Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of public pre-Kindergarten attendance on first grade reading and social achievement: A district level analysis

THE EFFECT OF PUBLIC PRE-KINDERGARTEN ATTENDANCE ON FIRST GRADE READING AND SOCIAL ACHIEVEMENT: A DISTRICT LEVEL ANALYSIS Michael James Haslip Old Dominion University, 2013 Chair: Dr. Katherine C. Kersey The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between attending a school district Pre-K program and children’s later literacy and behavior outcomes in the beginning and middle of first grade. Children’s text level, letter-sound identification, sight words, spelling and citizenship skills were measured. The study included 880 children who attended the division Pre-K program and 176 children who attended no formal or institutional preschool of any kind. Selection bias was addressed through propensity score matching, completed using optimal matching. Independent-samples t tests were run on literacy and behavior measures. Subgroup analysis was performed to test the effect of Pre-K attendance on first grade behavior across different levels of school quality experienced in kindergarten. Literacy measures in first grade included the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) and the Developmental Reading Assessment, 2nd Edition (DRA 2). Behavior was measured using a single behavior sum score composed of seven citizenship grades drawn from report cards. The study found significant effects of attending Pre-K, in the small to medium range, on all reading measures administered in both the beginning and the middle of first grade. The average effect size across all literacy measures was . 35, a small to moderate effect. Behavior results for the two groups were nearly identical. Further subgroup analysis by school quality found that children who attended New Day Pre-K and also went on to a “fair quality” school in kindergarten, as opposed to a low quality school, had significantly better behavior than children who had no preschool experience. The study strengthens the evidence supporting the ability of Pre-K to significantly improve children’s literacy results with persistent gains into the middle of first grade. The study also raises the concern that children’s social and emotional development is not receiving adequate instructional focus in the form of lesson plans, activities or time in the division Pre-K in order to make a meaningful difference for children in later grade school. The study contributes to the PK — 3 alignment discourse and offers a valuable case study in universal Pre-K access. Implications are shared for practice, policy and research. Dedicated to the perseverance that is needed to close one’s eyes to the surface world of events and behaviors, and instead to look within the sanctuary of the heart for the inspiration and beauty that transforms our world. Bring forth an inspired world.
Using Neural Networks for Fast Reachable Set Computations

Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) reachability is a powerful tool that provides performance and safety guarantees for dynamical systems. Unfortunately, using the state-of-the-art dynamic programming-based approaches, HJ reachability is intractable for systems with more than five dimensions because its computational complexity scales exponentially with system dimension. To sidestep the curse of dimensionality, we propose an algorithm that leverages a neural network to approximate the minimum time-to-reach function to synthesize controls. We show that our neural network generates near optimal controls which are guaranteed to successfully drive the system to a target state. Our framework is not dependent on state space discretization, leading to a significant reduction in computation time and space complexity in comparison with dynamic programming-based approaches. Using this grid-free approach also enables us to plan over longer time horizons with relatively little additional computation overhead. Unlike many previous neural network reachability formulations, our approximation is conservative and hence any trajectories we generate will be strictly feasible. For demonstration, we specialize our new general framework to the Dubins car model and discuss how the general framework can be applied to other models with higher-dimensional state spaces.
Alzheimer’s-Related Peptide Amyloid-β Plays a Conserved Role in Angiogenesis

Alzheimer’s disease research has been at an impasse in recent years with lingering questions about the involvement of Amyloid-β (Aβ). Early versions of the amyloid hypothesis considered Aβ something of an undesirable byproduct of APP processing that wreaks havoc on the human neocortex, yet evolutionary conservation - over three hundred million years - indicates this peptide plays an important biological role in survival and reproductive fitness. Here we describe how Aβ regulates blood vessel branching in tissues as varied as human umbilical vein and zebrafish hindbrain. High physiological concentrations of Aβ monomer induced angiogenesis by a conserved mechanism that blocks γ-secretase processing of a Notch intermediate, NEXT, and reduces the expression of downstream Notch target genes. Our findings allude to an integration of signaling pathways that utilize γ-secretase activity, which may have significant implications for our understanding of Alzheimer’s pathogenesis vis-à-vis vascular changes that set the stage for ensuing neurodegeneration.
Performance Consequences of Mandatory Increases in Executive Stock Ownership

