem; yet the nature of the work leaves them vulnerable to negative outcomes such as burnout. This study examined the relationships between communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived social support, and feelings of burnout among domestic violence advocates. Results from a survey of 69 individuals recruited from a US domestic violence agency show the combination of communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived emotional support, and perceived informational support accounted for approximately 13% of the variance in advocates' emotional exhaustion and 21% of the variance in advocates' experiences of reduced personal accomplishment. Responses also differ with the advocate's position in the agency. The following recommendations are offered: develop scenario-based communication skills training programs to reduce communication anxiety and increase communication competence, hold regular debriefing meetings to help advocates process their experiences and to receive peer support, and develop formalized mentoring programs that can provide social support for new workers.
Assessing incidence and economic burden of genital warts with data from a US commercially insured population

ABSTRACT Objective: This study examined the incidence of and healthcare costs attributable to genital warts within a large US commercially insured, geographically dispersed population. Research design and methods: Using a retrospective cohort study design, this longitudinal analysis assessed administrative claims of integrated medical and pharmacy encounters from five Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans. Genital warts cases were identified using a methodology previously described by Insinga et al. Main outcome measures: Age- and gender-specific incidence of genital warts per 1000 person-years in 2004, and duration-of-episode attributable direct medical costs (2004 US dollars) and healthcare resource utilization of cases diagnosed in 2002. Overall outcome measures were age- and gender-adjusted to the 2004 US civilian population. Results: Genital warts incidence in 2004 was 1.2/1000 females and 1.1/1000 males. Incidence was highest among females aged 20–24 (4.6/1000) and males aged 25–29 (2.7/1000). Projected overall incidence was over 340 000 cases in 2004. Mean duration-of-episode per incident case in 2002 was 95.4 days (males 116.3 days; females 69.7 days). Mean ambulatory visits per episode were 1.5 for females and 1.9 for males, with <1 drug prescription/episode. Mean costs were $647/episode ($745 males; $528 females). The 2004 estimated economic burden was $760 per 1000 individuals in the general population with the total exceeding $220 million. Limitations: Only those genital warts cases that sought evaluation or for which the treating provider was covered by the health plan were captured in the study. Conclusions: Genital warts represent a significant health and cost burden in the US. Adoption of novel healthcare technologies such as vaccines along with traditional interventions such as physician education of signs and symptoms, condom use and abstinence or limiting number of sexual partners may significantly help reduce the burden of genital warts.
The ANSI T10 object-based storage standard and current implementations

Object-based storage is the natural evolution of the block storage interface, aimed at efficiently and effectively meeting the performance, reliability, security, and service requirements demanded by current and future applications. The object-based storage interface provides an organizational container, called an object, into which higher-level software (e.g., file systems, databases, and user applications) can store both data and related attributes. In 2004, the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) T10 Standards body ratified an Object-based Storage Device (OSD) command set for SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) storage devices that implements the OSD interface. This paper describes the rationale for OSDs, highlights the ANSI T10 OSD V1.0 interface, and presents three OSD implementations: an OSD from Seagate, an IBM object-based storage prototype (ObjectStone), and the Panasas object-based distributed storage system.
An Analytical Approach to Energy-Aware Hybrid Routing for Large Scale Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

We pursue an analytical approach to energy consumption characterization of large scale mobile ad hoc networks. An energy aware hybrid routing strategy is proposed and analyzed. Referred to as Energy Aware GEo-location aided Routing (EAGER), this protocol optimally blends proactive and reactive routing strategies for energy efcienc y. Specically , EAGER partitions the network into cells and performs intra-cell proactive routing and inter-cell reactive routing. The cell structure of EAGER can be efciently utilized to reduce routing overhead and overall energy consumption. The cell size and transmission range are optimized analytically. Our analysis shows that EAGER leads to signicant performance gains in energy efcienc y over pure proactive and reactive strategies.
Swarming agents for discovering clusters in spatial data

