Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teacher professional development as knowledge building: a Popperian analysis

This paper offers an analysis of how six experienced teachers, and two in particular, used portfolios to aid and chart steps in their own professional development. The key finding of the study was that the pattern of growth of professional knowledge conformed strikingly to the central features of the model proposed by the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, to account for the growth of scientific knowledge. That is, the use of portfolios assisted these teachers in identifying and formulating problems, in proposing tentative theories for their solution, in testing those theories against their experience of implementation, and in moving on to new problems of practice. The research therefore supports a Popperian structure for teacher professional development that coheres with a conception of teachers as self‐learners, or autonomous learners.
Quantitative weight of evidence assessment of risk to honeybee colonies from use of imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam as seed treatments: a postscript

ABSTRACT This paper is a postscript to the four companion papers in this issue of the Journal (Solomon and Stephenson 2017a, 2017b; Stephenson and Solomon 2017a, 2017b). The first paper in the series described the conceptual model and the methods of the QWoE process. The other three papers described the application of the QWoE process to studies on imidacloprid (IMI), clothianidin (CTD), and thiamethoxam (TMX). This postscript was written to summarize the utility of the methods used in the quantitative weight of evidence (QWoE), the overall relevance of the results, and the environmental implications of the findings. Hopefully, this will be helpful to others who wish to conduct QWoEs and use these methods in assessment of risks.
Affine-invariant spatial vocabularies

Invariant image descriptors play an important role in many computer vision and pattern recognition problems such as image search and retrieval. A dominant paradigm today is that of “bags of features”, a representation of images as distributions of primitive visual elements. The main disadvantage of this approach is the loss of spatial relations between features, which often carry important information about the image. In this paper, we show how to construct spatially-sensitive image descriptors in which both the features and their relation are affine-invariant. Our construction is based on a vocabulary of pairs of features coupled with a vocabulary of invariant spatial relations between the features. Experimental results show the advantage of our approach in image retrieval applications.
Partial Object Recognition for Improving Novelty Detection in Videos

One of the major issues in novelty detection for video and image analysis application is how to recognize objects that are not in full view. As the camera pans, tilts and zooms, image objects within a scene are never in full view and enter and exit image frames with time. These objects with partial view do not contain enough number of pixels that can generate robust color, texture and statistical features, and therefore result in classification samples that are often not representative of that class, e.g. outliers. From a data analysis point of view, it is impossible to known which samples are truly outliers because of partial view as opposed to outliers because of mistakes in object labeling. This can cause serious problems in novelty detection tasks using neural networks. In this paper we propose a novel methodology for automatically detecting image objects with partial view and discuss how to use this knowledge to improve novelty detection results.
A layout algorithm for undirected compound graphs q

We present an algorithm for the layout of undirected compound graphs, relaxing restrictions of previously known algorithms in regards to topology and geometry. The algorithm is based on the traditional force-directed layout scheme with extensions to handle multilevel nesting, edges between nodes of arbitrary nesting levels, varying node sizes, and other possible application-specific constraints. Experimental results show that the execution time and quality of the produced drawings with respect to commonly accepted layout criteria are quite satisfactory. The algorithm has also been successfully implemented as part of a pathway integration and analysis toolkit named PATIKA, for drawing complicated biological pathways with compartmental constraints and arbitrary nesting relations to represent molecular complexes and various types of pathway abstractions. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A Multiple-Layer Model of Market-Oriented Organizational Culture: Measurement Issues and Performance Outcomes

Previous research addressing market orientation from a cultural perspective typically has used behavioral measures of this construct. Drawing on literature in the fields of organizational theory and marketing, the authors develop a multilayer model of market-oriented organizational culture. They draw an explicit distinction among values that support market orientation, norms for market orientation, artifacts indicating high and low market orientation, and market-oriented behaviors. On the basis of qualitative research and a subsequent survey, the authors develop scales for measuring the different layers of market-oriented culture and analyze relationships among the different components of market-oriented culture. Findings indicate that artifacts play a crucial role in determining behavior within organizations. Results also indicate that a market-oriented culture influences financial performance indirectly through market performance and that this relationship is stronger in highly dynamic markets.
Comparative Genomic Analysis of Primary and Synchronous Metastatic Colorectal Cancers