We examine a sample of firms that adopt "target ownership plans," under which managers are required to own a minimum amount of stock. We find that prior to plan adoption, such firms exhibit low managerial equity ownership and low stock price performance. Managerial equity ownership increases significantly in the two years following plan adoption. We also observe that excess accounting returns and stock returns are higher after the plan is adopted. Thus, for our sample of firms, the required increases in the level of managerial equity ownership result in improvements in firm performance.
Neurolinguistics and second language teaching: A view from the crossroads

The topic of this article is the link between research on the neurocognition of the teaching–acquisition interface and research on second language teaching. This recent scientific enterprise investigates whether and how different aspects of second language instruction may change both the anatomy and the functioning of an adult learner’s brain even in a short period of time. In this article, I analyse how neurolinguists have operationalized three aspects specifically related to second language teaching: (1) learners’ proficiency; (2) the between-groups experimental design; (3) the implicit vs. explicit teaching dichotomy. I suggest that the degree of replicability of such neurolinguistics studies can be increased by adopting non-circular operational definitions. Such definitions should not be based on psycholinguistic or neurolinguistic metrics, but on standards that are commonly discussed in the literature on instructed second language acquisition, second language teaching, and assessment. Finally, I suggest that for future research neurolinguists should consider the advantages of welcoming on board more developmental linguists and teachers.
The problem of quantum chaotic scattering with direct processes reduced to the one without

We show that the study of the statistical properties of the scattering matrix S for quantum chaotic scattering in the presence of direct processes (characterized by ≠ 0, being the average S-matrix) can be reduced to the simpler case where direct processes are absent ( = 0). Our result is verified with a numerical simulation of the two-energy autocorrelation for two-dimensional S-matrices. It is also used to extend Wigner's time delay distribution for one-dimensional S-matrices, recently found for = 0, to the case ≠ 0; this extension is verified numerically. As a consequence of our result, future calculations can be restricted to the simpler case of no direct processes.
Automatic programming for streams. II. Transformation implementation

For pt.I see ISCAI p.232-237, Los Angeles, USA, (August 1985). Phi NIX is an automatic programming system for writing programs which interact with external devices through temporally-ordered streams of values. Abstract specifications are stated in terms of constrains on the values of input and output streams. The target language is the Stream Machine, a language which includes concurrently executing processes communicating and synchronizing through streams. Phi NIX produces programs by repeatedly transforming abstract specifications through successively more concrete forms until concrete Stream Machine programs are produced. An example which Phi NIX has successfully implemented involves three major steps: transforming the specification into an applicative expression, transforming the applicative expression into three imperative processes, and merging the processes into a single process. Each major step involves several other transformation steps that reformulate and simplify intermediate expressions. <<ETX>>
Effect of grazing by limpets on mid-shore species assemblages in northern Spain

Limpets were excluded from barnacle-dominated areas in 2 semi-exposed localities on the shore of northern Spain. We tested the hypotheses that a macroalgal canopy would develop and barnacle cover would decrease in exclusion quadrats. Spatial replication considered localities and sites within localities, while temporal replication considered 2 seasons of removal and 2 start dates within each locality and season. The experimental methods included exclusion quadrats (using fences), procedural controls (half fences) and untouched controls. Results supported both hypotheses. Limpet removal caused exclusion quadrats to change over time more than controls. An algal canopy dominated by Fucus vesiculosus developed and more barnacles were lost in exclusion quadrats than in controls. In addition, more trochids (largely Gibbula spp.) and whelks (Thais lapillus) were found in exclusion quadrats. Site effects were significant for virtually all variables analysed but no effect of locality, season or date was found. An indirect effect mediated by the development of an algal canopy appeared to be responsible for the loss of barnacles in exclusion quadrats. This indirect effect might have been reinforced by an additional indirect effect of algae mediated by increased densities of whelks under the algal canopy. Altogether, our results agree with those in semi-exposed shores in other parts of the world but not with results obtained in the west coast of Sweden, which has contrasting environmental conditions and a different dominant grazer species.
Generation profile shape dependent performance of mobility imbalanced organic solar cells

