Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experiences of Sexual Minorities

Higher education has made great progress in creating open organizational classroom environments for diverse populations. However, little research has been published on the experiences of lesbians and gay men in colleges and universities. A study identified the extent to which higher education is creating an open and comfortable environment for lesbians and gay men. The study examined lesbian and gay organizational and classroom experiences in higher education; it also solicited information on specific strategies that lesbian and gay educators and administrators are using to enhance those experiences. A sample group of 47 subjects responded to the survey (representing a response rate of 84%). A supplemental procedure yielded five participants who were members of a university-wide gay and lesbian caucus; thus, 52 was the total number of survey participants. Strict confidentiality was maintained, and subjects were not asked to identify themselves in any way. The survey revealed that lesbians and gays encounter fairly positive experiences in academic organizations and within the classroom; they are also actively working to enhance those environments through a variety of empowerment strategies. (Contains two tables of data and 64 references.) (Author/NKA) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Experiences of Sexual Minorities Experiences of Sexual Minorities in Higher Education: A Survey of Lesbian and Gay Scholars U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDU ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Roger Myrick, Ph.D.
Superior dual mode resonances for 1/4 λ solidly mounted resonators

The concept of the solidly mounted resonator (SMR) structure was introduced in 1965. A SMR consists of a multi-layered structure and requires material interfaces that confine waves to resonate as standing waves. Thin piezoelectric films such as AlN and ZnO with tilted texture have the capability to excite the dual mode resonance, namely, the longitudinal and shear mode resonance. To grow the tilted AlN, the substrate is placed at a variable distance from the substrate holder center in a reactive magnetron sputtering system. In addition, we tilt the off-center substrates toward the sputtering source in order to reduce the acoustic energy loss of the longitudinal wave and preserve the shear mode resonance at the same time. In this study, the 1/4 lambda mode SMR devices made with a seven-layer Mo/SiO2 Bragg reflector and the c-axis tilted AlN are carried out. The Bragg reflector is optimized deposited with 2.28 nm RMS surface roughness, and the AlN is sputtered in appropriate sputtering pressure and appropriate substrate temperature to promote the growth of both the highly c-axis orientated and tilted AlN. The off-center deposition method evolves in a competitive growth bringing about an AlN growth pivoted in the ion-flux direction. The outcome frequency responses show dual resonant characteristics around 1.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz resulted from the shear and longitudinal resonances, respectively. We successfully improve the longitudinal resonance by tilting the substrate toward the sputtering source. Not only the shear resonance for the liquid media sensing application, but also an outstanding longitudinal resonance could be obtained. The superior dual mode resonances are realized.
Automatic Reparameterisation in Probabilistic Programming

The performance of approximate posterior inference algorithms can depend strongly on how the model is parameterised. In particular, non-centring a model can break dependencies between different levels in hierarchical models and drastically reduce the difficulty of the inference task. However, it is not obvious how to reparameterise a model in the best possible way, as the shape of the posterior depends on the properties of the observed data. We propose two inference strategies that utilise the power of probabilistic programming to free modellers from the need to choose a parameterisation. The first strategy alternates between sampling using the centred or the non-centred parameterisation, while the second strategy learns a partially non-centred parameterisation by optimising a variational objective.
Assessment of Risk Factors for Low Birth weight of Infants in Zanjan Province Using Quantile Regression Analysis

Background: Low birth weight is one of the key indicators to assess the health of infants, and appropriate birth weight is one of the most important goals of any health system which also reflects the quality of prenatal care. Objectives: The present research aimed to study some of the factors associated with low birth weight using quantile regression analysis. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on 621 infants born weighing less than 2500 grams in the period 2012-2013. The data were collected from the medical records of infants in health care centers of Zanjan Province which were selected based on multi-stage cluster sampling. The obtained data were statistically analyzed using quantile and multiple regression analysis in SAS-9.2. Results : In this study, 320 infants (51.5%) were female, and the mean age of mothers and the mean weight of infants were 27.1±5.8 years and 2236±299 grams, respectively. The results showed that low birth weight is significantly related to age, educational attainment, and the number of children. In addition, there was a significant relationship between infant weight and maternal age only in the tenth percentile (P=0.007), while such a relationship was not found in the higher percentiles (50 and 90) (P=0.0, 953.585). Conclusion: Some of the demographics of mothers such as educational attainment and gestational age were influential in the low birth weight of infants. Maternal age and birth weight were not statistically significant in all areas.
In Control with no Control: Perceptions and Reality of Windows 10 Home Edition Update Features

