Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protecting the development of 5–11-year-olds from the impacts of early disadvantage: the role of primary school academic effectiveness

Whether or not more effective schools can successfully mitigate the impacts of early disadvantage upon educational attainment remains uncertain. We investigated 2,664 children aged 6–11 years and measured their academic skills in English and maths along with self-regulation at 6, 7, and 11. Experiencing multiple disadvantages before age 5 strongly impaired later self-regulation and academic attainment. However, attending a more academically effective primary school for just a single year was found to partially protect all outcomes at age 6. In addition, more academically effective primary schools significantly lessened the extent to which earlier abilities in reading, writing, and self-regulation predicted these same abilities at age 11. Thus, although attending a more academically effective primary school does not eliminate the adverse impacts of multiple disadvantage experienced at a younger age, it can mitigate them by promoting better academic attainment and self-regulation up to age 11 for children who had experienced more disadvantages.
Experimental study of gas flux characteristics in a CO2 selective silica based modified membrane.

The purpose of membrane gas separation for CO 2 capture from flue gas process is to reduce greenhouse emissions as well as associated environmental challenges globally. This study looks at gas separation in a single gas permeation experiment using CO 2, O 2, CH 4 and N 2 gases by means of a highly selective and permeable inorganic ceramic membrane. A fresh ceramic membrane has been prepared by dip-coating technique through immersion in a silica-based precursor solution for pore size modification and used for gas purification purposes. Results obtained show excellent performance of the silica based membrane for CO 2 recovery applications through adsorptive transport mechanism. Effect of pressure drop on gas flux showed a linear proportionality. The gas flux has high CO 2 flux of 1.71mols -1 m -2 at room temperature in comparison to that of other gases. Further results show that CO 2 permselectivity to that of N 2 supported the theoretical Knudsen with a high selectivity factor of 3.83 confirming a reasonable capture of CO 2 to that of N 2 as a major component of a flue gas stream.
CELL ORDERING USING PINCH FLOW MICROCHANNEL FOR SINGLE

Single cell intracellular protein studies have gained importance over the recent years due to their ability to differentiate data obtained from ensemble measurements. We demonstrated for the first time, the ability to compartmentalize cells inside droplets and study a dynamic kinase signaling process which is triggered by activation of a tyrosine kinase receptor upon ligand binding at the cell surface. In addition, we also reported spatial ordering of cells using inertial focusing through pinched microchannel structures. This design allows us to encapsulate single cells inside the droplets by breaking cell aggregates during their passage through the pinch structure.
Sentient City Survival Kit: Archaeology of the Near Future

In this paper, I discuss the Sentient City Survival Kit, a design research project that probes the social, cultural and political implications of ubiquitous computing for urban environments. Following a discussion of the philosophical and cultural problems of attributing sentience to non-human actors, I present a brief cross-section of historical and contemporary constructions of nonhuman sentient beings in the fields of science fiction literature, computer science research, and applied technology. The paper concludes by introducing the notion of an archaeology of the near future as a conceptual framework for designing and fabricating a series of artifacts, spaces and media for ‘survival’ in the near future ‘sentient’ city.
The Effect of Online Review about Company on Organizational Attraction and Application Intention

Online review from social networks has been an influential resource of information for job seekers to know more about companies they interested. This leads us to suppose that online review about companies may influence organizational attractiveness to job seekers and their initial decisions. To confirm our hypotheses, we conducted a study based on 127 responses to a questionnaire especially designed to examine. The results indicate that online review is positively related to organizational attraction to job candidates and ultimately influencing their application intention. The previous study of factors influencing job seeker’s initial decision and organizational attraction focused on the perspective of company, such as company’s brand or image, features of organizational website. Little is from the electronic word-of-mouth perspective. This paper is just to fill the vacancy area and make a further validation about the importance of electronic word of mouth for company. Moreover, few suggestions are given to companies and job seekers for reference.
Impact of communication technology on virtual team process and project performance in offshored engineering projects

