Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parent Education for Supporting Literacy Development in the Early Grades.

The quantity and nature of parent-child verbal interactions, reading to and with children, and the availability and use of reading materials at home are factors that influence literacy development. Since many parents of first-grade children are not taking advantage of opportunities at home to engage their children in appropriate activities to further oral language, reading and writing development, a 6-session parent reading workshop was conducted at two elementary school sites. In this workshop format a way to share information with the parents on critical research findings on issues related to emergent readers (developmental stages, how the brain works, elements of balanced literacy instruction) was developed. Appropriate strategies for teaching and scaffolding learning in each of the areas of balanced literacy were modeled. Parents had opportunities to "make and take" materials and activities to use with their children at home--a literacy toolkit. The hope was that a partnership with the first-grade parents would be built so that the literacy philosophies, strategies, and activities at home and at school are more in alignment. More frequent and open communication between parents and teacher was the aim. As the parents involved in the reading workshops become more knowledgeable and skilled in working with their first graders, they would be encouraged to volunteer time in the classroom and share their knowledge formally and informally with other parents. Results indicated: (1) parents demonstrated a heightened awareness of their role in supporting their child's literacy development; (2) they engaged their children in a wider variety of quality literacy activities at home; (3) parent/teacher communication was strengthened; and (4) parents shifted to a more balanced viewpoint about reading. Appended are a home reading log and a parent reading survey. (Contains 16 references.) (NKA) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Methodology to evaluate interface of educational computer game

Game is an application that is popularly used in teaching and learning by some of educational institution to-date. Educational computer game (ECG) is a game being used for teaching and learning. Comprehensive methodology that consist of techniques and tools need to be developed to assist the development of ECG. ECG is an application that combines elements of fun and education and the evaluation criteria need to be able to covers all the important criteria. There are 5 heuristics identified; interface, pedagogical, content, playability and multimedia. Two techniques are identified to be used in evaluation process; PHEG for expert evaluators and PAEG for real user. The tool, online evaluation system (AHP_HeGES) is the tool that can be used to simplify the evaluation process. This research is important because it can help the game developers and educationist to conform the important elements that need to be exists in any ECG through evaluation process.
A Gain Function for Architectural Decision-Making in Scientific Computing

Scientific Computing typically requires large computational needs which have been addressed with High Performance Distributed Computing. It is essential to efficiently deploy a number of complex scientific applications, which have different characteristics, and so require distinct computational resources too. However, in many research laboratories, this high performance architecture is not dedicated. So, the architecture must be shared to execute a set of scientific applications, with so many different execution times and relative importance to research. Also, the high performance architectures have different characteristics and costs. When a new infrastructure has to be acquired to meet the needs of this scenario, the decision-making is hard and complex. In this work, we present a Gain Function as a model of an utility function, with which it is possible a decision-making with confidence. With the function is possible to evaluate the best architectural option taking into account aspects of applications and architectures, including the executions time, cost of architecture, the relative importance of each application and also the relative importance of performance and cost on the final evaluation. This paper presents the Gain Function, examples, and a real case showing their applicabilities.
Progress and challenges in high‐resolution refinement of protein structure models

Achieving atomic level accuracy in de novo structure prediction presents a formidable challenge even in the context of protein models with correct topologies. High‐resolution refinement is a fundamental test of force field accuracy and sampling methodology, and its limited success in both comparative modeling and de novo prediction contexts highlights the limitations of current approaches. We constructed four tests to identify bottlenecks in our current approach and to guide progress in this challenging area. The first three tests showed that idealized native structures are stable under our refinement simulation conditions and that the refinement protocol can significantly decrease the root mean square deviation (RMSD) of perturbed native structures. In the fourth test we applied the refinement protocol to de novo models and showed that accurate models could be identified based on their energies, and in several cases many of the buried side chains adopted native‐like conformations. We also showed that the differences in backbone and side‐chain conformations between the refined de novo models and the native structures are largely localized to loop regions and regions where the native structure has unusual features such as rare rotamers or atypical hydrogen bonding between β‐strands. The refined de novo models typically have higher energies than refined idealized native structures, indicating that sampling of local backbone conformations and side‐chain packing arrangements in a condensed state is a primary obstacle. Proteins 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Locating Tune Changes and Providing a Semantic Labelling of Sets of Irish Traditional Tunes

