Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Navigating Among Worlds

This qualitative study examined the experience of immigrant Jewish Ethiopian youth in Israel and its impact on their identity formation. The study sample comprised 13 high-school students, aged 14 to 17. Data analysis revealed two poles on which these youths negotiate their identity: (1) the temporal pole (past, present, and future), and (2) the youths' struggle to integrate in the new society, presenting family and school environments as two significant domains. To cope with present social and academic challenges and distress, the youths draw strength from their past in Ethiopia, which represents traditional family values, thus projecting to the future their optimistic hopes for familial and economic achievements, as well as the wish to belong to Israeli society.
Isolation of Shigella dysenteriae Type 1 and S. flexneri Strains from Surface Waters in Bangladesh: Comparative Molecular Analysis of Environmental Shigella Isolates versus Clinical Strains

ABSTRACT Bacillary dysentery caused by Shigella species is a public health problem in developing countries including Bangladesh. Although, shigellae-contaminated food and drinks are often the source of the epidemic's spread, the possible presence of the pathogen and transmission of it through environmental waters have not been adequately examined. We analyzed surface waters collected in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for the presence of shigellae by a combination of PCR assays followed by concentration and culturing of PCR-positive samples. Analysis of 128 water samples by PCR assays for Shigella-specific virulence genes including ipaBCD, ipaH, and stx1 identified 14 (10.9%) samples which were positive for one or more of these virulence genes. Concentration of the PCR-positive samples by filtration followed by culturing identified live Shigella species in 11 of the 14 PCR-positive samples. Analysis of rRNA gene restriction patterns (ribotype) showed that the environmental isolates shared ribotypes with a collection of clinical isolates, but in contrast to the clinical isolates, 10 of the 11 environmental isolates were either negative or carried deletions in the plasmid-encoded invasion-associated genes ipaB, ipaC, and ipaD. However, all environmental Shigella isolates were positive for the chromosomal multicopy invasion-associated gene ipaH and all Shigella dysenteriae type 1 isolates were positive for the stx1 gene in addition to ipaH. This study demonstrated the presence of Shigella in the aquatic environment and dispersion of different virulence genes among these isolates which appear to constitute an environmental reservoir of Shigella-specific virulence genes. Since critical virulence genes in Shigella are carried by plasmids or mobile genetic elements, the environmental gene pool may contribute to an optimum combination of genes, causing the emergence of virulent Shigella strains which is facilitated in particular by close contact of the population with surface waters in Bangladesh.
Affirmative Action and Leadership Attitudes in Brazilian Women Managers

This note examines the relationship between affirmative action (AA) program perceptions and women’s self-ascribed capacity and desire to become leaders. We propose that women who believe that their organization implements a program of preferential selection toward women will experience negative psychological effects leading to lowered self-expectations for leadership, but that this effect will be moderated by their justice perceptions of AA programs. We test this proposition empirically for the first time with a Latin American female sample. Among Brazilian women managers, desire but not self-ascribed capacity to lead was reduced when they believed an AA policy was in place. Both desire’s and capacity’s relationships with belief in an AA policy were moderated by justice perceptions.
Democracy in disguise: the use of social media in reviewing the Icelandic Constitution

The aim of this article is to scrutinise the participative processes enabled by social media services in the collaborative rewriting of the Icelandic Constitution. The Constitutional Council creating and presenting the bill made use of Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and its own stjornlagarad.is site to encourage and ensure engagement and participation by the general public in the rewriting process. This article presents the participating citizens as a weak networked public, the Constitutional Council as an intermediate public, and the members of Icelandic Parliament as a strong public. Despite open structures and the facilitation of information, statements, and in some cases deliberation, the communicative efforts of the general public remain in the form of weak publics belonging to the cultural public spheres since decision-making still takes place in the ‘upper’ structures of political public spheres.
Ground Truth for Pedestrian Analysis and Application to Camera Calibration

This paper investigates the use of synthetic 3D scenes to generate ground truth of pedestrian segmentation in 2D crowd video data. Manual segmentation of objects in videos is indeed one of the most time-consuming type of assisted labeling. A big gap in computer vision research can not be filled due to this lack of temporally dense and precise segmentation ground truth on large video samples. Such data is indeed essential to introduce machine learning techniques for automatic pedestrian segmentation, as well as many other applications involving occluded people. We present a new dataset of 1.8 million pedestrian silhouettes presenting human-to-human occlusion patterns likely to be seen in real crowd video data. To our knowledge, it is the first publicly available large dataset of pedestrian in crowd silhouettes. Solutions to generate and represent this data are detailed. We discuss ideas of how this ground truth can be used for a large number of computer vision applications and demonstrate it on a camera calibration toy problem.
The Bayesian Change Point and Variable Selection Algorithm: Application to the δ18O Proxy Record of the Plio-Pleistocene

