Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The longitudinal association of childhood school engagement with adult educational and occupational achievement: findings from an Australian national study

The research investigated the association between school engagement and adult education and occupation outcomes, within the context of a 1985 Australian longitudinal national cohort study of the factors affecting children’s long-term health and wellbeing. School engagement may be more modifiable than other factors related to academic success, such as academic attainment, which is influenced by family background. A School Engagement Index was constructed using questionnaire items on school enjoyment and boredom. Related school engagement items included learner self-concept, motivation to learn, sense of belonging, participation in school or extra-mural activities, and enjoyment of physical activity. In 2004-06, participants (aged 26 to 30 years) reported their highest level of education achieved and current occupation. Potential covariates included age, sex, markers of socio-economic status in childhood, personality, and school-level variables (i.e. number of students, single sex versus coeducation; government, private or independent). Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of achieving post-compulsory school education and achieving higher status occupations. Findings revealed that each unit of school engagement was independently associated with a 10% higher odds (OR 1.10 95% CI 1.01,1.21) of achieving a post-compulsory school education. Maternal education, selfconcept as a learner, motivation to learn, all also significantly predicted achieving post-compulsory school education. School engagement was found to mediate the association between the personality characteristic of agreeableness and education outcomes. Higher school engagement was also independently associated with achieving higher status occupations 20 years later (OR 1.11 95% CI 1.03, 1.20). Importantly, this was independent of a host of background factors.
Cardinality estimation in ETL processes

The cardinality estimation in ETL processes is particularly difficult. Aside from the well-known SQL operators, which are also used in ETL processes, there are a variety of operators without exact counterparts in the relational world. In addition to those, we find operators that support very specific data integration aspects. For such operators, there are no well-examined statistic approaches for cardinality estimations. Therefore, we propose a black-box approach and estimate the cardinality using a set of statistic models for each operator. We discuss different model granularities and develop an adaptive cardinality estimation framework for ETL processes. We map the abstract model operators to specific statistic learning approaches (regression, decision trees, support vector machines, etc.) and evaluate our cardinality estimations in an extensive experimental study.
Placental Vascular Dysfunction, Fetal and Childhood Growth, and Cardiovascular Development: The Generation R Study

Background— Suboptimal fetal nutrition may influence early growth and cardiovascular development. We examined whether umbilical and uterine artery resistance indices, as measures of feto-placental and utero-placental vascular function, respectively, are associated with fetal and childhood growth and cardiovascular development. Methods and Results— This study was embedded in a population-based prospective cohort study among 6716 mothers and their children. Umbilical artery pulsatility index and uterine artery resistance index and fetal growth were measured in third trimester. Childhood growth was repeatedly assessed from birth to the age of 6 years. We measured body fat distribution, left ventricular mass, and blood pressure at the age of 6 years. Higher third trimester umbilical and uterine artery vascular resistance were associated with lower fetal length and weight growth in third trimester resulting in a smaller size at birth among boys and girls (P values < 0.05). These differences in length and weight growth became smaller from the age of 6 months onwards, but were still present at the age of 6 years. Higher third trimester umbilical artery vascular resistance, but not uterine artery vascular resistance, was associated with higher childhood body mass index, total fat mass, android/gynoid fat mass ratio, and systolic blood pressure, and with a lower left ventricular mass (P values<0.05). These associations were not explained by birth weight. Stronger associations tended to be present among girls as compared with boys. Conclusions— Higher third trimester feto-placental vascular resistance, but not utero-placental vascular resistance, was associated with slower fetal growth rates and cardiovascular adaptations in childhood.
Estimating Persistence in the Volatility of Asset Returns with Signal Plus Noise Models

This paper examines the degree of persistence in the volatility of financial time series using a Long Memory Stochastic Volatility (LMSV) model. Specifically, it employs a Gaussian semiparametric (or local Whittle) estimator of the memory parameter, based on the frequency domain, proposed by Robinson (1995a), and shown by Arteche (2004) to be consistent and asymptotically normal in the context of signal plus noise models. Daily data on the NASDAQ index are analysed. The results suggest that volatility has a component of long- memory behaviour, the order of integration ranging between 0.3 and 0.5, the series being therefore stationary and mean-reverting.
Towards a managerial model of creativity in information systems

This paper presents an early attempt at developing a framework for studying organizational creativity in the IS domain. A managerial model of organizational creativity is proposed, tying together organizational inputs, creative processes, creative outputs and organizational outcomes based an research in organizational creativity, organizational innovation and strategic management. The model is discussed in the setting of the IS domain and shows not only how critical factors of the IS organization could affect the creative IS processes, but also how the outputs of the IS creative processes are related to organizational outcomes. We discuss the business value of IS creativity in terms of increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency. The model with supporting literature on creativity and IS is used to develop a framework for studying IS creativity. Several research propositions are suggested to test the model. <<ETX>>
Efficient way of path planning and navigation for autonomous multi robot systems using an intelligent vision system

