Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early Schooling: The Handicap of Being Poor and Male

In trying to understand the origin of gender differences favoring girls in reading skills, analysts have examined mainly the performance of students who are in the same grade, with samples pooled across socioeconomic status (SES). Using a longitudinal sample in Baltimore, where all students in a randomly selected panel are the same age and are followed from the beginning of the first grade, the authors found that the early reading skills of boys who are receiving meal subsidies-those who are disadvantaged-are lower than those of girls. Among children who are not on meal subsidies, boys do about the same as girls. This gender gap that emerges over the elementary school years is explained in terms of the higher retention rate of disadvantaged boys, which traces back to teachers' low ratings of classroom behavior and reading skills for boys on meal subsidies and to their parents' lower expectations for boys' school performance. The longitudinal design of this study, the early point from which children are followed (age 6), and the attention given to SES differences in how parents and teachers treat boys are key differences between this research and other studies of gender differences in reading comprehension. The discussion points up the critical nature of the first-grade transition in relation to the gender gap and some of its long-term implications.
Service users’ initial hopes, expectations and experiences of a high security psychologically informed planned environment (PIPE)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore service-users’ hopes and expectations of a psychologically informed planned environment (PIPE) located in the high-security prison estate. Design/methodology/approach – A semi-structured interview was used to explore the hopes and expectations of five male Category A PIPE prisoners. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Findings – Analysis resulted in two overall themes: “Progression” and “Being Part of a Community”. Relevant sub-themes were considered to portray processes within these two wider themes. Practical implications – In applying these findings to practice, this study provides evidence that places value on the current referral process which ascertains prisoners’ motivations to attend the PIPE. Originality/value – This is the first known study that explores service-users’ hopes and expectations of the pilot PIPE service. The PIPEs are included within the recently introduced Offender Personality Di.
Glycopeptide use is associated with increased mortality in Enterococcus faecalis bacteraemia.

OBJECTIVES Enterococci are an important cause of nosocomial and community-acquired infections, with bacteraemia being one of the most common presentations. Although inappropriate antimicrobial therapy has been associated with poorer outcomes in Enterococcus faecalis (EF) bacteraemia, the impact of antimicrobial choice, namely β-lactam versus glycopeptide therapy, has not been well described. We sought to determine whether choice of antibiotic affects patient outcomes in EF bacteraemia. PATIENTS AND METHODS This retrospective cohort study was conducted at Liverpool and Bankstown Lidcombe Hospitals, Sydney, Australia between 2006 and 2013. Medical records and laboratory data for consecutive EF bacteraemias were reviewed. Clinical and microbiological data were obtained for all patients who received appropriate antimicrobial therapy with either a β-lactam or a glycopeptide antibiotic. Outcomes and predictors of mortality were determined and treatment groups were compared. RESULTS One hundred and seventy-two episodes of clinically significant EF bacteraemias received appropriate antimicrobial therapy with a β-lactam (n = 126) or a glycopeptide (n = 46). All-cause 30 day mortality was 15.1%, with mortality significantly higher in patients receiving glycopeptide therapy compared with β-lactam therapy (26.1% versus 11.1%, P = 0.015). Glycopeptide therapy remained an independent predictor of 30 day mortality [OR 2.46 (95% CI 1.01-6.02), P = 0.048]. APACHE II score [OR 1.10 (95% CI 1.02-1.18), P = 0.011] and malignancy [OR 2.58 (95% CI 1.03-6.49), P = 0.044] were also independent predictors of 30 day mortality. CONCLUSIONS Glycopeptide use is associated with increased mortality in patients with EF bacteraemia. In the treatment of β-lactam-susceptible EF bacteraemia, β-lactams should be considered first-line therapy.
Beyond the Colours: Discovering Hidden Diversity in the Nymphalidae of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico through DNA Barcoding