An approach is presented which provides the tune change locations within a set of Irish Traditional tunes. Also provided are semantic labels for each part of each tune within the set. A set in Irish Traditional music is a number of individual tunes played segue. Each of the tunes in the set are made up of structural segments called parts. Musical variation is a prominent characteristic of this genre. However, a certain set of notes known as ‘set accented tones’ are considered impervious to musical variation. Chroma information is extracted at ‘set accented tone’ locations within the music. The resulting chroma vectors are grouped to represent the parts of the music. The parts are then compared with one another to form a part similarity matrix. Unit kernels which represent the possible structures of an Irish Traditional tune are matched with the part similarity matrix to determine the tune change locations and semantic part labels.
Towards automated identification and analysis of argumentation structures in the decision corpus of the German Federal Constitutional Court

Argumentation is an essential task in every scientific discipline. The development of strong and convincing argumentation as well as the analysis of existing argumentation structures is important in the field of humanities, and especially in the field of jurisprudence. Judicial argumentation requires sophisticated intellectual effort and the knowledge of as much potentially relevant background information as possible. Considering that the fulfillment of this task is limited by the natural human information processing capacity, the field of digital humanities investigates how such information-intensive and time-consuming tasks can be supported by computers. Against the background of the ever-growing availability of different corpora of jurisdiction in Germany, a software prototype supporting automated identification, analysis and recommendation of argumentation structures in electronically available corpora of jurisdiction is currently developed in the project ARGUMENTUM. In this article, we present the basic concept for the preparation and processing of the decision corpus of the German Federal Constitutional Court which shall provide the basis for the future ARGUMENTUM prototype.
Recognition of asymmetric facial action unit activities and intensities

Most automatic facial expression analysis systems try to analyze emotion categories. However, psychologists argue that there is no straightforward way to classify, emotions from facial expressions. Instead, they propose FACS (facial action coding system), a de-facto standard for categorizing facial actions independent from emotional categories. We describe a system that recognizes asymmetric FACS action unit activities and intensities without the use of markers. Facial expression extraction is achieved by difference images that are projected into a sub-space using either PCA or ICA, followed by nearest neighbor classification. Experiments show that this holistic approach achieves a recognition performance comparable to marker-based facial expression analysis systems or human FACS experts for a single-subject database recorded under controlled conditions.
Monocular Vision Distance Measurement Method Based on Dynamic Error Compensation

On the basis of a cost-effective embedded system, this paper gives a preceding vehicle distance measuring method with monocular vision techniques for highway driver assistance system. The road scenes are acquired with a monocular camera calibrated beforehand. The features of the road lanes are extracted and recognized, and then the external parameters of the camera are calibrated by three mutually non-coincident parallel lines constructed by road lanes which have same vanishing point and different slopes on imaging plane. To compensate the error of the distance estimation caused by pitch angle, the data regression modeling method is applied, which is based on calibrating some fixed distances to image pixel samples under different pitch angles accurately. Distance of the preceding vehicle is compensated dynamically by the data regression modeling. A statistical base of 200 video highway road images in the daytime is tested in our experiments. The experimental results show that the distance estimation error ratio is lower than 5%.
The Universal A-Dynamical System

For any C∗-algebra A, an A-dynamical system is a C∗-dynamical system that contains A and can be generated by the images of A under the semigroup of nonnegative time endomorphisms. There is a universal Adynamical system that occupies a position in noncommutative dynamics that resembles the position of the tangent bundle in commutative dynamics. We describe an approach to noncommutative dilation theory based on the universal A-dynamical system, emphasizing the role of continuous free products of C∗-algebras, noncommutative moment polynomials, and conditional expectations.
Internet Episode Analysis for Detecting Anomalous Attacks on Information Infrastructures

A new Internet datamining framework is developed to protect critical information infrastructures. Frequent episode rules are generated to detect anomalies in TCP, UDP, or ICMP connections. We protect network-based computing infrastructures such as clusters, Grids, and P2P systems. Fundamental rule pruning techniques are introduced to significantly reduce the rule-search space. The new security system was tested over real-life Internet trace data at the University of Southern California. Our experimental results show a 51% improvement in detection rate on DoS, R2L, and port-scanning attacks, compared with the results using association rules in Internet traffic datamining. We experienced less than 20 false alarms out of 200 unknown network attacks. Our scheme detects many novel attacks that cannot be detected by Snort. These experimental results demonstrate significant security upgrade and performance gains over existing security systems for Internet computing, Grid and web services.
Investigation of deployable structures and their actuation