The paper proposes a vision system for robots in a multi robot system that enables the robots to perceive vision by de-centralizing and re-using the learning of each and every robot in the multi robot system. By de-centralized and re-using the learning it is meant that the robots learn about the environment from their own point of view with their own sensors but share their learning with other robots, thus forming a pool of information about the environment in a distributed way. This distributed perception makes the generation of multi view appearance model of unknown, arbitrary objects easy and effective. The paper focuses on developing such a de-centralized system to track multiple obstacles simultaneously which will help in efficient path planning and navigation. The saved learning by one robot can be used by other robots in the multi-robot system. On every run the proposed system continues learning about the objects from where it left. The proposed vision system is capable of tracking objects efficiently at different scales, lighting conditions, environments and also under occlusions. It is implemented on a mobile robot with the low-power OMAP4 based pandaboard ES as the processing unit and the performances are discussed.
The Pharmacokinetics of Lersivirine (UK-453,061) and HIV-1 Protease Inhibitor Coadministration in Healthy Subjects

Objective:Lersivirine (UK-453,061) is a next-generation nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, active against wild-type HIV-1 and several nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor–resistant strains. Four studies evaluated the pharmacokinetic (PK) interactions between lersivirine and various HIV-1 protease inhibitors. Methods:Four phase I trials were conducted to assess the PK of lersivirine when coadministered with lopinavir/ritonavir, darunavir/ritonavir, or atazanavir with/without ritonavir, and to examine the effects of lersivirine on the PK of atazanavir with/without ritonavir. PK data included the area under the plasma concentration–time profile from time zero to the end of the dosing interval (AUC24), maximum plasma concentration (Cmax), minimum plasma concentration (Cmin, C24, or Ctrough), and time to Cmax (Tmax). Safety was assessed by recording adverse events, vital signs, and laboratory data. Results:Coadministration of lersivirine with lopinavir/ritonavir, darunavir/ritonavir, or atazanavir/ritonavir decreased mean plasma lersivirine AUC24 by 43%, 22%, and 19%, respectively. Atazanavir had no effect on lersivirine exposure, except for a 16% decrease in lersivirine C24. Lersivirine had no effect on atazanavir AUC24 or Cmax, although Ctrough was reduced by 18% in the absence of ritonavir. Conclusions:Lersivirine exposure was reduced when coadministered with ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitors; a dose adjustment may be warranted. Unboosted atazanavir had no effect on lersivirine exposure, except for a small decrease in lersivirine C24. Lersivirine had no effect on atazanavir (with/without ritonavir) exposure, except for a decrease in Ctrough. Caution should be applied when unboosted atazanavir is coadministered with lersivirine. Coadministration of lersivirine with lopinavir/ritonavir, darunavir/ritonavir, or atazanavir with/without ritonavir seems to be generally well tolerated.
Microwave-Assisted Hydro-Distillation of Essential Oil from Rosemary: Comparison with Traditional Distillation

Background: Hydro-distillation (HD) method is a traditional technique which is used in most industrial companies. Microwave-assisted Hydro-distillation (MAHD) is an advanced HD technique utilizing a microwave oven in the extraction process. Methods: In this research, MAHD of essential oils from the aerial parts (leaves) of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) was studied and the results were compared with those of the conventional HD in terms of extraction time, extraction efficiency, chemical composition, quality of the essential oils and cost of the operation. Results: Microwave hydro-distillation was superior in terms of saving energy and extraction time (30 min, compared to 90 min in HD). Chromatography was used for quantity analysis of the essential oils composition. Quality of essential oil improved in MAHD method due to an increase of 17% in oxygenated compounds. Conclusion: Consequently, microwave hydro-distillation can be used as a substitute of traditional hydro-distillation.
Applying static analysis techniques for inferring termination conditions of logic programs ( preliminary version )

We present the implementation of cTI, a system for universal left-termination inference of logic programs, which heavily relies on static analysis techniques. Termination inference generalizes termination analysis/checking. Traditionally, a termination analyzer tries to prove that a given class of queries terminates. This class must be provided to the system, requiring user annotations. With termination inference such annotations are not necessary. Instead, all provably terminating classes to all related predicates are inferred at once. The architecture of cTI is described and some optimizations are discussed. Running times for classical examples from the termination literature in LP and for some middle-sized logic programs are given.
Transalpine colonisation and partial phylogeographic erosion by dispersal in the common vole (Microtus arvalis)

