Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding language teachers’ enactment of content through the use of centralized curriculum materials

ABSTRACT This study examines a timely yet under-studied area of language curriculum implementation in classroom settings. It explores teachers’ enactment of content by focusing on the use of prescribed textbooks for planning instruction in higher education by teachers of English as a foreign language in mainland China. This qualitative case study involved two Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language. Drawing on data from interviews with the teachers and their students, lesson observations and documents from one semester, the teachers’ use of curriculum materials was fleshed out into four interactional processes: reading, evaluating, appropriating and adapting. This study attempts to uncover the mediated relationships among the teachers, students and curriculum materials via these four processes. By conceptualising this ubiquitous pedagogical practice, our understanding of language teachers’ enactment of curriculum materials is deepened. Theoretical and practical implications are also addressed.
Visual Passwords : Spatiotemporal Cues for Speaker RecognitionK

In order to overcome some of the limitations of static-face recognition methods, we explore the nature of cues that become available when dynamic (\speaking") faces are recorded. No audio signal is recorded and the utterance, which is a form of \visual password", is therefore strictly a \visual-speech" signal. We describe new cues for speaker recognition. These cues are spatiotemporal (ST) in nature and characterized by a set of three features: the speeds of \mouth-opening" and \mouth-closing", and the \ST-area" of the frontal view of the oral cavity while the password is uttered. Since these features are associated with the oral cavity, they are largely independent of reeectance variations on the face itself. We present a new adaptive thresholding procedure to detect the ST cues and to extract the feature sets. Our data consisted of video recordings of four speakers each making ve diierent isolated utterances. Our results show a speaker-dependent clustering of the ST cues, indicating that they could be used to enhance the performance of existing face recognition systems. x y t The reference frame for a spatiotemporal (ST) volume: two spatial coordinates (x & y) and one temporal coordinate (t). The ST volume shown as a time-sequence of spatial slices. The same ST volume shown as a spatial sequence of ST slices. t y x y t = N t = 1 x Figure 1: A spatiotemporal (ST) volume of data is spanned by two spatial (x, y) dimensions and one temporal (t) dimension. A common method of referring to the data is in the form of a time-indexed (t) sequence (middle gure) of spatial (x, y) slices. An alternative method, and one that contains the ST cues we describe in this paper, is an x-indexed sequence of (t, y) slices (right gure).
How does transnationalism affect the perceptions of discrimination among Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans?

ABSTRACT Transnationalism provides first- and second-generation immigrants with a dual frame of reference that shapes perceptions of their experiences in the United States (USA). For Caribbean Latino/as, who are likely targets of racial and ethnic discrimination, transnational ties can impact their interpretations of discriminatory incidents. This study explores the relationship between transnationalism and perceptions of discriminatory experiences of 1,577 Caribbean Latino/as Dominicans (n = 335), Cubans (n = 420), and Puerto Ricans (n = 822). These Latino/as were selected from the 2006 Latino National Survey. Suggested by our study findings, after having controlled for demographic and immigration variables, transnational Caribbean Latino/as are more likely to perceive discrimination than those not maintaining transnational ties. We conclude with a discussion of the research and practice implications.
Characterization of an Autotrophic Nitrogen-Removing Biofilm from a Highly Loaded Lab-Scale Rotating Biological Contactor

