Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teacher Educators’ and Teacher Trainees’ Perspective on Teacher Training for Sustainable Development

Abstract In accordance with Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), countries across the globe are striving to ensure equitable access to inclusive, quality and lifelong educational opportunities for all children, youth and adults by 2030. Teacher education has been identified as one of the key factors in the achievement of the SDG 4 targets. As part of the effort to ensure sustainable teacher education for the achievement of SDG 4 in Ghana, this study applied the four key concepts in the SDG 4: quality, equity, inclusion and lifelong learning, to determine the progress with regards to SDG 4 in the context of teacher education in Ghana. The specific objectives of this study were to determine the inclusive pedagogical practices, values, and knowledge that trainees acquire from the Diploma in Basic Education’s Special Education Needs (SEN) course, the adequacy of the course for preparing teachers to create inclusive classrooms and the challenges associated with the delivery of the SEN course. In this study, 167 final-year trainees and 13 teacher educators from Diploma in Basic Education Program in three colleges of education in Ghana were surveyed about their views on the SEN teacher preparation course. The study found out that the SEN course placed much emphasis on medical model view of SEN and only a minority of trainees acquired the requisite inclusive knowledge, values and pedagogical practices. The paper discusses key barriers to the development of inclusive knowledge, pedagogical practices and values among trainees as well as factors that can promote the effective training of inclusive teachers.
A Comparison of Incremental Running Field and Treadmill Tests in Young Soccer Players

Abstract The purpose of this study was to compare the incremental running tests performed by young soccer players on a treadmill (Tr) and in the field (FTcod: 100 m change of direction and FTcir: 100 m circle). Nineteen players (average age 17.4 ± 1.1 years; body height 172.0 ± 5.7 cm; body mass 68.9 ± 6.7 kg) volunteered to perform incremental Tr , FTcod and FTcir running tests. In all three tests, players ran for 3 min at 8, 10, 12 and 14 km∙h-1 and were given a 1 min rest interval between subsequent stages. Blood lactate concentrations (La-) were measured at 1 min rest intervals and the heart rate (HR) responses of players were recorded during the tests. After a 5 min recovery period, the second part of the test started; players ran at 15 km∙h-1 with velocity increments of 1 km∙h-1 every 1 min until exhaustion. This part was performed to determine maximum HR, maximum La- and the players’ final velocities. The results showed that players had significantly lower La- (F = 6.93, p = 0.07, η2 = 0.46, 95%CI(TR-FTcir) = -1.91/-0.34, 95%CI(TR-FTcod) = -1.59/-0.05) and HR (F = 9.08, p = 0.02, η2 = 0.53, 95%CI(TR-FTcir) = -6.98/-1.68, 95%CI(TR-FTcod) = -7.19/1.08) responses in the Tr test than in the FTcir and FTcod tests at 14 km∙h-1. It was also found that players completed the Tr test (F = 58.22, p = 0.00, η2 = 0.87) at higher final running velocities than the FTcir (95%CI(TR-FTcir) = 1.67/2.78) and FTcod (95%CI(TR-FTcod) = 1.69/2.85) tests. In conclusion, when coaches or sports scientists plan to train at higher running velocities or according to the final velocity in the test, it is advisable to carry out testing in the circumstances under which training will be carried out (in the field or on a treadmill).
Push-Ups are Able to Predict the Bench Press 1-RM and Constitute an Alternative for Measuring Maximum Upper Body Strength Based on Load-Velocity Relationships

