Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Student connections of linear algebra concepts: an analysis of concept maps

This article examines the connections of linear algebra concepts in a first course at the undergraduate level. The theoretical underpinnings of this study are grounded in the constructivist perspective (including social constructivism), Vernaud's theory of conceptual fields and Pirie and Kieren's model for the growth of mathematical understanding. In addition to the existing techniques for analysing concept maps, two new techniques are developed for analysing qualitative data based on student-constructed concept maps: (1) temporal clumping of concepts and (2) the use of adjacency matrices of an undirected graph representation of the concept map. Findings suggest that students may find it more difficult to make connections between concepts like eigenvalues and eigenvectors and concepts from other parts of the conceptual field such as basis and dimension. In fact, eigenvalues and eigenvectors seemed to be the most disconnected concepts within all of the students’ concept maps. In addition, the relationships between link types and certain clumps are suggested as well as directions for future study and curriculum design.
Expression of Valosin-Containing Protein in Colorectal Carcinomas as a Predictor for Disease Recurrence and Prognosis

Purpose: Valosin-containing protein (VCP or p97) is associated with antiapoptotic function and metastasis via activation of the nuclear factor-κB signaling pathway. The present study was designed to investigate the prognostic significance of VCP expression in colorectal adenocarcinoma. Experimental Design: We analyzed VCP expression immunohistochemically in 129 patients with colorectal carcinoma ages 35–84 years. The staining intensity of tumor cells was categorized as either weaker-to-equal (low VCP expression) or stronger (high expression) than that in noncancerous colonic mucosa. We also analyzed 8 colorectal adenomas and 10 metastatic foci. Results: Low VCP expression was noted in 41 (31.8%) cases and high expression in 88 (68.2%) cases. A low level of VCP expression was noted in all adenomas, whereas a high level was seen in all metastatic tumors. A significant difference was observed in depth of invasion (T1–2 versus T3–4, P < 0.05), presence or absence of venous invasion (P < 0.05), and tumor stage (I and II versus III and IV; P < 0.05) between adenocarcinomas with low and high VCP expression. Patients with high VCP-expressing tumors had a higher recurrence rate (P < 0.001) and poorer disease-free and overall survival (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively) compared with the low expression group. Multivariate analysis revealed VCP expression level to be an independent prognosticator for both disease-free and overall survival. VCP level was an indicator of disease-free survival in both stage II and III (pathological Tumor-Node-Metastasis classification, P < 0.05 and <0.01, respectively). Conclusions: A high expression level of VCP in tumors is a poor prognostic marker in patients with colorectal carcinomas.
A Survey on Data Mining Techniques Applied to Electricity-Related Time Series Forecasting

Data mining has become an essential tool during the last decade to analyze large sets of data. The variety of techniques it includes and the successful results obtained in many application fields, make this family of approaches powerful and widely used. In particular, this work explores the application of these techniques to time series forecasting. Although classical statistical-based methods provides reasonably good results, the result of the application of data mining outperforms those of classical ones. Hence, this work faces two main challenges: (i) to provide a compact mathematical formulation of the mainly used techniques; (ii) to review the latest works of time series forecasting and, as case study, those related to electricity price and demand markets.
Supporting Change Impact Analysis for Service Oriented Business Applications

Business applications encode various business processes within an organization. Business process specification languages such as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) are commonly used to integrate various services in order to automate business processes within an organization. To remain competitive edge, managers frequently modify their processes. Determining the cost of modifying a business process is not trivial since the changes to the business process have to account for source code changes in various services. In this paper, we propose an approach to estimating the cost of a business process change in a service oriented business application. The approach applies change impact analysis techniques to business process specifications, and source code. The approach generates an initial change impact set from business process components. These components are then mapped to the corresponding source code entities. These code entities act as seeds for traditional source code impact analysis. Using code dependencies, such as call and inheritance relations, we derive a metric to capture the complexity of particular business process changes. Managers can then use this metric to gauge the cost and resources needed to implement changes in their business processes without having to study the code. We demonstrated the feasibility of our approach using an experiment on an open source service oriented business application.
Payment Limits for Farm Commodity Programs: Issues and Proposals

This report provides background on payment limits related to farm commodity programs and discusses relevant legislation. The policy issue is mostly about farm size rather than the financial need of recipients, although the two may be related. Limits on commodity program payments have been imposed since 1970. The 2002 farm bill retains the former limits, adds limits for the new counter-cyclical program, and incorporates new commodities.
A prospective evaluation of a breast cancer prognosis signature in the observational RASTER study