ABSTRACT In this study, a lab-scale rotating biological contactor (RBC) treating a synthetic NH4+ wastewater devoid of organic carbon and showing high N losses was examined for several important physiological and microbial characteristics. The RBC biofilm removed 89% ± 5% of the influent N at the highest surface load of approximately 8.3 g of N m−2 day−1, with N2 as the main end product. In batch tests, the RBC biomass showed good aerobic and anoxic ammonium oxidation (147.8 ± 7.6 and 76.5 ± 6.4 mg of NH4+-N g of volatile suspended solids [VSS]−1 day−1, respectively) and almost no nitrite oxidation (< 1 mg of N g of VSS−1 day−1). The diversity of aerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AAOB) and planctomycetes in the biofilm was characterized by cloning and sequencing of PCR-amplified partial 16S rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis of the clones revealed that the AAOB community was fairly homogeneous and was dominated by Nitrosomonas-like species. Close relatives of the known anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacterium (AnAOB) Kuenenia stuttgartiensis dominated the planctomycete community and were most probably responsible for anoxic ammonium oxidation in the RBC. Use of a less specific planctomycete primer set, not amplifying the AnAOB, showed a high diversity among other planctomycetes, with representatives of all known groups present in the biofilm. The spatial organization of the biofilm was characterized using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM). The latter showed that AAOB occurred side by side with putative AnAOB (cells hybridizing with probe PLA46 and AMX820/KST1275) throughout the biofilm, while other planctomycetes hybridizing with probe PLA886 (not detecting the known AnAOB) were present as very conspicuous spherical structures. This study reveals that long-term operation of a lab-scale RBC on a synthetic NH4+ wastewater devoid of organic carbon yields a stable biofilm in which two bacterial groups, thought to be jointly responsible for the high autotrophic N removal, occur side by side throughout the biofilm.
A Novel Method to Construct Visual Vocabulary Based on Maximization of Mutual Information

Bag of visual words model has shown interesting capabilities of object category recognition. Considering that there is different discriminative ability of each visual word for object categorization, we propose a novel method based on maximization of mutual information to measure the discriminative ability of words and then give a visual vocabulary optimization algorithm based on more discriminative words selection. Experiments showed that the method presented in the paper not only preserves more discriminative information and gives a further 7.9% classification performance increase over standard vocabulary, but also result in dimension reduction in large scale and classification efficiency increase. The experiments were performed on a 7-class object database containing 1776 images.
Impulsivity is Associated with Early Sensory Inhibition in Neurophysiological Processing of Affective Sounds

Impulsivity is widely related to socially problematic behaviors and psychiatric illness. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between response inhibition and impulsivity. However, no study has intensively examined how impulsivity correlates with automatic sensory processing before the drive for response inhibition to sensory inputs. Sensory gating (SG) is an automatic inhibitory function that attenuates the neural response to redundant sensory information and protects higher cognitive functions from the burst of information processing. Although SG functions abnormally in several clinical populations, there is very little evidence supporting SG changes in conjunction with impulsivity traits in non-clinical populations. The present study recruited healthy adults (n = 23) to conduct a neurophysiological experiment using a paired-click paradigm and self-report scales assessing impulsive behavioral traits. Auditory stimuli included not only a pure tone but also white noise to explore the differences in auditory-evoked potential (AEP) responses between the two stimuli. White noise is more affective than pure tones; therefore, we predicted that the SG of AEPs (P50, N100, and P200) for white noise would correlate more with self-reported impulsivity than with those for pure tones. Our main findings showed that SG of the P50 and P200 amplitudes significantly correlated with self-reported reward responsiveness and fun-seeking, respectively, only for white noise stimuli, demonstrating that higher-scoring impulsivity subcomponents were related to greater SG. Frequency-domain analyses also revealed that greater desynchronization of the beta band for the second white noise stimulus was associated with higher motor impulsivity scores, suggesting that an impulsivity-related change of SG was associated with attentional modulation. These findings indicate that the measurement of SG of white noise may be an efficient tool to evaluate impulsivity in non-clinical populations, and should also be applied to clinical populations.
Construction of Actuated Tangibles and Interaction with Interactive Tabletops

