Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An evaluation of opinions concerning immigration and multiculturality in the School for Teacher Training

Introduction. During the past academic year in Spain, more than 500,000 immigrant students were enrolled in primary and secondary schools. School is one of those places available to society for creating spaces for coexistence and for changing attitudes. The teacher plays a very important role in this task. In this paper we will observe opinions and attitudes of future teachers regarding immigration, and particularly immigration at school. Method. In order to analyze these attitudes, we have developed two instruments: the scale of attitudes towards immigration and the scale of attitudes towards multiculturality at school. In order to analyze the psychometric characteristics of these scales we worked with 300 students in Teacher Training at the Universities of Extremadura (Spain) and of Évora (Portugal). For data analysis related to this work we selected 200 students at the University of Extremadura. Results. Both attitude scales have very acceptable psychometric characteristics. There were significant differences in the factor “Negative Social Distance” associated with the variables for type of degree program and for knowledge of, or lack of knowledge of, an immigrant group. There are significant correlations between the total scores and scale factors. Discussion. For an explanation of differences associated with type of degree program, one must look into academic and preparatory criteria, and even consider the entrance profile which differentiates students in one degree program from another. Students unfamiliar with an immigrant group maintain more negative attitudes. This fact agrees with research which considers positive contact with immigrants and having immigrant friends as factors that reduce perceived threat and reduce prejudice and discrimination. The most negative perception towards immigrants is found toward North Africans, as opposed to Latin Americans, thus confirming prior research. Finally, significant correlations between the two scales and their factors confirm the need for future teachers, during their time at university, to be made aware of the importance of their beliefs towards immigration and how these will influence a multi-cultural classroom.
Classification of brain signals associated with imagination of hand grasping, opening and reaching by means of wavelet-based common spatial pattern and mutual information

An important issue in designing a practical brain-computer interface (BCI) is the selection of mental tasks to be imagined. Different types of mental tasks have been used in BCI including left, right, foot, and tongue motor imageries. However, the mental tasks are different from the actions to be controlled by the BCI. It is desirable to select a mental task to be consistent with the desired action to be performed by BCI. In this paper, we investigated the detecting the imagination of the hand grasping, hand opening, and hand reaching in one hand using electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. The results show that the ERD/ERS patterns, associated with the imagination of hand grasping, opening, and reaching are different. For classification of brain signals associated with these mental tasks and feature extraction, a method based on wavelet packet, regularized common spatial pattern (CSP), and mutual information is proposed. The results of an offline analysis on five subjects show that the two-class mental tasks can be classified with an average accuracy of 77.6% using proposed method. In addition, we examine the proposed method on datasets IVa from BCI Competition III and IIa from BCI Competition IV.
Systolic architecture for hardware implementation of two-dimensional non-separable filter-bank

In this paper, we present an efficient poly-phase decomposition scheme for implementation of 2-D non-separable filter bank. Poly-phase decomposition scheme offers multiplexing of filter bank computations or/and reduce the data clocking without affecting the overall throughput rate. Both these features can be used conveniently depending on resources availability or processor-technology. Time-multiplexing could be the choice for resource-constrained applications. Slower clocking rate could be chosen if processor-technology is the constraint. In that case, the design could be realized with cheaper and slower processor-technology. Time-multiplexed design needs proper data scheduling to perform filter bank computation interleavingly without data overlapping. Keeping this in mind, we have derived a systolic architecture for hardware realization of time-multiplexed filter bank where we have used novel data buffering scheme for the filter coefficients of the filter bank. Comparison result show that, the proposed structure involves almost J times less hardware resource than the non poly-phase filter bank structure and it provides the same throughput rate as the other, where J is the filter bank size. The hardware saving is significant for large size filter banks like Gabor. The proposed structure could be a good candidate for efficient hardware implementation of non-separable filter bank used in various image processing applications such as biometrics systems.
Evidence-Based Assessment of PET in Germany

