Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social-Emotional Screening to Predict Truancy Severity: Recommendations for Educators

The present study examined whether high school students’ (N = 1,658) self-reported social-emotional strengths collected at the beginning of the school year via schoolwide screening could predict student membership in one of three truancy categories (low, moderate, and high to chronic truancy) using discriminant analysis. Results indicated that student self-reported scores for the social-emotional domains belief-in-self and belief-in-others contributed significantly to the discriminant analysis function for predicting students’ truancy severity classification. In addition, multivariate ANOVA was also conducted to identify whether social-emotional strengths differed by gender and ethnicity (Caucasian and Latino/a students) across the three truancy groups. Caucasian students in the low to moderate truancy groups reported higher overall social-emotional strengths than Latino/a students. Gender differences were also found in the low to moderate truancy groups in that females were less likely to report having strengths in the social-emotional domains belief-in-self and engaged living, while males were less likely to report having a strength in emotional competence. Findings demonstrate the utility of schoolwide screening measures to aid in early identification of truancy and an increased need to create truancy prevention and intervention policies that are gender-specific and culturally sensitive.
D3: Declarative Distributed Debugging

Large-scale distributed systems, like MapReduce, are increasingly being used, but debugging such systems is still very difficult. In this paper, we propose D3, a new debugging system that answers diverse debugging queries by processing logs formally and efficiently. D3 specifies queries concisely in a declarative language and executes the queries in a distributed fashion, thereby lowering debugging overhead and bandwidth consumed. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our D3 design on a local cluster with Hadoop, an open-source MapReduce frame-
Flashes of Noncommutativity Flash One

Noncommutativity lays hidden in the proofs of classical dynamics. Modern frameworks can be used to bring it to light: *-products, groupoids, q-deformed calculus, etc. Time ago, newborn Classical Mechanics simply described how the inertial law was disturbed by the action of a force. One can consider two inertial trajectories from x to y and then from y to z, where a change is applied in a point y. Dxf=vf t Dpif =F t x y z A A A=A Dxi=vi t If we ask for equal-time segments, then areas A and A are equal too. In modern language, we are showing that dynamics of a physical system is given by the rule ∆x i × ∆p = ∆x f × ∆p By applying this principle to central forces Newton was able to introduce time in geometry, mimicking Kepler second law. This is proposition 1 of Book I in the Principia. Historians tell us that this proposition was rebuilt at least three times while doing the built, and it was already present in the previous paper De Motu. It is very troublesome to define evolution, or consistence within a trajectory, by claiming the equality of two areas, and then asking both areas to go to zero. Paraphrasing my colleague E. Forgy (from a different context), I believe the old fathers could be asking themselves: Is mechanics just a series of 0 = 0 statements? Two close remarks:-It is known that path integral measure is concentrated in continuous everywhere , differentiable nowhere, trajectories. This shows how troublesome is to try to
Transcriptome and Expression Patterns of Chemosensory Genes in Antennae of the Parasitoid Wasp Chouioia cunea

Chouioia cunea Yang is an endoparasitic wasp that attacks pupae of Hyphantria cunea (Drury), an invasive moth species that severely damages forests in China. Chemosensory systems of insects are used to detect volatile chemical odors such as female sex pheromones and host plant volatiles. The antennae of parasite wasps are important for host detection and other sensory-mediated behaviors. We identified and documented differential expression profiles of chemoreception genes in C. cunea antennae. A total of 25 OBPs, 80 ORs, 10 IRs, 11 CSP, 1 SNMPs, and 17 GRs were annotated from adult male and female C. cunea antennal transcriptomes. The expression profiles of 25 OBPs, 16 ORs, and 17 GRs, 5 CSP, 5 IRs and 1 SNMP were determined by RT-PCR and RT-qPCR for the antenna, head, thorax, and abdomen of male and female C. cunea. A total of 8 OBPs, 14 ORs, and 8 GRs, 1 CSP, 4 IRs and 1 SNMPs were exclusively or primarily expressed in female antennae. These female antennal-specific or dominant expression profiles may assist in locating suitable host and oviposition sites. These genes will provide useful targets for advanced study of their biological functions.
Risk Factors for Pneumococcal Colonization of the Nasopharynx in Alaska Native Adults and Children.