In this article, we introduce the Bayesian change point and variable selection algorithm that uses dynamic programming recursions to draw direct samples from a very high-dimensional space in a computationally efficient manner, and apply this algorithm to a geoscience problem that concerns the Earth's history of glaciation. Strong evidence exists for at least two changes in the behavior of the Earth's glaciers over the last five million years. Around 2.7 Ma, the extent of glacial cover on the Earth increased, but the frequency of glacial melting events remained constant at 41 kyr. A more dramatic change occurred around 1 Ma. For over three decades, the “Mid-Pleistocene Transition” has been described in the geoscience literature not only by a further increase in the magnitude of glacial cover, but also as the dividing point between the 41 kyr and the 100 kyr glacial worlds. Given such striking changes in the glacial record, it is clear that a model whose parameters can change through time is essential for the analysis of these data. The Bayesian change point algorithm provides a probabilistic solution to a data segmentation problem, while the exact Bayesian inference in regression procedure performs variable selection within each regime delineated by the change points. Together, they can model a time series in which the predictor variables as well as the parameters of the model are allowed to change with time. Our algorithm allows one to simultaneously perform variable selection and change point analysis in a computationally efficient manner. Supplementary materials including MATLAB code for the Bayesian change point and variable selection algorithm and the datasets described in this article are available online or by contacting the first author.
Pre-Packaging Preschool Literacy: What Drives Early Childhood Teachers to Use Commercially Produced Phonics Programs in Prior to School Settings

Language-rich environments are key to overall quality in early childhood settings, including frequent child—staff interactions around picture books and dramatic play. In a language-rich environment, explicit teaching of literacy concepts, such as phonics, is embedded in authentic and meaningful situations where alphabet letters and sounds are taught in a context meaningful to the child. Recent research, however, suggests that the use of commercial pre-packaged phonics programs (such as Letterland and Jolly Phonics) is widespread in prior to school settings in Sydney, Australia. Little is known about why early childhood teachers choose to use such programs with children aged five and under. In the present study, thematic analysis of data from interviews with five early childhood teachers using commercial phonics programs found that their reasons were pragmatic rather than pedagogical. Motivations included the idea that the programs reduced their workload, provided tangible evidence to parents of their child's ‘school readiness’, and served as a marketing tool to attract parents. Further analysis found that the teachers were unable to articulate what phonics and phonological awareness are and how they are learnt in early childhood.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.1

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks beyond its use for hypertext, such as name servers and distributed object management systems, through extension of its request methods, error codes and headers [47]. A feature of HTTP is the typing and negotiation of data representation, allowing systems to be built independently of the data being transferred.
A gene encoding the major beta tubulin of the mitotic spindle in Physarum polycephalum plasmodia

The multinucleate plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is unusual among eucaryotic cells in that it uses tubulins only in mitotic-spindle microtubules; cytoskeletal, flagellar, and centriolar microtubules are absent in this cell type. We have identified a beta-tubulin cDNA clone, beta 105, which is shown to correspond to the transcript of the betC beta-tubulin locus and to encode beta 2 tubulin, the beta tubulin expressed specifically in the plasmodium and used exclusively in the mitotic spindle. Physarum amoebae utilize tubulins in the cytoskeleton, centrioles, and flagella, in addition to the mitotic spindle. Sequence analysis shows that beta 2 tubulin is only 83% identical to the two beta tubulins expressed in amoebae. This compares with 70 to 83% identity between Physarum beta 2 tubulin and the beta tubulins of yeasts, fungi, alga, trypanosome, fruit fly, chicken, and mouse. On the other hand, Physarum beta 2 tubulin is no more similar to, for example, Aspergillus beta tubulins than it is to those of Drosophila melanogaster or mammals. Several eucaryotes express at least one widely diverged beta tubulin as well as one or more beta tubulins that conform more closely to a consensus beta-tubulin sequence. We suggest that beta-tubulins diverge more when their expression pattern is restricted, especially when this restriction results in their use in fewer functions. This divergence among beta tubulins could have resulted through neutral drift. For example, exclusive use of Physarum beta 2 tubulin in the spindle may have allowed more amino acid substitutions than would be functionally tolerable in the beta tubulins that are utilized in multiple microtubular organelles. Alternatively, restricted use of beta tubulins may allow positive selection to operate more freely to refine beta-tubulin function.
Naive Bayes Classification of Uncertain Data