Generation profile shape dependence of the device performance in organic solar cells have been investigated. The device performance is analyzed using extracted device parameters by fitting the device characteristics to the equivalent circuit based on single diode model. It is found that for organic solar cells with an imbalance in hole and electron mobility, the device performance greatly depends on the generation profile shape. With the lowest saturation current density and ideality factor combined with highest shunt resistance and photo-current density, the generation profile with peak generation density near the hole collecting contact has the best device parameters and therefore optimal in terms of extraction. In terms of actual devices the peak generation density occur near the front contact. Therefore for mobility imbalanced devices, standard device architecture where the front contact is designated as the hole collecting contact has much better performance compared to the inverted device architecture where front contact is designated as the electron collecting contact. For the mobility balanced devices the generation profile shape dependence of the device performance is greatly reduced, but when the barrier heights of the end contacts are different, some dependence in device performance on generation profile shape can be detected. In this case the best performance is achieved when peak generation occur further away from lower barrier height electrode.
Visual Adjacency Multigraphs – a Novel Approach for a Web Page Classification

Standard techniques for a web page classification usually take a simple text-based approach, in which most of the information provided by the visual layout of a page is discarded. In our work we propose a new classification approach based on the visual layout analyses, conducted before implementing standard classification techniques. A page is represented as a hierarchical structure – Visual Adjacency Multigraph, in which nodes represent simple HTML objects (text, images) while directed edges reflect spatial relations ‘immediately before’, ‘immediately after’, ‘immediately left’ and ‘immediately right’ on the browser screen. Using visual information contained in the multigraph, one is able to define heuristics for recognition of common page entities such as vertical and horizontal link lists, titles and subtitles, and paragraphs of text. Visual analyses results in more accurate method for representing the page contents, which splits the text features into different subsets according to the groups they belong to. Finally, we introduce a classification system, which taking into account the proposed layout analysis clearly outperforms a standard bag-of-words approach.
Determinants of Software Piracy: Evidence from Far East Countries

This research investigates the determinants of software piracy using panel data analysis. Our dataset contains eleven countries in the Far East during the period 1995 to 2006. Our major empirical result shows a negative relationship between software piracy and the unemployment rate, per capita GDP, and the balance of trade, but a positive relationship in population and economic freedom. These results support the claim that the software piracy rate is sensitive to factors which cause personal disposable income to change.
Cloning Physically Unclonable Functions

As system security demands continue to evolve, Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are a promising solution for secure storage on Integrated Circuits (ICs). SRAM PUFs are among the most popular types of PUFs, since they require no additional circuitry and can be implemented with on-die memories such as caches and data memory that are readily available on both ASICs and FPGAs. This work demonstrates that SRAM PUFs are not well suited as PUFs, as they do not meet several requirements that constitute an ideal PUF. The compact nature of SRAM, standard interconnects and resiliency to environmental effects make SRAM PUFs particularly easy to clone. We consider several ways in which SRAM PUFs can be characterized and demonstrate a Focused Ion Beam circuit edit with which we were able to produce a physical clone of our Proof-of-Concept SRAM PUF implementation. As a result of the circuit edit, when challenged, the physical clone produced an identical physical response to the original device. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work in which a physical clone of a Physically Unclonable Function was produced.
On the Radiation Properties of Split-Ring Resonators (SRRs) at the Second Resonance

The radiation properties of split-ring resonators (SRRs) at their second resonance frequency are studied for the first time in this work. In particular, the electric and magnetic dipole moments of the edge-coupled SRR are calculated analytically under the assumption of strong coupling between the internal and external rings. Based on these results, the radiation resistance and the radiation efficiency are obtained theoretically. Electromagnetic simulations of the structure reveal that there is very good agreement with the theoretical predictions, pointing out the validity of the proposed analysis. As a proof of concept, an SRR antenna prototype is designed and fabricated. Experimental data are in good agreement with the theoretical and simulated results, and demonstrate the validity of the SRR working at its second resonance frequency as a radiating element.
Development and Validation of a Gender Ideology Scale for Family Planning Services in Rural China

The objectives of this study are to develop a scale of gender role ideology appropriate for assessing Quality of Care in family planning services for rural China. Literature review, focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews with service providers and clients from two counties in eastern and western China, as well as experts’ assessments, were used to develop a scale for family planning services. Psychometric methodologies were applied to samples of 601 service clients and 541 service providers from a survey in a district in central China to validate its internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity with realistic and strategic dimensions. This scale is found to be reliable and valid, and has prospects for application both academically and practically in the field.
Strong “bottom‐up” influences on small mammal populations: State‐space model analyses from long‐term studies