BACKGROUND Alaska Native children have high invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) rates, and lack of in-home running water has been shown to have a significant association with infection. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines reduced IPD; however, this population saw substantial replacement disease and colonization with nonvaccine serotypes. We evaluated risk factors for nasopharyngeal pneumococcal colonization in Alaska Native adults and children. METHODS We conducted annual surveys from 2008 through 2011 of residents of all ages in 8 rural Alaskan villages. Interviews were conducted, medical charts were reviewed, and nasopharyngeal swabs were cultured for Streptococcus pneumoniae. Multivariate logistic regression models were developed for 3 age groups (under 10 years, 10-17 years, and 18 years and older) to determine risk factors for colonization. RESULTS We obtained 12 535 nasopharyngeal swabs from 4980 participants. Our population lived in severely crowded conditions, and 48% of households lacked in-home running water. In children <10 years, colonization was associated with lack of in-home running water, household crowding, and more children in the home. Pneumococcal vaccination status was not associated with colonization. In older children and adults, increased number of persons in the household was associated with pneumococcal colonization. CONCLUSIONS Higher colonization prevalence may partially explain increased IPD rates seen in those lacking in-home water services. Improving availability of sanitation services and reducing household crowding may reduce the burden of IPD in this population.
An ℓ1 based post-processing method with an application to ground penetrating radar imaging

In this paper, we present a method for postprocessing ground penetrating radar (GPR) images that were reconstructed using the well known delay-and-sum (DAS) algorithm. The method generates improved GPR images from DAS images by minimizing a cost function where a DAS image is viewed as the data and regularization is achieved through an ℓ1 penalty function. We use the majorize-minimize principle to develop an algorithm, which we refer to as the ℓ1 sparsity improvement restoration (ℓ1-SIR) algorithm, with the property that it produces a decreasing sequence of cost function values. The ℓ1-SIR algorithm is computationally efficient and only takes approximately 3% of the time required by the DAS algorithm. In studies using simulated data, the ℓ1-SIR image was a significant improvement over the DAS image in that it had reduced clutter and improved sparsity without a loss of known scatterers. A recently developed fast ℓ1 least-squares estimation (ℓ1-LS) algorithm had comparable performance as the ℓ1-SIR algorithm but requires approximately 100 times the run-time. It should be mentioned that the popular "shooting algorithm" could not be used in the simulation study. The reason is because the high dimensionality of the GPR image reconstruction problem required the shooting algorithm to have a computing platform with memory resources that exceeds what is currently available in "standard computers".
Detecting Outliers in Categorical Data Sets Using Non-Derivable Itemsets

Outlier Detection is a research field with many applications, such as detecting credit card fraud or network intrusions. Most previous research focused on numerical data and pair-wise distances among data points to detect outliers. Nevertheless, most categorical data sets lack straightforward mapping to numerical values and approaches that rely on computing distances do not apply so easily. Recently, a few outlier methods were proposed for categorical datasets using the concept of Frequent Itemsets (FIs). The number of generated FIs can be far too high, especially in the case of large, dense datasets, containing a high number of categorical values. There has been much research towards summarizing and/or condensing the FIs in a dataset to address this issue. However these ideas have not been applied directly to the field of outlier detection. In this report, we explore the effect of using a condensed representation of Frequent Itemsets, called Non-Derivable Itemsets (NDI), on the accuracy and efficiency of an outlier detection method. Our experimental results indicate that NDI-based Outlier Detection offers significant gains in terms of speed and scalability over a FI-based outlier detection, while maintaining comparable detection accuracy.
Online Vce measurement method for wear-out monitoring of high power IGBT modules

A simple Vce online monitoring circuit is presented in this paper. It allows an accurate wear out prediction of IGBT modules, in high-power applications, during normal converter operation. Bipolar measurement allows monitoring of both IGBT and antiparallel diode. The circuit uses two serial connected diodes to sense the Vce voltage with millivolt accuracy. One diode acts as a protection to block high DC voltage present on input terminals. When the device is conducting the voltage on the second diode is measured to compensate for the voltage drop on the protection diode thus eliminating voltage offset due to diodes' forward voltage temperature dependency. Using four diodes one can monitor voltages on all power devices in a converter leg.
A strategy for scheduling tightly coupled parallel applications on clusters

Although various strategies have been developed for scheduling parallel applications with independent tasks, very little work exists for scheduling tightly coupled parallel applications on cluster environments. In this paper, we compare four different strategies based on performance models of tightly coupled parallel applications for scheduling the applications on clusters. In addition to algorithms based on existing popular optimization techniques, we also propose a new algorithm called Box Elimination that searches the space of performance model parameters to determine the best schedule of machines. By means of real and simulation experiments, we evaluated the algorithms on single cluster and multi‐cluster setups. We show that our Box Elimination algorithm generates up to 80% more efficient schedules than other algorithms. We also show that the execution times of the schedules produced by our algorithm are more robust against the performance modeling errors. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A New Ontology-Based Semantic Similarity Measure for Concepts Subsumed by Multiple Super Concepts

