Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A qualitative study of the roles, functions, and leadership strategies of central office administrators in district improvement initiatives

Central office administrators are charged with the implementation of various education initiatives each year with the desired end result being an improvement in student performance. The purpose of this study is to discover how central office administrators exhibit leadership, carry out their roles, and perform their functions in district-wide improvement initiatives. Readers will gain a better understanding of how central office administrators work and lead from their positions in the school district. The participants shared their feelings and gave feedback on their direct experiences as central office administrators who are charged with the responsibility of implementing district-wide improvement initiatives. In order to collect and analyze rich data about central office employees, a qualitative study was conducted where there were no preconceived theories. Data were collected through the tape recorded interviews of 12 central office administrators from four different school districts and the collection of relevant documents that pertain to the roles and functions of their jobs. The participants were categorized according to the similarities in their job titles and the findings from the interview data were presented for comparison. The document reviews were used to compare against the information gained from the participants. The three main takeaways from this study were that central office administrators have placed a high value on collaboration, communication, and strategic leadership in order to effectively implement district-wide improvement initiatives. Practitioners can reflect on the newly-gained information from the emerging themes from these interviews and document reviews to propose new studies for research.
Proof of feasibility of a free-space optical cross-connect system using digital mems

This dissertation explores the feasibility of a new design for an optical crossconnection (OXC) device based on combining Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems technology (MEMS) with an optical system called the White cell. The attractive feature of our design is that is a 3D design using a digital MEMS. This leads to a high number of ports and uses a simple control system for the MEMS. We demonstrate two different systems: a quartic configuration and a binary configuration. This is the first demonstration of either of these configurations as OXC systems. For the binary configuration we design and simulate three different spot displacement device (SDD) designs of our own creation: Tilted spherical mirror SDD, roof prism SDD and lens train SDD. We evaluate each design in terms of aberrations where the SDDs are configured to provide displacements of 500 μm and 2000 μm. From this evaluation we conclude that the roof prism SDD has the best performance of the three with a maximum astigmatism of 0.0013 mm. We simulate an 1x8 binary OXC system using the roof prism SDD. An underpopulated quartic cell is simulated and experimentally analyzed. The main objective of these experiments is to prove that is possible to switch any input to any particular output by controlling the titling mirrors of a MEMS. Due to the lack of a MEMS, we designed and made a “pseudo-MEMS,” a structure whose main ii function is to imitate the characteristics of a proper MEMS, except that it cannot be reconfigured in real time. We are able to control the output row by sending the beam to specific spherical mirrors as predicted. Because the optical elements are uncoated we found an experimental loss of 27.54 dB per output. If we assume coated optical components the theoretical loss is only 2.46 dB for seven bounces. Another contribution of our work is to address the problem of beam coupling at the output plane for any White cell-based OXC. Our solution is based on curved a diffraction grating that takes advantage of a free-space architecture that makes it compatible with our OXC designs.
LEVANTAMENTO EPIDEMIOLÓGICO REALIZADO NA CLÍNICA DE CIRURGIA BUCAL EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEY CARRIED THROUGH IN THE CLINIC OF ORAL SURGERY

SUMMARY The present study it shows the survey of the procedures carried through in the Departament of oral surgery of the Foundation Bahiana for the Development of Science (FBDC) – Dental school of during the period of August of 2004 the July of 2005. 910 fiches had been examined being totalized 2025 extrations to the long one of the period, having as teeth more extracted 1o molar inferiors. In accordance with the study the main cause for the precocious loss of the dental units was to the illness caries. They had been gotten also given inherent to the etaria band of the submitted patients the extrations, skin color and predominant sex, postoperative medication and the type of suture wire. UNITERMS: tooth extraction; dental caries; epidemiology.
Identifying the Lachish of Papyrus Hermitage 1116A Verso and the Amarna Letters: Implications of New Radiocarbon Dating

Difficulties reconciling Late Bronze Age archaeological remains in the southern Levant with the texts of the Amarna Age and preceding formative years of Late Bronze Age society have long been noted. At some prominent tell sites that according to the texts were major city-states, little to no settlement remains have been identified. Here we revisit this issue at Tel Lachish, showing on the basis of renewed radiocarbon dating that two previously exposed occupation layers should be re-assigned to this timeframe—one to the second half of the 15th century BCE, and the other predominantly to the first half of the 14th century BCE. These re-dated strata support the textual picture from Papyrus Hermitage 1116A and the Amarna Letters of a thriving town with which the Egyptians interacted.
Sustainability Reporting and Board Diversity in Malaysia

