Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating the learning to teach process: Pedagogy, innovation adoption, expertise development, and technology integration

Sun, Yan. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2013. Investigating the Learning to Teach Process: Pedagogy, Innovation Adoption, Expertise Development, and Technology Integration. Major Professor: Johannes Strobel. This dissertation reported three studies whose overarching purpose is to enhance our understanding about how teachers learn to teach by revealing the learning to teach process. Each of three studies revealed the learning to teach process from different perspectives. Guided by the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) framework, the first study revealed the learning process of elementary teachers’ development of engineering PCK through engineering teaching practices. Approaching elementary teachers’ learning to teach engineering from the perspectives of innovation adoption and expertise development, the second study revealed the learning to teach engineering process by constructing a framework depicting the stages and dimensions involved in the elementary engineering education (EEE) adoption process and the EEE expertise development process. A phenomenological approach was adopted in both the first and the second studies. The third study, using a two-phase explanatory sequential mixed methods research design, revealed the process of learning to teach with education technology during student teaching by showing how pre-service teachers’ progress in readiness for technology integration was affected by various contextualand personal-level factors.
Social Determinants and International Comparisons of Health and Mortality

Despite substantial gains in population health over recent decades, the US faces a growing epidemic of obesity that threatens continued progress. This dissertation seeks a better understanding of this dire challenge through three chapters that explore obesity from distinct vantage points. The first chapter quantifies the extent to which greater obesity in the US contributes to its low life expectancy ranking with respect to 15 other developed countries. The principal finding is that the higher prevalence of overweight and obesity in the US may contribute between a fifth and a third of the longevity gap above age 50. The second chapter is an investigation of the mortality risks and population impact of obesity in the older adult population of the US. I propose an innovative measurement strategy using weight histories. My findings indicate that the prior literature may substantially underestimate the mortality risks of obesity by failing to fully account for confounding by illness. The third and final chapter investigates the social context of obesity through an examination of eating behaviors of adults in the US. I find that participation in the family dinner is associated with a significantly lower probability of being obese and that the association is robust to adjustment for multiple dimensions of socioeconomic status. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Demography First Advisor Samuel H. Preston Second Advisor Irma T. Elo
Estado psicológico de los corredores populares de maratón en los días anteriores a la prueba

Psychological state of recreational marathon runners on the days prior to the race. The present study has investigated the psychological state of recreational marathon runners 65-12 hours prior to the event, considering three relevant variables: somatic state-anxiety, cognitive state-anxiety, and state self-confidence. Results have shown low scores in both somatic and cognitive anxiety and high scores in self-confidence, with negative significant correlations between self-confidence and somatic anxiety, and self-confidence and cognitive anxiety, and a positive significant correlation between somatic and cognitive anxiety. Likewise, a negative significant correlation was found between somatic anxiety and age, and between somatic anxiety and the previous experience of the participants. A positive significant correlation was also found between somatic anxiety and the best time in previous marathon races. Finally,significant differences were not found considering the proximity of the race, and a better psychological functioning was observed in subjects with higher previous experience and better previous performance.
A case study on English-Malayalam Machine Translation

In this paper we present our work on a case study on Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) and Rule based machine translation (RBMT) for translation from English to Malayalam and Malayalam to English. One of the motivations of our study is to make a three way performance comparison, such as, a) SMT and RBMT b) English to Malayalam SMT and Malayalam to English SMT c) English to Malayalam RBMT and Malayalam to English RBMT. We describe the development of English to Malayalam and Malayalam to English baseline phrase based SMT system and the evaluation of its performance compared against the RBMT system. Based on our study the observations are: a) SMT systems outperform RBMT systems, b) In the case of SMT, English - Malayalam systems perform better than that of Malayalam - English systems, c) In the case RBMT, Malayalam to English systems are performing better than English to Malayalam systems. Based on our evaluations and detailed error analysis, we describe the requirements of incorporating morphological processing into the SMT to improve the accuracy of translation.
A comparison of selectivity estimators for range queries on metric attributes