Abstract The aims of this study were firstly to compare the similarity in upper-body muscle activation between the bench press and push-up at similar loads, and secondly to establish a 1-RM prediction equation between the two exercises based upon the load-velocity relationship. Twenty resistance-trained male athletes (age 22.5 ± 5.24 years, body mass 83.7 ± 10.7 kg, body height 1.80 ± 0.06 m) performed push-ups and bench presses with four different loads. Push-ups were performed without a weight vest and with a 10-20-30 kg weight vest. Bench presses were performed at 50-80% of athletes’ assumed 1 repetition max (1-RM) in 10 kg steps, while a linear encoder measured performance during the exercises. A load-velocity relationship was established as a product of the load and velocity for the push-up and bench press per participant and the equation was used to establish a predicted 1-RM. Mean muscle activation of eight upper body muscles was recorded for each exercise and each load. The main findings of this study demonstrate an extremely large association between the predicted 1-RM loads performed with the push-up and bench press (r = 0.93) in experienced resistance trained men. Furthermore, most muscles showed similar activations between the two exercises with the different loads except the deltoid and biceps brachii muscles. It may be concluded that it is possible to predict a cross-over 1-RM between the two exercises based upon the load-velocity relationship in each exercise, and that training push-ups largely targets the same muscles as the bench press except the deltoid and biceps muscles. For coaches and athletes, the use of this method is a low cost and time-effective alternative for standard 1-RM bench press testing to predict maximal upper body strength.
AutisMitr: Emotion Recognition Assistive Tool for Autistic Children

Abstract Assistive technology has proven to be one of the most significant inventions to aid people with Autism to improve the quality of their lives. In this study, a real-time emotion recognition system for autistic children has been developed. Emotion recognition is implemented by executing three stages: Face identification, Facial Feature extraction, and feature classification. The objective is to frame a system that includes all three stages of emotion recognition activity that executes expeditiously in real time. Thus, Affectiva SDK is implemented in the application. The propound system detects at most 7 facial emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, contempt, and surprise. The purpose for performing this study is to teach emotions to individuals suffering from autism, as they lack the ability to respond appropriately to others emotions. The proposed application was tested with a group of typical children aged 6–14 years, and positive outcomes were achieved.
How domain-general can we be? Learning incremental Dialogue Systems without Dialogue Acts

Dialogue is domain-specific, in that the communicative import of utterances is severely underdetermined in the absence of a specific domain of language use. This has lead dialogue system developers to use various techniques to map dialogue utterances onto hand-crafted, highly domainspecific Dialogue Act (DA) representations, leading to systems which lack generality and do not easily scale or transfer to new domains. Here we first propose a new method which avoids the use of DAs altogether by combining an open-domain, incremental, semantic NL grammar for dialogue Dynamic Syntax with machine learning techniques for optimisation of dialogue management and utterance generation. We then focus on a key sub-problem associated with this vision: automatically grounding domain-general semantic representations in the non-linguistic actions used in specific dialogue domains. Similar to some recent work on open-domain question answering, we present an algorithm that clusters domain-general semantic representations of dialogue utterances based on computing pragmatic synonymy, in effect automatically inducing a more coarse-grained domain-specific semantic ontology than that encoded by open-domain semantic grammars.
Transmission Line Outage Detection and Identification by Communal Spider Optimization Algorithm

The load on the power system network is proliferating along with massive inter-area transfers. Hence it is substantial to have reliable real-time information about the network parameters of the electric power system. To monitor real-time operational reliability, the network model of the system has to be updated continuously in a timely manner to reflect current system conditions. For this continuous data updating, the Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are deployed. PMUs measure the phase at very high speed at different locations by different devices and synchronize them with time. In manipulating the arithmetical possessions of voltage phase angle capacities attained from PMUs, this method is formulated. The proposed method detects and identifies the line outages in near real-time. In this method, outage in an unknown line is detected by using Communal Spider Algorithm (CSA) and is verified on Indian utility- 62 bus test system. Using CSA, the system performance of the power network model is optimized and the line outage is reduced.
Weighted Moving Average of Forecasting Method for Predicting Bitcoin Share Price using High Frequency Data: A Statistical Method in Financial Cryptocurrency Technology

Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency that implemented decentralized digital currency method. The transaction is monitored and validated by peer-to peer system using hash programming. These transactions are verified by network nodes through the use of cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The objective of this study is to forecast the Bitcoin exchange rate using weighted moving average method. Data selected in this study are selected hourly from 14th December 2017 until 18th December 2017. The forecasting method is using weighted moving average. Then, the validity of the forecasting model is validated using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) calculation. Results indicated mean absolute percentage error is 0.72%. Therefore, the moving average method is considered as reliable forecasting method for Bitcoin exchange rate. The finding of this study will help investors to make best decision regarding suitable portfolio for their investment.
What makes a model system great?