Background Recent studies have demonstrated the utility of DNA barcoding in the discovery of overlooked species and in the connection of immature and adult stages. In this study, we use DNA barcoding to examine diversity patterns in 121 species of Nymphalidae from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Our results suggest the presence of cryptic species in 8 of these 121 taxa. As well, the reference database derived from the analysis of adult specimens allowed the identification of nymphalid caterpillars providing new details on host plant use. Methodology/Principal Findings We gathered DNA barcode sequences from 857 adult Nymphalidae representing 121 different species. This total includes four species (Adelpha iphiclus, Adelpha malea, Hamadryas iphtime and Taygetis laches) that were initially overlooked because of their close morphological similarity to other species. The barcode results showed that each of the 121 species possessed a diagnostic array of barcode sequences. In addition, there was evidence of cryptic taxa; seven species included two barcode clusters showing more than 2% sequence divergence while one species included three clusters. All 71 nymphalid caterpillars were identified to a species level by their sequence congruence to adult sequences. These caterpillars represented 16 species, and included Hamadryas julitta, an endemic species from the Yucatan Peninsula whose larval stages and host plant (Dalechampia schottii, also endemic to the Yucatan Peninsula) were previously unknown. Conclusions/Significance This investigation has revealed overlooked species in a well-studied museum collection of nymphalid butterflies and suggests that there is a substantial incidence of cryptic species that await full characterization. The utility of barcoding in the rapid identification of caterpillars also promises to accelerate the assembly of information on life histories, a particularly important advance for hyperdiverse tropical insect assemblages.
Genome wide predictions of miRNA regulation by transcription factors

MOTIVATION Reconstructing regulatory networks from expression and interaction data is a major goal of systems biology. While much work has focused on trying to experimentally and computationally determine the set of transcription-factors (TFs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate genes in these networks, relatively little work has focused on inferring the regulation of miRNAs by TFs. Such regulation can play an important role in several biological processes including development and disease. The main challenge for predicting such interactions is the very small positive training set currently available. Another challenge is the fact that a large fraction of miRNAs are encoded within genes making it hard to determine the specific way in which they are regulated. RESULTS To enable genome wide predictions of TF-miRNA interactions, we extended semi-supervised machine-learning approaches to integrate a large set of different types of data including sequence, expression, ChIP-seq and epigenetic data. As we show, the methods we develop achieve good performance on both a labeled test set, and when analyzing general co-expression networks. We next analyze mRNA and miRNA cancer expression data, demonstrating the advantage of using the predicted set of interactions for identifying more coherent and relevant modules, genes, and miRNAs. The complete set of predictions is available on the supporting website and can be used by any method that combines miRNAs, genes, and TFs. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Code and full set of predictions are available from the supporting website: http://cs.cmu. edu/~mruffalo/tf-mirna/ CONTACT zivbj@cs.cmu. edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Early adolescents’ understanding of different forms of psychopathology and its implications for peer relationships: A mixed-methods approach

The aim of this project was to extend prior research on youth’s understanding of, and responses to, peers with mental health problems. The two present studies were designed to examine causal beliefs, attitudes and behavioural intentions towards hypothetical peers displaying symptoms of four common forms of childhood psychopathology (i.e., depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder) in a sample of 272 early adolescents in Montreal, Quebec. A mixed-methods design was implemented consisting of ratings and open-ended questions in response to behavioural vignettes. Using analysis of variance and factor analysis, results from both studies supported our main hypothesis that beliefs, levels of liking and intended behaviours would vary as a function of the type of problem depicted and show consistent differences between internalizing and externalizing problems. Specifically, results from Study 1 on causal beliefs show that conduct problems were most viewed as within the peer’s control and attributed to lack of effort, in line with previous findings on beliefs about peers’ personal responsibility for aggressive behaviour. As expected, results from Study 2 provide evidence that liking, friendship and helping intentions were higher towards peers with internalizing difficulties (i.e., anxiety and depression) than towards those displaying acting-out behaviours, with the most negative responses observed for the peer with conduct problems. Using content analysis, the open-ended question eliciting ways to help a peer revealed a wide range of help strategies proposed by early adolescents, including peer involvement and professional help, again with variations by problem. Taken together, qualitative findings provide evidence for the ability of 10- to 12-year-olds to offer a range of explanations (internal and external) for mental health problems and to suggest general and problem-specific help strategies, thus enhancing our limited knowledge of mental health literacy in this age group. Overall, results confirm and extend findings on youth’s tendency to stigmatize peers displaying aggressive behaviour, as evidenced by attributions of controllability, negative attitudes and social distance, with implications for peer rejection experienced by such youth. By shedding light on responses to peers with psychological problems in early adolescence, this work informs our understanding of the development of mental health stigma.
Adaptive enhancement for nonuniform illumination images via nonlinear mapping