TO THE EDITOR: The article by Weber (1) offers some interesting interpretations of how PET is currently being assessed not only in Germany by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) but also in other countries. However, the author made an incorrect statement about IQWiG that needs to be clarified. IQWiG does not “typically give grants to small companies specialized in preparing systematic reviews. ” IQWiG has actually established a diligent process of selecting and commissioning external partners who have profound expertise both in evidence-based methodology and in the clinical field concerned. In most cases, IQWiG’s external experts are based or have previously worked at highly reputed universities. This can be easily checked on our Web site. However, the full range of expertise involved in IQWiG reports is not presented on the Web site, as some external experts prefer not to be named. In addition, we would like to note that every report on PET published by IQWiG was prepared in collaboration with at least one experienced clinician.
Depression in elderly outpatients with disabling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

INTRODUCTION Depression is common in both young adults and elderly people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS We compared the prevalence of depressive symptomatology in elderly outpatients with stable disabling COPD with that in healthy controls and age-matched patients with other disabilities, and also assessed the relation between degree of disability, quality of life and depressive symptoms. The subjects were 96 older people with COPD [56 men; aged 70-93 (mean 78) years], 55 normal controls [23 men; aged 70-90 (mean 78) years] and 53 disabled controls [27 men; aged 70-92 (mean 78) years]. Exclusion criteria were acute respiratory exacerbation or use of oral steroids in the last 6 weeks, known previous psychiatric disorder and acute or chronic confusion. RESULTS Mean (and SD) values for 1-s forced expiratory volume (FEV1) were 51 (20) % in COPD subjects, 107 (24) % in normal controls and 82 (13)% in disabled controls. Forty-four subjects with COPD (46%), six normal controls (11%) and 14 disabled controls (26%) scored in the 'caseness' range for depressive ideation on the Brief Assessment Schedule Depression Cards (BASDEC) screening questionnaire. A multiple regression analysis was performed for the COPD group to identify factors predictive of BASDEC score. Predictive variables were total quality of life score [P<0.0001], Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire and level of activities of daily living (Nottingham extended activities of daily living scale) [P = 0.001]. Spirometry results and exercise tolerance (6-min walk distance) did not help predict BASDEC score (R2 = 0.50). CONCLUSIONS Depressive symptoms are common in elderly patients with COPD; prevalence and/or severity of depressive symptoms may be greater in those who are most disabled.
Principles of depth‐resolved Kikuchi pattern simulation for electron backscatter diffraction

This paper presents a tutorial discussion of the principles underlying the depth‐dependent Kikuchi pattern formation of backscattered electrons in the scanning electron microscope. To illustrate the connections between various electron diffraction methods, the formation of Kikuchi bands in electron backscatter diffraction in the scanning electron microscope and in transmission electron microscopy are compared with the help of simulations employing the dynamical theory of electron diffraction. The close relationship between backscattered electron diffraction and convergent beam electron diffraction is illuminated by showing how both effects can be calculated within the same theoretical framework. The influence of the depth‐dependence of diffuse electron scattering on the formation of the experimentally observed electron backscatter diffraction contrast and intensity is visualized by calculations of depth‐resolved Kikuchi patterns. Comparison of an experimental electron backscatter diffraction pattern with simulations assuming several different depth distributions shows that the depth‐distribution of backscattered electrons needs to be taken into account in quantitative descriptions. This should make it possible to obtain more quantitative depth‐dependent information from experimental electron backscatter diffraction patterns via correlation with dynamical diffraction simulations and Monte Carlo models of electron scattering.
Progression of Decomposed Local-Effect Action Theories

In many tasks related to reasoning about consequences of a logical theory, it is desirable to decompose the theory into a number of weakly related or independent components. However, a theory may represent knowledge that is subject to change, as a result of executing actions that have effects on some of the initial properties mentioned in the theory. Having once computed a decomposition of a theory, it is advantageous to know whether a decomposition has to be computed again in the newly changed theory (obtained from taking into account changes resulting from execution of an action). In this article, we address this problem in the scope of the situation calculus, where a change of an initial theory is related to the notion of progression. Progression provides a form of forward reasoning; it relies on forgetting values of those properties, which are subject to change, and computing new values for them. We consider decomposability and inseparability, two component properties known from the literature, and contribute by studying the conditions (1) when these properties are preserved and (2) when they are lost wrt progression and the related operation of forgetting. To show the latter, we demonstrate the boundaries using a number of negative examples. To show the former, we identify cases when these properties are preserved under forgetting and progression of initial theories in local-effect basic action theories of the situation calculus. Our article contributes to bridging two different communities in knowledge representation, namely, research on modularity and research on reasoning about actions.
Look who is not talking: Assessing engagement levels in panel conversations