Deployable Structures had not been designed for use in the oil field industry, and additionally have not been designed as devices to perform mechanical work. By analyzing deployable structures a detailed understanding of the mechanism kinematics has been developed. Further, we have analyzed new design concepts of deployable structures that include void filling alterations and snap fit strengthening. The actuation and mechanical loading of the structures and the input to output force ratio were investigated. This understanding was applied to several actuation methods. Thesis Supervisor: Anette E. Hosoi Title: Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Covert Communication Based on Subliminal Channel in Broadcast Multi Signature

The subliminal channel is a covert communication channel constructed in public correspondence pattern. As a kind of the modern information hiding technology, it is used to transmit the secret information. In this paper, the subliminal channel in general ElGamal signature is analyzed. And the wideband and narrowband subliminal channel in the broadcast digital multi-signature is discussed on the presence and capacity. A scheme for closing the subliminal channel in the broadcast digital multi-signature is given, which is based on cut-and-choose method. The security and feasibility of this scheme is analyzed and discussed.
Motion Segmentation Using Central Distance Features and Low-Pass Filter

The motion segmentation is to divide the original motion sequence into several motion fragments with specific semantic, which plays an important role in the motion compression, motion classification, motion synthesis. This paper presents a motion segmentation algorithm based on the central distance features and low-pass filter for the human motion capture data. The proposed approach mainly includes three steps. Firstly, a set of central distance features from the center joint ROOT to limbs was extracted, and those features were divided into the upper and lower limbs norms. Then, PCA method was used to get the one dimension principal component, which can better represent the original motion. Furthermore, the low-pass filter is utilized to get the denoising signal. Consequently, the segmental points set can be obtained. Experimental results show the promising performance of our algorithm.
Minimum control latency of dynamic networks

Controlling a dynamic network is interesting and important in practical applications, which is to drive the network from any initial state to any desired state. Much research has been conducted in revealing the controllability and seeking the underlying correlations of the network. However, no existing works have considered the time needed to control the network, which we refer to as control latency. In this paper, we initiate the study of control latency of dynamic networks. First of all, we formulate the minimum control latency (MCL) problem for designing the controlling pattern with minimum number of controllers. We show that the MCL problem is NP-hard by reducing the multiprocessor scheduling problem to it. Then, we propose a greedy algorithm for designing a controlling pattern that can control the network within two times the minimum control latency. Moreover, when the control latency is bounded by a given value, we propose another constant approximation algorithm to design a controlling pattern which uses at most three times the minimum number of controllers. We conduct extensive simulations on both synthetic and real networks to corroborate our theoretic analysis.
Understanding Sensitivities in Paleoclimatic Reconstructions

Recent publications have seen the introduction of a number of new statistical methods for paleoclimatic reconstructions. When applied to archived multiproxy datasets, most of these methods produce reconstructed curves very similar to the “hockey stick” shape that was first observed by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. However, one recent reconstruction, by McShane and Wyner, produced a sharply different shape. Trying to understand the reasons for this leads to important insights for both statistical methodology and paleoclimatic datasets. The “divergence” phenomenon — that the relationship between temperature and some of the proxies may not be constant over time — has been extensively discussed in the paleoclimate literature, but mostly in the context of certain classes of northern hemisphere tree rings, which are not included among the proxies examined here. Closer scrutiny of the data suggests a new divergence phenomenon, associated with lake sediments. When these are removed from the data, the resulting reconstruction is much closer to the familiar hockey stick shape. This highlights the need both for careful scrutiny of the data, and for statistical methods that are robust against the divergence phenomenon. ∗Richard L. Smith is the Director of the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), Research Triangle Park, N.C. , and Mark L. Reed III Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. SAMSI is supported by the National Science Foundation, grant DMS 0635449. Contact email address: rls@email.unc. edu. The author would like to thank Dr. Michael Mann for answering a number of queries about the data and for some very helpful discussion of the divergence phenomenon.
Runtime behavior analysis for pointer-intensive applications

