Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Facilitating Change in Schools: Is There One Best Style?.

ABSTRACT This study examines the various ways principals provide leadership for school improvement and the relationship of these “change facilitator styles” to school effectiveness in the different contexts in which they work. Results of this study of 472 teachers in 53 schools indicate that principals exhibited different leadership styles across effectiveness and SES categories. Effective low SES schools were more likely to have strong, assertive initiators as principals than were ineffective low SES schools, and responders were more likely to be principals in ineffective schools. The results only partially replicated the findings of two earlier studies associating effective middle SES schools with manager‐types. Principals were not characterized by their teachers as having pure styles ‐ initiator, manager or responder ‐ but rather as employing a combination of behaviors as they worked to bring about changes or improvements in their schools. These styles existed along a continuum from initiator to respon.
Dynamic resource provisioning through Fog micro datacenter

Lately, pervasive and ubiquitous computing services have been under focus of not only the research community, but developers as well. Different devices generate different types of data with different frequencies. Emergency, healthcare, and latency sensitive services require real-time response. Also, it is necessary to decide what type of data is to be uploaded in the cloud, without burdening the core network and the cloud. For this purpose, Fog computing plays an important role. Fog resides between underlying IoTs and the cloud. Its purpose is to manage resources, perform data filtration, preprocessing, and security measures. For this purpose, Fog requires an effective and efficient resource management framework, which we provide in this paper. Moreover, since Fog has to deal with mobile nodes and IoTs, which involves objects and devices of different types, having a fluctuating connectivity behavior. All such types of service customers have an unpredictable relinquish probability, since any object or device can quit resource utilization at any moment. In our proposed methodology for resource estimation and management, we have taken into account these factors and formulate resource management on the basis of fluctuating relinquish probability of the customer, service type, service price, and variance of the relinquish probability. Implementation of our system was done using Java, while evaluation was done on CloudSim toolkit. The discussion and results show that these factors can help service provider estimate the right amount of resources, according to each type of service customers.
Perspectivas sobre la gobernanza de los bienes y la ciudadanía en la obra de Elinor Ostrom

This paper focuses on the main conceptual and methodological contributions made by Elinor Ostrom’s work, taking into account the conceptual and political context in which it emerged and developed: the polemic with the predominant thesis of Garret Hardin on “the tragedy of the commons” and with the theory of rational choice. The paper analyzes the breaks and continuities present in Ostrom’s work, in relation with the various dominant paradigms of social science. This paper argues that her contributions go beyond environmental issues and provide elements to question and redefine the governance frameworks of various types of goods and systems.
Collagen containing neonatal astrocytes stimulates regrowth of injured fibers and promotes modest locomotor recovery after spinal cord injury

The use of collagen as a vehicle to transplant neonatal astroglial cells into the lesioned spinal cord of the adult rat allows a precise application of these cells into the lesion gap and minimizes the migration of the transplanted cells. This approach might lead to anatomical and functional recovery. In the present study, 20 adult female Wistar rats were subjected to a dorsal hemisection at thoracic spinal cord levels. Cultured cortical neonatal rat astrocytes were transplanted into the lesion with collagen as a vehicle (N = 10). Prior to transplantation, the cultured astroglial cells were labelled with fast blue. Control rats received collagen implants only (N = 10). During 1 month of survival time, functional recovery of all rats was continuously monitored. Histological data showed that the prelabelled astroglial cells survived transplantation and were localized predominantly in the collagen implant. Virtually no fast blue‐labelled GFAP‐positive astroglial cells migrated out of the implant into the adjacent host spinal cord. The presence of transplanted neonatal astroglial cells resulted in a significant increase in the number of ingrowing neurofilament‐positive fibers (including anterogradely labeled corticospinal axons) into the implant. Ingrowing fibers were closely associated with the transplanted astroglial cells. The implantation of neonatal astroglial cells did result in modest temporary improvements of locomotor recovery as observed during open‐field locomotion analysis (BBB subscore) or during crossing of a walkway (catwalk). © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Coumarins and alkaloids from the roots of Toddalia asiatica

Abstract The EtOAc and MeOH extracts of the roots of Toddalia asiatica Lam. were investigated for the roots’ chemical constituents. Two new compounds including 2′R-acetoxytoddanol (1) and 8S-10-O-demethylbocconoline (3) as well as 15 known compounds were isolated. Compound 10 showed strong cytotoxicity against KB cells with an IC50 value of 2.60 μg/mL, which is nearly equal to the ellipticine standard, but showed no activity against Vero cells. Alkaloid 3 displayed weak cytotoxicity against the KB cell line with an IC50 value of 21.69 μg/mL.
Improving Convergence in Cartesian Genetic Programming Using Adaptive Crossover, Mutation and Selection