Αν και η ιδέα της αλληλεπίδρασης με απευθείας φυσική επαφή γίνεται όλο και πιο κοινή χάρη στην ύπαρξη ολοένα και περισσότερων touch devices, η χρήση διαδραστικών tangibles πάνω σε επιφάνειες και οι κοινωνικές τους προεκτάσεις, αποτελεί κάτι σχετικά νέο. Αντικείμενο της εν λόγω διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι να ερευνήσει την λειτουργία των actuated tangibles και του συνδέσμου που προσφέρουν μεταξύ του «ψηφιακού» και του «φυσικού» κόσμου, καθώς και την χρηστικότητα που εισάγουν. Χάρη στην διαισθητικότητα που χαρακτηρίζει την λειτουργία της αφής, ο χρήστης εξοικειώνεται πολύ γρήγορα με την χρήση τόσο της επιφάνειας όσο και του actuated tangible. Ως εκ τούτου, γίνεται αντιληπτή η ιδιαίτερη σημασία της λειτουργικότητας τους όπως επίσης και οι πολλές δυνατότητες που αυτή προσφέρει. Η διπλωματική εργασία επικεντρώνεται στην ανάπτυξη ενός actuated tangible όπως επίσης και στην αλληλεπίδραση του με οθόνες αφής, για παράδειγμα: ένα tablet. Εκτός αυτού, ο στόχος μας είναι να ερευνήσουμε τις αξιοσημείωτες προοπτικές που εισάγουν τα actuated tangibles σε διάφορους τομείς, δίνοντας έμφαση στον σχεδιασμό και οργάνωση σε καταστάσες εκτάκτου ανάγκης (emergency cases).
Structure of the SthK Carboxy-Terminal Region Reveals a Gating Mechanism for Cyclic Nucleotide-Modulated Ion Channels

Cyclic nucleotide-sensitive ion channels are molecular pores that open in response to cAMP or cGMP, which are universal second messengers. Binding of a cyclic nucleotide to the carboxyterminal cyclic nucleotide binding domain (CNBD) of these channels is thought to cause a conformational change that promotes channel opening. The C-linker domain, which connects the channel pore to this CNBD, plays an important role in coupling ligand binding to channel opening. Current structural insight into this mechanism mainly derives from X-ray crystal structures of the C-linker/CNBD from hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-modulated (HCN) channels. However, these structures reveal little to no conformational changes upon comparison of the ligand-bound and unbound form. In this study, we take advantage of a recently identified prokaryote ion channel, SthK, which has functional properties that strongly resemble cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) channels and is activated by cAMP, but not by cGMP. We determined X-ray crystal structures of the C-linker/CNBD of SthK in the presence of cAMP or cGMP. We observe that the structure in complex with cGMP, which is an antagonist, is similar to previously determined HCN channel structures. In contrast, the structure in complex with cAMP, which is an agonist, is in a more open conformation. We observe that the CNBD makes an outward swinging movement, which is accompanied by an opening of the C-linker. This conformation mirrors the open gate structures of the Kv1.2 channel or MthK channel, which suggests that the cAMP-bound C-linker/CNBD from SthK represents an activated conformation. These results provide a structural framework for better understanding cyclic nucleotide modulation of ion channels, including HCN and CNG channels.
The LIUM-AVS database : a corpus to test lip segmentation and speechreading systems in natural conditions

We present here a new freely available audio-visual speech database. Contrary to other existing corpora, the LIUM-AVS corpus was recorded in conditions we qualify as natural, which are, according to us, much closer to real application conditions than other databases. This database was recorded without artificial lighting using an analog camcorder in camera mode. Images were stored digitally with no compression to keep the highest possible image quality. The LIUM-AVS database comprises two parts: PBS Phonetically Balanced Sentences in French LET Spelled letters (also in French) These two parts contain sequences with both natural and blue lips. The whole database is released mainly to test and compare lip segmentation approaches on natural images, but speech recognition experiments may also be carried using this corpus. For information on obtaining the LIUM-AVS database, please contact us through our webpage (http://www-lium.univlemans.fr/lium/avs-database).
Probability distributions for measures of placental shape and morphology

Birthweight at delivery is a standard cumulative measure of placental growth, but is a crude summary of other placental characteristics, such as, e.g., the chorionic plate size, and the shape and position of the umbilical cord insertion. Distributions of such measures across a cohort reveal information about the developmental history of the chorionic plate which is unavailable from an analysis based solely on the mean and standard deviation. Various measures were determined from digitized images of chorionic plates obtained from the pregnancy, infection, and nutrition study, a prospective cohort study of preterm birth in central North Carolina between 2002 and 2004. Centroids (geometric centers) and umbilical cord insertions were taken directly from the images. Chorionic plate outlines were obtained from an interpolation based on a Fourier series, while eccentricity (of the best-fit ellipse), skewness, and kurtosis were determined from the method of moments. Histograms of each variable were compared against the normal, lognormal, and Lévy distributions. Only a single measure (eccentricity) followed a normal distribution. All others followed lognormal or ‘heavy-tailed’ distributions for moderate to extreme deviations from the mean, where the relative likelihood far exceeded those of a normal distribution.
Proximity distance estimation based on capacitive coupling between 1mm3 sensor nodes