Communication Technologies have redefined the notion of virtual-ness allowing organizations to collaborate more effectively in virtual space to deliver complex and reciprocally interdependent engineering projects. Though a number of studies have explored the role of information and collaborative technology on virtual teamwork, little research has been conducted so far in offshored engineering projects featuring virtual teams to understand how different types of communication technologies impact the various stages of the team process which subsequently affect team knowledge gain and successful project performance. A research experiment was conducted wherein postgraduate engineering students from IIT Madras, India and University of Twente, The Netherlands collaborated virtually to develop CAD models and cost estimates of ongoing construction projects in two different countries. In this paper, we examine the performance of six teams that executed this academic exercise virtually over a period of three months using three different communication tools with varying degree of virtual-ness, namely, Skype, Videoconference and Second Life. The exploratory study consisted of three sets of two teams each having similar medium of communication but with different project locations. Qualitative and interpretive analysis allowed us to explore the team’s process performance (task and socio-emotional) during the various stages of the project. Further, a comparison on the team’s overall project performance, across and within the designated mediums of communication, allowed us to understand how the six teams differed in their resultant team knowledge gain and project outcome. Our findings indicate that though communication technologies impact team process, team knowledge gain and overall project performance, other variables such as the degree of task interdependence also influences collaboration effectiveness necessary for iterative design and coordination in engineering projects. This has induced us to draw several propositions for further theory building in the area of global virtual teams and practical implications for managing collaborative offshore outsourcing work in the construction domain.
The Rise of an Apparatgeist: Factors Affecting Bangkok-based Consumers' Purchase Intention for Smartphones

Mobile phones are devices that some of us cannot do without. Indeed, for some of us, a growing legion, it is impossible to imagine a day in our lives without a mobile phone beside us. So, in our era of Internet and Social Networking, the introduction of Smartphones into the mobile industry was bound to happen. Smartphones have brought about changes around us in our daily lives like no other device in our contemporary era. The purpose of this research is to better understand consumers’ taste for Smartphones by studying different factors affecting consumer intention to purchase a Smartphone over other mobile phones and study the main factors leading to this change in purchase intention. The dependent variable for this research is Purchase Intention and the independent variables are Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Brand Image, Price, and Product Knowledge. These factors are based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the concept of marketing mix, and Kotler’s Buyer Decision Process. Five hypotheses were developed. Descriptive Research was used, applying the Survey Techniques and under Quota Sampling Methods. 400 questionnaires were collected from selected outlets in Bangkok Metropolitan. The results show that Brand Image is the main factor that is considered when a consumer intends to buy a Smartphone. Following closely is the Price factor.
Facebook : a tool to enhance teaching and learning for postgraduate research students

The popularity of social networking sites has boomed in recent years and the number of registered users continues to increase. Existing literature reports on the vast impact of these online sites not only on numerous areas of everyday life but also on the realm of higher education. In spite of the potential use of these sites as education and communication tools, few academics use them. In the current study, various Facebook elements were introduced to a group of postgraduate research methodology students with the purpose of exploring and describing the ways in which Facebook could be used to enhance learning from a student's perspective. A mixed-methods design was followed in that data were collected using pre- and post-module questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. It was found that the use of Facebook in the postgraduate research course was perceived as beneficial, but the social presence of the students on the page was low. Although the students felt that its use promoted their ability to grasp complex concepts, which is particularly relevant to the research methodology classroom, it was evident that improved student participation on Facebook could only be achieved through required participation and a heightened teaching presence.
ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOVEREIGN BONDS AND CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS IN PORTUGAL

This paper aims at identifying the relationship between government bonds spreads and credit default swaps premiums in Portugal for long and short maturities, covering a period that includes the beginning of the 2008 international financial crisis. We estimate Autoregressive Distributed Lag error correction models for the sub periods prior and after the moment crisis started. Results reveal the absence of cointegration over the sample period, with important differences prior and after 2010 in both maturities. There is no evidence of long-run relationship between both markets in both maturities, as the 2007 crisis has interrupted the long run relationship that was observed in the 5-year segment, and enacted a long run relationship in shorter maturities. The credit default swaps market performs a leading role on price determination in short- and long-run before the crisis but the role of the bond spread as a credit risk information has increased during the crisis.
Rational macroeconomic learning in linear expectational models

Abstract: The partial information rational expectations solution to a general linear multivariate expectational macro-model is found when agents are uncertain about the true values of the model’s parameters. Necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence to the full information rational expectations solution are given, and the core of an algorithm for the Bayesian updating of beliefs is provided. In the course of this a new class of full information rational expectations equilibria is described and some of its desirable properties proven.
Engineering Students Motivation on Multinational Projects: A Comparison Based on Interest, Value , and Gender

In today's world, it has become very common to find engineers working on multinational projects. As a result, educational institutions need to prepare students to succeed in this global working environment by incorporating global collaborative projects as a learning experience. At the same time, students should be aware of the importance of this experience, recognize its benefit, and be motivated to participate on the projects. It is documented in the literature that students' interest and motivation are important factors contributing to the learning process in any discipline, and of particular importance when students are exposed to a project-based educational experience in a collaborative and multinational context. Authors have used the multinational collaborative projects to prepare students with global competencies but no formal assessment of the impact of this experience has been done. As part of a formal evaluation of this experience, the main goal of this study is to determine the level of interest and perception of value of engineering students participating in a multinational collaborative project, and make a comparison of such indicators based on gender. For this purpose, a survey based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was given to students before starting their participation in the multinational projects. The data collected provides information in five constructs which are: interest, perceived competence, pressure, perceived choice, and value. These constructs provide a perception about students' interests, beliefs, and feelings about the international project that reflect their level of motivation to carry on the tasks.
Ultrafast phase transitions and lattice dynamics probed using laser-produced x-ray pulses

