Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DIF investigations across groups of gender and academic background in a large-scale high-stakes language test 

High-stakes pre-entry language testing is the predominate tool used to measure test takers’ proficiency for admission purposes in higher education in China. Given the important role of these tests, there are heated discussions about how to ensure test fairness for different groups of test takers. This study examined the fairness of the Graduate School Entrance English Examination (GSEEE) that is used to decide whether over one million test takers can enter master’s programs in China. Using SIBTEST and content analysis, the study investigated differential item functioning (DIF) and the presence of potential bias on the GSEEE with aspects to groups of gender and academic background. Results found that a large percentage of the GSEEE items did not provide reliable results to distinguish good and poor performers. A number of DIF and DBF functioned differentially and three test reviewers identified a myriad of factors such as motivation and learning styles that potentially contributed to group performance differences. However, consistent evidence was not found to suggest these flagged items/texts exhibited bias. While systematic bias may not have been detected, the results revealed poor test reliability and the study highlighted an urgent need to improve test quality and clarify the purpose of the test. DIF issues may be revisited once test quality has been improved.
Cross-Sectional Analysis of Iliopsoas Muscle-Tendon Units at the Sites of Arthroscopic Tenotomies: An Anatomic Study

Background Arthroscopic iliopsoas tenotomies are performed at the level of the labrum, femoral neck, and lesser trochanter. The composition and percentage of the iliopsoas muscle-tendon unit (MTU) that is released when the tendon is cut at these sites has not been reported to date. Hypothesis Cutting the iliopsoas tendon at the 3 common sites of arthroscopic tenotomies does not release the entire iliopsoas MTU. Study Design Descriptive laboratory study. Methods Forty iliopsoas MTUs from 20 embalmed cadavers were isolated at the level of the hip joint and released from their insertion on the lesser trochanter. Circumferential measurements of the composite MTU and the isolated iliopsoas tendon were then made at (1) the MTU's insertion on the lesser trochanter, (2) the Wettstein et al site of transcapsular release, and (3) the Alpert et al release site at the level of the labrum. Single proportion testing was performed using the Student t test to determine if significant differences existed between the average circumference of the iliopsoas MTUs or the isolated tendons at the 3 levels at which they were measured. Results The average circumference of the iliopsoas–muscle belly complex at the level of the labrum, the transcapsular release site, and the lesser trochanter was 68, 58, and 46 mm, respectively. The average circumference of the iliopsoas tendon at these same levels was 27, 31, and 27 mm, respectively. Thus, at the level of the labrum, transcapsular release site, and lesser trochanter, the iliopsoas MTU is composed of 40% tendon/60% muscle belly, 53% tendon/47% muscle belly, and 60% tendon/40% muscle belly, respectively. Conclusion Cutting the iliopsoas tendon at the labrum, head-neck junction, or lesser trochanter does not result in a release of the entire iliopsoas MTU. Clinical Relevance The results of this study document that releasing the iliopsoas tendon at the lesser trochanter preserves 40% of the MTU and does not result in a complete detachment of the iliopsoas MTU.
Principles and practice of bioanalysis

1. Physico-chemical properties of drugs and metabolites and their extraction from biological material Hugh Wiltshire 2. Solid phase extraction Chris James 3. Basic HPLC theory and practice Andy Gray 4. HPLC optimisation David Bakes 5. HPLC detectors Richard Venn 6. Gas chromotography-what it is and how we use it Peter Andrew 7. Thin layer chromotography Hugh Wiltshire 8. Capillary electrophoresis Peter Andrew 9. Immunoassay techniques Richard Venn 10. Automation of sample preparation Chris James 11. Fundamental aspects of mass spectrometry "overview terminology" Mira V. Doig 12. Applications of mass spectrometry: quantitative mass spectrometry Mira V. Doig 13. Mass spectrometric identification of metabolites Janet Oxford 14. Nuclear magnetic resonance in drug metabolism Phil Gilbert 15. Strategy in metabolite isolation and identification Hugh Wiltshire 16. Strategy for the development of quantitative analytical procedures David Bakes Pharmacia & Upjohn, UK, Andy Gray, Astra Charnwood, UK, David Bakes, Servier Research & Development Ltd., UK, Richard F. Venn, Pfizer Central Research, UK, Peter Andrew, GlaxoWellcome, UK, Mira V. Doig, Advanced Bioanalytical Laboratories, UK, Janet Oxford, SmithKline Beecham, UK, Phil Gilbert, Chiroscience, UK.
Digital camera identification based on the clustered pattern noise of image sensors