We are working toward actualizing a real-time 3D modeling system. It uses a sensor network that distributes many 1 mm3-class sensor nodes in plastic clay. The distributed sensors sense distances between them, and the sensor network collects the distance information for recognizing object shape by calculating relative positions of nodes based on the collected node-to-node distances. This paper proposes a distance estimation method based on capacitive coupling between sensor nodes for the 3D modeling system. An electrical signal is transmitted through a closed loop composed of node-to-node capacitive coupling, and the signal attenuation is used for the distance estimation. We investigate gain and directivity of the signal transmission with electric field and circuit simulation to explore appropriate electrode designs for the proposed method and evaluate the feasibility of the node localization with the proposed distance estimation method.
Twitter and Global Political Crises

This study examines social media responses to the 13 November 2015 Paris attacks by the Islamic State. First impressions of over 2,000,000 tweets containing hashtags #PrayforParis and #PrayforSyria suggested a conflation of three issues: (1) Migration: were the attackers homegrown or carrying overseas passports? (2) Violence: why was Paris attacked and why is France bombing the Islamic State? (3) Media: what role should mainstream and social media play during events that are local and global, unique and yet part of a series? However, instead of conflating media, migration and terrorism, we found users of both hashtags discussing Syria, foreign policy, and justice and fairness. Building on previous research exploring how social media affordances encourage certain communication behaviors, we test whether Twitter’s reply function is more conducive to antagonistic comments than retweets, which we hypothesise allow for an expression of solidarity and universalism. Conversations about Syria contain greater antagonism, explained by aspects of the tweet, user and network effects. The #PrayforParis and #PrayforSyria conversations exhibit neither the contestation of global attention nor a media-driven cycle of insecurity. The high frequency of agonistic and non-visual tweets, particularly about Syria, suggests a robust exchange of claims, refuting pessimistic depictions of Twitter as a space for superficiality and hate.
Simple mixing criteria for the growth of negatively buoyant phytoplankton

Phytoplankton population dynamics are controlled by the relative rather than absolute timescales of mixing, growth, and loss processes such as sedimentation, grazing, and so on. Here, the vertical distribution and biomass of phytoplankton populations are quantified by two timescale ratios: the Peclet number Pe—the ratio of mixing and sedimentation timescales—and the growth number G—the ratio of sedimentation and net growth timescales. Three mixing regimes are defined for phytoplankton and other particles. For Pe ≥ 100, the population is translated linearly down the water column over time and will leave the surface mixing layer completely after sedimentation timeτts. For 0.1
Identification and Localization of One or Two Concurrent Speakers in a Binaural Robotic Context

This paper presents a method of identification and azimuth estimation for one or two concurrent speakers in simultaneous utterances. This method is applicable to human-machine interaction and robot audition. Identification and localization have been rarely mutually addressed and related works rely on time-frequency exploitation strategies to extract and treat each source's contribution to the received signal. The presented method relies on a training made with one speaker at a time, but it can exploit a speech segment to identify and localize two speakers. A cochlear filtering-based binaural front-end allows to extract equivalent rectangular bandwidth frequency cepstral coefficients (ERBFCC) and interaural level difference (ILD) features. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) exploit ERBFCCs to provide identity information, and a histogram-based exploitation of ILDs provides azimuth angle information. The method was evaluated in contexts including overlapping segments in the presence of noises and sound reflections and its efficiency was demonstrated. Even with fully overlapping utterances, we reached an 83% identification rate of both speakers, an 82% estimation accuracy of both azimuths and an 68% correct mutual identity and azimuth estimation rate. At least one speaker was correctly identified and localized in more than 99% of the tests for utterances lasting near 5s.
Making Lambda Calculus Smaller , Faster