When intense femtosecond laser pulses are focused on solid targets short-lived microplasmas are formed which emit bursts of x-rays with kilovolt photon energies. Under the proper conditions x-ray pulses as short as a few hundred femtoseconds can be produced. These x-ray pulses enable ultrafast x-ray spectroscopy using pump–probe schemes where the x-ray pulses serve as probe pulses. This article describes time-resolved x-ray diffraction experiments which reveal changes in the atomic structure with a time resolution of a few hundred femtoseconds. In particular, we have studied solid-to-liquid phase transitions in semiconductors induced by femtosecond photoexcitation and the accompanying thermoacoustic phenomena. We were able to monitor the changes in the atomic position underlying a coherent optical phonon mode. These and a number of other lattice dynamics experiments discussed here demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of ultrafast time-resolved x-ray diffraction. Future applications in many other fields of science can be foreseen.
20. RHEOLOGY OF SERPENTINITE MUDS IN THE MARIANA-IZU-BONIN FOREARC1

Serpentinite seamounts in the Mariana forearc have been explained as diapirs rising from the Benioff zone. This hypothesis predicts that the serpentinites should have low strengths as well as low densities relative to the surrounding rocks. Drilling during Leg 125 showed that the materials forming Conical Seamount in the Mariana forearc and Torishima Forearc Seamount in the Izu-Bonin forearc are water-charged serpentinite muds of density <2 g/cm3. Wykeham-Farrance torsion-vane tests showed that they are plastic solids with a rheology that bears many similarities to the idealized Cam clay soil model and is well described by critical-stat e soil mechanics. The serpentinite muds have ultimate strengths of 1.3 to 273.7 kPa and yield strengths of approximately 1.0 to 50 kPa. These muds thus are orders of magnitude weaker than salt and are, in fact, comparable in density and strength to common deep-sea clay muds. Such weak and low-density materials easily become diapiric. Serpentinite muds from the summit of Conical Seamount are weaker and more ductile than those on its flanks or on Torishima Forearc Seamount. Moreover, the summit muds do not contain the pronounced pure- and simple-shear fabrics that characterize those on the seamount flanks. The seamounts are morphologically similar to shield volcanoes, and anastomosing serpentinite debris flows descending from their summits are similar in map view to pahoehoe flows. These morphologic features, together with the physical properties of the muds and their similarities to other oceanic muds and the geochemistry of the entrained waters, suggest that many forearc serpentinite seamounts are gigantic (10-20 km wide, 1.5-2.0 km high) mud volcanoes that formed by the eruption of highly liquid serpentinite muds. Torishima Forearc Seamount, which is blanketed by more "normal" pelagic/volcaniclastic sediment, has probably been inactive since the Miocene. Conical Seamount, which seems to consist entirely of serpentinite mud and is venting fresh water of unusual chemistry from its summit, is presently active. Muds from the flanks of Conical Seamount are stronger and more brittle than those from the summit site, and muds from Torishima Forearc Seamount are stronger yet; this suggests that the serpentinite debris flows are compacted and dewatered as they mature. The shear fabrics probably result from downslope creep and flow, but may also be inherited.
The family Nicoletiidae in the Canary Islands, with description of new taxa (Insecta: Zygentoma)

The knowledge of the family Nicoletiidae in the Canary Islands was limited to two reports of Proatelurina pseudolepisma (Grassi, 1887), a species which belongs to the subfamily Atelurinae. This study provides new data on the occurrence of representatives of Nicoletiidae on these islands and descriptions of two endemic troglobic taxa: Canariletia holosterna gen. n. et sp. n. , from the island of Gran Canaria, and Coletinia majorensis sp. n. , found in Fuerteventura. The latter belongs to a group of species whose males have asymmetric antennae, so it is compared with those Coletinia of this group. Canariletia gen. n. shows a unique combination of characters inside Nicoletiidae, so its position within this family is discussed, considering the new genus as incertae sedis, but probably related to the Palaearctic and Afrotropical genera included in the subfamily Coletiniinae sensu Mendes, 1988.
Derivation of an adjoint consistent discontinuous Galerkin discretization of the compressible Euler equations