In this paper, we present a comparison of nonparametric estimation methods for computing approximations of the selectivities of queries, in particular range queries. In contrast to previous studies, the focus of our comparison is on metric attributes with large domains which occur for example in spatial and temporal databases. We also assume that only small sample sets of the required relations are available for estimating the selectivity. In addition to the popular histogram estimators, our comparison includes so-called kernel estimation methods. Although these methods have been proven to be among the most accurate estimators known in statistics, they have not been considered for selectivity estimation of database queries, so far. We first show how to generate kernel estimators that deliver accurate approximate selectivities of queries. Thereafter, we reveal that two parameters, the number of samples and the so-called smoothing parameter, are important for the accuracy of both kernel estimators and histogram estimators. For histogram estimators, the smoothing parameter determines the number of bins (histogram classes). We first present the optimal smoothing parameter as a function of the number of samples and show how to compute approximations of the optimal parameter. Moreover, we propose a new selectivity estimator that can be viewed as an hybrid of histogram and kernel estimators. Experimental results show the performance of different estimators in practice. We found in our experiments that kernel estimators are most efficient for continuously distributed data sets, whereas for our real data sets the hybrid technique is most promising.
Laboratory technology and cosmochemistry

Recent developments in analytical instrumentation have led to revolutionary discoveries in cosmochemistry. Instrumental advances have been made along two lines: (i) increase in spatial resolution and sensitivity of detection, allowing for the study of increasingly smaller samples, and (ii) increase in the precision of isotopic analysis that allows more precise dating, the study of isotopic heterogeneity in the Solar System, and other studies. A variety of instrumental techniques are discussed, and important examples of discoveries are listed. Instrumental techniques and instruments include the ion microprobe, laser ablation gas MS, Auger EM, resonance ionization MS, accelerator MS, transmission EM, focused ion-beam microscopy, atom probe tomography, X-ray absorption near-edge structure/electron loss near-edge spectroscopy, Raman microprobe, NMR spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma MS.
In vitro and in vivo genotoxicity assessment of the dopamine receptor antagonist molindone hydrochloride

Molindone hydrochloride is a dihydroindolone neuroleptic with dopamine D2 and D5 receptor antagonist activity. As an integral component of its preclinical safety evaluation, molindone hydrochloride was evaluated in a series of in vitro and in vivo genetic toxicology assays. In the bacterial reverse gene mutation assays employing four Salmonella tester strains (TA98, TA100, TA1535, and TA1537) and the E. coli tester strain WP2uvrA, molindone hydrochloride was negative in all strains, except TA100, in which it induced a positive response (up to 3‐fold) in the presence of rat liver S9. With human S9, a small (2‐fold), but nonreproducible, increase in revertants was observed in TA100 at the highest concentration of molindone tested (5,000 µg/plate). The mutagenicity was completely abrogated by the addition of glutathione and UDP‐glucuronic acid to rat liver S9, suggesting detoxification of the mutagenic metabolite(s) by Phase II conjugation reactions, pathways commonly operational in humans. Molindone hydrochloride did not induce chromosomal aberrations in human lymphocyte cultures, did not elicit a positive response in a rat bone marrow micronucleus test for clastogencity/aneugenicity, and did not give a positive response in the rat liver comet assay for DNA damage. Collectively, the weight of evidence from these studies, combined with a large margin of safety and efficient detoxification through Phase II conjugation supports the interpretation that molindone hydrochloride does not pose a genotoxic risk to humans at the anticipated clinical dose levels. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 57:288–298, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Construction and Evaluation of Normalized cDNA Libraries Enriched with Full-Length Sequences for Rapid Discovery of New Genes from Sisal (Agave sisalana Perr.) Different Developmental Stages

To provide a resource of sisal-specific expressed sequence data and facilitate this powerful approach in new gene research, the preparation of normalized cDNA libraries enriched with full-length sequences is necessary. Four libraries were produced with RNA pooled from Agave sisalana multiple tissues to increase efficiency of normalization and maximize the number of independent genes by SMART™ method and the duplex-specific nuclease (DSN). This procedure kept the proportion of full-length cDNAs in the subtracted/normalized libraries and dramatically enhanced the discovery of new genes. Sequencing of 3875 cDNA clones of libraries revealed 3320 unigenes with an average insert length about 1.2 kb, indicating that the non-redundancy of libraries was about 85.7%. These unigene functions were predicted by comparing their sequences to functional domain databases and extensively annotated with Gene Ontology (GO) terms. Comparative analysis of sisal unigenes and other plant genomes revealed that four putative MADS-box genes and knotted-like homeobox (knox) gene were obtained from a total of 1162 full-length transcripts. Furthermore, real-time PCR showed that the characteristics of their transcripts mainly depended on the tight expression regulation of a number of genes during the leaf and flower development. Analysis of individual library sequence data indicated that the pooled-tissue approach was highly effective in discovering new genes and preparing libraries for efficient deep sequencing.
IEEE 802.11 WLAN Based Real-Time Location Tracking in Indoor and Outdoor Environments

