Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Examining the Factors Contributing to Students' Life Satisfaction

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between students' life satisfaction, school engagement, and confidence in the classroom. An analysis was performed of how students' life satisfaction differs according to their housing, school type, and classroom level. The multidimensional student satisfaction scale, confidence scale in the class, and school engagement scale were used to collect data from a sample of 287 high school students. In this study, Pearson correlation coefficient, path analysis, t-test, Welch test, and Tamhane's T2 test were used to analyze the data. Goodness-of-fit indices concerning the path analysis demonstrate how variables such as school engagement and confidence in the classroom predict students' life satisfaction, indicating that the model is acceptable. The model can sufficiently explain the relationship between the observed and implied variables (x2 = 209.69, df = 60, x2/df = 3.49, p = 0.00, RMSEA = .09, NFI = .92, NNFI = .93 CFI = .94, IFI = .94, RFI = .90, GFI = .88, AGFI = .82, and SRMR = .07). The results indicated that the life satisfaction of high school students decreases as the grade level increases. It was found that students who live in school dormitories have higher life satisfaction than those who reside with their families. In addition, it was found that students who study at fine arts high schools and sports high schools have higher life satisfaction than those who study at regular high schools.
Comparing UPC and one-sided MPI: A distributed hash table for GAP

The GAP (Groups, Algebra and Programming) software is an interpreted programming language for symbolic algebra computation. It also provides a library of mathematical functionality. A key computational pattern for the GAP community is the orbit problem, that of a group acting upon a set. Computationally this maps onto the graph discovery problem. The enumeration of very large orbits corresponds to the traversal of a graph with billions of vertices. A hash table is used to check whether a vertex has been visited before during the computation. The large memory requirements of such a computation necessitates using a distributed memory machine. Building a parallel version of GAP is the goal of the HPCGAP project. Message passing (MPI) and PGAS (UPC) are considered as the models for parallelisation. UPC has some advantages over MPI as some of the data structures anticipated in a parallel implementation of GAP can be simply constructed as shared objects in a PGAS model. Moreover, some of the communication patterns are not suited to the synchronous send and receive model of message passing. For example, in a parallel implementation of a hash table, the task or thread which computes the hash of an object, then knows the table entry and thus whether hash table access is remote or local. For MPI, the usual send - receive mechanism is compromised because the receiving rank cannot determine when, and from whom a message is to be passed. One-side MPI communications can be used to circumvent the problem. Windows of remote access memory are created, and guarded by locks. In UPC, the natural, shared arrays are used, again guarded by locks, However, the locking strategy for MPI and UPC is different. In this paper, the per
Allan Douglas Barton: A scholar who spanned theory and practice

Biography is now established as a valid form of research in the accounting history literature and there have been calls for biographic work that goes beyond the focus on practitioners, early academics and theorists to consider those who have made other kinds of contribution. As a member of the Australian Accounting Hall of Fame, Allan Douglas Barton’s contribution is notable for its breadth and depth. Barton played a critical role in the growth of accounting as a discipline distinct from economics. He was also important in the growth of academic communities in Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra. In addition, he reflected a strong commitment to spanning theory and practice through significant service in University leadership, diverse committee work and extensive engagement in public policy and reform. This biographic study of Barton provides a template for future work considering a broader and multifaceted contribution spanning theory and practice, research and leadership, reflection and policy.
Cooking with Roots: How Older Adults Strengthen Connection with Younger Generations Through Recipe Sharing

This research investigates how older adults experience sharing recipes with younger generations, and examines conditions that contribute to the expression of generativity within the context of intergenerational recipe sharing. In Study 1, semi-structured interviews centered on experiences with intergenerational recipe sharing will be conducted with 30 older adults (age 65+). Participants will complete a survey of generative concern before and after engaging in a basic recipe sharing task. In line with previous research on generative art activities, responses will highlight feelings of autonomy as well as desires to teach others and leave a legacy. It is also hypothesized that generative concern will increase as a consequence of the recipe sharing task. Following preliminary research, Study 2 will examine how recipe type (special occasion vs. everyday-style recipe), mode of sharing (oral vs. written), and identity of recipe recipient (relative vs. stranger) influence generative concern in 792 older adults. Participants will complete the same survey described in Study 1 before being randomly assigned to one of eight recipe sharing tasks. After three sharing sessions, participants will be re-tested for present and future-oriented generativity. While all groups will show an increase in generativity over time, participants who share recipes with a younger relative and those who share recipes orally will benefit more from the intervention than their counterparts. Results will suggest that generativity is dependent on factors of recipe type, mode of sharing, and recipe recipient when recipes are passed from one generation to another. Implications and further directions are discussed, including intergenerational learning, well-being, and ego integrity in late life.
Effects of an Environmentally Relevant Phthalate Mixture on Cultured Mouse Antral Follicles