Despite continued advances in cache design and development of new hardware prefetching techniques, the system performance is limited duo to the irregularity of memory access behavior in pointer-intensive applications. Our work investigates runtime behavior of memory system and CPU CLOCK consumption for pointer-intensive applications. This paper provides experimental results on the Intel Quad multiprocessor for several pointer-intensive applications. The experimental results indicate that the memory behavior in these pointer-intensive applications expose unstable state during the process of their execution, and some pointer-chasing applications display phase change in their memory access and bus consumption. Through further analysis, we found that programming systems must overcome two fundamental limitations of modem memory hierarchies: limited transfer bandwidth and long data access latencies, to achieve high performance on pointer-intensive applications.
A set of low fidelity visualizations of bioinformatics algorithms for teaching purposes

Algorithm visualization (AV) has been defined as ‘the process of viewing the underlying logic of a computer algorithm through a series of pictures that are strategically chosen to illustrate the algorithm in execution’ [10]. As opposed to ‘high fidelity’ visualizations, which execute the algorithm’s code line by line for any user input, generating appropriate images for every significant event, ‘low fidelity’ visualizations do away with the original code and centre rather on a few, carefully selected data sets [11], [6], allowing for apparent stepwise, forward and backward execution. From the experience of using such visualizations in the training of computer scientists, the features that should characterise educationally effective AVs have been defined [8].
A Vocational Re-Evaluation of the Base Year Survey of the High School Class of 1972; Part 2: Characteristics Distinguishing Vocational Students from General and Academic Students. Final Report.

AUTHOR Echternacht, Gary TITLE A Vocational Re-Evaluation of the Base Year Survey of the High School Class of 1972; Part 2: Characteristics Distinguishing Vocational Students from General and Academic Students. Final Report. INSTITUTION Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. Office of Planning, Budgeting, and Evaluation. REPORT NO ETS-PR-75-3 PUB. DATE Feb 75 CONTRACT OEC-0-73-6806 NOTE 41p. ; For related documents, see ED 097 368-372, 103 45-453, 111 850 and 886, and TM 004 910 and 965
Constrained scale-free LDPC codes

Short-length scale-free low-density-paritycheck (SF-LDPC) codes have been found to outperform codes optimized by the density-evolution technique. However, a large fraction of degree-2 variable nodes will exist in SF-LDPC codes when the code rate is high. Consequently, small-size cycles with no external connections can easily be created by these degree-2 nodes, producing a large error rate. In this paper, we propose constraining the proportion of degree-2 variable nodes in the design SF-LDPC codes. We will evaluate the error performance of the high-rate SFLDPC codes under the new constraint.
Submitted to MMCN 2009 on July 3 , 2008 Multimedia Application Performance on a WiMAX Network

In this paper, we use experimental measurements to tudy the performance of multimedia applications ov er a commercial IEEE 802.16 WiMAX network. Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and video streaming (RealPlayer) applicatio ns are tested. The WiMAX-based network solidly supports Vo IP, providing adequate quality for short to medium duration calls. The voice quality degradation compared to hi gh-speed Ethernet is only moderate, despite higher packet loss and network delays. The effects of the uplink and the d ownlink on call quality are comparable, despite the ir different characteristics. On-demand video streaming performs well using UDP. Smooth playback of high-quality vi deo/audio clips at aggregate rates exceeding 700 Kbps is achi eved about 63% of the time, with low-quality playba ck periods observed only 7% of the time. Our results show that WiMAX networks can adequately support currently po pular multimedia Internet applications.
What Matters for Urban Adolescents’ Engagement and Disengagement in School: A Mixed-Methods Study

This study uses a mixed-method sequential exploratory design to examine influences on urban adolescents’ engagement and disengagement in school. First, we interviewed 22 middle and high school students who varied in their level of engagement and disengagement. Support from adults and peers, opportunities to make choices, and external incentives aligned with greater engagement. In contrast, a strict disciplinary structure, an irrelevant and boring curriculum, disengaged peers, and lack of respect by adults coincided with greater disengagement. From these interviews, we tested whether these factors were statistically significant predictors of engagement and disengagement in a sample of 611 middle and high school students. In the majority of models, these predictors were significantly related to engagement and disengagement in the expected direction. Implications of findings for educational practice are discussed.