Abstract. Nonuniform illumination images suffer from degenerated details because of underexposure, overexposure, or a combination of both. To improve the visual quality of color images, underexposure regions should be lightened, whereas overexposure areas need to be dimmed properly. However, discriminating between underexposure and overexposure is troublesome. Compared with traditional methods that produce a fixed demarcation value throughout an image, the proposed demarcation changes as local luminance varies, thus is suitable for manipulating complicated illumination. Based on this locally adaptive demarcation, a nonlinear modification is applied to image luminance. Further, with the modified luminance, we propose a nonlinear process to reconstruct a luminance-enhanced color image. For every pixel, this nonlinear process takes the luminance change and the original chromaticity into account, thus trying to avoid exaggerated colors at dark areas and depressed colors at highly bright regions. Finally, to improve image contrast, a local and image-dependent exponential technique is designed and applied to the RGB channels of the obtained color image. Experimental results demonstrate that our method produces good contrast and vivid color for both nonuniform illumination images and images with normal illumination.
Simulating Light-Weight Personalised Recommender Systems in Learning Networks: A Case for Pedagogy-Oriented and Rating-Based Hybrid Recommendation Strategies

Recommender systems for e-learning demand specific pedagogy-oriented and hybrid recommendation strategies. Current systems are often based on time-consuming, top down information provisioning combined with intensive data-mining collaborative filtering approaches. However, such systems do not seem appropriate for Learning Networks where distributed information can often not be identified beforehand. Providing sound way-finding support for lifelong learners in Learning Networks requires dedicated personalised recommender systems (PRS), that offer the learners customised advise on which learning actions or programs to study next. Such systems should also be practically feasible and be developed with minimized effort. Currently, such so called light-weight PRS systems are scarcely available. This study shows that simulation studies can support the analysis and optimisation of PRS requirements prior to starting the costly process of their development, and practical implementation (including testing and revision) during field experiments in real-life learning situations. This simulation study confirms that providing recommendations leads towards more effective, more satisfied, and faster goal achievement. Furthermore, this study reveals that a light-weight hybrid PRS-system based on ratings is a good alternative for an ontology-based system, in particular for low-level goal achievement. Finally, it is found that rating-based light-weight hybrid PRS-systems enable more effective, more satisfied, and faster goal attainment than peer-based light-weight hybrid PRS-systems (incorporating collaborative techniques without rating).
Variability of the Perceived Crowding Scale: A Research Note

Heberlein and Vaske's perceived crowding scale has been a useful tool to examine perceptions of crowding in a variety of recreational settings. Questions remain, however, regarding the stability of the measure across administration, time, and location. Data collected from recreational boaters on the Nantahala River were used to examine the effect of method of administration (mail-back versus on-site), response time (amount of time elapsed between on-site contact and mail-back receipt) and location (put-in, on river, and take-out) on perceived crowding. Results indicate that perceptions of crowding were consistently higher for the mail-back method than on-site. Perceived crowding was also higher on the river than at the put-in or take-out, independent of whether crowding was measured on-site or via a mail survey. There was no significant effect of response time. Implications for improving the measurement of perceived crowding and for considering the effect of location in determining carrying capacities are.
Right lateralized motor cortex activation during volitional blinking

Using H215O positron emission tomography in 6 healthy volunteers, we found that self‐initiated and externally cued blinking activated the right primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area (SMA). The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the rostral SMA showed greater activation during the self‐initiated task compared to the externally cued task. This study confirms the hypothesis of right hemispheric lateralization of volitional blinking derived from observations in stroke patients. Furthermore, it underscores the role of DLPFC and rostral SMA in self‐initiated movements, which has been found in similar experiments with hand movements.
Questioning the Author: A Yearlong Classroom Implementation to Engage Students with Text

This article describes the development and implementation of Questioning the Author, an instructional intervention that focuses on having students grapple with and reflect on what an author is trying to say in order to build a representation from it. The implementation involved a social studies teacher, a reading/language arts teacher, and their 23 inner-city fourth-grade students in a small parochial school. Analyses of transcripts of videotaped lessons and classroom observations revealed that teacher talk decreased in quantity and increased in quality with more emphasis on questions focused on constructing and extending meaning and more skill in refining and using students' comments in discussion. Changes in the content of student talk were also documented. These included an increase in the number and complexity of student-initiated questions and evidence of the development of student collaboration. Teachers' journal entries and students' responses in interviews provided insights about their views of the implementation.
Complexity in wireless scheduling: impact and tradeoffs