Board diversity is believed to enhance companies’ strategies and decision-making process which lead to companies’ sustainability in business. This study focuses on the gender, age and ethnic diversity and the objective is to examine the impact of these board diversity elements on the extent and quality of sustainability reporting (SR) among the top 100 Malaysian listed companies. Data is collected from the annual reports of the sampled companies for the year-end on and after 31 December 2016. The data then was analyzed through content analysis method and independent t-test to accomplish the objective. This study found that the average proportion of women directors out of the total number of board members is 17% and the average age of the board members is 61 years old, which is above the minimum retirement age. In addition, it was also found that having women board members has a significant impact on a company’s SR but none on the aspects of age and ethnic diversity. Women directors have a different way of perception, thinking, and ideas that could influence companies’ sustainability initiative and reporting. The study contributes to the literature on corporate governance–sustainability by focusing specifically on the impact of board diversity on SR.
A Rigorous Diet: Food in Luisa Passerini's

A Rigorous Diet: Food in Luisa Passerini's Autoritratto di gruppo Staiscy Diuorski University oj CaUjoruia, Los Angeles Current criticai studies have demonstrated that food, as the object of social constraints and personal desires, plays a centrai role in the creation and niaintenance of gender categories. While across time and geography there are major diflerences in the relationship it is between wonien and food, also possible to identity contniuities.As Maria (iiuseppina Muzzarelli and Lucia nuity is Re note in cibo e le donne nella cultura e nella storia, one conti- that the relationship between food and wonien has represented relations of power to be niaintained and reinforced or changed. ' The relationship complex between wonien, power and food first is present, as Helene Cixous inaugurated also claims, in the fable of our first hook. Eve's action a history not only of control over wonien and food, but of consuniption as a means used by women to express desire tale and transgress authority. Proni the story of Eve through the of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the appie has been a concrete exainple of the gendered nature of authority and expression.- While food, power autobiography. and expression are centrai concerns of Luisa is Passerini's is Autoritratto di i^ruppo, there no appie. Instead, there an onion.The onion presents the reader with an entirely different froni the appie. set of associations The onion is is a pungent vegetable whose preparation in requires tears. It also a at poor vegetable both the center of its its terms of price and nutritional value. While thick white flesh an appie has a core, at the center ot thin, uneven layers an onion is einpty.Thc narrator's description focuses on the inany layers ot an onion, relating theni to feinale subjectivity: a slow shedding of skins, like an onion back, back, you alniost can't capture another, one will it with the eye — -one woinan inside layers woman through another. ^ Since Luisa 's^ autobiography be an attempt to slowly describe the multiple is of hcr identity, the image ot the onion apt for two reasons. First, the onion introduccs the centrai metaphors of food and diet that run through Autoritratto. CARTE ITALIANE, lOL. (2()()H>
Quality of Parenting Programs and Child Development Outcomes: The Case of Peru's Cuna Mas

This paper analyzes the association between quality of parenting programs and child development outcomes. It focuses on parenting programs delivered through home visits (i.e., home visiting programs) in which a paraprofessional works with the caregiver to improve parental practices, skills and knowledge of child development, with an application to the Peruvian national program Programa Nacional Cuna Mas. Home visiting quality is measured through the Home Visit Rating Scale, version A+2 (HOVRS-A+2), and child development outcomes through the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-3) and the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III). The empirical analysis used is descriptive in nature. Results show that home visiting quality scores are significantly associated with our measures of child development, but this association is not consistent across all measures.
HEMODYNAMIC RESPONSES TO OROTRACHEAL INTUBATION WITH A VIDEO LARYNGOSCOPE IN INFANTS: A COMPARISON STUDY

Background: Differences in airway anatomy make the potential for technical airway difficulties greater in infants than in teenagers or adults. Endotracheal intubation by direct vision using a laryngoscope is frequently associated with an in- crease in arterial blood pressure and heart rate. In different studies, the time to intubation with a video laryngoscope was longer than with direct laryngoscopy using Macintosh, and this longer duration may be accompanied by more hemo- dynamic responses. METHODS: Sixty-four infants who were scheduled for elective surgery requiring general anesthesia with orotracheal intubation were randomly assigned to intubation by direct laryngoscopy using a Macintosh size 1 blade or to intubation using a video laryngoscope. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures, heart rate and oxygen saturation were recorded at the following time points: (1) before induction, (2) after induction and before intubation, and (3) 1 minute and (4) 5 minutes after intubation. RESULTS: No significant differences were found either between the two groups or among the different study periods. The duration for laryngoscopy and intubation with a video laryngoscope was 20.87 ± 7.95 seconds (mean ± standard deviation) and that with Macintosh was 15.41 ± 4.1 seconds (P < 0.01).
Integrative multimodal image analysis using physical models for characterization of brain tumors in radiotherapy