Semantic Similarity relates to computing the similarity between concepts of ontology. There exist four approaches to calculate the semantic similarity. The first approach is based on path length. Under this approach we studied and compared some of the measures on a bench mark dataset. Among the compared measures Wu & Palmer measure has the advantage of being simple to implement and has better performance compared to the other similarity measures. This measure considers only the depth of the LCS: (Least Common Subsumer) we call in our paper as Closest Common Parent for similarity computation. But there are complex and large taxonomies, covering thousands of interrelated concepts including several overlapping hierarchies, and extensive use of multiple inheritances (i.e. a concept is subsumed by several super concepts). For such taxonomies using only the LCS will ignore a great amount of explicit knowledge. To overcome this limitation we propose ontology based semantic similarity measure which extends Wu & Palmer measure by considering ASC :( All Subsumed Concepts). We compared both the measures on two benchmark datasets. The obtained results show that our measure gave improved similarity values compared to the Wu and Palmer measure.
The impact of frequency compression on cortical evoked potentials and perception

iii First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. provided invaluable technical assistance without which this work could not have been completed. Many thanks are owed to my family and friends. v ABSTRACT Nonlinear frequency compression is a signal processing technique used to increase the audibility of high frequency speech sounds for hearing aid users with sloping, high frequency hearing loss. However, excessive compression ratios may reduce spectral contrast between sounds and negatively impact speech perception. This is of particular concern in infants and young children, who may not be able to provide feedback about frequency compression settings. This study explores use of an objective cortical auditory evoked potential that is sensitive to changes in spectral contrast, the auditory change complex (ACC), in the verification of frequency compression parameters. We recorded ACC responses in adult listeners to a spectral ripple contrast stimulus processed with a range of frequency compression ratios (1:1 to 4:1). Vowel identification, consonant identification, speech recognition in noise (QuickSIN), and behavioral ripple discrimination thresholds were also measured under identical frequency compression conditions. In Experiment 1, these measures were completed in ten adult normal hearing individuals to determine the effects of this type of signal processing in individuals with optimal hearing. In Experiment 2, these same measures were repeated in ten adults with sloping, high frequency hearing loss, which is the clinical population for whom this signal processing technique was intended. Increasing the compression ratio did not affect vowel identification for the NH group but did cause a significant decrease in vowel identification for the hearing impaired listeners. Changes in compression ratio were associated with significant changes in ACC amplitude, consonant identification, ripple discrimination threshold, and speech perception in noise scores. These results indicate that the ACC response, like speech and non-speech perceptual measures, is sensitive to frequency compression ratio. However, it was observed that the amplitude of ACC responses elicited by our single ripple contrast vi stimulus was not strongly correlated with behavioral ripple discrimination or measures of speech perception in quiet or in noise. It may be the case that using a different ripple density in the evoking stimulus (e.g. 1 RPO, 2 RPO), or determination of ACC threshold by using multiple ripple densities, would result in stronger correlation to behavioral measures across frequency compression conditions.
Community College Student-Researcher Discovers Classmates’ Increased Empathy Levels Viewing TEDx Talk Video

ABSTRACT Reading and conducting research can initially feel daunting for community college students. For this nontraditional aged, first generation student-researcher, the interest in research increased with the availability of TEDx Talks. The overall intent of the study was to evaluate the empathetic reactivity of students (n = 78) while viewing a prosocial behavior TEDx Talk. Students completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) pre/post-assessment to understand if empathy levels changed from before and after viewing the video. Results showed statistically significant changes for both males and females suggesting increased levels of empathy after viewing the video. For the student-researcher, certitude was found as data were analyzed; initial positive feelings about learning research utilizing TEDx Talks were confirmed with statistical analysis, thereby strengthening confidence that learning was not only hypothesized but secured by empirical evidence.
Structural Disambiguation Based on Reliable Estimation of Strength of Association

This paper proposes a new class-based method to estimate the strength of association in word co-occurrence for the purpose of structural disambiguation. To deal with sparseness of data, we use a conceptual dictionary as the source for acquiring upper classes of the words related in the co-occurrence, and then use t-scores to determine a pair of classes to be employed for calculating the strength of association. We have applied our method to determining dependency relations in Japanese and prepositional phrase attachments in English. The experimental results show that the method is sound, effective and useful in resolving structural ambiguities.
A low complexity frequency offset detecting algorithm for diversity receiver

This paper presents a new low complexity frequency offset detecting algorithm which can be applied in the diversity receiver system over the flat fading channel. Generally the conventional frequency offset estimation requires the training data to compute the particular value of the carrier frequency offset. However, by utilizing the FLL (frequency locked loop), this algorithm only need to detect the datapsilas symbol information from each receiverpsilas signal to trace the frequency offset. When the transmitter adopts the QPSK modulation, it can work without training data. In addition, only by adding a few hardware resources the frequency offset detection and the phase offset estimation can be considered simultaneously. It not only reduces the computational complexity and simplifies the implementation greatly but also guarantees the tracing precision. Finally the simulation results show that the demodulation performance is improved a lot after this offset compensation.
Eliciting the Anatomy of Technology Appropriation Processes: a Case Study in Enterprise Social Media