Phthalates are used in building materials, medical devices, and personal care products. Most studies on phthalates have focused on single phthalates, but it is important to study mixtures of phthalates because humans are exposed to such mixtures daily. We tested the hypothesis that phthalate mixture exposure decreases antral follicle growth, compromises steroidogenic capacity, and induces atresia. Antral follicles from adult CD-1 mice were cultured with vehicle control or phthalate mixture (1-500 µg/ml) for 96 h. The mixture was made of 35% diethyl phthalate, 21% di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, 15% dibutyl phthalate, 15% diisononyl phthalate, 8% diisobutyl phthalate, and 5% benzylbutyl phthalate. During culture, antral follicle diameters were measured every 24 h to monitor growth. After culture, media were subjected to measurements of sex steroid hormones and follicles were subjected to evaluation of gene expression and atresia. The phthalate mixture (100 and 500 µg/ml) decreased antral follicle growth starting at 24 h compared to controls. The mixture at 10, 100, and 500 µg/ml also decreased androstenedione, testosterone, estrone, and estradiol levels compared to control. The mixture (10, 100, and 500 µg/ml) reduced atresia rating, but it induced more oocyte fragmentation compared to control. The phthalate mixture at different doses adversely affected cell cycle regulators, antioxidant enzymes, apoptotic factors, steroidogenic enzymes, and receptors. Collectively, these data indicate that exposure to an environmentally relevant phthalate mixture reduces antral follicle growth, induces oocyte fragmentation, and decreases hormone production by adversely affecting the expression of cell cycle regulators, apoptotic factors, steroidogenic enzymes, and receptors.
Time-based prospective memory in young children—Exploring executive functions as a developmental mechanism

The present study investigated time-based prospective memory (PM) during the transition from kindergarten/preschool to school age and applied mediation models to test the impact of executive functions (working memory, inhibitory control) and time monitoring on time-based PM development. Twenty-five preschool (age: M = 5.75, SD = 0.28) and 22 primary school children (age: M = 7.83, SD = 0.39) participated. To examine time-based PM, children had to play a computer-based driving game requiring them to drive a car on a road without hitting others cars (ongoing task) and to refill the car regularly according to a fuel gauge, which serves as clock equivalent (PM task). The level of gas that was still left in the fuel gauge was not displayed on the screen and children had to monitor it via a button press (time monitoring). Results revealed a developmental increase in time-based PM performance from preschool to school age. Applying the mediation models, only working memory was revealed to influence PM development. Neither inhibitory control alone nor the mediation paths leading from both executive functions to time monitoring could explain the link between age and time-based PM. Thus, results of the present study suggest that working memory may be one key cognitive process driving the developmental growth of time-based PM during the transition from preschool to school age.
Degradation of FinP antisense RNA from F-like plasmids: the RNA-binding protein, FinO, protects FinP from ribonuclease E.

Transfer of F-like plasmids is regulated by the FinOP system, which controls the expression of traJ, a positive regulator of the transfer operon. F FinP is a 79 base antisense RNA, composed of two stem-loops, complementary to the 5' untranslated leader of traJ mRNA. Binding of FinP to the traJ leader sequesters the traJ ribosome binding site, preventing its translation and repressing plasmid transfer. The FinO protein binds stem-loop II of FinP and traJ mRNA and promotes duplex formation in vitro. FinO stabilizes FinP, increasing its effective concentration in vivo. To determine how FinO protects FinP from decay, the degradation of FinP was examined in a series of ribonuclease-deficient strains. Using Northern blot analysis, full-length FinP was found to be stabilized sevenfold in an RNase E-deficient strain. The major site of RNase E cleavage was mapped on synthetic FinP, to the single-stranded region between stem-loops I and II. A secondary site near the 5' end ( approximately 10 bases) was also observed. A GST-FinO fusion protein protected FinP from RNase E cleavage at both sites in vitro. Two duplexes between FinP and traJ mRNA were detected in an RNase III-deficient strain. The larger duplex resulted from extension of the FinP transcript at its 3' end, suggesting readthrough at the terminator that corresponds to FinP stem-loop II. A point mutant of finP (finP305; C30U) that is unable to repress traJ in the presence of FinO was also characterized. The pattern of RNase E digestion of finP305 RNA differed from FinP, and GST-FinO did not protect finP305 RNA from cleavage in vitro. The half-life of finP305 RNA decreased more than tenfold in vivo, such that the steady-state levels of finP305 RNA, in the presence of FinO, were insufficient to significantly reduce the level of traJ mRNA available for translation, allowing derepressed levels of transfer.
Exploiting deep neural networks and head movements for binaural localisation of multiple speakers in reverberant conditions