The 70‐gene signature (MammaPrint™) has been developed on retrospective series of breast cancer patients to predict the risk of breast cancer distant metastases. The microarRAy‐prognoSTics‐in‐breast‐cancER (RASTER) study was the first study designed to prospectively evaluate the performance of the 70‐gene signature, which result was available for 427 patients (cT1–3N0M0). Adjuvant systemic treatment decisions were based on the Dutch CBO 2004 guidelines, the 70‐gene signature and doctors' and patients' preferences. Five‐year distant‐recurrence‐free‐interval (DRFI) probabilities were compared between subgroups based on the 70‐gene signature and Adjuvant! Online (AOL) (10‐year survival probability <90% was defined as high‐risk). Median follow‐up was 61.6 months. Fifteen percent (33/219) of the 70‐gene signature low‐risk patients received adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) versus 81% (169/208) of the 70‐gene signature high‐risk patients. The 5‐year DRFI probabilities for 70‐gene signature low‐risk (n = 219) and high‐risk (n = 208) patients were 97.0% and 91.7%. The 5‐year DRFI probabilities for AOL low‐risk (n = 132) and high‐risk (n = 295) patients were 96.7% and 93.4%. For 70‐gene signature low‐risk–AOL high‐risk patients (n = 124), of whom 76% (n = 94) had not received ACT, 5‐year DRFI was 98.4%. In the AOL high‐risk group, 32% (94/295) less patients would be eligible to receive ACT if the 70‐gene signature was used. In this prospective community‐based observational study, the 5‐year DRFI probabilities confirmed the additional prognostic value of the 70‐gene signature to clinicopathological risk estimations such as AOL. Omission of adjuvant chemotherapy as judged appropriate by doctors and patients and instigated by a low‐risk 70‐gene signature result, appeared not to compromise outcome.
Semidefinite approximations of the polynomial abscissa 0

Given a univariate polynomial, its abscissa is the maximum real part of its roots. The abscissa arises naturally when controlling linear differential equations. As a function of the polynomial coefficients, the abscissa is Hölder continuous, and not locally Lipschitz in general, which is a source of numerical difficulties for designing and optimizing control laws. In this paper we propose simple approximations of the abscissa given by polynomials of fixed degree, and hence controlled complexity. Our approximations are computed by a hierarchy of finite-dimensional convex semidefinite programming problems. When their degree tends to infinity, the polynomial approximations converge in norm to the abcissa, either from above or from below.
Why Bother? They Are Not Capable of This Level of Work: Manifestations of Teacher Attitudes in an Urban High School Self-Contained Special Education Classroom with Majority Blacks and Latinos.

Using an ethnographic approach the study describes the curricula that veteran urban high school special educators use in self-contained special education classrooms with majority Blacks and Latinos. The findings show that the teachers routinely exposed students to elementary level curricula and to material that was rife with racist images of Blacks and Latinos. The findings raise questions about the types of texts, supplementary resources, and professional development opportunities that special educators receive and bear implications for the ways in which special education teacher preparation programs account for widelyheld societal viewpoints that shape teachers’ beliefs and attitudes and drive their everyday
Automatic optimization of solar cells with spatially varied absorber's band-gap

We developed a numerical procedure, based on Nelder-Mead simplex optimization algorithm, which, by optimizing an objective function, shapes the solar cell absorber's band-gap profile. The minimization of the thermalization power loss and the heat power loss is investigated in order to obtain solar cell with the overall maximum open-circuit voltage and/or maximum output power.
Performance analysis of hybrid robust automatic speech recognition system

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of several objective measures in terms of predicting the quality of noisy input speech signal through the Hybrid method using Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and Speech Enhancement Algorithm (SEA). Demand for Speech Recognition technology is expected to rise dramatically over the next few years as people use their mobile phones and voice recognition system everywhere. This paper enlighten the implementation process which includes a speech-to-text system using isolated word recognition with a vocabulary of ten words (digits 0 to 9). In the training period, the uttered digits are recorded using 8-bit Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) with a sampling rate of 8 KHz and save as a wave format file using sound recorder software. For a given word in the vocabulary, the system builds an Hidden Markov Model (HMM) model and trains the model during the training phase. The training steps, from VAD, Speech Enhancement to HMM model building, are performed using PC-based Matlab programs.
SETTING GROUPS OF LEARNERS USING MATCHMAKING AGENTS