Along with the popularization of digital cameras, the reliable identification of digital image source is becoming increasingly important as an evidence in a court and some help of investigations. In this paper, we propose an enhanced digital camera identification method using the pixel non-uniformity (PNU) noise of image sensors. By clustering the PNU noises, the proposed method extracts the robust features of image sensors to the random noise, scene content, and image processing engine such as the noise reduction. In the experiments, the proposed method shows the high identification accuracy even for latest digital cameras.
Evaluation of a pilot school‐based physical activity challenge for primary students

Issue addressed Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour among children are growing public health concerns. The Culture Health Communities Activity Challenge (hereafter known as the Challenge) is a school-based pedometer program in which classes compete to achieve the highest class average daily steps in an 8-week period. The Challenge aims to encourage physical activity in primary school students, with a focus on engaging Aboriginal students. The program was piloted in 15 classes in New South Wales in 2014. Methods The evaluation aimed to explore students' and teachers' experiences of the Challenge, and assess its impact on the students' physical activity levels. Data sources were a pre- and post-intervention survey of students' physical activity levels and sedentary time (n=209), qualitative interviews with teachers (n=11) and discussions with 10 classes. Results Fifteen Year 5 and 6 classes comprising 318 students participated. Fifty percent of participants were girls, the average age was 11 years and the majority (57%) were Aboriginal students. Participation in the Challenge was associated with a slight but statistically significant increase in students' physical activity levels (P<0.05), and a significant decrease in weekend screen time (P<0.05). However, when stratified by Aboriginality these changes were not statistically significant for Aboriginal students. Qualitative feedback from teachers and students indicated high levels of engagement and satisfaction with the Challenge. Teachers and students reported positive impacts, including increased motivation to be physically active, and improved student attendance and engagement in class activities and teamwork. Conclusions Participation in the Challenge was associated with increased physical activity and decreased screen time for some students. Students and teachers also reported a range of positive social and educational outcomes. So what? The findings highlight the importance of primary schools as a setting for health promotion activities, and demonstrate that school-based physical activity programs can be engaging and appropriate for classes with high proportions of Aboriginal students.
Genetic Diversity of African and Worldwide Strains of Ralstonia solanacearum as Determined by PCR-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis of the hrp Gene Region

ABSTRACT The genetic diversity among a worldwide collection of 120 strains of Ralstonia solanacearum was assessed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of amplified fragments from the hrp gene region. Five amplified fragments appeared to be specific to R. solanacearum. Fifteen different profiles were identified among the 120 bacterial strains, and a hierarchical cluster analysis distributed them into eight clusters. Each cluster included strains belonging to a single biovar, except for strains of biovars 3 and 4, which could not be separated. However, the biovar 1 strains showed rather extensive diversity since they were distributed into five clusters whereas the biovar 2 and the biovar 3 and 4 strains were gathered into one and two clusters, respectively. PCR-RFLP analysis of the hrp gene region confirmed the results of previous studies which split the species into an “Americanum” division including biovar 1 and 2 strains and an “Asiaticum” division including biovar 3 and 4 strains. However, the present study showed that most of the biovar 1 strains, originating from African countries (Reunion Island, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Angola) and being included in a separate cluster, belong to the “Asiaticum” rather than to the “Americanum” division. These African strains could thus have evolved separately from other biovar 1 strains originating from the Americas.
Design implications for believable & engaging scenarios