With the advent of fluorescently tagged proteins and live cell imaging our understanding of actin cytoskeleton dynamics has been expanding at an unprecedented pace. However, the role of the actin cytoskeleton in numerous cellular processes has been elucidated primarily in cultured cells. The next stage is to understand if these processes and the mechanisms that underpin them transfer from what is essentially a 2-dimensional cell living in isolation to cells in a 3-dimensional community—a tissue. Intravital microscopy holds the promise for being able to visualize the actin cytoskeleton in its native state—a tissue in situ. The greatest challenges at the moment are in developing tractable and meaningful in vivo experimental model systems capable of addressing specific questions about the molecular machinery involved in the assembly and function of complex cytoskeletal structures. In this article we discuss important considerations for establishing such in vivo models and showcase one such model system which has proven successful in revealing the in situ dynamics of actomyosin assembly on large secretory granules.
Cadmium and copper uptake and distribution in Mediterranean tree seedlings

Copper and cadmium uptake and distribution in 2-week-old seedlings of stone pine (Pinus pinea L.), maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) and ash (Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl.) were investigated. Seedlings were grown in culture solution at increasing concentrations of CuSO 4 (0.012-5 μM) and CdSO 4 (0.0-5 μM). All species accumulated copper in a larger amount than cadmium. Translocation to the shoot was strongly restricted for both metals, though higher cadmium mobility within the plant could be evidenced. A strong relationship between root content and growth inhibition was detected in the roots in response to copper but not to cadmium treatments. Among species P. pinea seemed to be more tolerant to cadmium, whereas F angustifolia was highly sensitive to both cadmium and copper. X-ray microanalysis of root tip sections showed that copper and cadmium only accumulated in the root tips of F. angustifolia, copper mostly in the cell walls of the cortex layer, cadmium in the inner compartments of the cortex cells. It is suggested that in the two Pinus species the well developed root cap plays a protecting role against metal uptake at the root-tip zone.
PHYLOGENY OF ANOLES

Abstract I present a phylogenetic analysis of the lizard genus Anolis using new morphological data in combination with diverse data from the literature. Ninety-one characters of osteology and external anatomy were completely or partially scored for 174 Anolis species and seven outgroups. These data were combined with data from chromosomes, DNA sequences, allozymes, and immunology and analyzed with parsimony to produce an estimate of Anolis relationships. The genus Anolis was supported as monophyletic. Anolis occultus is sister to the rest of the genus. A South American and Southern Lesser Antillean clade is sister to the Greater Antillean and Northern Lesser Antillean Anolis and a clade of mainland species. Successive clades of Caribbean Alpha Anolis are sister to the Beta Anolis (Norops) clade. Within the Betas, the Jamaican Betas are sister to the remaining Betas, and the Cuban Betas are sister to the monophyletic mainland forms. Other higher-level groupings of previous authors were not supported, but members of some previously-recognized lower-level groups formed clades: roquet series, “Phenacosaurus”, cybotes series, cristatellus species group, bimaculatus series/species group, hendersoni species group, chlorocyanus series, equestris series, grahami series, sagrei series, crassulus species group, gadovii species group, laeviventris species group, nebulosus species group.
The Positive Association between Plasma Myristic Acid and ApoCIII Concentrations in Cardiovascular Disease Patients Is Supported by the Effects of Myristic Acid in HepG2 Cells.