Therapy failure with subsequent tumor progress is a common problem in radiotherapy of high grade glioma. Definition of treatment volumes with CT and MRI is limited due to uncertainties concerning tumor outlines. The goal of the presented work was to enable assessment of tumor physiology and prediction of progression patterns using multi-modal image analysis and thus, improve target delineation. Physiological imaging modalities, such as 18F-FET PET, diffusion and perfusion MRI were used to predict recurrence patterns. The Medical Imaging Interaction ToolKit together with own software implementation enabled side-by-side evaluation of all image modalities. These included tools for PET analysis and a module for voxel wise fitting of dynamic data with pharmacokinetic models. Robustness and accuracy of parameter estimates were studied on synthetic perfusion data. Parameter feasibility for progression prediction was investigated on DCE MRI and 18F-FET PET data. Using the developed software tools, a pipeline for prediction of tumor progression patterns based on multi-modal image classification with a random forest machine learning algorithm was established. Exemplary prediction analysis was applied on a small patient set for illustration of workflow functionality and classification results.
Perceived Benefits of a Designated Smoking Area Policy on a College Campus: Views of Smokers and Non-smokers

Designated smoking areas are meant to: (1) limit secondhand smoke exposure to non-smokers, and (2) reduce cigarettes consumption by smokers. Â One year after the implementation of a designated smoking area protocol on a college campus, students were intercepted and asked to complete a short Likert survey designed to assess its perceived benefits. Â Analysis of the data showed that both smokers and non-smokers consider a reduction in the number of cigarettes consumed by smokers to be an unlikely outcome, which is consistent with research conducted in a variety of setting showing that designated smoking areas typically do not lead to less smoking by smokers. Â However, whereas the non-smokers agreed that the policy resulted in lowering exposure to second-hand smoke, smokers were unwilling to endorse a statement indicating that this occurred. This suggests that it may be unrealistic to assume that appeals to empathy (i.e. pointing out the negative impact of second hand smoke) when promoting the benefits of a designated smoking areaÂ willÂ result in an automatic buy-in.
MicroRNA Cross-Involvement in Autism Spectrum Disorders and Atopic Dermatitis: A Literature Review

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a category of neurodevelopmental disturbances seriously affecting social skills, to which the scientific community has paid great attention in last decades. To date, their pathogenesis is still unknown, but several studies highlighted the relevance of gene-environment interactions in the onset of ASD. In addition, an immune involvement was seen in a wide number of ASD subjects, leading several researchers to hypothesize a possible common pathogenesis between ASD and immune disturbances, including Atopic Dermatitis (AD). In general, among potential contributing factors, microRNAs (miRNAs), small molecules capable of controlling gene expression and targeting mRNA transcripts, might represent one of the major circulating link, possibly unraveling the connections between neurodevelopmental and immune conditions. Under such premises, we conducted a systematic literature review, under the PRISMA guidelines, trying to define the panel of common miRNAs involved in both ASD and AD. The review retrieved articles published between January 1, 2005, and December 13, 2018, in PubMed, ScienceDirect, PsycARTICLES, and Google Scholar. We found a handful of works dealing with miRNAs in ASD and AD, with the most overlapping dysregulated miRNAs being miR-146 and miR-155. Two possible compounds are abnormally regulated in both ASD and AD subjects, possibly cross-contributing to the interactions between the two disorders, setting the basis to investigate more precisely the possible link between ASD and AD from another, not just clinical, perspective.
Foraging behaviour of multi-robot system and emergence of swarm intelligence

We focus on the quantitative aspect of the multi-robot system and discuss the emergence of swarm intelligence. Emergence of swarm intelligence is investigated through the foraging task. As the robots assumed in the paper are very simple in order to discuss their behavior analytically, there are few parameters to characterize their behavior such as interaction duration. The behavior of the system is investigated by computer simulation and mathematical model. We choose two types of foraging task: one is carrying pucks to the home and the other is gathering pucks to an unfixed point. Efficiency of the swarm depends on the interaction duration between each robot, and we find out that there is an optimum interaction duration in each task. We also find out that the system shows a kind of pattern formation under certain conditions.
Issues in the creation of a digital archive of a signed language

Introduction In this paper we summarise the fieldwork involved in creating the Auslan (Australian Sign Language) archive and corpus. We briefly discuss some of the technical and ethical problems in data collection and management associated with visually based linguistic data for an archive intended to be as open as possible. We also discuss the new research questions opened up by the existence of signed language data in this new form. The Auslan archive is the output of a project funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Program within the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and is to be submitted in mid-2007.
Caractérisation de la fatigue et de la fatigabilité chez les patients atteints de sclérose en plaques : spécificités et adaptations à la rééducation