In this paper we propose an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) based location tracking system for indoor and outdoor environments. The system is implemented using the received signal strength indication (RSSI) measurements and training-data based estimation techniques. Methods for acquiring, filtering and interpreting wireless data are discussed with emphasis on how they will be applied to wireless tracking. Training-data based estimation is performed by taking a series of RSSI measurements at known training points and then approximating the current location using the nearest neighbor algorithm. Propagation-based distance estimation is based on the Log-distance path loss model. Experiments are conducted for both training and propagation models to estimate the distance of the user from a known access point in indoor and outdoor locations. The experimental results that show the indoor and outdoor location estimation using the propagation model and training data are presented.
Mucilaginibacter jinjuensis sp. nov., with xylan-degrading activity.

A gram-negative, rod-shaped, pale-orange-pigmented bacterial strain with xylan-degrading activity designated YC7004(T) was isolated from a rotten-wood sample collected at Jinju, Korea, and its taxonomic position was investigated by using a polyphasic approach. The strain grew optimally on R2A medium at 30 °C and at pH 6. The major isoprenoid quinone was MK7 and major fatty acids were summed feature 3, iso-C15 : 0, C16 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, iso-C17 : 1ω9c and C16 : 1ω5c. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 40.0 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the strain belongs to the genus Mucilaginibacter in the family Sphingobacteriaceae. The most closely related species were Mucilaginibacter daejeonensis (95.5 %), Mucilaginibacter frigoritolerans (94.6 %) and Mucilaginibacter mallensis (94.0 %). Based on the phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic data analyses, strain YC7004(T) represents a novel species of the genus Mucilaginibacter with the proposed name of Mucilaginibacter jinjuensis sp. nov. The type strain is YC7004(T) ( = KACC 16571(T) = NBRC 108856(T)).
The association between cognitive functioning in the elderly and measurement of auditory performance

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between cognitive functioning and auditory performance in older persons. Respondents were community-dwelling elderly (age ≥ 65 years). Data were collected as part of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) and were analyzed using multiple regression models (N=1098 of whom N=607 had longitudinal data). Cognitive measures were used to assess general cognitive functioning (Mini-Mental State Examination) (MMSE), information processing speed (Coding Task), fluid intelligence (Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices) and episodic memory (15 Words Test). The Speech-in-noise test (SNT) by Smits et al. (2004) was used to assess auditory performance. Adjusted cross-sectional models showed a significant negative association between lower levels of cognitive functioning and poorer auditory performance. This means that when cognitive scores are lower, SNT-scores are higher, indicating poorer hearing. The strongest association appeared between the MMSE and the SNT. Adjusted longitudinal models showed an unexpected significant, yet small association between the differences in MMSE-scores and the differences in SNT-scores, which remained absent for other the cognitive tests. This indicates that a decrease in MMSE-score over three years of follow-up is associated with a decrease in SNT-score over three years of follow-up, indicating better hearing, and vice versa. The significant longitudinal association found for the MMSE was unexpected and needs further investigation. All other longitudinal analyses yielded no significant results. The current results suggest that the cross-sectional association between cognitive functioning and auditory performance is evident, but that a longitudinal association between differences seems absent. The results show that there were negative associations between baseline cognitive scores and differences in SNT-scores over three years of follow-up. This would mean that an increase in cognition is associated with a decrease in SNT-score, indicating better hearing, and vice versa. However, these associations were not statistically significant.
A genetic algorithm for Hierarchical Multi-Label Classification

In Hierarchical Multi-Label Classification (HMC) problems, each example can be classified into two or more classes simultaneously, differently from standard classification. Moreover, the classes are structured in a hierarchy, in the form of either a tree or a directed acyclic graph. Therefore, an example can be assigned to two or more paths from a hierarchical structure, resulting in a complex classification problem with possibly hundreds or thousands of classes. Several methods have been proposed to deal with such problems, some of them employing a single classifier to deal with all classes simultaneously (global methods), and others employing many classifiers to decompose the original problem into a set of subproblems (local methods). In this work, we propose a novel global method called HMC-GA, which employs a genetic algorithm for solving the HMC problem. In our approach, the genetic algorithm evolves the antecedents of classification rules, in order to optimize the level of coverage of each antecedent. Then, the set of optimized antecedents is selected to build the corresponding consequent of the rules (set of classes to be predicted). Our method is compared to state-of-the-art HMC algorithms, in protein function prediction datasets. The experimental results show that our approach presents competitive predictive accuracy, suggesting that genetic algorithms constitute a promising alternative to deal with hierarchical multi-label classification of biological data.
A Retrospective Look at Length of Stay for Pediatric Psychiatric Patients in an Urban Emergency Department

