Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Home Language Practices of Trilingual Children in French Immersion.

This article draws on sociocultural theories of language and learning as well as research on bilingual families to examine the home language practices of three trilingual French immersion students. This research expands on an earlier study of their language practices at school. An ethnographic stance was adopted to explore the daily context of language use at home, the children's representations of their identity as trilinguals, their family values concerning language maintenance and additional language learning, and the reasons their parents opted to enrol them in French immersion. A rich array of language practices was documented in these bilingual homes. The families highly valued the maintenance of the home language and actively promoted the development of trilingualism through French immersion education as a means to access cultural capital for their children. The children expressed their identity as trilinguals in terms of having greater linguistic resources than unilinguals.
Personality, Behavior, and Academic Achievement: Principles for Educators to Inculcate and Students to Model

Undergraduate psychology students completed self-reports on a range of personality measures that were previously identified as significantly associated with academic performance. Their responses were analyzed in relation to their prior and subsequent performance on two indices of academic achievement (course work marks and test results). Correlation analyses demonstrated significant associations between a range of measures and both indices of performance. Regression analysis demonstrated that academic conscientiousness, test anxiety, and previous achievement accounted for unique and shared variance on test performance. A similar pattern emerged in a regression analysis for course work performance. It is advocated that future research should incorporate measures that embody the various major orientations within psychology and that cover the range of beliefs, behaviors, anxieties, cognitions, and expectancies that are likely to be implicated in achievement. Moreover, the operational definitions of the specific measures used encapsulate the principles that would be useful for educators to inculcate in their teaching ethos and for students to pursue in order to optimize performance.
High Capacity and Resistance to Additive Noise Audio Steganography Algorithm

Steganography is the art of message hiding in a cover signal without attracting attention. The requirements of the good steganography algorithm are security, capacity, robustness and imperceptibility, all them are contradictory, therefore, satisfying all together is not easy especially in audio cover signal because human auditory system (HAS) has high sensitivity to audio modification. In this paper, we proposed a high capacity audio steganography algorithm with good resistance to additive noise. The proposed algorithm is based on wavelet packet transform and blocks matching. It has capacity above 35% of the input audio file size with acceptable signal to noise ratio. Also, it is resistance to additive Gaussian noise to about 25 db. Furthermore, the reconstruction of actual secret messages does not require the original cover audio signal.
Power estimation techniques for integrated circuits

With the advent of portable and high-density microelectronic devices, the power dissipation of very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits is becoming a critical concern. Accurate and efficient power estimation during the design phase is required in order to meet the power specifications without a costly redesign process. Recently, a variety of power estimation techniques have been proposed, most of which are based on: (1) the use of simplified delay models, and (2) modeling long-term behavior of logic signals with probabilities. The array of available techniques differ in subtle ways in the assumptions that they make, the accuracy that they provide, and the kinds of circuits that they apply to. In this tutorial, I will survey the many power estimation techniques that have been recently proposed and, in an attempt to make sense of all the variety, I will try to explain the different assumptions on which these techniques are based, and the impact of these assumptions on their accuracy and speed.
Intentionality: Transparent, Translucent, and Opaque

Exploring intentionality from an externalist perspective, I distinguish three kinds of intentionality in the case of seeing, which I call transparent, translucent, and opaque respectively. I then extend the distinction from seeing to knowing, and then to believing. Having explicated the three-fold distinction, I then critically explore some important consequences that follow from granting that (i) there are transparent and translucent intentional states and (ii) these intentional states are mental states. These consequences include: first, that existential opacity is neither the mark of intentionality nor of the mental; second, that Sellars has not shown that all intentionality is non-relational; third, that a key Quinean argument for semantic indeterminacy rests on a false premise; fourth, that perceptual experience is intentional on Alston's Theory of Appearing; fifth, that either some mental causation is more than internal physiological causation or some mental states are epiphenomenal.
A Comparison of Grizzly Bear Demographic Parameters Estimated from Non-Spatial and Spatial Open Population Capture-Recapture Models