Genetic programming (GP) can be described as a paradigm which opens the automatic derivation of programs for problem solving. GP as popularized by Koza uses tree representation. The application of GP takes place on several types of complex problems and became very important for Symbolic Regression. Miller and Thomson introduced a new directed graph representation called Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP). We use this representation for very complex problems. CGP enables a new application on classification and image processing problems. Previous research showed that CGP has a low convergence rate on complex problems. Like in other approaches of evolutionary computation, premature convergence is also a common issue. Modern GP systems produce population statistics in every iteration. In this paper we introduce a new adaptive strategy which uses population statistics to improve the convergence of CGP. A new metric for CGP is introduced to classify the healthy population diversity. Our strategy maintains population diversity by adapting the probabilities of the genetic operators and selection pressure. We demonstrate our strategy on several regression problems and compare it to the traditional algorithm of CGP. We conclude this paper by giving advices about parameterization of the adaptive strategy.
Cytokine Responses in Gnotobiotic Pigs after Infection with Virulent or Attenuated Human Rotavirus

ABSTRACT To understand the role of cytokines during rotavirus infection, we assessed the kinetics of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) (proinflammatory), IL-12 (Th1 inducer), gamma interferon (IFN-γ) (Th1), IL-4 and IL-10 (Th2), and transforming growth factor β (Th3) cytokine responses by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in serum and intestinal contents of neonatal gnotobiotic pigs and IL-12, IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-10 cytokine-secreting cell (CSC) responses of mononuclear cells from ileum, spleen, and blood by ELISPOT. Pigs received the virulent Wa P1A[8]G1 strain of human rotavirus (HRV) (VirHRV), attenuated Wa HRV (AttHRV), or mock (controls). The TNF-α levels peaked earlier and remained elevated in serum of the VirHRV group but peaked later in the AttHRV group. In serum, IL-6 was significantly elevated at postinoculation day (PID) 1 in the VirHRV group and at PID 3 in both HRV groups. The IL-12 was detected in serum of all pigs including controls with significantly elevated peaks in both HRV-infected groups, indicating a role for IL-12 in the induction of immune responses to rotavirus infection. Only low and transient IFN-γ responses occurred in serum and intestinal contents of the AttHRV-infected pigs, compared to significantly higher and prolonged IFN-γ responses in the VirHRV-infected pigs. This observation coincides with the diarrhea and viremia induced by VirHRV. The number of IFN-γ-secreting cells was significantly higher in the ileum of the VirHRV group than in that of the controls. The number of IL-4 CSCs was significantly higher in ileum of both HRV groups than in that of the controls. Significantly higher levels of IL-10 in the serum occurred early in the VirHRV group, compared to lower levels in the AttHRV group. However, the number of IL-10 CSCs was significantly higher later in ileum and spleen of the AttHRV than in the VirHRV group, suggesting a delayed initiation of a Th2 response induced by AttHRV. A significantly higher percentage of pigs had IFN-γ and IL-10 responses in serum after VirHRV infection than after AttHRV infection or in controls. These data indicate a balanced Th1/Th2 response during rotavirus infection, with higher cytokine levels early after infection with VirHRV compared to that with AttHRV. Mapping the kinetics and patterns of cytokine responses after rotavirus infection has important implications for induction of protective immunity by HRV vaccines. Higher protection rates may be associated with more balanced Th1- and Th2-type responses, but induction of higher earlier IFN-γ (Th1) and proinflammatory cytokines triggered by VirHRV may also play an important role in the higher intestinal immunoglobulin A responses and protection rates induced by VirHRV.
PSINR-Based Precoding for K-User MISO Interference Channels with a Cognitive Relay

In this paper, we consider K-user multiple-input single-output interference channels with a cognitive relay. Assuming that data of all transmitters and channel state information are known at the cognitive relay, we design a linear precoder for the cognitive relay with the aim of maximizing the sum-rate without changing the transmitter operations at all transmitters. We first define the receiver set as a set which contains a part of receivers, and then present a performance metric called "partial signal-to- interference-plus-noise ratio" (PSINR) based on the receiver set. Then, we can obtain a precoder at the cognitive relay by solving the PSINR maximization problem. The optimal receiver set which yields the maximum sum-rate can be identified by checking all possible receiver sets. Since this exhaustive search has prohibitive complexity, we introduce a greedy set search method and finally propose a precoder design scheme by combining the PSINR maximization problem and the greedy set search method. Numerical simulation results confirm that the proposed scheme shows performance close to the projected gradient method with reduced complexity.
Development of a new outlier statistic for meta-analytic data