This paper presents a novel machine-hearing system that ex- ploits deep neural networks (DNNs) and head movements for binaural localisation of multiple speakers in reverberant conditions. DNNs are used to map binaural features, consisting of the complete cross-correlation function (CCF) and interaural level differences (ILDs), to the source azimuth. Our approach was evaluated using a localisation task in which sources were located in a full 360-degree azimuth range. As a result, front- back confusions often occurred due to the similarity of binaural features in the front and rear hemifields. To address this, a head movement strategy was incorporated in the DNN-based model to help reduce the front-back errors. Our experiments show that, compared to a system based on a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier, the proposed DNN system substantially re- duces localisation errors under challenging acoustic scenarios in which multiple speakers and room reverberation are present.
The pre-mRNA retention and splicing complex controls expression of the Mediator subunit Med20

ABSTRACT The heterotrimeric pre-mRNA retention and splicing (RES) complex, consisting of Bud13p, Snu17p and Pml1p, promotes splicing and nuclear retention of a subset of intron-containing pre-mRNAs. Yeast cells deleted for individual RES genes show growth defects that are exacerbated at elevated temperatures. Although the growth phenotypes correlate to the splicing defects in the individual mutants, the underlying mechanism is unknown. Here, we show that the temperature sensitive (Ts) growth phenotype of bud13Δ and snu17Δ cells is a consequence of inefficient splicing of MED20 pre-mRNA, which codes for a subunit of the Mediator complex; a co-regulator of RNA polymerase II transcription. The MED20 pre-mRNA splicing defect is less pronounced in pml1Δ cells, explaining why they grow better than the other 2 RES mutants at elevated temperatures. Inactivation of the cytoplasmic nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway in the RES mutants leads to accumulation of MED20 pre-mRNA, indicating that inefficient nuclear retention contributes to the growth defect. Further, the Ts phenotype of bud13Δ and snu17Δ cells is partially suppressed by the inactivation of NMD, showing that the growth defects are augmented by the presence of a functional NMD pathway. Collectively, our results demonstrate an important role of the RES complex in maintaining the Med20p levels.
Organized Activity Involvement Across the Transition to College

This longitudinal study examined multiple dimensions of organized activity involvement during the first semester of college – including intensity, breadth, and continuity– and their relation to college adjustment. Results indicated that organized activity intensity during the first semester was positively associated with optimism, and organized activity continuity discrepancy from high school to college was positively associated with positive affect. Additionally, residential status moderated the relation between organized activity continuity discrepancy and optimism, as well as the relation between organized activity intensity and positive affect. Gender also moderated the relation between organized activity breadth and positive affect.
Is Government Spending a Free Lunch? Evidence from China

Most empirical studies based on U.S. data suggest that the fiscal multiplier is less than 1 (e.g., Barro and Redlick, 2011). However, Keynes argued that the multiplier would be the largest when markets have failed to the greatest extent in coordinating economic activities (such as during the Great Depression with rampant unemployment and low capacity utilization). As a large developing country with high household saving rates, a large pool of rural labor force, and a wide range of market failures, China offers a unique opportunity to test the Keynesian notion that government expenditures (even as a pure waste of aggregate resources) can have a fiscal multiplier larger than 1 on aggregate income. Perhaps even more exceptional is China’s extensive use of government spending as a major policy tool to stimulate the economy over the past three decades. Based on both aggregate time-series data and panel data from 29 Chinese provinces, we find that the fiscal multiplier in China is larger than 2. We provide a theoretical model with market failures and Monte Carlo analysis to rationalize our empirical findings. Specifically, we build a model that can generate the same multiplier and business cycles observed in China and use the model as a data-generating process to gauge whether structural vector autoregressions can yield consistent estimates of the theoretical multiplier in short samples. Our analysis supports the large multiplier found in China but also suggests that government spending may not necessarily be a free lunch despite the large multiplier.
Visible Entropy: A Measure for Image Visibility

Image visibility is a fundamental issue in the field of computer vision. This paper investigates the connection between histogram and image visibility, where the concept of entropy is employed to depict the information content of the histogram. It turns out that image visibility is more dependent on the observed intensity levels with higher frequencies and the distribution of their locations in the range of intensity levels. With this in mind, the concept of visible entropy is proposed. The usefulness of the proposed visibility measure has been evaluated using a number of realistic images.
A Branch and Bound Algorithm for the Bilevel Programming Problem