Objective: The objective of the study was to compare the length of stay (LOS) of patients with psychiatric diagnoses in a pediatric emergency department (ED) to that of patients with nonpsychiatric diagnoses. Methods: This is a retrospective review of all patients younger than 19 years with psychiatric conditions, who presented to an urban teaching hospital ED with psychiatric symptoms, from January 2004 to December 2007. A control group of patients with nonpsychiatric diagnoses was selected over a random 4-day period. Emergency department LOS (in minutes) of nonpsychiatric versus psychiatric patients was compared. Length of stay was determined from the time of triage to disposition (discharge or admission). Patients with psychiatric diagnoses were further classified into 1 of 2 categories: major psychiatric diagnoses (bipolar disorder, psychoses, major depression, suicidal attempt or ideation, homicidal ideation, and hallucination) and minor psychiatric diagnoses (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, adjustment disorder, anxiety or panic attack, and behavioral issues). Results: A total of 1468 patients with psychiatric diagnoses visited the ED. Three hundred eighty-two patients had major psychiatric diagnoses, and 1086 patients had minor psychiatric diagnoses. The control group (patients with nonpsychiatric diagnosis) consisted of 345 patients. Mean LOS of nonpsychiatric patients was 160 minutes (95% confidence interval [CI], 142-177 minutes); LOS for minor psychiatric patients was 737 minutes (95% CI, 670-803 minutes) and 1127 minutes for major psychiatric patients (95% CI, 972-1283 minutes). On the other hand, median LOS of nonpsychiatric patients was 129 minutes; minor psychiatric patients, 328 minutes; and major psychiatric patients, 437.5 minutes. Kruskal-Wallis test showed a significant difference between each group with P = 0.0001. Conclusions: The LOS was significantly higher in patients with psychiatric diagnoses. The mean and median for LOS both rose steadily from nonpsychiatric to major psychiatric diagnoses.
Education , Employment and Earnings of Secondary School-Leavers in Tanzania : Evidence from a Tracer Study *

The extent of information on labour market outcomes and the earnings of educated groups in Tanzania, and Sub-Saharan Africa more generally, are limited. This is particularly so for individuals who fail to gain access to wage employment and are required to rely on exploiting self-employment opportunities. The current paper, using a recently completed tracer survey of secondary school completers, analyses the impact of education and training on individual welfare through the estimation of earnings equations. Our empirical evidence suggests that the rates of return to educational qualifications are not negligible and, at the margin, provide an investment incentive. However, we find little evidence of human capital effects in the earnings determination process in the self-employment sector. Information contained in the tracer survey allowed the introduction of controls for father’s educational background and a set of school fixed effects designed to proxy for school quality and potential labour market network effects. The analysis shows that the inclusion of these controls tends to reduce the estimated rates of return to educational qualifications. This emphasizes the potential confounding role of school quality/network effects and parental background for rate of return analysis. We would argue that a failure to control for such background variables potentially leads to an over-statement in the estimated returns to education. A comparison of our results with evidence from other countries in the region shows that despite an extremely small secondary and university education system the private rates of return to education in the Tanzanian wage employment sector are relatively low. * The data used in this survey is from wider project undertaken in four Sub-Saharan African countries funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID). Faustin Mukyanuzi of HR Consult implemented the survey in Tanzania and overall findings are reported in Mukyanuzi (2003). The views expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the DfID’s own policies or views. ** Corresponding author.
Middle Miocene tectonic boundary conditions for use in climate models

Utilizing general circulation models (GCMs) for paleoclimate study requires the construction of appropriate model boundary conditions. We present a middle Miocene paleotopographic and paleobathymetric reconstruction geographically constrained at 15 Ma for use in GCMs. Paleotopography and paleogeography are reconstructed using a published global plate rotation model and published geological data. Paleobathymetry is reconstructed through application of an age‐depth relationship to a middle Miocene global digital isochron map, followed by the overlay of reconstructed sediment thickness and large igneous provinces. Adjustments are subsequently made to ensure our reconstruction may be utilized in GCMs.