Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The essence of instructional coaching with elementary teacher candidates: Reflections of practice

THE ESSENCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL COACHING WITH ELEMENTARY TEACHER CANDIDATES: REFLECTIONS OF PRACTICE Abigail J Burke, Ed.D. University of Nebraska, 2015 Advisor: Dr. Jeanne L. Surface The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the essence of instructional coaching between teacher candidates and an instructional coach as it relates to reflection of practice. Reflection has increasingly been recognized as a central element of professional growth during teacher preparation (Barnett, 2009; Cochran, et al, 2009; Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007; Parkinson, 2009). There is limited understanding of the process of learning with the support of an instructional coach within the context of field experience during teacher preparation. The limited research regarding the reflective practices alongside an instructional coach, during field experience led me to analyze the interactions that take place between the instructional coach and teacher candidates during the teacher preparation program. The participants in this study were 14 teacher candidates and an instructional coach at a metropolitan university in the Midwest. Six central existential themes emerged from the study; contextualizing the experience, launching the conversation, refocusing the big blur, fostering the mindset,
Scheduling soft aperiodic tasks in adaptable fixed-priority systems

This paper presents a new type of scheduling algorithm for servicing soft deadline aperiodic tasks in adaptable fixed-priority real-time systems. The major goals of our proposed task scheduling are not only to guarantee all the deadlines of periodic tasks and to obtain fast response time for aperiodic tasks, but also to retain considerable scheduling predictability. To achieve these goals, we have adopted a new aperiodic task scheduling principle in which a normal fixed-priority assignment strategy and the information on a preassignment table built off-line are properly mingled somewhat dynamically according to the aperiodic tasks' arrivals at runtime. The paper also shows some simulation results in terms of the average aperiodic response time, verifying that the new algorithm offers significant performance improvements over other conventional joint scheduling algorithms, especially under a heavy transient overload.
Association of worker characteristics and early reimbursement for physical therapy, chiropractic and opioid prescriptions with workers’ compensation claim duration, for cases of acute low back pain: an observational cohort study

Objective To assess the association between early reimbursement for physiotherapy, chiropractic and opioid prescriptions for acute low back pain (LBP) with disability claim duration. Design Observational cohort study. Setting and participants From a random sample of 6665 claims for acute, uncomplicated LBP approved by the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in 2005, we analysed 1442 who remained on full benefits at 4 weeks after claim approval. Primary outcome measure Our primary outcome was WSIB claim duration. Results We had complete data for all but 3 variables, which had <15% missing data, and we included missing data as a category for these factors. Our time-to-event analysis was adjusted for demographic, workplace and treatment factors, but not injury severity, although we attempted to include a sample with very similar, less-severe injuries. Regarding significant factors and treatment variables in our adjusted analysis, older age (eg, HR for age ≥55 vs <25=0.52; 99% CI 0.36 to 0.74) and WSIB reimbursement for opioid prescription in the first 4 weeks of a claim (HR=0.68; 99% CI 0.53 to 0.88) were associated with longer claim duration. Higher predisability income was associated with longer claim duration, but only among persistent claims (eg, HR for active claims at 1 year with a predisability income >$920 vs ≤$480/week=0.34; 99% CI 0.17 to 0.68). Missing data for union membership (HR=1.27; 99% CI 1.01 to 1.59), and working for an employer with a return-to-work programme were associated with fewer days on claim (HR=1.78; 99% CI 1.45 to 2.18). Neither reimbursement for physiotherapy (HR=1.01; 99% CI 0.86 to 1.19) nor chiropractic care (HR for active claims at 60 days=1.15; 99% CI 0.94 to 1.41) within the first 4 weeks was associated with claim duration. Our meta-analysis of 3 studies (n=51 069 workers) confirmed a strong association between early opioid use and prolonged claim duration (HR=0.57, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.69; low certainty evidence). Conclusions Our analysis found that early WSIB reimbursement for physiotherapy or chiropractic care, in claimants fully off work for more than 4 weeks, was not associated with claim duration, and that early reimbursement for opioids predicted prolonged claim duration. Well-designed randomised controlled trials are needed to verify our findings and establish causality between these variables and claim duration.
Extracting product unit attributes from product offers by using an ontology

Comparing products and prices of on-line offers is important to e-shoppers and on-line retailers. The e-shoppers compare products and prices for finding the best product or price whereas the retailers need to compare their own products and prices to those of their competitors in order to remain competitive. As there is a wide range of product offers available on the Web the product and price comparison need to be done by an automated approach. One challenging task of such an approach is the automated assignment of different product offers which refer to the same real-world product. Products are compared and assigned based on the calculation of the pairwise similarity of their attributes. Thus, the attributes need to be identified, extracted and harmonised. In the case of the comparison of unit attributes harmonisation means to convert the attributes and their values into the same unit. The contribution of this paper is an approach and a corresponding ontology for identifying, extracting and harmonising unit attributes of product offers. The unit attribute ontology is introduced, the extraction process is described and the adequacy of the approach is validated through an experiment.
Assessment of sperm chemokinesis with exposure to jelly coats of sea urchin eggs and resact: a microfluidic experiment and numerical study