The colonisation history and genetic structure of the common vole (Microtus arvalis) was investigated in the region of the Alps by analysing the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (mtDNA) and 19 microsatellite loci (nucDNA) for 137 voles from 52 localities. mtDNA data provided a much refined distribution of three highly divergent evolutionary lineages in the region compared to previous studies. Although high mountain ranges are widely accepted to be barriers for colonisation processes for many organisms and especially small terrestrial mammals, our phylogeographic analyses showed clear evidence of four transalpine colonisation events by the common vole. Individual‐based phylogenetic analyses of nucDNA and two alternative Bayesian‐clustering approaches revealed a deep genetic structure analogous to mtDNA. Incongruence between nucDNA and mtDNA at the individual level was restricted to the regions of contact between the lineages. mtDNA patterns and strong female philopatry in M. arvalis suggest that the crossings of the Alps occurred during the colonisation of the region when it was free from ice after the last glaciation. nucDNA patterns suggest that some of the transalpine elements of this phylogeographic pattern were subsequently eroded by male‐biased gene flow. We conclude that the combination of phylogeography and landscape genetics at the individual level can provide very detailed insights into colonisation events and may even allow differentiation between historical and more recent processes.
Identification of Development and Pathogenicity Related Gene in Botrytis cinerea via Digital Gene Expression Profile

Background: Botrytis cinerea, a haploid Euascomycete fungus that infects numerous crops, has been used as a model system for studying molecular phytopathology. Botrytis cinerea adopts various modes of infection, which are mediated by a number of pathogenicity and virulence-related genes. Many of these genes have not been reported previously. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate development and pathogenicity-related genes between a novel nonpathogenic mutant and the Wild Type (WT) in B. cinerea. Materials and Methods: Digital Gene Expression (DGE) tag profiling can reveal novel genes that may be involved in development and pathogenicity of plant pathogen. A large volume of B. cinerea tag-seq was generated to identify differential expressed genes by the Illumina DGE tag proﬁling technology. Results: A total of 4,182,944 and 4,182,021 clean tags were obtained from the WT and a nonpathogenic mutant stain (BCt89), respectively, and 10,410 differentially expressed genes were identified. In addition, 84 genes were expressed in the WT only while 34 genes were expressed in the mutant only. A total of 664 differentially expressed genes were involved in 91 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome pathways, including signaling and metabolic pathways. Conclusions: Expression levels of 1,426 genes were significantly up-regulated in the mutant compared to WT. Furthermore, 301 genes were down-regulated with False Discovery Rates (FDR) of < 0.001 and absolute value of log2 Ratio of ≥ 1.
City Research Online

Real-time strategy games share many aspects with real situations in domains such as battle planning, air traﬃc control, and emergency response team management which makes them appealing test-beds for Artiﬁcial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. End user annotations could help to provide supplemental information for learning algorithms, especially when training data is sparse. This paper presents a formative study to uncover how experienced users explain game play in real-time strategy games. We report the results of our analysis of explanations and discuss their characteristics that could support the design of systems for use by experienced real-time strategy game users in specifying or annotating strategy-oriented behavior.
Self-Esteem Dynamics Regulate the Effects of Feedback on Ambition

Researchers examining self-esteem functioning typically consider self-esteem either an affective or competence related trait. However, to capture more precisely the role of self-esteem in behavior we need to view self-esteem both as something people hold and as something they strive for, and determine the relation between these aspects. In the present study the consequences of the dynamic interplay between basic self-esteem and competence related self-esteem for people's ambition when receiving positive and negative feedback were examined (N = 40). The results indicate that differences in basic self-esteem determine whether competence as a source of self-esteem entails realistic or unrealistic ambition strategies. Overall, the results suggest that the relation between self-esteem and competence is hierarchical and asymmetrical, such that competence may enhance a good sense of self-esteem but contribute little if basic self-esteem is impoverished. The present view of self-esteem provides a novel framework for further understanding of self-esteem functioning.
An Optically Programmable SoC for an Autonomous Mobile mm$^{3}$-Sized Microrobot

Recent progresses in miniaturization of sensors and actuators have yielded to the first attempt to create an mm3 -sized autonomous robot with sensing capabilities called I-SWARM. The robot is conceived to interact with other I-SWARM robots in order to create a robotic swarm. It is provided with a locomotion unit, an infrared communication system, a contact sensor, solar cells for powering, and a system on chip (SoC) that acts as the brain of the robot. All these components are mounted over a flexible printed circuit board, being I-SWARM a real system in package (SiP). The SoC communicates with other I-SWARMs, sense its environment, processes data and takes decisions, as for example moving, with less than 1.5 mW. Different electronic circuits (power electronics, buffers, ADCs, DACs, control units, analog transducers, and even an oscillator) have been embedded in the SoC due to the limited area, less than 3 × 3 mm2. The SoC is reprogrammable optically in order to change the behavior of the microrobot.
Improving the Separation of Parallel Code in Skeletal Systems