The recent researches in the realm of virtual learning environments have revealed how children can positively contribute in the design process. Comicboarding is a participatory designed method that involves the use of comic books and drawings to produce believable and engaging scenarios with children. Researchers can elicit ideas from children by leveraging known plot formats, interaction styles and characters in comics. The paper describes collaboration with children that enabled researchers to capture the stories and experiences children tell about persistently proliferating violent behaviour in the Japanese schools namely Ijime. This collaboration resulted in the design implications that helped in generating and appraising scenarios for a virtual edutainment environment populated by intelligent virtual agents for exploring the problem of Ijime. The objective was to generate comic-type summaries of these narratives for user-centered design that vocalizes children's voice in the technology process. The technique helped the investigators in examining story logs; gathering information related to personality and emotional characteristics of the characters; understanding their actions and importance in the narrative and selecting the key fabula for interactive narrative environment.
Hierarchical Fuzzy CMAC for Nonlinear Systems Modeling

Since the fuzzy cerebellar model articulation controller (FCMAC) uses linguistic variables, it is highly intuitive and easily comprehended. Despite the FCMAC's good local generalization capability for approximating nonlinear functions and fast learning, a normal FCMAC requires huge memory, and its dimension increases exponentially with the number of inputs. In order to overcome the memory explosion problem, this paper proposes two types of hierarchical FCMAC (HFCMAC). Another contribution of the paper is that we give stable learning algorithms for these two HFCMACs. Backpropagation-like approach is applied to train each block with a time-varying learning rate, which is obtained by the input-to-state stability technique.
A new approach to solve the sequence-length constraint problem in circular convolution using number theoretic transform

Offers a novel approach to solve the sequence-length constraint problem by proposing a formula to produce generalized modulo a numbers for number theoretic transforms. By selecting a prime M as the modulo number and choosing the least primitive root M as the a in the number theoretic transform, the sequence lengths become exponentially proportional to the word length. The set of generalized modulo numbers includes Mersenne and Fermat numbers. The circular convolution obtained by this method is accurate, i.e., without roundoff error. >
A ‘Natural’ Exhibitioner: Sir Ashton Lever and his Holosphusikon

Sir Ashton Lever (1729-1788) assembled on6 of the major natural history collections of the late eighteenth century and in 1775 he put it on public display, at his museum, the Holosphusikon in Leicester Square, London. It was a distinguished collection by any standards: of the approximately 27 000 objects he amassed, there were a number of natural specimens not to be found elsewhere in Britain, a substantial amount of ethnographic material from Cook’s second and third voyages and good holdings of British and foreign antiquities. On display for all who could afford the admission charge, the exhibits were also discussed and written about by Fellows of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries (Lever was himself a Fellow of both Societies). A collection such as Lever’s is a rich resource for historical enquiry because we can see the intersecting ideas and practices of natural history, visual culture, commerce, theology and so on at work in it. With this in mind, it is therefore surprising that accounts of his collection tend to underplay both the scientific and the general ‘cultural work’ it was doing, emphasising instead evidence of Lever’s apparent eccentricities and lack of rigour. This article is not an attempt to recover Lever as a ‘great man’, but it is intended as a stimulus to more serious engagement with his work. It is true, for example, that Lever ’dressed up’ as an archer, cutting rather an odd figure in Fanny Burney’s frequently quoted description of a visit she made to the museum in 1782: ‘thus, accoutred as a forester, he pranced about: while the younger fools, who were in the same garb, kept running to and fro in the garden, carefully contriving to shoot at some mark, just as any of the company appeared at any of the windows. ” However, this description of Lever can be interpreted, perhaps, as playful with the knowledge that Lever was the first President of the Toxophilite Society, a group that had been established to encourage archery as a sport and around which there was much antiquarian activity. It seems probable, therefore, that when Burney visited the museum, Lever was wearing the Society’s uniform as described in the ‘Rules and Orders’ of the Society. ’ Lever’s work was well known and valued in this field and he was described by one writer as ‘the father of modern a r ~ h e r y ’ . ~ It is also true that Lever did not use a recognised taxonomic system to arrange or describe objects, for which he was criticised. Nevertheless, he was
Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina

Primero. -Difundir las BASES de la Constitución Nacional, libro eficaz, con el cual su filósofo autor -a quien la tiranía había arrojado de la patriailuminó la batalla de Caseros, desde la costa del Pacífico; libro de la libertad, capaz de orientar a los ciudadanos por el verdadero camino de nuestras democráticas instituciones, para cumplirse y desarrollarse cada vez más vigorosamente, convirtiendo así a Alberdi en lo que debe ser: el genio familiar del pueblo argentino.
Applying class-based feature extraction approaches for supervised classification of hyperspectral imagery

Global band selection or feature extraction methods have been applied to hyperspectral image classification to overcome the "curse of dimension". We applied class-based feature extraction approaches and compressed the class data into different lower dimensional subspaces. Land cover classes in hyperspectral imagery could be roughly modelled as low-dimensional Gaussian clusters (i.e., "Gaussian pancakes") floating in sparse hyperspace. Each pixel was labelled accordingly based on conventional classifiers. We evaluated and compared the class-based version of principal components analysis (PCA), probabilistic principal components analysis (PPCA), and probabilistic factor analysis (PFA) algorithms to find the lower dimensional class subspaces in the training stage, projected each pixel, and then assigned the class label according to the maximum likelihood decision rule. Results from simulations and the classification of a compact airborne spectrographic imager 2 (CASI 2) hyperspectral dataset were presented. The proposed class-based PCA (CPCA) algorithm provided a reasonable trade-off between classification accuracy and computational efficiency for hyperspectral image classification. It proved more efficient and provided the highest classification kappa coefficient (0.946) among all band selection and feature extraction classifiers in our study. CPCA is recommended as a useful class-based feature extraction method for classification of hyperspectral imagery.
Clinical Relevance of the Recently Described Species Aeromonas aquariorum

ABSTRACT Twenty-two human extraintestinal isolates (11 from blood) and three isolates recovered from patients with diarrhea were genetically characterized as Aeromonas aquariorum, a novel species known only from ornamental fish. The isolates proved to bear a considerable number of virulence genes, and all were resistant to amoxicillin (amoxicilline), cephalothin (cefalotin), and cefoxitin. Biochemical differentiation from the most relevant clinical species is provided.
The Global Magnetic Field of Mercury from MESSENGER Orbital Observations

Displacement of Mercury's magnetic dipole implies that the surface field has a north-south asymmetry. Magnetometer data acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit about Mercury permit the separation of internal and external magnetic field contributions. The global planetary field is represented as a southward-directed, spin-aligned, offset dipole centered on the spin axis. Positions where the cylindrical radial magnetic field component vanishes were used to map the magnetic equator and reveal an offset of 484 ± 11 kilometers northward of the geographic equator. The magnetic axis is tilted by less than 3° from the rotation axis. A magnetopause and tail-current model was defined by using 332 magnetopause crossing locations. Residuals of the net external and offset-dipole fields from observations north of 30°N yield a best-fit planetary moment of 195 ± 10 nanotesla-RM3, where RM is Mercury’s mean radius.
Fig (Ficus carica) Liquid Co-Products as New Potential Functional Ingredient: Physico-Chemical and In Vitro Antioxidant Properties