Les patients atteints de sclerose en plaques presentent une majoration de la fatigue percue et de la fatigabilite. Mais a l’heure actuelle, la fatigabilite chez les patients atteints de sclerose en plaques a ete peu etudiee ; son role comme facteur limitant des capacites fonctionnelles, ses specificites par rapport aux sujets sains ou encore sa reponse a des programmes de reeducation restent des questions en suspens. De plus, la fatigabilite a ete principalement etudiee lors de contractions isometriques maintenues qui sont peu representatives des activites de la vie quotidienne des patients, au cours desquelles une part importante des contractions des extenseurs du genou est realisee en dynamique, en particulier, durant la locomotion.L’objectif de ce travail etait de caracteriser la fatigue et la fatigabilite des patients atteints de SEP au cours de contractions maximales volontaires isocinetiques concentriques, de connaitre les liens avec les performances locomotrices et d’explorer leurs adaptations a un programme de reeducation combine. Pour repondre a cet objectif, une evaluation isocinetique associee a une analyse electromyographique lors d’une tâche fatigante de 50 contractions isocinetiques concentriques a ete menee.L’originalite de ce travail repose sur l’analyse de la fatigabilite lors d’une tâche concentrique mettant ainsi en evidence le phenomene de tâche dependance des mecanismes impliques dans la fatigabilite puisque les resultats vont a l’encontre des precedentes etudes, realisees au cours de contractions isometriques, chez les patients atteints de SEP. En effet, nous avons mis en evidence une moindre fatigabilite des patients atteints de SEP par rapport aux sujets sains. La baisse de la performance est expliquee dans les deux populations par une baisse de l’efficacite neuromusculaire sans modification des coactivations. Les resultats ont egalement souligne l’absence de lien entre la fatigue, la fatigabilite et les performances locomotrices. Par ailleurs, la fatigue est significativement diminuee suite a un programme de reeducation combine alors que la fatigabilite est augmentee, resultat d’un gain de force a l’etat de base sans modification de la force en situation de fatigue. Ce travail est une etape qui met en evidence la necessite de standardiser les evaluations de la fatigabilite et d’elaborer des protocoles de reeducation visant a diminuer la fatigabilite chez les patients atteints de SEP.
A multi-objective chemical reaction optimisation algorithm for multi-objective travelling salesman problem

The multi-objective travelling salesman problem (MOTSP) is a well-known combinatorial optimisation problem that belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. The MOTSP plays an important role in computing theory and in many real life applications. Unfortunately, finding efficient MOTSP solutions is still a challenging problem. That is why several methods were proposed to deal with this problem. This paper proposes a new multi-objective chemical reaction optimisation (MOCRO) algorithm to solve MOTSP. To maintain the diversity of the solutions, MOCRO uses a non-dominated sorting procedure proposed in NSGA2. Two new variants of MOCRO are proposed to deal the MOTSP. The first is MOCRO based on amount of domination (MOCRO-Dom), while the second is MOCRO based on weighted sum (MOCRO-WS). The experimental results have shown the superior performance of MOCRO-Dom and MOCRO-WS compared to NSGA2. Moreover, a comparative study between MOCRO-Dom and MOCRO-WS and the impact of the major parameters on the performance has been investigated.
Budgeting « as practice » in a public agency [Le budget « as practice » dans une agence publique]

Since 1998, under the impetus of New Public Management, fundamental reforms happened in France including an Organic Law on the Finance Act. The annual budget is structured around missions, programs and actions, expressed in terms of measurable outputs (Jones and al. 2013). In this paper we outline a distinctive practice theory approach in order to explore what budgeting process "as practice" may be. We mobilize previous studies which explore management accounting "as practice" (Ahrens and chapman, 2007; Mouristen, 1999; Jorgensen and Messner, 2010). This article explores the relationship between budgeting process and programming (strategy) in a public agency namely "Health Agency" and actors who are involved in budgeting process.
Data compression in digitized lines

The problem of data compression is very important in digital photogrammetry, computer assisted cartography, and GIS/LIS. In addition, it is also applicable in many other fields such as computer vision, image processing, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence. Consequently, there are many algorithms available to solve this problem but none of them are considered to be satisfactory. In this paper, a new method of finding critical points in a digitized curve is explained. This technique, based on the normalized symmetric scattered matrix, is good for both critical points detection and data compression. In addition, the critical points detected by this algorithm are compared with those by zero-crossings. 8 refs.
Control of flexible motion systems using frequency response data

• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.