BACKGROUND In the settings of primary and secondary prevention for coronary artery disease (CAD), a crucial role is played by some key molecules involved in triglyceride (TG) metabolism, such as ApoCIII. Fatty acid (FA) intake is well recognized as a main determinant of plasma lipids, including plasma TG concentration. OBJECTIVES The aim was to investigate the possible relations between the intakes of different FAs, estimated by their plasma concentrations, and circulating amounts of ApoCIII. METHODS Plasma samples were obtained from 1370 subjects with or without angiographically demonstrated CAD (mean ± SD age: 60.6 ± 11.0 y; males: 75.8%; BMI: 25.9 ± 4.6 kg/m2; CAD: 73.3%). Plasma lipid, ApoCIII, and FA concentrations were measured. Data were analyzed by regression models adjusted for FAs and other potential confounders, such as sex, age, BMI, diabetes, smoking, and lipid-lowering therapies. The in vitro effects of FAs were tested by incubating HepG2 hepatoma cells with increasing concentrations of selected FAs, and the mRNA and protein contents in the cells were quantified by real-time RT-PCR and LC-MS/MS analyses. RESULTS Among all the analyzed FAs, myristic acid (14:0) showed the most robust correlations with both TGs (R = 0.441, P = 2.6 × 10-66) and ApoCIII (R = 0.327, P = 1.1 × 10-31). By multiple regression analysis, myristic acid was the best predictor of both plasma TG and ApoCIII variability. Plasma TG and ApoCIII concentrations increased progressively at increasing concentrations of myristic acid, independently of CAD diagnosis and gender. Consistent with these data, in the in vitro experiments, an ∼2-fold increase in the expression levels of the ApoCIII mRNA and protein was observed after incubation with 250 μM myristic acid. A weaker effect (∼30% increase) was observed for palmitic acid, whereas incubation with oleic acid did not affect ApoCIII protein or gene expression. CONCLUSIONS Plasma myristic acid is associated with increased ApoCIII concentrations in cardiovascular patients. In vitro experiments indicated that myristic acid stimulates ApoCIII expression in HepG2 cells.
A NEW SPECIES OF LOPHIARIS RAF. (ORCHIDACEAE) FROM THE PACIFIC COASTAL OF MEXICO

A species of Lophiaris Raf. (Orchidaceae: Cymbidieae: Oncidiinae), Lophiaris nataliea e, from Jalisco, Mexico, is proposed as new. The new species is described, illustrated and compared to Lophiaris lurida , from which is different by its lateral sepals shortly connate at base, and its transversely narrower central labellum lobe. Its distribution and habitat are discussed. Conservation status of the new taxon is assessed against the MER criteria.
Clues to the ‘burning question’: Pre‐European fire in the Sydney coastal region from sedimentary charcoal and palynology

Summary The concentration and influx of charcoal in a 210Pb-dated sediment core were used to investigate the recent fire history of Jibbon Lagoon in Royal National Park, NSW. Fire events of the recent (historic) past were compared to this record in an attempt to test its sensitivity. Recent fire events were not always reflected in the charcoal results. Nonetheless it can be concluded that since about AD 1930 the area has been characterized by a relatively high frequency of fires. The analysed sediments of the pre-European period contained a low concentration of charcoal, and only one large conflagration appears to have occurred in approximately the last 1600 years. How Aboriginal people used fire in this landscape is still uncertain. However, it is possible that they did not regularly burn the landscape, or if they did, it was in such a way that the delivery of charcoal to the lagoon was minimal. This study thus suggests that the idea of the ubiquitous use of fire by Aboriginal people should be further, and critically, analysed.
Inter-rater reliability of the radiographic assessment of simple bone cysts