SUMMARY Specific peptides contained within the extracellular layer, or jelly coat, of a sea urchin egg have been hypothesized to play an important role in fertilization, though separate accounting of the effects of chemoattraction, chemokinesis, sperm agglomeration and the other possible roles of the jelly coat have not been reported. In the present study, we used a microfluidic device that allowed determination of the differences in the diffusion coefficients of sperm of the purple sea urchin Arbacia punctulata subjected to two chemoattractants, namely the jelly coat and resact. Our objectives were twofold: (1) to experimentally determine and compare the diffusion coefficients of Arbacia punctulata spermatozoa in seawater, jelly coat solution and resact solution; and (2) to determine the effect of sea urchin sperm diffusion coefficient and egg size on the sperm–egg collision frequency using stochastic simulations. Numerical values of the diffusion coefficients obtained by diffusing the spermatozoa in seawater, resact solution and jelly coat solution were used to quantify the chemotactic effect. This allowed direct incorporation of known enlargements of the egg, and altered sperm diffusion coefficients in the presence of chemoattractant, in the stochastic simulations. Simulation results showed that increase in diffusion coefficient values and egg diameter values increased the collision frequency. From the simulation results, we concluded that type of sperm, egg diameter and diffusion coefficient are significant factors in egg fertilization. Increasing the motility of sperm appears to be the prominent role of the jelly coat.
Ethernet frame tunneling over GPRS/EDGE for universal network monitoring

Many equipment manufactures introduce proprietary protocols in network monitoring and equipment configuration to maintain market monopoly. This paper presenting a low cost solution to access, monitor and configure such equipments irrespective of its communication method. The solution consists of especially designed hardware modules which are collocated and connected with the equipments (need to monitor remotely) distributed over large geographical area. The system is designed such that multiple peer to peer connections can be setup with remotely held equipments to ensure the physical connectivity. Due to its' peer to peer and low level nature, system supports proprietary or standard network monitoring despite the differences of the equipment or the network monitoring software implementation. Furthermore, this paper discuss the solution facilitated the transportation of analogue and digital alarms from remote sites to a central network monitoring node which often equipment operators need separate transport system.
A Tactical Planning Model for Liner Shipping Companies : Managing Container Flow and Ship Deployment Jointly

This paper addresses two practical problems from a liner shipping company, i.e., the container flow management problem and the ship deployment problem at the tactical planning level. The joint optimization model, as well as, a sequential model, is formulated to solve the problems. Our results show the company should implement the joint optimization model at the tactical planning level to improve the shipping capacity utilization rather than the sequential model used in the current practice. Repositioning of empty containers is also considered jointly with the loaded container flow at the tactical planning level. Some important managerial insights into the operational and business processes are gained.
Classification of English Manner of Motion Verbs for a Machine

Being able to differentiate between figurative and literal words and phrases is useful for a variety of natural language processing tasks, including machine translation. In this project, I implemented a linear classifier with a logistic loss function to distinguish between figurative and literal uses of English manner of motion verbs. The feature inputs to this models were the lemma of the manner of motion verb, the types of syntactic dependents attached to it, and the semantic hypernyms of the verb’s syntactic dependents, extracted with WordNet. The linear classifier achieved 86% accuracy on a set of test sentences, compared to 77.5% baseline accuracy of a bagof-words classifier. Finally, I test the effect of adding figurative/literal annotations to English manner of motion verbs on the performance of the Moses machine translation system. I find an increase in BLEU score for annotated inputs, but discuss issues with the experiment that make this result difficult to interpret. Note: Some of the work for this project was done in conjunction with my final project for CS221: Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Techniques. The work for CS221 mainly comprises the implementation and analysis of a linear classifier model. The work for CS224N comprises the feature design and extraction, the in-depth error analysis of the classifier’s performance, and the experiment with the Moses machine translation system.
Vinculin Is Part of the Cadherin–Catenin Junctional Complex: Complex Formation between α-Catenin and Vinculin