Traditional machine learning algorithms assume that data are exact or precise. However, this assumption may not hold in some situations because of data uncertainty arising from measurement errors, data staleness, and repeated measurements, etc. With uncertainty, the value of each data item is represented by a probability distribution function (pdf). In this paper, we propose a novel naive Bayes classification algorithm for uncertain data with a pdf. Our key solution is to extend the class conditional probability estimation in the Bayes model to handle pdf’s. Extensive experiments on UCI datasets show that the accuracy of naive Bayes model can be improved by taking into account the uncertainty information.
Investigation of Coral-Like Cu2O Nano/Microstructures as Counter Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

In this study, a chemical oxidation method was employed to fabricate coral-like Cu2O nano/microstructures on Cu foils as counter electrodes (CEs) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The Cu2O nano/microstructures were prepared at various sintering temperatures (400, 500, 600 and 700 °C) to investigate the influences of the sintering temperature on the DSSC characteristics. First, the Cu foil substrates were immersed in an aqueous solution containing (NH4)2S2O8 and NaOH. After reacting at 25 °C for 30 min, the Cu substrates were converted to Cu(OH)2 nanostructures. Subsequently, the nanostructures were subjected to nitrogen sintering, leading to Cu(OH)2 being dehydrated into CuO, which was then deoxidized to form coral-like Cu2O nano/microstructures. The material properties of the Cu2O CEs were comprehensively determined using a scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, Raman spectrometer, X-ray photoelectron spectroscope, and cyclic voltameter. The Cu2O CEs sintered at various temperatures were used in DSSC devices and analyzed according to the current density–voltage characteristics, incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency, and electrochemical impedance characteristics. The Cu2O CEs sintered at 600 °C exhibited the optimal electrode properties and DSSC performance, yielding a power conversion efficiency of 3.62%. The Cu2O CEs fabricated on Cu foil were generally mechanically flexible and could therefore be applied to flexible DSSCs.
Advantaged group members’ reactions to tokenism

Existing research on tokenism has focused exclusively on the disadvantaged group, despite the important role advantaged groups could play in challenging tokenism. This study examines American students’ responses to a university admission policy for African students that produced an open, closed or tokenism context, when attention was focused on their own or the disadvantaged group. An open context always received higher approval ratings than a completely closed context. However, when attention was focused on the ingroup, tokenism received higher approval ratings than the closed context, whereas, when attention was focused on the outgroup, tokenism was viewed as negatively as the closed context. These findings are discussed in terms of tokenism’s inherent ambiguity and its influence on advantaged group members’ support for change.
Needs of Persons with Severe Intellectual Disabilities: a Q-Methodological Study of Clients with Severe Behavioural Disorders and Severe Intellectual Disabilities

Background A demand-oriented approach is becoming increasingly important in care provision. The purpose of this study was to identify the primary needs of clients with Severe Behavioural Disorders and Severe Intellectual Disabilities. Materials and Methods We used the theory of Social Production Function and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to operationalize different types of needs of clients with Severe Behavioural Disorders and Severe Intellectual Disabilities. A Q-methodological study enabled us to distinguish the needs of 23 clients. Results Two needs prioritizations were found. Physical well-being ultimately weighs most heavily for all clients, but in one of the two groups affection and behavioural confirmation (i.e. social needs) were also found to be important. There were no significant differences in needs between clients whose main behavioural difficulty was aggression and clients whose main behavioural difficulty was self-harm. Conclusions A demand-oriented policy for clients with Severe Behavioural Disorders and Severe Intellectual Disabilities should be targeted at groups with different needs prioritizations, rather than groups with different behavioural problems. That does not mean that the same needs of different clients can be met in exactly the same way. It takes creativity and a person-centred approach to find ways to enable clients to realize their social and physical needs.
The Adjustment of Ethnic Minority and Majority Children Living in Israel: Does Parental Use of Corporal Punishment Act as a Mediator?

This paper examines explanatory mechanisms of differences, in both positive and negative aspects of children's adjustment, between ethnic minority (i.e., Former Soviet Union—FSU origin) and ethnic majority (i.e., Israeli) children living in Israel. Seventy Israeli children (40 girls) and 75 FSU origin children (38 girls) and their parents constituted the study sample. Both mothers and fathers reported on the children's prosocial and externalizing behaviours and provided accounts of their use of corporal punishment. Analyses showed that FSU origin children displayed lower levels of prosocial behaviour as well as higher levels of externalizing problems and that their parents used more corporal punishment than their Israeli counterparts. In addition, a mediation model was determined in which both maternal and paternal use of corporal punishment mediated the link between ethnicity and the child's prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, according to the best fitting structural equation model, ethnicity did not have a direct effect on children's prosocial behaviour. This link was fully mediated by maternal and paternal corporal punishment. No mediation was revealed for the links between ethnicity and externalizing problems. The process of risk is discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
SOCIAL SKILLS IN COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH HIGH TRAIT ANGER