Nowadays, the complexity of work and the dissemination of the information and communication technologies value and make group work a potential allied for the organizations. The computer support offered under the umbrella of groupware systems is based on the research from Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The support for the workers should be given since the group formation until its dissolution, going through the group work itself. In Software Engineering, multi-agent systems provide a properly level of abstraction for the treatment of complex and distributed problems. One of these problems is characterized by environments for group work and/or learning in groups. In this paper it is presented the study and how a multi-agent system was implemented in the AulaNet environment, which is a groupware for Web-based teaching and learning, to help group formation.
Measuring factor substitution with neoclassical models: an experimental evaluation

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of neoclassical cost functions in estimating input substitution. In contrast to earlier studies, this analysis assumes that the "true" technology is represented by each of three large-scale, engineering, process analysis models. Experimental methods are used to evaluate the effect of the definition of factor inputs, the characteristics of the technologies, and the presence of residual discharge constraints on measures of input association. The findings support the use of approximate significance tests as an integral part of the interpretation of the neoclassical estimates. They suggest that input aggregation reduces the ability of neoclassical methods to isolate input associations. Finally, they indicate that residual discharge constraints can, if ignored in modeling, distort measured substitution relations.
The contribution of anthropogenic SO[subscript 2] emissions to the Asian tropopause aerosol layer

Recent observations reveal a seasonally occurring layer of aerosol located from 0◦ to 100◦E, 20◦ to 45◦N and extending vertically from about 13 km to 18 km; this has been termed the Asian tropopause aerosol layer (ATAL), and its existence is closely associated with the Asian summer monsoon circulation. Observational studies argue that the ATAL is a recent phenomenon, as the layer is not observed in the satellite record prior to 1998. This suggests that the ATAL may be of anthropogenic origin associated with a shift in the dominant regional emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) to China and India in the late 1990s. Here we test the hypothesis that SO2 emitted from Asia led to the formation of the ATAL using an aerosol microphysical model coupled to a global chemistry climate model. This is the first modeling study to specifically examine the ATAL and its possible origin. From our results, we conclude that the ATAL is most likely due to anthropogenic emissions, but its source cannot solely be attributed to emissions from Asia. Specifically, the results indicate that Chinese and Indian emissions contribute ∼30% of the sulfate aerosol extinction in the ATAL during volcanically quiescent periods. We also show that even small volcanic eruptions preclude our ability to make any conclusions about the existence of the ATAL before 1998 with observations alone.
A New Approach to Classify Text based on CosFuzzy Logic

Objective type of Examination evaluation is easy in Computer world. But the descriptive type of question evaluation is more difficult and there is no significant research has been taken place. In this paper I propose a new solution to the above problem with text classification using the new fuzzy logic named CosFuzzy Logic. Document Clustering is a useful technique that organizes a large quantity of unordered text documents into a small number of meaningful and coherent clusters, thereby providing a basis for intuitive and informative navigation and browsing mechanisms. Partitional clustering algorithms have been recognized to be more suitable as opposed to the hierarchical clustering schemes for processing large datasets. A wide variety of distance functions and similarity measures have been used for clustering, such as squared Euclidean distance, cosine similarity, and relative entropy. A Novel Fuzzy based feature clustering was proposed in which Gaussian distribution is used for fuzzy membership function. Clustering the data for four known classes, we used cosine similarity function along with fuzzy logic to calculate the similarity between two documents. We found that Experimental results show that our Cosfuzzy logic obtain better results. General Terms Feature Clustering, cosine similarity, Split distribution, fuzzy clustering.
One Week of Motor Adaptation Induces Structural Changes in Primary Motor Cortex That Predict Long-Term Memory One Year Later

The neural bases of motor adaptation have been extensively explored in human and nonhuman primates. A network including the cerebellum, primary motor cortex, and posterior parietal cortex appears to be crucial for this type of learning. Yet, to date, it is unclear whether these regions contribute directly or indirectly to the formation of motor memories. Here we trained subjects on a complex visuomotor rotation associated with long-term memory (in the order of months) to identify potential sites of structural plasticity induced by adaptation. One week of training led to (1) an increment in local gray matter concentration over the hand area of the contralateral primary motor cortex and (2) an increase in fractional anisotropy in an area underneath this region that correlated with the speed of learning. Moreover, the change in gray matter concentration measured immediately after training predicted improvements in the speed of learning during readaptation 1 year later. Our study suggests that motor adaptation induces structural plasticity in primary motor circuits. In addition, it provides the first piece of evidence indicating that early structural changes induced by motor learning may impact on behavior up to 1 year after training.
Genomic Splicing Sites Prediction Algorithm Based on Nucleotide Sequence Pattern