Home computer users are regularly advised to install software updates to stay secure. Windows 10 Home edition is unique as it automatically downloads and installs updates, and restarts the computer automatically if needed. The automatic restarts can be influenced through a number of features, such as ‘active hours’ (the period during which a computer will never automatically restart to finish installing an update) or by explicitly setting a time when to restart the computer. This research investigates if the features Microsoft provides for managing updates on Windows 10 Home edition are appropriate for computer owners. We build a model of the update behaviour of Windows 10. The model identifies all interaction points between the update system and the users. We contrast the theory with reality in a survey study with 93 participants which establishes the experiences and perceptions of users of Windows 10 Home. Windows will not restart a computer outside active hours if the computer is in use. However, if any user of a machine sets an explicit restart time, the computer will restart at that time in order to install quality updates even if the computer is still in active use (potentially by a different user to the one who set the restart time). While overall perceptions of updates were positive, the pattern of use of almost all users was incompatible with the default setting of the ‘active hours’ feature. Only 28% of users knew of its existence. Users are mostly unaware of quality (bugfix) updates, perceiving that updates act mostly to add features. Half of our participants report unexpected restarts, while half also reported growing concern about the state of their device if an update took a long time. Participants who had previous negative experiences had weaker beliefs about their ability to control updates than those who had not. We recommend that operating systems obtain explicit permission for restarts consistently; there are opportunities for default features such as active hours and update progress displays to learn from usage activity.
Reduced 3O-methyl-dopa levels in OCD patients and their unaffected parents is associated with the low activity M 158 COMT allele

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Reduced 3-O-methyl-dopa levels in OCD patients and their unaffected parents is associated with the low activity M158 COMT allele. Richard Delorme, Catalina Betancur, Pauline Chaste, Solen Kernéis, Astrid Stopin, Marie-Christine Mouren, Corinne Collet, Thomas Bourgeron, Marion Leboyer, Jean-Marie Launay
PUBLIC HEALTH NUTRITION AND EPIDEMIOLOGY School-based individualised lifestyle intervention decreases obesity and the metabolic syndrome in Mexican children

Background: Currently, there is limited evidence about effective strategies to manage childhood obesity and the metabolic syndrome in school settings. The present study aims to analyse changes in the prevalence of being overweight/obese and having the metabolic syndrome in relation to a 10-month lifestyle intervention based on individualised face-to-face sessions and parental education in school settings. Methods: The study sample comprised a cross-sectional sample of 96 overweight/obese Mexican children aged 6–12 years from eight schools. Clinical, anthropometric measurements and 24-h recalls were obtained during each of 13 visits. Laboratory measurements were determined at the beginning and end. The energy-reduced diet was based on dietary recommended intakes. Individualised structured daily meals and a physical activity plan, tailored-made for each child, were provided every 3 weeks at the schools.
Chapter 5 Equilibrium Play and Best Response in Sequential Constant Sum Games 5 . 1

In the previous chapter, we identified a class of non-trivial games for which Nash Equilibrium predictions work much better than in similar previous research.1 This occurred even if the games were played in the laboratory for the first time by nonEconomics trained subjects with no feedback. These games were two-player 3x3 constant sum normal form games with unique equilibria in pure strategies and with different number of rounds of iterated deletion of (strictly) dominated strategies necessary to reach the Nash equilibrium. We here study how well the subgame perfect equilibrium prediction works in sequential games which share the same payoff matrix as the normal form games of the previous chapter and that were played again by Non-Economics trained subjects for the first time without previous experience in the laboratory. We check if the subgame perfect equilibrium prediction works as well for these games as the Nash equilibrium prediction did in the simultaneous move games of the previous chapter. There are several reasons why this question is interesting. Notice that in constant sum games the Nash equilibrium outcome of the normal form games and the subgame perfect equilibrium outcome of the sequential games coincide. This is because, thinking in terms of backwards induction for a game with two players, when the last mover in See, for example, McCabe et al. (1994), Mookherjee and Sopher (1994)), Stahl and Wilson (1995), Broseta et al. (2001), Brown and Rosenthal (1990), Rapapport and Boebel (1992) and Mookherjee and Sopher (1997)).
Temperature‐dependent acute toxicity of methomyl pesticide on larvae of 3 Asian amphibian species