Abstract Purpose To develop and evaluate the reliability of an explicit set of parameters and criteria for simple bone cysts (SBCs) and evaluate the reliability of single versus serial chronological reading methods Methods Radiographic criteria were developed based on the literature and expert consensus. A single anteroposterior/lateral radiograph from 32 subjects with SBC were evaluated by three radiologists. A second reading was then conducted using revised criteria including a visual schematic. In the third reading the same images were assessed but radiologists had access to images from two additional time points. Inter-rater reliability was assessed after each reading using kappa (κ) and percentage agreement for categorical and binary parameters and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for continuous parameters. Results Parameters that were revised with more explicit definitions including the visual schematic demonstrated consistent or improved inter-rater reliability with the exception of continuous cortical rim present and cyst location in the metaphysis and mid-diaphysis. Cortical rim displayed only slight reliability throughout (κ= -0.008 to 0.16). All other categorical parameters had a percentage agreement above 0.8 or a moderate (κ= 0.41 to 0.60), substantial (κ = 0.61 to 0.80) or almost perfect inter-rater reliability (κ = 0.81 to 1.0) in at least one reading. All continuous parameters demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC > 0.75) in at least one reading with the exception of scalloping (ICC = 0.37 to 0.70). Inter-rater reliability values did not indicate an obviously superior method of assessment between single and serial chronological readings. Conclusion Explicit criteria for SBC parameters used in their assessment demonstrated improved and substantial inter-rater reliability. Inter-rater reliability did not differ between single and serial chronological readings. Level of Evidence Not Applicable
Culturable diversity of bacterial endophytes associated with medicinal plants of the Western Ghats, India

ABSTRACT Bacterial endophytes are found in the internal tissues of plants and have intimate associations with their host. However, little is known about the diversity of medicinal plant endophytes (ME) or their capability to produce specialised metabolites that may contribute to therapeutic properties. We isolated 75 bacterial ME from 24 plant species of the Western Ghats, India. Molecular identification by 16S rRNA gene sequencing grouped MEs into 13 bacterial genera, with members of Gammaproteobacteria and Firmicutes being the most abundant. To improve taxonomic identification, 26 selected MEs were genome sequenced and average nucleotide identity (ANI) used to identify them to the species-level. This identified multiple species in the most common genus as Bacillus. Similarly, identity of the Enterobacterales was also distinguished within Enterobacter and Serratia by ANI and core-gene analysis. AntiSMASH identified non-ribosomal peptide synthase, lantipeptide and bacteriocin biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) as the most common BGCs found in the ME genomes. A total of five of the ME isolates belonging to Bacillus, Serratia and Enterobacter showed antimicrobial activity against the plant pathogen Pectobacterium carotovorum. Using molecular and genomic approaches we have characterised a unique collection of endophytic bacteria from medicinal plants. Their genomes encode multiple specialised metabolite gene clusters and the collection can now be screened for novel bioactive and medicinal metabolites.
A Clinical Prediction Model of Medication Adherence in Hypertensive Patients in a Chinese Community Hospital in Beijing.

BACKGROUND Hypertension remains a global health problem. Since there is a significant positive correlation between antihypertensive medication adherence and blood pressure control, it is therefore of great importance to elucidate the determinants of adherence to antihypertensive medications among hypertensive patients. METHODS Hereby, we retrospectively analyzed the medical records of a hypertensive cohort recruited from a community hospital in Beijing, China, to investigate the factors affecting adherence to antihypertensive medications using decision trees. In addition, all data were assigned into a training set (75%) and testing set (25%) by the random number seed method to build and validate a compliance predictive model. We identified that how many times patients became nonadherent to antihypertensive medications in the year before the first prescription, types of antihypertensive drugs used in the year before the first prescription, body weight, smoking history, total number of hospital visits in the past year, total number of days of medication use in the year before enrollment, age, total number of outpatient follow-ups in the year after the first prescription, and concurrent diabetes greatly affected the compliance to antihypertensive medications. RESULTS The compliance predictive model we built showed a 0.78 sensitivity and 0.69 specificity for the prediction of the compliance to antihypertensive medications, with an area under the representative operating characteristics (ROC) curve of 0.810. CONCLUSIONS Our data provide new insights into the improvements of the compliance to antihypertensive medications, which is beneficial for the management of hypertension, and the compliance predictive model may be used in community-based hypertension management.