Some optimizations are speculative: they improve execution speed most but not all of the time, or they trade o faster execution for an increase in code size. Other optimizations, such as dead-variable elimination and algebraic simpli cation, are guaranteed to both reduce code size and speed execution. It makes sense to group all of these \contracting" optimizations together in a single phase of a compiler. This paper describes an e cient implementation of these optimizations for a language based on the lambda calculus, where a particularly interesting optimization of this sort is inlining for those functions called only once. And we prove that our contracting rewrites are con uent.
Balanced families of perfect hash functions and their applications

The construction of perfect hash functions is a well-studied topic. In this article, this concept is generalized with the following definition. We say that a family of functions from [<i>n</i>] to [<i>k</i>] is a Δ-balanced (<i>n,k</i>)-family of perfect hash functions if for every <i>S</i> ⊆ [<i>n</i>], | <i>S</i> |=<i>k</i>, the number of functions that are 1-1 on <i>S</i> is between <i>T</i>/Δ and Δ <i>T</i> for some constant <i>T</i>>0. The standard definition of a family of perfect hash functions requires that there will be at least one function that is 1-1 on <i>S</i>, for each <i>S</i> of size <i>k</i>. In the new notion of balanced families, we require the number of 1-1 functions to be almost the same (taking Δ to be close to 1) for every such <i>S</i>. Our main result is that for any constant Δ > 1, a Δ-balanced (<i>n,k</i>)-family of perfect hash functions of size 2<sup><i>O</i>(<i>k</i> log log <i>k</i>)</sup> log <i>n</i> can be constructed in time 2<sup><i>O</i>(<i>k</i> log log <i>k</i>)</sup> <i>n</i> log <i>n</i>. Using the technique of color-coding we can apply our explicit constructions to devise approximation algorithms for various counting problems in graphs. In particular, we exhibit a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm for approximating both the number of simple paths of length <i>k</i> and the number of simple cycles of size <i>k</i> for any <i>k</i> ≤ <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i>/log log log <i>n</i>) in a graph with <i>n</i> vertices. The approximation is up to any fixed desirable relative error.
Mothering and Professing: Critical Choices and the Academic Career

When is a good time to have children? Where is a good place to raise a family? Should I work full time? These and other questions are common for faculty looking to combine work and family. In this article, we use feminist theory to analyze data from a longitudinal study of women faculty to explore the critical choices women as mothers make about academic careers.
Establishment of a Minigenome System for Oropouche Orthobunyavirus 1 Reveals the S Genome Segment to Be Significantly Longer than Previously 2 Reported 3 Running Title: Oropouche Virus Minigenome 23 Animal -negative-strand Rna Viruses 24

(2015) Establishment of a minigenome system for oropouche virus reveals the S genome segment to be significantly longer than reported previously, Abstract 33 34 Oropouche virus (OROV) is a medically important orthobunyavirus, which causes 35 frequent outbreaks of a febrile illness in the Northern parts of Brazil. However, despite 36 being the cause for an estimated half a million human infections since its first isolation 37 in Trinidad, 1955, details of the molecular biology of this tripartite, negative-sense RNA 38 virus remain limited. We have determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the 39 Brazilian prototype strain of OROV, BeAn 19991, and found a number of differences 40 compared to sequences in the database. Most notable were that the S segment 41 contains an additional 204 nucleotides at the 3' end and that there is a critical 42 nucleotide mismatch at position 9 within the base-paired terminal panhandle structure 43 of each genome segment. In addition, we obtained the complete sequence of the 44 Trinidadian prototype strain TRVL 9760 that showed similar characteristics to the 45 BeAn 19991 strain. By using a T7 RNA polymerase-driven minigenome system, we 46 demonstrated that cDNA clones of the BeAn 19991 L and S segments expressed 47 functional proteins and also that the newly determined terminal untranslated 48 sequences acted as functional promoters in the minigenome assay. By co-transfecting 49 a cDNA to the viral glycoproteins, virus-like particles (VLP) were generated that 50 packaged a minigenome and were capable of infecting naive cells.