Splicing sites prediction plays a major role in genomic research of biomedical science. If splicing sites of genomic sequence can be correctly predicted, numerous crucial problems in biomedical area may be resolved naturally. Some typical examples are finding pathogenic factors of serious diseases and developing new gene therapy and so on. The major difficulty in developing the method of predicting the splicing sites lies in the diversity of species, which leads to substantially different sequence patterns of splicing sites among various species. For instance, the existing splicing sites prediction algorithms cannot effectively predict the splicing sites of influenza virus. For this reason, we propose a new genomic splicing sites prediction algorithm in this study, which is based on a data mining technology and many biomedical findings, to discover the candidate patterns of splicing sites in the gene sequences, to accurately predict splicing sites in the gene sequences, and to detect many new candidate splicing sites.
On the positive effects of taxation on education

In the economic literature a constant tax rate on labor income has usually a neutral or negative effect on education. The effect is neutral in the absence of non-deductible costs and it is negative in the presence of them. A positive effect is obtained in the presence of non-deductible profits or uncertainty in the returns to education. In this model education is treated as a signalling device for the level of human capital and agents choose freely their labor supply under certainty and perfect financial markets. Within this framework a constant tax rate on labor income has a positive effect on education under certainty and in the absence of non-deductible costs or profits as long as consumption and leisure are complementary and the amount of transfers and family income is low enough.
Mapping Nested Loop Algorithms into Grid-Connected Systolic Arrays without Data Collisions in the Data Links

Systolic arrays, which are made out of simple processing elements connected by data links, have made signiicant improvements in speeding up computation in comparison to conventional computers. Although systolic arrays belong to distributed memory parallel devices, they adopt systolic communications instead of message passing communications for sending data between neighboring processing elements. Therefore, it is important to provide necessary and suucient conditions to avoid data collisions in the data links for a correct algorithm design. In this paper, we present necessary and suucient conditions for mapping the class of shift-invariant uniform-dependence algorithms structured as nested loops into grid-connected systolic arrays of arbitrary dimensions. The proposed conditions, which are based on the ZERO-ONE-INFINITE property of tokens' behavior that describes how many times tokens are used and generated during the computation, can allow us to generate all feasible solutions.
A fault tolerance approach to survivability

Attacks on computer systems have received a great deal of press attention; however, most of the focus has been on how an attacker can disrupt an organization's operations. Although attack prevention is clearly preferred, preventive measures do fail, and some attacks inevitably succeed in compromising some or all of particular systems, i.e., databases. We propose research into a fault-tolerance approach that addresses all phases of survivability: attack detection, damage confinement, damage assessment and repair, and attack avoidance. We focus attention on continued service and recovery issue. A promising area of research for continued service addresses relaxed notions of consistency. Expanding on the notion of self stabilization, the idea is to formalize the degree of damage under which useful services is still possible. A complementary research area for recovery is the engineering of suitable mechanisms into existing systems. We explain the underlying models for these research areas and illustrate them with examples from the database domain. We argue that these models form a natural part of a fault tolerance approach and propose research into adapting these models for larger systems.
rs929387 of GLI3 Is Involved in Tooth Agenesis in Chinese Han Population

Tooth agenesis is one of the most common anomalies of human dentition. Recent studies suggest that a number of genes are related to both syndromic and non-syndromic forms of hypodontia. In a previous study, we observed that polymorphism in rs929387 of GLI3 might be associated with hypodontia in the Chinese Han population based on a limited population. To further confirm this observation, in this study, we employed 89 individuals diagnosed with sporadic non-syndromic oligodontia (40 males and 49 females) to investigate the relationship between polymorphism in rs929387 of GLI3 and tooth agenesis. These individuals were analyzed with 273 subjects (125 males and 148 females) diagnosed with non-syndromic hypodontia and 200 healthy control subjects (100 males and 100 females). DNA was obtained from whole blood or saliva samples and genotyping was performed by a Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) method. Significant differences were observed in the allele and genotype frequencies of rs929387 of GLI3. Distributions of genotypes TT, TC and CC of rs929387 polymorphism were significantly different between the case group and the control group (P = 0.013) and C allelic frequency was higher in case group [P = 0.002, OR = 1.690, 95% CI (1.200-2.379)]. Additionally, our analysis shows that this difference is more pronounced when compared between the male case group and the male control group. The function study suggests that variation in GLI3 caused by rs929387 leads to a decrease in its transcriptional activity. These data demonstrated an association between rs929387 of GLI3 and non-syndromic tooth agenesis in Chinese Han individuals. This information may provide further understanding of the molecular mechanisms of tooth agenesis. Furthermore, GLI3 can be regarded as a marker gene for the risk of tooth agenesis.