The purpose of this work is to investigate the use of new swarm intelligence based techniques for data mining. According to this approach the data mining task is constructed as a set of biologically inspired agents. Each agent represents a simple task and the success of the method depends on the cooperative work of the agents. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm that uses techniques adapted from models originating from biological collective organisms to discover clusters of arbitrary shape, size and density in spatial data. The algorithm combines a smart exploratory strategy based on the movements of a flock of birds with a shared nearest-neighbor clustering algorithm to discover clusters in parallel. In the algorithm, birds are used as agents with an exploring behavior foraging for clusters. Moreover, this strategy can be used as a data reduction technique to perform approximate clustering efficiently. We have applied this algorithm on synthetic and real world data sets and we have measured, through computer simulation, the impact of the flocking search strategy on performance.
Image Matching Using Photometric Information

Image matching is an essential task in many computer vision applications. It is obvious that thorough utilization of all available information is critical for the success of matching algorithms. However most popular matching methods do not incorporate effectively photometric data. Some algorithms are based on geometric, color invariant features, thus completely neglecting available photometric information. Others assume that color does not differ significantly in the two images; that assumption may be wrong when the images are not taken at the same time, for example when a recently taken image is compared with a database. This paper introduces a method for using color information in image matching tasks. Initially the images are segmented using an off-the-shelf segmentation process (EDISON). No assumptions are made on the quality of the segmentation. Then the algorithm employs a model for natural illumination change to define the probability of two segments to originate from the same surface. When additional information is supplied (for example suspected corresponding point features in both images), the probabilities are updated. We show that the probabilities can easily be utilized in any existing image matching system. We propose a technique to make use of them in a SIFT-based algorithm. The technique’s capabilities are demonstrated on real images, where it causes a significant improvement in comparison with the original SIFT results in the percentage of correct matches found.
Arachidonic acid metabolism by retinas of rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes.

Arachidonic acid metabolism via the cyclooxygenase pathway and the effects of aspirin and indomethacin were studied in whole retinas of rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes. Diabetes was induced by intravenous injection of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg) and the animals were examined 5-6 weeks later. Whole retinas of nondiabetic and diabetic animals were incubated for 1 1/2 hours, and the amounts of prostacyclin and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) accumulated in the media were measured. The amounts of PGE2 in the media of diabetic retinas was significantly lower than levels in media of nondiabetic group. However, the amounts of prostacyclin accumulated in the media of nondiabetic and diabetic retinas did not differ significantly. Addition of arachidonic acid (A.A.) to the incubation media caused an enhancement in the amounts of PGE2 and prostacyclin in the incubation media of both diabetic and nondiabetic retinas. Addition of indomethacin or aspirin to the incubation media caused a reduction of prostacyclin and PGE2 levels in the media of both groups.
Answering Questions Using Advanced Semantics and Probabilistic Inference

In this paper we argue that access to rich semantic structures derived from questions and answers will enable both the retrieval of more accurate answers to simple questions and enable inference processes that explain the validity and contextual coverage of answers to complex questions. Processing complex questions involves the identifications of several forms of complex semantic structures. Answer Extraction is performed by recognizing event inter-relationships and by inferring over multiple sentences and texts, using background knowledge.
CONTACT WITH POLICE: A COMPARISON BETWEEN CHINESE AND AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS

While police-citizen contacts have been the subject of a number of studies conducted over the past three decades, very little is known about the frequency and nature of encounters between Chinese and their local police. Using survey data collected from 868 students from several Chinese and American universities, this study answers two research questions: (1) Do Chinese and American college students differ in the occurrence and number of their contacts with police; and (2) Does country affiliation significantly influence levels of police-citizen encounters controlling for demographic characteristics, college major, and family/friend experience with police? Frequency distributions indicated that Chinese students were much less likely than their American counterparts to have contacts with their local police. Chinese students’ contacts with police were most frequently due to having casual conversation with police and asking police officers for information or advice, while American students’ contacts often resulted from traffic violations and accidents. Regression results showed that country affiliation, gender, age, college major, and family/friend contact with police significantly influenced the occurrence of contact with police. In addition, country affiliation, age, income, and family/friend contact with police affected the number of contact with police. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.
Multi-label cooperative cuts