Adjoint consistency - in addition to consistency - is the key requirement for discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretizations to be of optimal order in L 2 as well as measured in terms of target functionals. Furthermore, adjoint consistency is closely related to the smoothness of discrete adjoint solutions. Whereas adjoint solutions based on the (non-adjoint-consistent) NIPG method are discontinuous between element interfaces, where the jumps in the adjoint solutions even persist as the mesh is refined, the adjoint solutions based on the (adjoint-consistent) SIPG method are essentially continuous. Furthermore an appropriate modification of a specific target functional for the Laplace equation is required for recovering an adjoint consistent discretization. Recently, a specific discretization of the boundary fluxes and the target functional has been proposed to recover an adjoint consistent DG discretization of the compressible Euler equations. In this paper, we provide a general framework for analyzing adjoint consistency of DG discretizations and introduce so-called consistent modifications of target functionals. Whereas the standard DG discretization of compressible Euler equations is not adjoint consistent, we use the outlined framework to derive the adjoint consistent discretization of the compressible Euler equations. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effect of adjoint consistency on the smoothness of discrete adjoint solutions and on the a posteriori error estimation on adaptively refined meshes. The developed framework is particularly useful for deriving adjoint consistent discretizations of more complex nonlinear problems.
FUELING ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI. I. HOW THE GLOBAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CENTRAL KILOPARSEC OF SEYFERTS DIFFER FROM QUIESCENT GALAXIES

In a matched sample of Seyfert and quiescent galaxies we simultaneously probe the stellar and molecular gas kinematics from 1 kpc down to 50 pc with the aim of identifying the dynamical processes dictating black hole accretion rates. This first paper compares the global characteristics of a sample of 10 galaxies. We find several differences within a radius of 500 pc that are correlated with active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity. The Seyferts have (1) a more centrally concentrated nuclear stellar surface brightness with lower stellar luminosities beyond a radius of 100 pc, (2) a lower stellar velocity dispersion within a radius of 200 pc, (3) elevated H2 1–0 S(1) luminosity out to a radius of at least 250 pc, and (4) more centrally concentrated H2 surface brightness profiles. These observed differences can be interpreted as evidence for Seyfert galaxies having a dynamically cold (in comparison to the bulge) nuclear structure composed of a significant gas reservoir and a relatively young stellar population. This structure is undetected (and possibly does not exist) in quiescent galaxies. The presence of such a nuclear structure in Seyfert galaxies provides evidence for inflow of the surrounding interstellar medium since the nuclear stellar population requires a supply of gas from which to form. The fueling of a Seyfert AGN is thus associated with the formation of a dynamically cold component of gas and stars on scales of hundreds of parsecs.
Regulation Of Gene Expression In Cells Exposed To Ionizing Radiation

Exposure to ionizing radiation induces a plethora of changes in the cell, including oxidative damage to most of the cellular macromolecules and changes in many processes on the transcript and protein levels. Microarray assays showed that few minutes after irradiation of human melanoma Me45cells, the levels of some transcripts change significantly suggesting that processes of stabilization or destabilization of mRNA may play a role in these early changes and nucleotide composition and the structure of the mRNA non-coding parts, which are known to interact with miRNA and proteins, may be of importance. Using NucleoSeq, a new bioinformatic tool, we extracted from the EMBL database and analyzed the nucleotide sequences of over 12000 genes which showed different behavior after irradiation. The significant differences in mRNA nucleotide composition between genes showing greater than 10% downand up-regulation 15 min after irradiation were observed and the differences disappeared stepwisely 12 24h after treatment. Down-regulated genes showed significantly shorter 3’un-translated regions (UTRs) and higher content of regulatory sequence motifs such as Myf, STAT1, ZNF354 known to interact with human transcription factors.
Speech analysis with production constraints

These Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne EPFL, n° 2501 (2001)Faculte des sciences et techniques de l'ingenieurLaboratoire de systemes non lineairesJury: Frederic Bimbot, Herve Bourlard, Gernot Kubin, Philippe Robert Public defense: 2001-12-21 Reference doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-2501Print copy in library catalog Record created on 2005-03-16, modified on 2017-05-12
Organizational Form, Ownership Structure, and Top Executive Turnover: Evidence from the Property-Casualty Insurance Industry

We investigate the role of organizational form and ownership structure in corporate governance by examining CEO turnover in the U.S. property-casualty insurance industry. The probability of non-routine turnover has a significant negative relationship with firm performance, and outside succession dominates when non-routine turnover occurs. Turnover probabilities vary significantly by organizational form and ownership structure. Closely-held stocks have lower non-routine turnover-performance sensitivity than publicly-traded stocks. The probability of non-routine CEO turnover is lower for mutuals than for closely held and publicly-traded non-family-owned stock firms. Family firms with family-member CEOs have the lowest turnover rate of any ownership type, and incoming successors in closely-held family firms mainly come from the controlling families.