This paper describes how to improve separation between domain-specific code and parallel code in skeletal systems. Traditionally, the code used to exploit parallelism is tangled among domain-specific code, which leads to problems such as: poor maintainability, lower flexibility, and weak scalability. In this paper we introduce the design of the YaSkel framework, which is a support tool to write parallel programs. We argue that the design of YaSkel framework allows more freedom to change the parallelization strategy when compared with traditional skeleton frameworks. To change the parallelization strategy we rely on DI – Dependency Injection – to inject a reference of a specific skeleton in latter development stages. We also show that AOP – Aspect Oriented Programming – could be used to minimize the impact of applying skeleton based approaches to legacy code.
Mental Toughness Training for Police Officers: the Impact of a Stress Inoculation Program on Police Stress

This study examined the impact that a stress inoculation training (SIT) program had on a small-sized city police department in the southwestern U.S. Specifically, the aim of this study was to investigate how a SIT program impacted police officer self-reported levels of organizational stress, operational stress, perceived life stress, and mood states. All 24 participants were recruited from a population of 132 sworn, active duty police officers and were pre-tested through administration of a questionnaire packet containing a host of measures related to demographics, organizational stressors, operational stressors, general life stressors, and mood states. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the following treatment conditions: (1) delayed training; (2) SIT program; and (3) SIT plus booster program. On completion of the SIT program, members of each of the treatment conditions were re-assessed through the administration of the aforementioned questionnaire packet. Subsequent to conducting the booster sessions, participants from each treatment condition took part in a second, and final, follow-up assessment. Results suggested that organizational stress was decreased for participants in the SIT program, particularly at follow-up. Results also suggested that energy (i.e., vigor) was increased for participants in the SIT plus booster program at both post-test and follow-up. Furthermore, results suggested that there was a statistically significant decrease in perceived life stress at both post-test and follow-up, yet statistically analysis was unable to tease out which group contributed to this significance. These findings support the efficacy of an SIT program in assisting police officers combat organizational stressors.
Effects of intracellular H+ on the electrical properties of excitable cells.

Cytoplasmic pH (pHi) is a tightly regulated quantity, and changes in pHi tend to exert profound effects on the properties of cells. Substantial advances have been made in the last decade in understanding how pHi is regulated, principally through the development of techniques for measuring pHi accurately in living cells. Nonetheless, information about the roles played by changes in pHi under normal physiological circumstances, or about the effects of experimentally imposed changes in pHi on various cell properties, is still not very complete. In this paper, I review a number of experiments concerned with the effects of changes in pHi on the electrical properties of various excitable cells, such as neurons, muscle fibers, and oocytes. Because this review emphasizes intact cells and the possible physiological actions of pHi changes in modifying ion conductances rather than on the role of titratable chemical groups in the ion permeation process, I also discuss several aspects of pHi regulation in excitable cells as well as nonelectrophysiological effects of pHi changes. Understanding how excitable cells maintain and regulate cytoplasmic H+ ion activity is, for several reasons, essential for interpreting changes in pHi and their electrical effects.
Reliability and Normative Data for the Dynamic Visual Acuity Test for Vestibular Screening

Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to determine reliability of computerized dynamic visual acuity (DVA) testing and to determine reference values for younger and older adults. Background: A primary function of the vestibular system is to maintain gaze stability during head motion. The DVA test quantifies gaze stabilization with the head moving versus stationary. Commercially available computerized systems allow clinicians to incorporate DVA into their assessment; however, information regarding reliability and normative values of these systems is sparse. Methods: Forty-six healthy adults, grouped by age, with normal vestibular function were recruited. Each participant completed computerized DVA testing including static visual acuity, minimum perception time, and DVA using the NeuroCom inVision System. Testing was performed by two examiners in the same session and then repeated at a follow-up session 3 to 14 days later. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used to determine inter-rater and test–retest reliability. Results: ICCs for inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.323 to 0.937 and from 0.434 to 0.909 for horizontal and vertical head movements, respectively. ICCs for test–retest reliability ranged from 0.154 to 0.856 and from 0.377 to 0.9062 for horizontal and vertical head movements, respectively. Overall, raw scores (left/right DVA and up/down DVA) were more reliable than DVA loss scores. Conclusion: Reliability of a commercially available DVA system has poor-to-fair reliability for DVA loss scores. The use of a convergence paradigm and not incorporating the forced choice paradigm may contribute to poor reliability.