Nonverbal cues constitute a significant part of human communication. Traditionally the object of psychology, nonverbal communication studies now permeate fields such as social signal processing and human computer interaction. The ubiquity of digital recordings of human social interactions and of free sharing platforms offers many opportunities for the automated analysis of group interaction dynamics; yet, most research relies on multimodal cues and strict setups, which are incompatible with this vast pool of video data. In this paper, we focus on the automatic identification of non-talking participants in videos of panel conversations acquired in uncontrolled environments, based solely on visual nonverbal cues. Our approach characterizes human body motion with a novel feature descriptor based on a non-linear model of pixel change history; motor behavioral patterns derived from this descriptor are then utilized via supervised machine learning to identify non-talking participants in each frame and provide an assessment of the participants' engagement levels. Performance evaluation on a challenging dataset demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach to detect non-speakers, with an overall F-score of 86.2%, as well as its robustness to varied settings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at identifying non-talking participants for engagement level assessments from a computer vision viewpoint, which has several relevant applications, such as content-based video retrieval and video summarization.
The role of co-production networks in organisations’ efforts to enhance the learning curve outcomes

This study attempts to answer the following questions: What are the potential factors that internally affect the effectiveness of an organisation’s experiential learning, and how do the network characteristics of an organisation influence the impact of those internal factors on that effectiveness? This study examines the automotive engine plants in North America between 1995 and 2006 to suggest two factors that influence the effectiveness of experiential learning: (1) the change in part-time worker ratio and (2) the in-house manufacturing ratio. We also pay attention to the interaction effects of the network properties of engine plants and each internal factor of the effectiveness of learning by doing to examine the influence of the networks in which engine plants are embedded. The network properties of engine plants used in this study are degree centrality and closeness centrality, which are obtained from the engine plants’ production-based networks. The findings show that both the increase in part-time worker ratio and the high in-house manufacturing ratio negatively affect learning outcomes and that those negative effects are mitigated when plants have high centralities in networks.
Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check Codes From Circulant Permutation Matrices

In this correspondence, the construction of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes from circulant permutation matrices is investigated. It is shown that such codes cannot have a Tanner graph representation with girth larger than 12, and a relatively mild necessary and sufficient condition for the code to have a girth of 6, 8,10, or 12 is derived. These results suggest that families of LDPC codes with such girth values are relatively easy to obtain and, consequently, additional parameters such as the minimum distance or the number of redundant check sums should be considered. To this end, a necessary condition for the codes investigated to reach their maximum possible minimum Hamming distance is proposed.
The nature of orchestrational work

ABSTRACT This study presents results of a systematic participatory observation of daily activities of managers in inter-collaborative settings in the tradition of the Work Activity School. It is based on data collection among nine public managers who are active in networks/chains in the fields of public safety and health care in the Netherlands. The results demonstrate that a large part of the activities of managers still fall in the traditional managerial roles as identified by Mintzberg in his seminal study “The Nature of Managerial Work”. Yet, findings also show that there is a substantial part which can be subsumed under a new role, which we call orchestrational work.
Variation in GABRA2 predicts drinking behavior in project MATCH subjects.

BACKGROUND Previous studies demonstrated, and replicated, an association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the GABRA2 gene and risk for alcohol dependence. The present study examines the association of a GABRA2 SNP with another definition of alcohol involvement and with the effects of psychosocial treatment. METHODS European-American subjects (n = 812, 73.4% male) provided DNA samples for the analysis. All were participants in Project Matching Alcoholism Treatment to Client Heterogeneity (MATCH), a multi-center randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of 3 types of psychosocial treatment for alcoholism: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), or twelve-step facilitation (TSF). The daily probabilities of drinking and heavy drinking were estimated during the 12-week treatment and 12-month post-treatment periods. RESULTS Subjects homozygous for the allele associated with low risk for alcohol dependence in previous studies had lower daily probabilities of drinking and heavy drinking in the present study. This low-risk allele was also associated with a greater difference in drinking outcomes between the treatments. In addition, it enhanced the relative superiority of TSF over CBT and MET. Population stratification was excluded as a confound using ancestry informative marker analysis. CONCLUSIONS The assessment of genetic vulnerability may be relevant to studies of the efficacy of psychosocial treatment: GABRA2 genotype modifies the variance in drinking and can therefore moderate power for resolving differences between treatments.
Embryonal carcinoma cell induction of miRNA and mRNA changes in co‐cultured prostate stromal fibromuscular cells