In epithelial cells, α-, β-, and γ-catenin are involved in linking the peripheral microfilament belt to the transmembrane protein E-cadherin. α-Catenin exhibits sequence homologies over three regions to vinculin, another adherens junction protein. While vinculin is found in cell–matrix and cell–cell contacts, α-catenin is restricted to the latter. To elucidate, whether vinculin is part of the cell–cell junctional complex, we investigated complex formation and intracellular targeting of vinculin and α-catenin. We show that α-catenin colocalizes at cell–cell contacts with endogenous vinculin and also with the transfected vinculin head domain forming immunoprecipitable complexes. In vitro, the vinculin NH2-terminal head binds to α-catenin, as seen by immunoprecipitation, dot overlay, cosedimentation, and surface plasmon resonance measurements. The K d of the complex was determined to 2–4 × 10−7 M. As seen by overlays and affinity mass spectrometry, the COOH-terminal region of α-catenin is involved in this interaction. Complex formation of vinculin and α-catenin was challenged in transfected cells. In PtK2 cells, intact α-catenin and α-catenin1-670, harboring the β-catenin– binding site, were directed to cell–cell contacts. In contrast, α-catenin697–906 fragments were recruited to cell–cell contacts, focal adhesions, and stress fibers. Our results imply that in vivo α-catenin, like vinculin, is tightly regulated in its ligand binding activity.
The Conelike Hα Nebula in NGC 4945: A Galactic Superwind Bow Shock?

We find that a nonaxisymmetric bow shock model, with an appropriate choice of parameters, could fit the line-splitting velocity field of the conelike Hα nebula in NGC 4945 better than a canonical cone model. Meanwhile, the bow shock model could also reproduce the morphology of the Hα nebula. The bow shock results from the interaction of the galactic superwinds with a giant H II region. It is implied that the starburst ring or disk around the galactic nucleus should be generating strong winds, and the bright Hα knot northwest of the nucleus should be suffering an anisotropic mass-loss process.
Missing (up) Mass, Accidental Anomalous Symmetries, and the Strong CP Problem

We reconsider the massless up quark solution of the strong CP problem. We show that an anomaly free horizontal symmetry can naturally lead to a massless up quark and to a corresponding accidental anomalous symmetry. Reviewing the controversy about the phenomenological viability of $m_u=0$ we conclude that this possiblity is still open and can solve the strong CP problem. To appear in the Proceedings of The Yukawa Couplings and the Origins of Mass Workshop.
Identification of Chlorophyceae based on 18S rDNA sequences from Persian Gulf

Background and Objectives Chlorophyceae are important constituents of marine phytoplankton. The taxonomy of Chlorophyceae was traditionally based solely on morphological characteristics. In the present research project, genetic diversity was investigated to analyze five species of Chlorophyceae from waters of the Persian Gulf. Materials and Methods A clone library of the ribosomal small subunit RNA gene (18S rDNA) in the nuclear genome was constructed by PCR, and then, after examining the clones, selected clones were sequenced. The determined clone sequences were analyzed by a similarity search of the NCBI GenBank database using BLAST. Results and Conclusion Eleven sequences were identified correctly and used for phylogenetic analysis. We identified species of Chlorophyta (Chlorella sorokiniana, Chlamydomonas sp., Neochloris aquatic, Picochlorum sp. and Nannochloris atomus) without the need to conduct extensive colony isolation techniques. Therefore, this improved molecular method can be used to generate a robust database describing the species diversity of environmental samples.
Discovery of non-radial pulsations in the spectroscopic binary Herbig Ae star RS Chamaeleontis

Context: To understand the origin of stellar activity in pre-main-sequence Herbig Ae/Be stars and to get a deeper insight into the interior of these enigmatic stars, the pulsational instability strip of Palla and Marconi is investigated. In this article we present a first discovery of non radial pulsations in the Herbig Ae spectroscopic binary star RS Cha. Aims: The goal of the present work is to detect non-radial pulsations in a Herbig Ae star for the first time directly by spectrographic means and to identify the largest amplitude pulsation modes. Methods: The spectroscopic binary Herbig Ae star RS Cha was monitored in quasi-continuous observations during 14 observing nights (Jan. 2006) at the 1 m Mt. John (New Zealand) telescope with the Hercules high-resolution echelle spectrograph. The cumulative exposure time on the star was 44 h, corresponding to 255 individual high-resolution echelle spectra with R = 45 000. Least-square deconvolved spectra (LSD) were obtained for each spectrum, representing the effective photospheric absorption profile modified by pulsations. Difference spectra were calculated by subtracting rotationally broadened artificial profiles, these residual spectra were analysed and non-radial pulsations detected. A subsequent analysis with two complementary methods, namely Fourier Parameter Fit (FPF) and Fourier 2D (F2D) has been performed and first constraints on the pulsation modes derived. Results: For the very first time, we discovered by direct observational means using high-resolution echelle spectroscopy, non-radial oscillations in a Herbig Ae star. In fact, both components of the spectroscopic binary are Herbig Ae stars and both show NRPs. The FPF method identified 2 modes for the primary component with (degree l, azimuthal order m) couples ordered by decreasing probability: f1 = 21.11 d-1 with (l, m) = (11, 11), (11, 9) or (10, 6) and f2 = 30.38 d-1 with (l, m) = ( 10, 6) or (9, 5). The F2D analysis indicates for f1 a degree l = 8-10. For the secondary component, the FPF method identified 3 modes with (l,m) ordered by decreasing probability: f1 = 12.81 d-1 with (l, m) = (2, 1) or (2, 2), f_2b = 19.11 d-1 with (l, m) = (13, 5) or (10, 5) and f3 = 24.56 d-1 with (l, m) = (6, 3) or (6,5). The F2D analysis indicates for f1 a degree l = 2 or 3, but proposes a contradictory identification of f_2b as a radial pulsation (l = 0). Based on observations collected at the 1 m McLellan telescope at Mt John, NZ.
Local statistics of retinal optic flow for self-motion through natural sceneries