The aims of this study were to determine (i) the physico-chemical characteristics, (ii) the phenolic, flavonoid and anthocyanins profile, (iii) the organic acids and sugar content, and (iv) the antioxidant properties of the liquid co-product generated by the figs (FLC) processing industry in order to set standards for its applications as a potential ingredient of food products. The liquid co-products obtained from the peel and pulp of two fig varieties (colar and cuello de dama) were used. The polyphenolic profile and the organic acids and sugar were determined by HPLC. For the antioxidant activity, four different test systems were used (DPPH, FRAP, TBARS and FIC). The total phenolic, total flavonoid and total anthocyanin contents were also determined. The FLC from peel presented higher total phenolic, flavonoid and anthocyanin contents than FLC from pulp. The FLC obtained from peel and pulp had a high content of sugars, mainly glucose and fructose. As regards antioxidant activity, at all concentrations and with all methods, FLC obtained from peel presented higher antioxidant activity than the pulp FLC. FLC obtained from the peel and pulp could be an alternative for use as a natural preservative in food matrices due to its broad antioxidant activity.
In vitro kinetic studies on the mechanism of oxygen-dependent cellular uptake of copper radiopharmaceuticals

The development of hypoxia-selective radiopharmaceuticals for use as therapeutic and/or imaging agents is of vital importance for both early identification and treatment of cancer and in the design of new drugs. Radiotracers based on copper for use in positron emission tomography have received great attention due to the successful application of copper(II) bis(thiosemicarbazonato) complexes, such as [60/62/64Cu(II)ATSM] and [60/62/64Cu(II)PTSM], as markers for tumour hypoxia and blood perfusion, respectively. Recent work has led to the proposal of a revised mechanism of hypoxia-selective cellular uptake and retention of [Cu(II)ATSM]. The work presented here describes non-steady-state kinetic simulations in which the reported pO2-dependent in vitro cellular uptake and retention of [64Cu(II)ATSM] in EMT6 murine carcinoma cells has been modelled by using the revised mechanistic scheme. Non-steady-state (NSS) kinetic analysis reveals that the model is in very good agreement with the reported experimental data with a root-mean-squared error of less than 6% between the simulated and experimental cellular uptake profiles. Estimated rate constants are derived for the cellular uptake and washout (k1 = 9.8 ± 0.59 × 10−4 s−1 and k2 = 2.9 ± 0.17 × 10−3 s−1), intracellular reduction (k3 = 5.2 ± 0.31 × 10−2 s−1), reoxidation (k4 = 2.2 ± 0.13 mol−1 dm3 s−1) and proton-mediated ligand dissociation (k5 = 9.0 ± 0.54 × 10−5 s−1). Previous mechanisms focused on the reduction and reoxidation steps. However, the data suggest that the origins of hypoxia-selective retention may reside with the stability of the copper(I) anion with respect to protonation and ligand dissociation. In vitro kinetic studies using the nicotimamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH)-dependent ferredoxin reductase enzyme PuR isolated from the bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris have also been conducted. NADH turnover frequencies are found to be dependent on the structure of the ligand and the results confirm that the proposed reduction step in the mechanism of hypoxia selectivity is likely to be mediated by NADH-dependent enzymes. Further understanding of the mechanism of hypoxia selectivity may facilitate the development of new imaging and radiotherapeutic agents with increased specificity for tumour hypoxia.
Event Recommendation based on Graph Random Walking and History Preference Reranking

Event recommendation has become an important issue in event-based social networks (EBSN). In this paper, we study how to exploit diverse relations in an EBSN as well as individual history preferences to recommend preferred events. We first construct a hybrid graph consisting of different types of nodes to represent available entities in an EBSN. The graph uses explicit relations as edges to connect nodes of different types; while transferring implicit relations of event attributes to interconnect the event nodes. After executing the graph random walking, we obtain the candidate events with high convergency probabilities. We next extract a user preference from his attended events to further compute his interest similarities to his candidate events. The recommended event list is then obtained by combining the two similarity scores. Data sets from a real EBSN are used to examine the proposed scheme, and experiment results validate its superiority over peer schemes.
Fault diagnosis for switched systems with time delay

This paper investigates the fault diagnosis problem for switched system with time delay. Based on an adaptive fault diagnosis observer, an adaptive estimate algorithm is developed to estimate the fault. The method proposed in this article can not only estimate the fault information quickly and exactly, but also is suitable for two kinds of fault: constant fault and time-varying fault. Simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the presented method.