Approximately 50% of patients with primary colorectal carcinoma develop liver metastases. Understanding the genetic differences between primary colon cancer and their metastases to the liver is essential for devising a better therapeutic approach for this disease. We performed whole exome sequencing and copy number analysis for 15 triplets, each comprising normal colorectal tissue, primary colorectal carcinoma, and its synchronous matched liver metastasis. We analyzed the similarities and differences between primary colorectal carcinoma and matched liver metastases in regards to somatic mutations and somatic copy number alterationss. The genomic profiling demonstrated mutations in APC(73%), KRAS (33%), ARID1A and PIK3CA (6.7%) genes between primary colorectal and metastatic liver tumors. TP53 mutation was observed in 47% of the primary samples and 67% in liver metastatic samples. The grouped pairs, in hierarchical clustering showed similar somatic copy number alteration patterns, in contrast to the ungrouped pairs. Many mutations (including those of known key cancer driver genes) were shared in the grouped pairs. The ungrouped pairs exhibited distinct mutation patterns with no shared mutations in key driver genes. Four ungrouped liver metastasis samples had mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes along with hypermutations and a substantial number of copy number alterations. Our results suggest that about half of the metastatic colorectal carcinoma had the same clonal origin with their primary colorectal carcinomas, whereas remaining cases were genetically distinct from their primary carcinomas. These findings underscore the need to evaluate metastatic lesions separately for optimized therapy, rather than to extrapolate from primary tumor data.
“Staying On Our Feet”

Multiple forms of support for teachers new to the profession are important and necessary. The use of an online community by 11 novice instrumental music teachers at the middle school and high school levels was investigated in this case study. The teachers exchanged messages and information within the online community during the 2010–2011 school year; data sources included all transcripts from the online community and multiple interviews with each participant. The participants’ experiences in the utilization of the wikispace as an online community of practice was analyzed using Wenger’s three components of domain, community, and practice. The findings suggest that the online community appeared to have met novice teachers’ emotional needs as they learned to become music teachers but that their positions were often also quite different in terms of specific responsibilities and music curricula they taught. Thus, online conversations focused more on the affective issues that surround being a new music teacher rather than on curriculum and classroom-specific content.
Identifying and presenting friction properties of materials using a haptic robot

Parameters of a dynamic friction model were estimated for the contact of a steel end-effector with six different materials: wood (spruce), jersey (polyester), shorts (Lycra®), paper 80 g/m2, paper 160 g/m2, glass. The pre-defined sinusoidal movement and the normal direction load force were provided by a Phantom haptic interface. A 3-axis force sensor directly measures the force between the robot end-effector and the surface. The modified Dahl model with extension of damping and serial spring was used to describe the friction of selected materials. The friction model includes five parameters: Coulomb friction, stiffness coefficient, offset, damping and stiffness. Optimization was used to determine the parameters of friction model that best fit the experimental data. The modified Dahl model was found to accurately describe the friction properties of the materials and should be used in haptic models to present the properties of materials to users in virtual environments. A virtual task that uses friction model and estimated parameters of different materials has been developed. Eight subjects performed the task in virtual and real environment. Correct and incorrect answers were observed to find out subject ability to separate between different materials. The experiment showed that subjects had more problems distinguishing different friction properties of the materials in the virtual environment. These friction properties will be studied in the future to maximize the subject perception of different materials.
Complete genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis of hepatitis B virus (HBV) isolates from patients with chronic HBV infection in Korea

Although there is a report of high rate of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in South Korea, only a few entire genome sequences of HBV isolates from Korea have been reported. To obtain the complete nucleotide sequence of the Korean HBV, viral DNA was extracted from sera of Korean patients with chronic HBV infection who have not been exposed to any antiviral treatment. Complete genomic sequences were determined on three Korean HBV isolates. The entire genomic length of Korean HBV isolates, designated as KUHB84, KUHB81, and KUHB95, was 3,215 base pairs. No deletions and insertions were observed. Core promoter mutations (T1762/A1764) were detected in two isolates, KUHB84 and KUHB95. Phylogenetic analysis based on the entire genomic sequences showed that the Korean HBV isolates were genotype C and related closely to the Japanese HBV. J. Med. Virol. 71:499–503, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
SLINT: a schema-independent linked data interlinking system