This article describes the development of a new technique for identifying outlier coefficients in meta-analytic data sets. Denoted as the sample-adjusted meta-analytic deviancy statistic or SAMD, this technique takes into account the sample size on which each study is based when determining outlier status. An empirical test of the SAMD statistic with an actual meta-analytic data set resulted in a substantial reduction in residual variabilities and a corresponding increase in the percentage of variance accounted for by statistical artifacts after removal of outlier study coefficients. Moreover, removal of these coefficients helped to clarify what was a confusing and difficult-to-explain finding in this meta-analysis. It is suggested that analysis for outliers become a routine part of meta-analysis methodology. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed
Quantization Noise Shaping on Arbitrary Frame Expansions

Quantization noise shaping is commonly used in oversampled A/D and D/A converters with uniform sampling. This paper considers quantization noise shaping for arbitrary finite frame expansions based on generalizing the view of first-order classical oversampled noise shaping as a compensation of the quantization error through projections. Two levels of generalization are developed, one a special case of the other, and two different cost models are proposed to evaluate the quantizer structures. Within our framework, the synthesis frame vectors are assumed given, and the computational complexity is in the initial determination of frame vector ordering, carried out off-line as part of the quantizer design. We consider the extension of the results to infinite shift-invariant frames and consider in particular filtering and oversampled filter banks.
Attitudes and Attributions Associated With Female and Male Partner Violence

In an interview study, we examined attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). We examined whether attitudes toward IPV varied as a function of sample (student, general, and incarcerated), participant gender, and abuse history, or as a function of perpetrator gender. Additionally, participants' conflict-resolution strategies were examined. Findings revealed that perpetrator gender and participant abuse history were the most influential factors in shaping attitudes. Males and females evaluated violence similarly. Overall, there was greater acceptance for abuse perpetrated by females than by males, and participants who had either perpetrated or received abuse were the most condoning of IPV. A lack of conflict skills was associated with IPV. For males, this lack of skills generalized to situations outside of the relationship.
Pacing and time allocation at the micro- and meso-level within the class hour: Why pacing is important, how to study it, and what it implies for individual lesson planning

The topic of pacing at the level of the individual class hour has received relatively little coverage in research literature. In order to provide a research-based take on the issue, the current work surveys the existing literature, develops terminology and draws a key distinction between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of pacing, sequencing, grading, and transitioning. In order to focus on one of pacing’s constituent sub-topics—the allocation of classroom time—this article presents a case study of a first semester college-level introductory German class at a top-tier American university. The data come from two hours of class, one each from the beginning and end of the semester, in an attempt to discover not only how pacing affects teaching synchronically but also how it might change diachronically. Utterances and gestures were transcribed in order to segment the class into activities and sub-activities, and a model for using verbal and gestural cues to perform this kind of segmentation is proposed. The paper also discusses how the teacher allocates time to different kinds of activities, considering pacing strategies that help keep students focused and “on plan” and how these pacing strategies can allow for more time and activities spent on communicative, pair-based work. It is argued that because of the case study teacher’s focus on pacing and use of various strategies to pace the class, not only researchers but also teachers might be able to generalize the micro- and meso-pacing model described in this study to the pacing of individual lessons in their own classrooms.
The high-mobility-group domain of Sox proteins interacts with DNA-binding domains of many transcription factors

Sox proteins are widely believed to team up with other transcription factors as partner proteins to perform their many essential functions during development. In this study, yeast two-hybrid screens identified transcription factors as a major group of interacting proteins for Sox8 and Sox10. Interacting transcription factors were very similar for these two group E Sox proteins and included proteins with different types of DNA-binding domains, such as homeodomain proteins, zinc finger proteins, basic helix–loop–helix and leucine zipper proteins. In all cases analyzed, the interaction involved the DNA-binding domain of the transcription factor which directly contacted the C-terminal part of the high-mobility-group (HMG) domain. In particular, the C-terminal tail region behind helix 3 of the HMG domain was shown by mutagenesis to be essential for interaction and transcription factor recruitment. The HMG domain thus not only possesses DNA-binding and DNA-bending but also protein-interacting ability which may be equally important for the architectural function of Sox proteins on their target gene promoters.
A theory of social interaction