The prostate stromal mesenchyme controls organ‐specific development. In cancer, the stromal compartment shows altered gene expression compared to non‐cancer. The lineage relationship between cancer‐associated stromal cells and normal tissue stromal cells is not known. Nor is the cause underlying the expression difference. Previously, the embryonal carcinoma (EC) cell line, NCCIT, was used by us to study the stromal induction property. In the current study, stromal cells from non‐cancer (NP) and cancer (CP) were isolated from tissue specimens and co‐cultured with NCCIT cells in a trans‐well format to preclude heterotypic cell contact. After 3 days, the stromal cells were analyzed by gene arrays for microRNA (miRNA) and mRNA expression. In co‐culture, NCCIT cells were found to alter the miRNA and mRNA expression of NP stromal cells to one like that of CP stromal cells. In contrast, NCCIT had no significant effect on the gene expression of CP stromal cells. We conclude that the gene expression changes in stromal cells can be induced by diffusible factors synthesized by EC cells, and suggest that cancer‐associated stromal cells represent a more primitive or less differentiated stromal cell type. J. Cell. Physiol. 226: 1479–1488, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dual-source dual-energy MDCT of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: initial observations with data generated at 80 kVp and at simulated weighted-average 120 kVp.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine whether the conspicuity of malignant tumors of the pancreas at dual-source dual-energy CT is better with 80-kVp acquisition than with 120-kVp acquisition simulated with a weighted average. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifteen patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma underwent contrast-enhanced dual-source dual-energy CT. The abdominal diameter of all patients was 35 cm or less. Data were reconstructed as a weighted average of the 140- and 80-kVp acquisitions, simulating 120 kVp, and as a pure 80-kVp data set. A region-of-interest cursor was placed within the tumor and the adjacent normal parenchyma, and attenuation differences and contrast-to-noise ratios were calculated for pancreatic tumors at 80 kVp and with the weighted-average acquisition. The 80-kVp and weighted-average images were subjectively compared in terms of lesion conspicuity, image quality, and duct visualization. An exact Wilcoxon's matched pairs signed rank test was used to test whether differences in attenuation, contrast-to-noise ratio, and subjective assessment were greater at 80 kVp. RESULTS The mean difference in attenuation for each pancreatic tumor and adjacent portion of normal pancreas was 83.27+/-29.56 (SD) HU at 80 kVp and 49.40+/-23.00 HU at weighted-average 120 kVp. Adenocarcinoma attenuation differences were significantly greater at 80 kVp than at 120 kVp (p=0.00006). Contrast-to-noise ratio was significantly higher at 80 kVp than at 120 kVp (p=0.00147). Subjective analysis showed lesion conspicuity (p=0.001) and duct visualization (p=0.0156) were significantly better on the 80-kVp images. CONCLUSION At portal venous phase dual-source dual-energy CT, the conspicuity of malignant tumors of the pancreas is greater at 80 kVp than with weighted-average acquisition.
Reciprocal Ia inhibition contributes to motoneuronal hyperpolarisation during the inactive phase of locomotion and scratching in the cat

During a movement, the contraction of a given muscle group is often coordinated with the simultaneous relaxation of its antagonist muscles. The neural basis of this antagonist relaxation has been investigated in both animal and human experiments for decades and it is believed that activation of the Ia inhibitory interneurones by central motor programmes plays a major role in this relaxation of antagonist muscles. The alternating movements during locomotion would seem to especially require reciprocal actions, but recent studies have raised significant questions about the role of this inhibition. We found that inhibition evoked by these inhibitory interneurones is largest when their target motoneurones are inactive – even in the absence of supraspinal influence. The results of this work provide new evidence for the role of the Ia inhibitory interneurones during rhythmic motor activity. This supports the classical view of reciprocal inhibition as a basis for antagonist relaxation.