Relative to other animal taxa, ecotoxicological studies on amphibians are scarce, even though amphibians are experiencing global declines and pollution has been identified as an important threat. Agricultural lands provide important habitats for many amphibians, but often these lands are contaminated with pesticides. The authors determined the acute toxicity, in terms of 96‐h median lethal concentrations, of the carbamate pesticide methomyl on larvae of 3 Asian amphibian species, the Asian common toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus), the brown tree frog (Polypedates megacephalus), and the marbled pygmy frog (Microhyla pulchra), at 5 different temperatures (15 °C, 20 °C, 25 °C, 30 °C, and 35 °C) to examine the relationships between temperature and toxicity. Significant interspecific variation in methomyl sensitivity and 2 distinct patterns of temperature‐dependent toxicity were found. Because high proportions of malformation among the surviving tadpoles were observed, a further test was carried out on the tree frog to determine effect concentrations using malformation as the endpoint. Concentrations as low as 1.4% of the corresponding 96‐h median lethal concentrations at 25 °C were sufficient to cause malformation in 50% of the test population. As the toxicity of pesticides may be significantly amplified at higher temperatures, temperature effects should not be overlooked in ecotoxicological studies and derivation of safety limits in environmental risk assessment and management. Environ Toxicol Chem 2015;34:2322–2327. © 2015 SETAC
An Empirical Study on the Supportive Role of High-end Producer Services in Manufacturing Industry of Guangxi Based on Gray Correlation Theory

This paper uses the gray correlation theory to carry out a quantitative study on the supportive role of producer services in manufacturing industry of Guangxi province based on the statistics of Guangxi's high-end producer services and manufacturing industry between 2008 and 2013. The study result shows that while the correlation is relatively high between manufacturing industry and producer services like scientific research, technical service, geological prospecting service, commercial service, financial service, and real estate service, it is still low between manufacturing industry and emerging producer services including information transmission, computer service, and software industry. Therefore, Guangxi should strive to balance the development of high-end producer services, so as to give a full play to its supportive role in manufacturing industry development.
Design of an upper limb motion assist system with parallel mechanism

An upper limb motion assist system with parallel mechanism is being developed. This system aims at assisting a patient with upper limb disability to move his/her arm in daily life or rehabilitation. It suspends an arm at its elbow and wrist with three strings each, and manipulates the arm by changing the length of each string. As a first step of development, the design parameters are evaluated using simulation.
Regulating small G protein signaling to coordinate axon adhesion and repulsion

Small GTPases play critical roles in diverse biological events including regulating both the cytoskeletal and adhesive properties of cells. The importance of small GTPases to these events stems from their ability to be turned on and off, respectively, by specific GEFs and GAPs. In neurons, for example, regulation of small GTPase activity by extracellular guidance cues controls axonal and dendritic process shape, extension and navigation. Here, we discuss recent findings that indicate a specific regulator of small GTPase signaling, the Plexin transmembrane GAP, is differentially controlled by specific extracellular cues to guide growing axons. In particular, Plexins are receptors for one of the largest families of axon guidance cues, Semaphorins and negatively regulate cell morphology and motility by serving as GAPs for Ras/Rap family GTPases. Recent observations reveal that Plexin’s GAP activity is controlled by the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), which phosphorylates Plexin and generates a binding site for the phospho-serine/threonine binding protein 14-3-3ε. This PKA-mediated Plexin-14-3-3ε interaction prevents Plexin from associating with its GTPase substrate, and thus antagonizes Semaphorin signaling. We now further examine these interactions and how they provide a new logic by which axon guidance signaling pathways over-ride one another to steer growing axons. We also further explore how Plexin interacting proteins, including Ras, PKA and 14-3-3 may interact with the Plexin GAP domain. Our observations also further indicate that 14-3-3 proteins may have conserved roles in the regulation of GTPase activity.
Genetic reduction of eEF 2 kinase alleviates pathophysiology in Alzheimer ’ s disease model mice

Molecular signaling mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remain unclear. Maintenance of memory and synaptic plasticity depend on de novo protein synthesis, dysregulation of which is implicated in AD. Recent studies showed AD-associated hyperphosphorylation of mRNA translation factor eukaryotic elongation factor 2 (eEF2), which results in inhibition of protein synthesis. We tested to determine whether suppression of eEF2 phosphorylation could improve protein synthesis capacity and AD-associated cognitive and synaptic impairments. Genetic reduction of the eEF2 kinase (eEF2K) in 2 AD mouse models suppressed AD-associated eEF2 hyperphosphorylation and improved memory deficits and hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) impairments without altering brain amyloid b (Ab) pathology. Furthermore, eEF2K reduction alleviated AD-associated defects in dendritic spine morphology, postsynaptic density formation, de novo protein synthesis, and dendritic polyribosome assembly. Our results link eEF2K/eEF2 signaling dysregulation to AD pathophysiology and therefore offer a feasible therapeutic target. Research Article Neuroscience
1 Using Worker Self-Assessments for Competence-based Pre-Selection in Crowdsourcing