Image analysis in the visual system is well adapted to the statistics of natural scenes. Investigations of natural image statistics have so far mainly focused on static features. The present study is dedicated to the measurement and the analysis of the statistics of optic flow generated on the retina during locomotion through natural environments. Natural locomotion includes bouncing and swaying of the head and eye movement reflexes that stabilize gaze onto interesting objects in the scene while walking. We investigate the dependencies of the local statistics of optic flow on the depth structure of the natural environment and on the ego-motion parameters. To measure these dependencies we estimate the mutual information between correlated data sets. We analyze the results with respect to the variation of the dependencies over the visual field, since the visual motions in the optic flow vary depending on visual field position. We find that retinal flow direction and retinal speed show only minor statistical interdependencies. Retinal speed is statistically tightly connected to the depth structure of the scene. Retinal flow direction is statistically mostly driven by the relation between the direction of gaze and the direction of ego-motion. These dependencies differ at different visual field positions such that certain areas of the visual field provide more information about ego-motion and other areas provide more information about depth. The statistical properties of natural optic flow may be used to tune the performance of artificial vision systems based on human imitating behavior, and may be useful for analyzing properties of natural vision systems.
Primer-Dependent and Primer-Independent Initiation of Double Stranded RNA Synthesis by Purified Arabidopsis RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerases RDR2 and RDR6

Cellular RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RDRs) are fundamental components of RNA silencing in plants and many other eukaryotes. In Arabidopsis thaliana genetic studies have demonstrated that RDR2 and RDR6 are involved in the synthesis of double stranded RNA (dsRNA) from single stranded RNA (ssRNA) targeted by RNA silencing. The dsRNA is subsequently cleaved by the ribonuclease DICER-like into secondary small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that reinforce and/or maintain the silenced state of the target RNA. Models of RNA silencing propose that RDRs could use primer-independent and primer-dependent initiation to generate dsRNA from a transcript targeted by primary siRNA or microRNA (miRNA). However, the biochemical activities of RDR proteins are still partly understood. Here, we obtained active recombinant RDR2 and RDR6 in a purified form. We demonstrate that RDR2 and RDR6 have primer-independent and primer-dependent RNA polymerase activities with different efficiencies. We further show that RDR2 and RDR6 can initiate dsRNA synthesis either by elongation of 21- to 24- nucleotides RNAs hybridized to complementary RNA template or by elongation of self-primed RNA template. These findings provide new insights into our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of RNA silencing in plants.
The MITRE logical form generation system

In this paper, we describe MITRE’s contribution to the logical form generation track of Senseval-3. We begin with a description of the context of MITRE’s work, followed by a description of the MITRE sys-tem and its results. We conclude with a commentary on the form and structure of this evaluation track.
Academic Achievement of Students with Math Learning Difficulties in Dilla Primary School, Gedeo Zone, Ethiopia

The objective of this study was to explore the academic achievement of grade four students with Math learning difficulties in Dilla primary school, Gedo Zone of SNNPR. The study used descriptive survey type of mixed method design with both quantitative and qualitative methods. For the purpose of quantitative data, screening and assessment process of 30 students with math learning difficulties, the last three years mathematics achievement results from the school record, regional math achievement exam and BANUCA test are used. To obtain qualitative data 5 students with math learning difficulties, 4 math teachers and 4 parents are selected through simple random and purposive sampling techniques. The findings show that, the mean value of four years math performance of the participants are 41.4, which is poor or below their overall average achievements 54.70. When their current mathematics performance is evaluated by regional achievement exam the result shows below average with mean value 24.91. Regarding the factors of their poor performance, it is categorized under problems related to attitude, pedagogical, social and economic aspects. And also the result indicates that positive relationship between math and overall achievement in the current grade four and the previous three grade levels. Moreover, the t – test comparison value shows that poor math performance has its own and reasonable effect in overall achievement of students with math learning difficulty. Finally, to ameliorate the identified problems and for overall findings possible recommendation are given accordingly.