It has been an important research topic since 1992 to maximize stability region in constrained queueing systems, which includes the study of scheduling over wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a framework to study a wide range of existing and future scheduling algorithms and characterize the achieved tradeoffs in stability, delay, and complexity. These characterizations reveal interesting properties hidden in the study of any one or two dimensions in isolation. For example, decreasing complexity from exponential to polynomial, while keeping stability region the same, generally comes at the expense of exponential growth of delays. Investigating trade-offs in the 3-dimensional space allows a designer to fix one dimension and vary the other two jointly. For example, incentives for using scheduling algorithms with only partial throughput-guarantee can be quantified with regards to delay and complexity. Trade-off analysis is then extended to systems with congestion control through utility maximization for non-stabilizable arrival inputs, where the complexity-utility-delay trade-off is shown to be different from the complexity-stability-delay tradeoff. Finally, we analyze more practical models with bounded message size, and consider "effective throughput" which reflects resource occupied by control messages. We show that effective throughput may degrade significantly in certain scheduling algorithms, and suggest a mechanism to avoid this problem in light of the 3D tradeoff framework.
Measuring Developmental Differences With an Age-of-Attainment Method

The sensitive measurement of variation in rate of attainment is an underutilized but useful indicator of individual differences in development. To assess such individuality, we used longitudinal parental diary checklists of infant attainments to estimate the ages at which ubiquitous developmental milestones like sitting and walking were reached. Parents using this diary checklist have been shown to be valid reporters of milestone attainments. Present analyses show that multiple definitions of milestone onset have high reliability as well. Babies differ considerably in their rates of development, and such individual differences in rates may be predicted from other variables with survival (event history) analysis. Ages of attainment for sustained sitting, crawling, and walking were calculated for 519 infants and predicted using 11 common covariates. Our discovery that babies of younger mothers reach these milestones sooner than those of older mothers reveals the value of an age-of-attainment (AOA) approach. A framework with a SAS program for collecting and analyzing AOA data is presented.
Echocardiographic Determinants of Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation

It is not clear whether the presence and degree of chronic ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) in patients with left ventricular (LV) dysfunction are related to LV dysfunction, local LV remodeling or mitral valve deformation. We sought to establish the strongest determinants of IMR severity in patients with LV dysfunction and IMR.
Current models of the observable consequences of cosmic reionization and their detectability

A number of large current experiments aim to detect the signatures of the cosmic reionization at redshifts z > 6. Their success depends crucially on understanding the character of the reionization process and its observable consequences and designing the best strategies to use. We use large-scale simulations of cosmic reionization to evaluate the reionization signatures at redshifted 21-cm and small-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in the best current model for the background universe, with fundamental cosmological parameters given by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe three-year results. We find that the optimal frequency range for observing the `global step of the 21-cm emission is 120150 MHz, while statistical studies should aim at 140160 MHz, observable by GMRT. Some strongly non-Gaussian brightness features should be detectable at frequencies up to ~190 MHz. In terms of sensitivity-signal trade-off relatively low resolutions, corresponding to beams of at least a few arcminutes, are preferable. The CMB anisotropy signal from the kinetic SunyaevZel'dovich effect from reionized patches peaks at tens of K at arcminute scales and has an rms of ~1 K, and should be observable by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope. We discuss the various observational issues and the uncertainties involved, mostly related to the poorly known reionization parameters and, to a lesser extend, to the uncertainties in the background cosmology.
Grrrls and Women Together in the Third Wave: Embracing the Challenges of Intergenerational Feminism(s)

This essay asks: If current third-wave controversy continues to reify oppositions between the second and third waves of feminism, largely based on caricatures, or "straw feminisms," how can the grrrls and women who occupy the space of a "third-wave political moment," or a "third-wave feminist consciousness," accomplish the formidable tasks of feminisms? By addressing the primacy and pitfalls of dominant generational rhetoric and applying an alternative Kristevan framework, this piece examines the potentiality entailed in such a moment and challenges the limits of existing debates. Both the concepts of "generation" and "wave" reinscribe heteronormative principles in their assertion of both hegemonic familial structures and a heterosexist narrative of reproduction. Further, the unidirectional, linear (masculinist) logic of cause-effect narratives creates a sense of perpetual debt to the past. The dangers surrounding the use of a generational model of feminist intellectual exchange may suggest that it is reasonable, or even necessary, to cast aside such paradigmatic attachments. However, this essay suggests that by replacing the prevailing tripartite model with the schematic of feminist struggle outlined by Julia Kristeva in her classic essay, "Women's Time," we can avoid some of the pitfalls of generational thinking and transform unproductive anxieties and closed debates into careful, open, and productive intergenerational dialogue.