Paid crowdsourcing platforms have evolved into remarkable marketplaces where requesters can tap into human intelligence to serve a multitude of purposes, and the workforce can benet through monetary returns for investing their eorts. In this work, we focus on individual crowd worker competencies. By drawing from self-assessment theories in psychology, we show that crowd workers oen lack awareness about their true level of competence. Due to this, although workers intend to maintain a high reputation, they tend to participate in tasks that are beyond their competence. We reveal the diversity of individual worker competencies, and make a case for competence-based pre-selection in crowdsourcing marketplaces. We show the implications of awed self-assessments on real-world microtasks, and propose a novel worker pre-selection method that considers accuracy of worker self-assessments. We evaluated our method in a sentiment analysis task and observed an improvement in the accuracy by over 15%, when compared to traditional performance-based worker pre-selection. Similarly, our proposed method resulted in an improvement in accuracy of nearly 6% in an image validation task. Our results show that requesters in crowdsourcing platforms can benet by considering worker self-assessments in addition to their performance for pre-selection.
Influences of Institutional Differences on Chinese Enterprises ’ Investment on Countries in “ The Belt and Road ” Strategy — Based on Regulatory Effects of Ethnic Chinese in Host Countries

While implementing the strategy of “the Belt and Road” in China, different countries along the belt demonstrate huge differences from China. Such differences are an important reason that hinders foreign investments of Chinese enterprises. Based on the perspective of differences between host nations’ systems and Chinese system, the paper discusses the theoretic mechanism of labor exports and foreign direct investments from Chinese enterprises. According the institutional differences between 65 countries along “The Belt and Road” and China, active degree of overseas Chinese and the number of corporate investment projects, the paper adopts zero-inflated negative binomial regression method and empirical research, and finds out: 1) Institutional differences are negatively related to OFDI of Chinese enterprises. In terms of investment on “the Belt and Road” nations, Chinese enterprises are also more inclined to make investments in nations with governance levels more similar to China. 2) The activity of ethnic Chinese in host countries made up the negative impact of the cultural differences on OFDI location selection of Chinese enterprise. 3) Regardless of institutional differences and the host country Chinese network, as for OFDI enterprises motivated by technology research and development, they do not pose significant impacts. The paper contains important enlightenment on how to make the best use of system and labor services export during the process of implementing “the Belt and Road”.
Evaluating parent use of functional communication training to replace and enhance prelinguistic behaviours in six children with developmental and physical disabilities

Purpose: To evaluate parent use of functional communication training (FCT) to replace and enhance prelinguistic behaviours in six young children with developmental and physical disabilities. Method: Initially, the communicative functions of the children's prelinguistic behaviours were assessed by parent interviews. Three communication functions were identified for each child and intervention goals to replace or enhance the child's existing prelinguistic behaviours were developed in consultation with parents. After a baseline phase, parents received training on implementation of FCT. Intervention was staggered across the three communicative functions in a multiple-probe design. Results: Intervention was associated with increases in the replacement communication behaviour. Treatment gains were generally maintained at the monthly follow-ups. Conclusion: The results suggest that parents can use FCT to enhance communication skills in children with developmental and physical disabilities.
The World Productivity Distribution: Convergence and Divergence Patterns in the Postwar Era

The post-World War II period has seen substantial changes in labor productivity around the world. Motivated by these changes, this article documents four stylized facts about the world productivity distribution. First, there is a large and increasing disparity between its tails. Second, this disparity rapidly increased in the 1980s, slowed down in the next decade, and stabilized in the mid-2000s. Third, overtime, there has been substantial forward and backward mobility of countries and regions. Forth, the upper tail the distribution is more sensitive to improvements in human capital, while the lower tail is more sensitive to improvements in technology. The article concludes pointing out that, at least in the near future, the world productivity distribution may still be characterized by divergence at the bottom, and convergence and overtaking at the top.
Toward Developing a Unimem OFI Provider for MPI Support

OpenFabrics Interfaces (OFI) is a unified abstraction of fabric network hardware for high-performance computing (HPC). Recently, HPC runtimes such as MPICH have been written on top of OFI’s libfabric API. In this work we present our ongoing efforts toward developing an OFI provider for the Unimem architecture to offer efficient MPI capabilities on this emerging technology. The MPICH CH4-based runtime running the current version of our OFI provider attains 14.47 μs latency for small messages and 360.59 MB/s peak bandwidth for large messages on a prototype Unimem board.