Abstract “Bottom‐up” influences, that is, masting, plus population density and climate, commonly influence woodland rodent demography. However, “top‐down” influences (predation) also intervene. Here, we assess the impacts of masting, climate, and density on rodent populations placed in the context of what is known about “top‐down” influences. To explain between‐year variations in bank vole Myodes glareolus and wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus population demography, we applied a state‐space model to 33 years of catch‐mark‐release live‐trapping, winter temperature, and precise mast‐collection data. Experimental mast additions aided interpretation. Rodent numbers in European ash Fraxinus excelsior woodland were estimated (May/June, November/December). December–March mean minimum daily temperature represented winter severity. Total marked adult mice/voles (and juveniles in May/June) provided density indices validated against a model‐generated population estimate; this allowed estimation of the structure of a time‐series model and the demographic impacts of the climatic/biological variables. During two winters of insignificant fruit‐fall, 6.79 g/m2 sterilized ash seed (as fruit) was distributed over an equivalent woodland similarly live‐trapped. September–March fruit‐fall strongly increased bank vole spring reproductive rate and winter and summer population growth rates; colder winters weakly reduced winter population growth. September–March fruit‐fall and warmer winters marginally increased wood mouse spring reproductive rate and September–December fruit‐fall weakly elevated summer population growth. Density dependence significantly reduced both species' population growth. Fruit‐fall impacts on demography still appeared after a year. Experimental ash fruit addition confirmed its positive influence on bank vole winter population growth with probable moderation by colder temperatures. The models show the strong impact of masting as a “bottom‐up” influence on rodent demography, emphasizing independent masting and weather influences; delayed effects of masting; and the importance of density dependence and its interaction with masting. We conclude that these rodents show strong “bottom‐up” and density‐dependent influences on demography moderated by winter temperature. “Top‐down” influences appear weak and need further investigation.
Joint training of codebooks and acoustic models in automatic speech recognition using semi-continuous HMMs

In this paper, three different techniques for building semicontinuousHMMbased speech recognisers are compared: the classical one, using Euclidean generated codebooks and independently trained acoustic models; jointly reestimating the codebooks and models obtained with the classical method; and jointly creating codebooks and models growing their size from one centroid to the desired number of them. The way this growth may be done is carefully addressed, focusing on the selection of the splitting direction and the way splitting is implemented. Results in a large vocabulary task show the ef ciency of the approach, with noticeable improvements both in accuracy and CPU consumption. Moreover, this scheme enables the use of the concatenation of features, avoiding the independence assumption usually needed in semi-continuous HMM modelling, and leading to further improvements in accuracy and CPU.
DNA Topoisomerases Are Required for Preinitiation Complex Assembly during GAL Gene Activation

To investigate the importance of topoisomerases for transcription of the galactose induced genes, we have studied the expression of GAL1, GAL2, GAL7 and GAL10 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells deficient for topoisomerases I and II. We find that topoisomerases are required for transcriptional activation of the GAL genes, but are dispensable for ongoing transcription, eliminating a role of the enzymes in transcriptional elongation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that promoter chromatin remodeling of the GAL genes is unaffected in the topoisomerase deficient strain. However, the cells fail to successfully recruit RNA polymerase II due to an inability of the TATA-binding protein (TBP) to bind to the TATA box in these promoters. We therefore argue that topoisomerases are required for accurate assembly of the preinitiation complex at the promoters of the GAL genes.
An enforced QoS shceme for high mobile adhoc networks

We present in this paper a multi-layer scheme for QoS Management in MANETs. Our proposal is to combine multiple communication protocols of different layers, to provide an adapted QoS to a different traffic classes. Protocols are modified to improve their awareness of the quality of service, so that new extensions with QoS support are developed. We model QoS service at routing layer, via a QoS extension of OLSR routing protocol. At MAC layer, we deploy a dynamic access channel function with service differentiation DEDCF (Dynamic Enhanced Distributed Channel Function) based on EDCF, as for the link layer, we implement a dynamic hybrid FEC/ARQ system. We demonstrate through this paper how incorporating the protocols above via a multi-layer independent process, can enhance efficiently the QoS level offered by a mobile adhoc network, even in the worst unfavorable conditions.