Linked data interlinking is the discovery of all instances that represent the same real-world object and locate in different data sources. Since different data publishers frequently use different schemas for storing resources, we aim at developing a schema-independent interlinking system. Our system automatically selects important predicates and useful predicate alignments, which are used as the key for blocking and instance matching. The key distinction of our system is the use of weighted co-occurrence and adaptive filtering in blocking and instance matching. Experimental results show that the system highly improves the precision and recall over some recent ones. The performance of the system and the efficiency of main steps are also discussed.
Diagnosis of trisomy 21 in fetal nucleated erythrocytes from maternal blood by use of short tandem repeat sequences.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to determine whether aneuploid fetal nucleated erythrocytes (NRBCs) could be detected in maternal blood through the use of fluorescent PCR amplification with polymorphic short tandem repeat (STR) markers as an alternative or complementary method to analysis by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). METHODS Peripheral blood samples were obtained from women who had just undergone termination of pregnancy because of fetal trisomy 21 (three cases, 47,XY,+21; four cases, 47,XX,+21). Candidate fetal cells were isolated by flow-sorting by antibodies to the gamma chain of fetal hemoglobin and Hoechst 33342. FISH analysis was performed by the use of chromosome-specific probes for X, Y, and 21. Fetal NRBCs, as defined by the presence of gamma staining, characteristic morphology, and three chromosome 21 signals, along with maternal leukocytes, defined as gamma negative and two chromosome 21 signals, were micromanipulated separately and subjected to fluorescent PCR amplification of chromosome 21 STR markers (D21S11, D21S1411, and/or D21S1412). RESULTS In five of seven cases analyzed, fetal NRBCs were aneuploid, as determined by the presence of triallelic or diallelic peaks of chromosome 21 sequences when compared with sequences from the maternal leukocytes. CONCLUSIONS Fluorescent PCR amplification of STRs can detect fetal aneuploidy and may be useful in the setting of poor hybridization efficiency with FISH analysis. These results suggest that combined fetal aneuploidy and single-gene diagnoses by the use of DNA microarrays may be feasible in the near future.
Exploring the Vector Space Model for Finding Verb Synonyms in Portuguese

We explore the performance of the Vector Space Model (VSM) in finding verb synonyms in Portuguese by analyzing the impact of three operating parameters: (i) the weighting function, (ii) the context window used for automatically extracting features, and (iii) the minimum number of vector features. We rely on distributional statistics taken from a large n-gram database to build feature vectors, using minimal linguistic pre-processing. Automatic evaluation of synonym candidates using gold-standard information from the OpenOce and Wiktionary thesaurus shows that low frequency features carry most information regarding verb similarity, and that a [0, +2] window carries more information than a [-2, 0] window. We show that satisfactory precision levels require vectors with 50 or more non-nil components. Manual evaluation over a set of declarative verbs and psychological verbs show that VSM-based approaches achieve good precision in finding verb synonyms for Portuguese, even when using minimal linguistic knowledge. This lead us to proposing a performance baseline for this task.
Sparse Representation-Based Semi-Supervised Regression for People Counting

Label imbalance and the insufficiency of labeled training samples are major obstacles in most methods for counting people in images or videos. In this work, a sparse representation-based semi-supervised regression method is proposed to count people in images with limited data. The basic idea is to predict the unlabeled training data, select reliable samples to expand the labeled training set, and retrain the regression model. In the algorithm, the initial regression model, which is learned from the labeled training data, is used to predict the number of people in the unlabeled training dataset. Then, the unlabeled training samples are regarded as an over-complete dictionary. Each feature of the labeled training data can be expressed as a sparse linear approximation of the unlabeled data. In turn, the labels of the labeled training data can be estimated based on a sparse reconstruction in feature space. The label confidence in labeling an unlabeled sample is estimated by calculating the reconstruction error. The training set is updated by selecting unlabeled samples with minimal reconstruction errors, and the regression model is retrained on the new training set. A co-training style method is applied during the training process. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method has a low mean square error and mean absolute error compared with those of state-of-the-art people-counting benchmarks.
Essence of Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis

The technique of two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) is analyzed and its essence is revealed. The image total scatter matrix of 2DPCA is in nature equivalent to the sum of all total scatter matrices of m training subsets in which the kth subset is formed by the kth line of each of all training images, where m is the number of lines contained in an image. Based on this result, the true reason why 2DPCA outperforms PCA is uncovered, i.e., different from the traditional PCA using only global information of images, 2DPCA combines the local and global information of images simultaneously and alternative more transparent and understandable 2DPCA algorithm is developed. Finally, some relations to PCA and MPCA and 2DPCA are shown.
Speech to speech machine translation: Biblical chatter from Finnish to English