The bilevel programming problem is a static Stackelberg game in which two players try to maximize their individual objective functions. Play is sequential and uncooperative in nature. This paper presents an algorithm for solving the linear/quadratic case. In order to make the problem more manageable, it is reformulated as a standard mathematical program by exploiting the follower's Kuhn–Tucker conditions. A branch and bound scheme suggested by Fortuny-Amat and McCarl is used to enforce the underlying complementary slackness conditions. An example is presented to illustrate the computations, and results are reported for a wide range of problems containing up to 60 leader variables, 40 follower variables, and 40 constraints. The main contributions of the paper are in the step-by-step details of the implementation, and in the scope of the testing.
Edge Detection, Spatial Smoothing, and Image Reconstruction With Partially Observed Multivariate Data

Situations with incomplete multivariate spatial data on a lattice are considered. The goal is to impute the missing data in the presence of edges or boundaries and recover the image. Two methods based on Bayesian hierarchical models that iterate between edge detection and spatial smoothing to impute the missing data within identified homogeneous regions are examined. Their performance is compared with another method that imputes the missing values using edge-preserving spatial smoothers with locally varying weights. The performances of the three methods are compared on artificial and real datasets. It is seen that information from the multivariate data is critical in recovering the images. An application with color images where only one of three primary colors (red, green, or blue) is observed at each pixel is used to illustrate the results.
Interaction effects between ethnic identity and academic achievement among adolescent ethnic minorities.

INTERACTION EFFECTS BETWEEN ETHNIC IDENTITY AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG ADOLESCENT ETHNIC MINORITIES EDISON SANTANA, B.A. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS M.ED., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Ronald Fredrickson, Ph.D. This study assessed the degree to which ethnic identity, ethnic identity achievement, self perceived differences in skin color, self-esteem, gender and social class were associated with academic achievement (CPA) among Asian (105), Latino (40), Caucasian (204), Afro-American (40), and Native American (10) adolescents. The subjects, students from an independent residential high school in the Northeast, consisted of both genders, grades 9 through 13 from a range of socioeconomic statuses (N=408) . Each student was handed a packet to complete and signed the consent form. Each subject was then instructed to choose the closest skin color from a skin color chart specifically developed for this study. Interviews were completed after each student's skin color was also rated by three independent raters. Subjects completed the skin color chart developed by the examiner for this study, the Rosenberg (global) Self-esteem Scale, the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, and the Hollingshead Two Factor Index of Social Position. Academic performance measures (CPA) and academic aptitude vi scores (V & MSAT) were obtained from school files, reflecting the yearly average performance. Correlation's between ethnic identity and ethnic identity achievement revealed a significant negative correlation with GPA, VSAT and MSAT for the entire group but dissimilar results for the specific ethnic groups. In addition , correlations between gender , skin color , grade level , SES and GPA by ethnic group revealed significant findings for some but not all ethnic groups. In addition, multiple regression analysis results revealed, when SES was controlled , that Skin Color , Gender and Ethnic Identity Achievement (EIA) , in order of strength, had a positive correlation with GPA, explaining 12% of the variance for the African American, Latino and Native American subgroups ( in order of degree) . On the other hand, multiple regression results revealed no difference in GPA scores for the Asian subgroup, whereas a negative trend was revealed for the
Secretory and Endocytic Pathways Converge in a Dynamic Endosomal System in a Primitive Protozoan

Leishmania are a group of primitive eukaryotic trypanosomatid protozoa that are apically polarized with a flagellum at their anterior end. Surrounding the base of the flagellum is the flagellar reservoir that constitutes the site for endocytosis and exocytosis in these organisms. In the present study, we define a novel multivesicular tubular compartment involved in the intracellular trafficking of macromolecules in Leishmania. This dynamic structure appears to subtend the flagellar reservoir and extends towards the posterior end of the cell. Functional domains of several surface‐expressed proteins, such as the gp63 glycosyl phosphatidyl inositol anchor and the 3′nucleotidase/nuclease transmembrane domain were fused to green fluorescent protein. These chimeric proteins were found to traffic through the secretory pathway and, while reaching their intended destinations, also accumulated within the intracellular tubular compartment. Using various compounds that are efficient fluid‐phase markers used to track endocytosis in higher eukaryotes, we showed that this tubular compartment constitutes an important station in the endocytic pathway of these cells. Based on our functional observations of its role in the trafficking of expressed proteins and endocytosed markers, this compartment appears to have properties similar to endosomes of higher eukaryotes.