Recently, a family of global, non-submodular energy functions has been proposed that is expressed as coupling edges in a graph cut. This formulation provides a rich modelling framework and also leads to efficient approximate inference algorithms. So far, the results addressed binary random variables. Here, we extend these results to the multi-label case, and combine edge coupling with move-making algorithms.
Controls on the deep water cycle within 1 three-dimensional mantle convection models

12 Earth’s mantle is known to harbour water in the form of hydrous and nominally anhy-13 drous minerals. How much water the mantle holds and whether it has remained constant 14 through time are open questions. Previous numerical studies of the deep-water cycle have 15 been limited to box models or 2-D calculations. Here we present for the ﬁrst time, re-16 sults from 3-D mantle convection models. We address the evolution of the mantle’s to-17 tal water content by adapting a well benchmarked mantle convection code to track wa-18 ter, including its feedbacks on dynamics. While Earth’s surface is presently covered by 19 one ocean mass of water, our results suggest that the mantle holds approximately two 20 ocean masses of water based on the best estimates from mineral physics. This value varies 21 only weakly for a wide parameter space of additional complex dynamics such as; viscos-22 ity laws, density controls and phase change considerations. Our result of a mantle hold-23 ing two ocean masses conforms with estimates from other branches of earth science, sug-24 gesting that these models could be an excellent tool in understanding the spatial het-25 erogeneity of the water found in the mantle. 26
The role of family on gender development of women construction entrepreneurs

This paper explores the role of family in gender development of women construction entrepreneurs (WCEs) in the construction industry. Cluster sampling method was adopted and 34 results were obtained from WCE in Northern Region of Peninsular Malaysia. By gender identification through Bem Sex Role Inventory Analysis, the gender of WCE is masculine. Cross-tabulation analysis reveald that most of these WCEs who with masculine gender grown up in a large family, have been raised under authoritarian and permissive parenting style, are the first-born children and having more than two siblings. This study provides an exploratory study in understanding the role of family in constructing gender of WCEs in Malaysia.
Influence of Nanoreinforced Particles (Al2O3) on Fatigue Life and Strength of Aluminium Based Metal Matrix Composite

In this investigation, Al2O3 nano material of 50nm particles size were added to the 6061 Al aluminium alloy by using the stir casting technique to fabricate the nanocomposite of 10wt% Al2O3. The experimental results observed that the addition of 10wt% Al2O3 improved the fatigue life and strength of constant and cumulative fatigue. Comparison between the S-N curves behaviour of metal matrix (AA6061) and the nanocomposite 10wt% Al2O3 has been made. The comparison revealed that 12.8% enhancement in fatigue strength at 10cycles due to 10wt% nano reinforcement. Also cumulative fatigue life of 10wt% nanocomposite was found to be increased by 33.37% and 39.58% for low-high and high-low loading sequences, respectively, compared to the metal-matrix cumulative life.
Interactive Mechanical Design Variation for Haptics and CAD

A fast design variation technique for mechanical systems is presented. It is used to interactively optimize mechanical characteristics while “self‐assembling” or satisfying large systems of mechanical constraints. The high speed method is central to providing inverse dynamics force feedback in haptics and control applications. Performance advantages with the use of augmented coordinates for inverse dynamics of closed loop topologies are also noted. The interaction framework allows manipulation of complex assemblies while maintaining kinematically admissible configurations though linkage and joint limit constraints. Furthermore, design variables such as link length can be treated as free variables and optimized to meet design criteria such as assembly dexterity. Assemblies with flexible bodies fit naturally within this framework. Thus, the contribution of this paper is the advancement of techniques in augmented coordinates for the kinematic and force feedback interaction with virtual mechanical assembly design optimization at force control rates.