This book provides an analysis of the fundamental problem areas of social science. Jonathan Turner concentrates on the relation between micro and macro analyses in the understanding of social interaction. A range of theories of interaction - including those by G.H. Mead, Alfred Schutz, Erving Goffman, Harold Garfinkel and Jurgen Habermas - are subjected to critical analysis. Turner gives an analysis to those areas covered half a century ago by Talcott Parsons in his celebrated "The Structure of Social Action". Turner believes, with Parsons, that there are invariant and universal properties of the social universe which can be understood in an analytical fashion. His portrayal of these dimensions, however, diverges fundamentally from that of Parsons and incorporates ideas drawn from contemporary debates in social theory.
Development of underwater robot using Macro Fiber Composite

We developed several underwater robots by using macro fiber composite(MFC), a new type of piezo-electric actuator with the merits of being soft and capable of large displacement, developed by NASA recently. MFC is made by processing PZT into a fiber-like state, hence yielding better flexibility, and structural actuation is possible by pasting it to thin structures since it is covered by polyimide film. Utilizing MFCpsilas characteristics of being thin and flexible, meandering motion observed in underwater creatures such as fish is possible by generating progressive waves for propulsive force. Hence, a space-saving, effective mechanism capable of underwater movement can be achieved. Furthermore, in addition to forward locomotion, whirling motion and locomotion direction switching by using multiple MFCs actuators has been realized also.
Determining the Motivations of German Restaurant Goers to Eat Healthy Meals

Using German restaurant goers as the study population, this research seeks to investigate the reasons why people make healthy meal choices. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are deployed. The resultant data from the survey of German restaurant goers uncovers the underlying construct of motivation in the choice of healthy meals. Using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, this study finds two underlying components (sustainable living and personal health) to explain the motives of choosing healthy meals. A “plea for a sustainable living lifestyle” is considered as the leading motivation of consuming healthy meals. Relevant implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in the conclusion.
The bio-economic effects of artificial reefs: mixed evidence from Shandong, China

Artificial reefs are used to protect coastal habitats and rebuild fisheries. This engineering approach to fisheries management has gained popularity in many coastal areas, including China. In Shandong province alone, over USD 50 million were invested in artificial reefs during 2005–2013. Have artificial reefs achieved their biological and economic objectives? We compared reef and control sites in terms of catch and value per unit effort and average body length across species, based on surveys carried out during 2012–2013. We found that in aggregate, with all fish and invertebrates combined, artificial reefs did not improve the overall catches or revenues. Instead, seasonal fluctuations were prominent. However, when we allow for species-specific differences and focus on the common fish species, we find that an artificial reef can increase the catch and value per unit effort on average by approximately 40% compared to the control sites. The difference between these contrasting results occurs because some of the dominant species that comprise the bulk of the catches did not benefit from the reef, while many of the less dominant ones did so. This underlines the importance of being specific about what is meant by “benefiting fisheries” when evaluating artificial reefs, as well as when the objectives of reef projects are formulated in the first place. The positive effects of artificial reefs can be caused by the reefs themselves and by their influence on fishing patterns. Our study was not designed to separate these effects but we suggest that in Shandong, restrictions on fishing access may have been as important as the presence of the reef itself.
Two-stage binaural speech enhancement with wiener filter based on equalization-cancellation model

The equalization-cancellation (EC) model has been extensively studied for expressing binaural masking level difference (BMLD) in psychoacoustics. Few research focuses on applying this psychoacoustic model to speech processing applications, such as speech enhancement. In this paper, we propose a two-stage binaural speech enhancement with Wiener filter (TS-BASE/WF) based on the EC model. In this proposed TS-BASE/WF, interfering signals are first estimated by equalizing and cancelling the target signal based on the EC model, and a time-variant Wiener filter is then applied to enhance the target signal given noisy mixture signals. The main advantages of the proposed TS-BASE/WF are: (1) effectiveness in dealing with non-stationary multiple-source interfering signals; (2) success in localizing the target sound source after processing. These advantages were confirmed by comprehensive experiments in different spatial scenarios in terms of speech enhancement and sound localization.
Jitter Considerations for Worst-Case Performance Generation in Digital Controller Design

One domain of cyber-physical systems are distributed control systems. The requirements for a control system are correctness, stability and control performance. One issue when designing such a controller is that the timing behavior of the system architecture has a direct impact on the control performance. In this paper, we present an approach which allows us to consider the timing during the controller design flow. Further we propose an approach which allows us to include the maximal occurring jitter in a control loop. Based on this, we propose a new co-design method of real-time and control systems. The controller is designed based on the results of the average delay estimated by the real-time simulation to reach best performance in most cases. It is then verified with the worstand best-case end-to-end delay bounds calculated by real-time analysis methods. In the last step, the worst control performance regarding the jitter is evaluated by constructing a bad-delay sequence. This approach combines real-time simulation and analysis for best controller design and verification under worst-case timing.