Abstract College students with high and low trait anger completed an observational assessment of their “getting acquainted” skills and a questionnaire assessment of their general social skills. Observational results indicated that students in the high trait anger group displayed greater negative affectivity. Questionnaire results indicated that the high trait anger group had higher emotional expressivity and social sensitivity scores. Further, questionnaire results indicted that women had higher scores on subscales measuring emotional expressivity and emotional sensitivity. Implications of findings are discussed in terms of suggestions for social skills training in anger management programs.1
Altered Expression of Imprinted Genes in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck.

BACKGROUND Genomic imprinting is associated with many human diseases, including various types of cancers, however, no studies on gene imprinting are related to squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) directly. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this study, the expression of a panel of 15 imprinted genes in cancerous and non-cancerous tissues from 73 patients with SCCHN were investigated. RESULTS Altered expression of carboxypeptidase A4 (CPA4); protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunit 9A (PPP1R9A); H19, imprinted maternally expressed transcript (non-protein coding) (H19); paternally expressed gene 3 antisense RNA 1 (PEG3-AS1); retrotransposon-like 1 (RTL1), insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2); solute carrier family 22 member 3 (SLC22A3); and gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptor beta3 subunit (GABRB3) was observed. Down-regulation of PPP1R9A (p<0.05) and GABRB3 (p<0.05) was correlated with more advanced cancer stages. Down-regulation of PEG3-AS1 (p<0.05) and GABRB3 (p<0.01) was correlated with lymph node metastasis. Poor survival was related to higher expression of CPA4 (p<0.01) and lower expression of PEG3-AS1 (p<0.05) and IGF2 (p<0.05). Chemotherapy was also found to have an impact on the expression of imprinted genes. CONCLUSION Loss of imprinting is involved in tumorigenesis of SCCHN.
Spécificité et permanence des effets de cohorte : le modèle APCD appliqué aux inégalités de générations, France/États-Unis, 1985-2010

En revenant aux sources theoriques de la question generationnelle, l’importance de deux notions centrales, specificite et permanence des effets de cohorte, est soulignee et donne lieu a un nouveau modele APCD et a un test d’hysteresis destine a reperer des effets de cohorte durables : un scarring effect, une cicatrice cohortale. Une comparaison franco-americaine des niveaux de vie est developpee par cohorte mobilisant les donnees de 1985 a 2010 du Luxembourg income study (LIS) et des Statistics on income and living conditions-Eurostat (EU-SILC). En France, les inegalites nettes de generations (tenu compte des contextes demographiques et educatifs, notamment) sont de meme ampleur que les inegalites liees au statut d’immigre ; les beneficiaires sont les cohortes nees autour de l’annee 1950. Ce phenomene ne decline pas en intensite avec le temps. La dynamique americaine est antithetique, ce qui peut s’expliquer par les differences des welfare regimes francais et americain. La France est donc marquee par de profondes inegalites intergenerationnelles.
Learning Gamification Design - An Usability First Approach for the Enterprise Infoboard Experiment

Gamification or gameful design attempts to raise participation through the application of game design patterns and principles in nongame environments. It has successfully been applied but in many cases gamification fails due to di↵erent kind of design phase pitfalls. Several game and gamification design taxonomies and guides exists. But it is hard to select the right one for a specific application of gamification. One of the causes is probably the fact that engineers try to implement what experienced game designer should do. We propose to apply data mining on user interaction data of gamified applications to extract insights to support and adapt the application of gamification. Therefore we started the Infoboard experiment – a two phase gamification study of a cutting-edge enterprise information sharing system.
The Meiotic Bouquet Promotes Homolog Interactions and Restricts Ectopic Recombination in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Chromosome architecture undergoes extensive, programmed changes as cells enter meiosis. A highly conserved change is the clustering of telomeres at the nuclear periphery to form the “bouquet” configuration. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe the bouquet and associated nuclear movement facilitate initial interactions between homologs. We show that Bqt2, a meiosis-specific protein required for bouquet formation, is required for wild-type levels of homolog pairing and meiotic allelic recombination. Both gene conversion and crossing over are reduced and exhibit negative interference in bqt2Δ mutants, reflecting reduced homolog pairing. While both the bouquet and nuclear movement promote pairing, only the bouquet restricts ectopic recombination (that between dispersed repetitive DNA). We discuss mechanisms by which the bouquet may prevent deleterious translocations by restricting ectopic recombination.