Capture-recapture studies are frequently used to monitor the status and trends of wildlife populations. Detection histories from individual animals are used to estimate probability of detection and abundance or density. The accuracy of abundance and density estimates depends on the ability to model factors affecting detection probability. Non-spatial capture-recapture models have recently evolved into spatial capture-recapture models that directly include the effect of distances between an animal’s home range centre and trap locations on detection probability. Most studies comparing non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture biases focussed on single year models and no studies have compared the accuracy of demographic parameter estimates from open population models. We applied open population non-spatial and spatial capture-recapture models to three years of grizzly bear DNA-based data from Banff National Park and simulated data sets. The two models produced similar estimates of grizzly bear apparent survival, per capita recruitment, and population growth rates but the spatial capture-recapture models had better fit. Simulations showed that spatial capture-recapture models produced more accurate parameter estimates with better credible interval coverage than non-spatial capture-recapture models. Non-spatial capture-recapture models produced negatively biased estimates of apparent survival and positively biased estimates of per capita recruitment. The spatial capture-recapture grizzly bear population growth rates and 95% highest posterior density averaged across the three years were 0.925 (0.786–1.071) for females, 0.844 (0.703–0.975) for males, and 0.882 (0.779–0.981) for females and males combined. The non-spatial capture-recapture population growth rates were 0.894 (0.758–1.024) for females, 0.825 (0.700–0.948) for males, and 0.863 (0.771–0.957) for both sexes. The combination of low densities, low reproductive rates, and predominantly negative population growth rates suggest that Banff National Park’s population of grizzly bears requires continued conservation-oriented management actions.
A Long-Acting Tumor Necrosis Factor α-Binding Protein Demonstrates Activity in Both In Vitro and In Vivo Models of Endometriosis

Endometriosis is characterized by the presence of elevated proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α in the peritoneal cavity. Blocking interaction of TNFα with its receptor by the addition of excess TNFα-binding protein (TBP)-1 (a soluble form of TNF receptor-1) was effective in animal models of endometriosis. Recently, a novel, high-affinity inhibitor of TNFα, TNF-soluble high-affinity receptor complex (TNF-SHARC), was created by fusing TBP to both the α and β subunits of inactive human chorionic gonadotropin. This dimeric protein was effective in inhibiting collagen-induced arthritis in mice. In the present study, the efficacy of TNF-SHARC in cellular and in vivo models of endometriosis was examined. TBP and TNF-SHARC dose-dependently inhibited TNFα-induced secretion of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, granulocyte macrophage–colony-stimulating factor, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 in immortalized human endometriotic cells. An in vivo mouse model of experimentally induced endometriosis using cycling C57BL/6 mice was established. Antide treatment (0.5 mg/kg), used as positive control, initiated 7 days after the establishment of the disease, reduced the weight of the lesions compared with control. TNF-SHARC at 3 mg/kg was not effective in inhibiting the disease, whereas at 9 mg/kg there was reduction in the lesion weight. In addition, antide and TNF-SHARC treatment in vivo increased in vitro natural killer cell activity compared with untreated animals. Thus, we provide evidence for supporting the development of TNF-SHARC as a therapeutic candidate for treating endometriosis in human.
Brain Tumor Detection Using Histogram Thresholding to Get the Threshold point

In this paper, a computer-based method for defining tumor region in the brain using MRI images is presented. Today's modern medical imaging research faces the challenge of detecting brain tumor through Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI). Normally, to produce images of soft tissue of human body, MRI images are used by experts. It is used for analysis of human organs to replace surgery. For brain tumor detection, image segmentation is required. For this purpose, the brain is partitioned into two distinct regions. This is considered to be one of the most important but difficult part of the process of detecting brain tumor. Hence, it is highly necessary that segmentation of the MRI images must be done accurately before asking the computer to do the exact diagnosis. Brain tumor, a mass of tissue that grows out of control is one of the major causes for the increase in mortality among children and adults. Segmenting the regions of brain is the major challenge in tumor detection. A large number of effective segmentation algorithms have been used for segmentation in grey scale images ranging from simple edge-based methods to composite high-level approaches using modern and advanced pattern recognition approaches. Brain tumor detection is one of the challenging tasks in medical image processing. Four MRI images were collected and the experiments were conducted for statistical analysis also. A comparative study is made and the results are of great interest and practical utility.
Differences in sexual risk-taking behavior with state of inebriation in an aboriginal population in Ontario, Canada.

OBJECTIVE This article describes the self-reported use of substances, participation in unprotected intercourse and differences in sexual risk-taking behavior with state of inebriation among a group of aboriginal (First Nations) people in Ontario. And, in so doing, attempts to answer some of the questions about the association between the use of alcohol and sexual risk taking in this population. METHOD The project was developed in a partnership between an aboriginal steering committee and university researchers. Data were collected via interview from 658 randomly selected status First Nations people living within 11 reserve communities in the province. RESULTS Of the 426 individuals included in the within subject analysis 9.6% reported variation in their participation in sex, 13.8% variation in their participation in intercourse and 10.3% variation in their participation in unprotected intercourse with inebriation. An examination of individual behavior across "sober" and "drunk or high" states showed that there were almost equal proportions of respondents who only participated in unsafe sex when sober and respondents who only participated in unsafe sex when drunk or high. Where significant differences occurred, individuals were more likely to report a shift towards no sex or no intercourse with inebriation, not towards unprotected intercourse. CONCLUSIONS Since a large proportion of individuals in this study engage in unprotected intercourse, the small proportion of individuals reporting different sexual behavior were more likely to report participation in a safe activity rather than an unsafe activity while "drunk or high. " Stereotypes and assumptions may lead educators and researchers to feel the need to focus their messages on the relationship between drug and alcohol consumption and unsafe sex; however, the amount of unsafe sexual intercourse that occurs only while individuals are inebriated suggests that this focus is not of principal concern.
Quality Control in the Development and Use of Performance Assessments