The investigation of IT adoption and diffusion in organisations is a core topic of the IS discipline. However, orthodox theories take a mostly rationalist view that treats adoption as a decision situation. In this paper, we aim to show that it is necessary to appreciate the process nature of taking new technology into organisational contexts, and the open-ended nature of this process in terms of social sense-making about the new technology. At the same time, as more and more organisations let social media be part of work and communication practices, understanding what happens when individuals begin to experiment with and participate in these new mediums is increasingly important. Against this backdrop, we present the findings of an in-depth data analysis of enterprise-based short message communications shared across the Yammer enterprise social network at international service consultancy Capgemini. We focus on appropriation-related communication in the first nine months of uptake. By undertaking a time-trend analysis we identify the essential phases in which sense-making and appropriation take place as Yammer is enrolled into Capgemini practices. Our study makes an important contribution toward understanding the processes of technology appropriation in general and sense-making in social media in particular.
Low operational cost distributed prioritised coordinated control for DC microgrids

This study presents a distributed prioritised coordinated control topology that has the capability to reduce the total generation cost and maintain the average DC microgrid voltage. The main advantage of this topology over the addressed ones is developing a prioritised normalised running cost methodology. In this methodology, the best economical combination of DGs is selected to fulfil the load demand and maintain the minimum required spinning reserve power. The developed coordinated controllers contain tertiary and secondary levels cooperating to guarantee economical load sharing between the dispatchable DGs through precise adjustment of the primary voltage levels. Simulation and experimental results verify the efficacy and feasibility of the proposed dispatch scheme compared to the conventional power-sharing techniques. In addition, system reliability enhancement during communication link failure and DG plug-n-play are investigated as well.
Hybrid KPCA-SVM Method for Pattern Recognition of Chatter Gestation

To distinguish chatter gestation, chatter recognition method based on hybrid KPCA(Kernel Principal Compenent Analysis) and SVM(Support Vector Machine) is proposed for dynamic patterns of chatter gestation in cutting process. At first, FFT features are extracted from the vibration signal of cutting process, then FFT vectors are presorted and introduced to KPCA-SVM for machine learning and classification. Finally the results of chatter gestation recognition and chatter prediction experiments are presented and show that the method proposed is effective.
Homologies between cell interaction molecular controlled by major histocompatibility complex- and Igh-V-linked genes that T cells use for communication. Tandem "adaptive" differentiation of producer and acceptor cells

We have asked the question: how do partner cells in immunoregulatory interactions between T cell subsets acquire the ability to recognize and react appropriately with one another? In particular, we have asked whether these communication events are completely determined by the cell's genetic constitution, or whether the recognition events can be learned during ontogeny. We have found that the T cells of parent into F1 chimeras and homozygous nude mice with F1 thymus grafts not only learn to react with genetically disparate acceptor cells, but that the receptors on the acceptor cells themselves learn to react with genetically disparate producer cells. This learning process can overcome both major histocompatibility complex- and immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region-linked restricted communication between T cell subsets. We interpret these findings to indicate that thymic elements can start a cascade of differential events. The thymic elements, whether endogenous or passively acquired, select from a pool of producer cells those that will react appropriately with the thymic selecting cells, and these cells become expanded. Then, the private markers (idiotype) on the expanded pool of producer cells act as selecting and expanding elements that choose from a pool of acceptor cells those that recognize the producer cells idiotype as self. This second differentiational event, although apparently thymus evidence that this type of acceptor cell differentiation could also take place during the course of an immune response.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 2004 Evaluating Integration Approaches Benefits Adopted by Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare organizations consist of a large number of disparate information systems (IS). These have been deployed to support specific needs of healthcare organisations. The information sharing among these disparate and heterogeneous systems has always been one of the most prominent issues for the management. As every day people die in hospitals, due to medical errors, which is generally causes due to non-integrated IT infrastructure. Various integration approaches have been adopted to solve integration problems. Although, some of them have partially supported the integration efforts, there are still many issues remaining to be solved such as level of integration, interpretability, cost reduction, and patients’ data security. There is marketplace confusion in healthcare organisations, due to the variety of integration approaches that support the integration of healthcare IS. This paper seeks to describe the current deployed integration approaches in healthcare organisations. In doing so, the benefits of these approaches are evaluated. This evaluation will help researchers to better understand issues surrounding the benefits of integration approaches.