Speech-to-speech machine translation is in some ways the peak of natural language pro- cessing, in that it deals directly with our original, oral mode of communication (as opposed to derived written language). As such, it presents challenges that are not to be taken lightly. Although existing technology covers each of the steps in the process, from speech recognition to synthesis, deriving a model of translation that is effective in the domain of spoken language is an interesting and challenging task. If we could teach our algorithms to learn as children acquire lan- guage, the result would be useful both for language technology and cognitive science. We propose several potential approaches, an implementation of a multi-path model that translates recognized morphemes alongside words, and a web-interface to test our speech translation tool as trained for Finnish to En- glish. We also discuss current approaches to machine translation and the problems they face in adapting simultaneously to morpho- logically rich languages and to the spoken modality.
Content + Context Networks for User Classification in Twitter ∗

Twitter is a massive platform for open communication between diverse groups of people. While traditional media segregates the world’s population on lines of language, age, physical location, social status, and many other characteristics, Twitter cuts through these divides. The result is an extremely diverse social network. In this work, we combine features of this network structure with content analytics on the tweets in order to create a content + context network, capturing the relations not only between people, but also between people and content and between content and content. This rich structure allows deep analysis into many aspects of communication over Twitter. We focus on predicting user classifications by using relational probability trees with features from content + context networks. Experiments demonstrate that these features are salient and complementary for user classification.
H1N1pdm09 Adjuvanted Vaccination in HIV-Infected Adults: A Randomized Trial of Two Single versus Two Double Doses

Background Since human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals are at increased risk of severe disease from pandemic influenza A (H1N1pdm09), vaccination was recommended as a prevention strategy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the safety, immunogenicity and persistence of the immune response after vaccination against pandemic influenza A (H1N1pdm09) with an adjuvanted vaccine in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected adults using two single and two double doses. Methodology/Principal Findings Open label, randomized trial to evaluate the immune response following H1N1pdm09 vaccination in HIV-infected participants compared to HIV-negative controls (NCT01155037). HIV-infected participants were randomized to receive 2 single (3.75 µg hemagglutinin) or 2 double (7.5 µg hemagglutinin) doses of the vaccine, 21 days apart. Controls received one dose of the vaccine. The primary endpoint was seroconversion as measured by hemagglutination inhibition assay. Two hundred fifty six HIV-infected participants (129 and 127 randomized to single and double doses, respectively) and 71 HIV-negative controls were enrolled. Among HIV-infected participants, seroconversion increased from 46.7% and 51.7% after the first dose to 77.2% and 83.8% after the second dose of the vaccine using single and double doses, respectively. Participants aged >40 years showed higher seroconversion compared to younger participants. Seroconversion among HIV-infected women and those with nadir CD4<200 cells/mm3 was significantly higher with double doses. Persistence of protective antibodies six months after vaccination was achieved by 80% and 89.9% of the HIV-infected participants who received single and double doses, respectively. Conclusions/Significance Our results support the recommendation of two double doses of adjuvanted H1N1pdm09 vaccine for HIV-infected individuals, particularly women, and those aged >40 years or with nadir CD4<200 cells/mm3, to achieve antibody levels that are both higher and more sustained. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01155037
High‐resolution structure of the E.coli RecQ helicase catalytic core

RecQ family helicases catalyze critical genome maintenance reactions in bacterial and eukaryotic cells, playing key roles in several DNA metabolic processes. Mutations in recQ genes are linked to genome instability and human disease. To define the physical basis of RecQ enzyme function, we have determined a 1.8 Å resolution crystal structure of the catalytic core of Escherichia coli RecQ in its unbound form and a 2.5 Å resolution structure of the core bound to the ATP analog ATPγS. The RecQ core comprises four conserved subdomains; two of these combine to form its helicase region, while the others form unexpected Zn2+‐binding and winged‐helix motifs. The structures reveal the molecular basis of missense mutations that cause Bloom's syndrome, a human RecQ‐associated disease. Finally, based on findings from the structures, we propose a mechanism for RecQ activity that could explain its functional coordination with topoisomerase III.
Aged Care Residential Facility and Family Interface: A Training Program for Staff

An important dimension of long-term residential care is the on-going relationship between nursing staff and residents' families. This article reports an innovative attempt to train staff in an Australian Federal Government accredited aged care facility in Melbourne, Australia. A series of four in-service workshops for staff were designed, conducted on two occasions for 26 participants, and evaluated for 18 participants. Results showed that after the workshops, participants felt more appreciated and less blamed by family members and more satisfied with their conversations with family members. Central critical factors in format and content of training included role playing, group dynamics, facilitators' acknowledgment and containment of staff vulnerabilities, and staff need for recognition, value, and appreciation and increased awareness of their own behavior.