Issues pertaining to the quality of performance assessments are discussed. Traditional concepts of reliability and validity are important to performance tasks in that they help to establish the contexts in which such measures can be appropriately used and to create caveats for interpretation of results. Examples, both historical and contemporary, show a remarkable degree of consistency in the characteristics of data from human judgments of performance, data that bear directly on matters of trustworthiness and correctness of inferences from samples of complex performance. In particular, direct assessments of complex performance do not typically generalize from one task to another and thus require careful sampling of tasks to secure an acceptable degree of score reliability and validity for most uses. These observations suggest the pressing need for greater quality control in the design and execution of performance assessments. If such assessments are to have lasting effects on instruction and learning, the.
IT Strategic Planning in a Pediatric Hospital: Overview of the Process and Outcomes

The role of Information Technology (IT) is increasing in health care, which necessitates applying strategic thinking and analysis when making IT investments. IT strategic planning allows hospitals to analyze their environment and develop an operational plan for IT implementation. This paper presents the framework and methodology used in IT strategic planning at a tertiary care pediatric hospital in Ontario. We describe a five-stage sequential process that captured the Current State of IT, defined the desired Future State, and mapped the work required to achieve the goals. Various tools and approaches were employed including review of existing documentation, internal stakeholders' survey (n=111), 15 internal and external interviews, and 12 workshops. The process was informed by 230 individuals (12% of hospital community). Overall, there was consistency in the themes and concerns raised. Major challenges and lessons learned are highlighted, which would be helpful for hospitals engaging in similar effort in the future.
Stability in multidimensional Size Theory

This paper proves that in Size Theory the comparison of multidimensional size functions can be reduced to the 1-dimensional case by a suitable change of variables. Indeed, we show that a foliation in half-planes can be given, such that the restriction of a multidimensional size function to each of these half-planes turns out to be a classical size function in two scalar variables. This leads to the definition of a new distance between multidimensional size functions, and to the proof of their stability with respect to that distance.
Roles for both cyclic GMP and cyclic AMP in the inhibition of collagen‐induced platelet aggregation by nitroprusside *

Summary. In studies on human platelets, nitroprusside (NP) alone at 1–10 µmol/l increased platelet cyclic AMP (cAMP) by 40–70%, whereas increases in cyclic GMP (cGMP) were much larger in percentage though not in concentration terms. Collagen enhanced these increases in cAMP up to fourfold, without affecting cGMP. This effect was partly prevented by indomethacin or aspirin, indicating that platelet cyclo‐oxygenase products acted synergistically with NP to increase cAMP. ADP released from the platelets by collagen tended to restrict this cAMP accumulation. Addition of 2′,5′‐dideoxyadenosine (DDA), an inhibitor of adenylyl cyclase, decreased both the inhibition of collagen‐induced platelet aggregation by NP and the associated accumulation of cAMP without affecting cGMP, indicating that cAMP mediates part of the inhibitory effect of NP. Unlike DDA, 1H‐[1,2,4]oxadiazolo[4,3‐a]quinoxalin‐1‐one (ODQ), an inhibitor of guanylyl cyclase, blocked all increases in both cGMP and cAMP caused by NP, as well as the inhibition of platelet aggregation, suggesting that cAMP accumulation was secondary to that of cGMP. Human platelet cGMP‐dependent protein kinase (PKG) coelectrophoresed with the purified bovine type Iβ isoenzyme. An inhibitor of this enzyme (Rp)‐β‐phenyl‐1,N2‐etheno‐8‐bromoguanosine 3′,5′‐cyclic‐monophosphorothioate, diminished the inhibition of collagen‐induced platelet aggregation by NP, but had little additional effect when DDA was present. This showed that both PKG and cAMP participate in the inhibition of collagen‐induced platelet aggregation by NP. Moreover, selective activators of PKG and cAMP‐dependent protein kinases had supra‐additive inhibitory effects, suggesting that an optimal inhibitory effect of NP requires simultaneous activation of both enzymes.
Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge

Narrative research has produced an array of richly-detailed expositions of life as lived, well-interpreted studies full of nuance and insight that befit the complexity of human lives. This paper inquires into the necessity and possibilities of amalgamation of knowledge obtained through narrative research. As narrative studies, with their accompanying interpretations, accumulate, how do we “add them up? ” What would a meta-analysis of narrative studies look like? The challenge that confronts us is how assimilate narrative understanding at a conceptual level in a way that does not return to a modernist frame, treating the various research reports as “facts” — but rather to treat them as situated interpretations. Conversation is offered as a metaphor and context within which knowledge is to be understood.
Detecting Significantly Expressed Genes from Their Time-Course Expression Profiles and Its Validation

This paper proposes a model-based method for detecting significantly expressed genes from their time-course expression profiles. A gene is considered to be significantly expressed if its time-course expression profile is more likely time-dependent than random. The proposed method describes a time-dependent gene expression profile by a non-zero order autoregressive (AR) model, and a time-independent gene expression profile by a zero order AR model. Akaike information criterion (AIC) is used to compare the models and subsequently determine whether a time-course gene expression profile is time-independent or time-dependent. The performance of the proposed method is investigated on both a synthetic dataset and a biological dataset in terms of the false discovery rate (FDR) and the false non-discovery rate (FNR). The results show that the proposed method is valid for detecting significantly expressed genes from their time-course expression profiles.
Emotional Exhaustion and Defense Mechanisms in Intensive Therapy Unit Nurses

Contrary to its original conceptualization, research has found that emotional demands do not lead to burnout in nurses. According to psychoanalytic theory, unconscious defense mechanisms may protect nurses from conscious awareness of work-related anxiety. This prevents self-report and may explain research findings. The maturity of defense style influences how anxiety is managed. Immature defenses prevent the conscious processing necessary for resolution of anxiety. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the use of immature defenses will lead to emotional exhaustion. This cross-sectional study used questionnaires to explore the defense mechanisms of 87 Intensive Therapy Unit nurses. Although the sample endorsed a predominantly mature defense style, the use of immature defenses predicted emotional exhaustion. Also, lower levels of reported stress associated with emotional demands predicted emotional exhaustion. Although this strongly implies the mediating role of immature defense mechanisms, the results were not statistically significant.
On Supporting Digital Journalism: Case Studies in Co-Designing Journalistic Tools

Since 2013 researchers at University College Dublin in the Insight Centre for Data Analytics have been involved in a significant research programme in digital journalism, specifically targeting tools and social media guidelines to support the work of journalists. Most of this programme was undertaken in collaboration with The Irish Times. This collaboration involved identifying key problems currently faced by digital journalists, developing tools as solutions to these problems, and then iteratively co-designing these tools with feedback from journalists. This paper reports on our experiences and learnings from this research programme, with a view to informing similar efforts in the future.
Hegemony, Ideology and Contradictory Consciousness*

The critical phenomena for this paper are the variations in the degree of integration of ideas within mass publics. The theory of ideological hegemony provides a valuable sociological framework from which to study them. Current interpretations indicate that the political cultures of modern democracies consist of two major ideologies: a ruling ideology which is a coherent system of thought, and a subordinate ideology which exhibits contradictory consciousness. Evidence on the integration of ideas was obtained from a re-analysis of a survey of the British electorate.
IDMaps: a global internet host distance estimation service

There is an increasing need to quickly and efficiently learn network distances, in terms of metrics such as latency or bandwidth, between Internet hosts. For example, Internet content providers often place data and server mirrors throughout the Internet to improve access latency for clients, and it is necessary to direct clients to the nearest mirrors based on some distance metric in order to realize the benefit of mirrors. We suggest a scalable Internet-wide architecture, called IDMaps, which measures and disseminates distance information on the global Internet. Higher level services can collect such distance information to build a virtual distance map of the Internet and estimate the distance between any pair of IP addresses. We present our solutions to the measurement server placement and distance map construction problems in IDMaps. We show that IDMaps can indeed provide useful distance estimations to applications such as nearest mirror selection.
Comparability graph coloring for optimizing utilization of stream register files in stream processors

A stream processor executes an application that has been decomposed into a sequence of kernels that operate on streams of data elements. During the execution of a kernel, all streams accessed must be communicated through the SRF (Stream Register File), a non-bypassing software-managed on-chip memory. Therefore, optimizing utilization of the SRF is crucial for good performance. The key insight is that the interference graphs formed by the streams in stream applications tend to be comparability graphs or decomposable into a set of multiple comparability graphs. We present a compiler algorithm that can find optimal or near-optimal colorings in stream IGs, thereby improving SRF utilization than the First-Fit bin-packing algorithm, the best in the literature.