Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digital Competence, Teacher Self-Efficacy and Training Needs

Computing related content is introduced in school curricula all over the world, placing new requirements on school teachers and their knowledge. Little attention has been paid to fostering the skills and attitudes required to teach the new content. This involves not only traditional computing topics, such as algorithms or programming, but also the role of technology in society as well as questions related to ethics, safety and integrity. As technology develops at a fast rate, so does the content to be taught. Learning computing content through isolated in-service training initiatives is by no means enough, but rather, teachers need to develop confidence to independently and continuously explore what is new, what is relevant and how to include digital competence in their teaching. Teachers' self-efficacy is hence of crucial importance. In a previous article \citenorden2017 we described the development of a self-efficacy scale for teachers, focusing on digital competence as described in EU's framework DigComp 2.0. In this paper, we extend that work by analysing 530 teachers' responses collected in Autumn 2017 during a series of workshops and other professional development events. Our goal was to collect baseline data, painting a picture of teachers' current self-efficacy levels in order to facilitate follow-up studies. In addition, our results also point out challenging areas, consequently providing important insight into what topics and themes should be emphasized in professional development initiatives.
Testability-Driven Layout of Combinational Circuits

The layout of a circuit can influence the probability of occurrence of faults. In this paper, we develop algorithms that can take advantage of this fact to reduce the chances of hard-to-detect (HTD) faults from occurring. We primarily focus on line bridge faults in this paper. We define a bridge fault f as an HTD fault if an automatic test pattern generator fails to generate a test vector for f in a reasonable amount of CPU-time. It is common practice to drop such HTD faults from consideration during test generation. The chip fault coverage achieved by a test set is poor if the fault set consists of many HTD faults. We can combat this problem by avoiding altogether, or by reducing the probability of, the occurrence of HTD faults. In this paper, we consider hard-to-detect bridging faults and show how module placement rules can be derived to reduce the probability of these faults. A genetic placement algorithm that optimizes area while respecting these rules is presented. The placement algorithm has been implemented for standard-cell layout style on a SUN/SPARC and tested against several sample circuits.
Automatic Test Timing Assignment for RAMs Using Linear Programming

In this paper, an automatic technique for test timing assignment is proposed which is comprehensive enough to take the test objective (e.g., strictness of selected AC timing parameters) and the constraints from both RAM specification and tester into consideration. Since test timing assignment problem could only be solved manually before, therefore, our work can significantly reduce the efforts and costs on developing and maintaining timing modules of RAM test programs. In the proposed technique, the test timing assignment problem is transformed into a linear programming (LP) model, which can be automatically solved. Examples of building LP models for an asynchronous DRAM are given to show feasibility of the proposed technique.
Distance-Bounding Protocols: Verification without Time and Location

Distance-bounding protocols are cryptographic protocols that securely establish an upper bound on the physical distance between the participants. Existing symbolic verification frameworks for distance-bounding protocols consider timestamps and the location of agents. In this work we introduce a causality-based characterization of secure distance-bounding that discards the notions of time and location. This allows us to verify the correctness of distance-bounding protocols with standard protocol verification tools. That is to say, we provide the first fully automated verification framework for distance-bounding protocols. By using our framework, we confirmed known vulnerabilities in a number of protocols and discovered unreported attacks against two recently published protocols.
A rapid method for harvesting and immobilization of oleaginous microalgae using pellet-forming filamentous fungi and the application in phytoremediation of secondary effluent

ABSTRACT A rapid method for harvesting and immobilization of oleaginous microalgae using pellet-forming filamentous fungi was developed. The suitable conditions for pellet formation by filamentous fungi were determined. Among the strains tested, Trichoderma reesei QM 9414 showed superior pellet forming ability. Its pellets were used to harvest oleaginous microalga Scenedesmus sp. With increasing volume ratio of fungal pellets to microalgae culture up to 1:2, >94% of microalgal cells were rapidly harvested within 10 min. The ratio of fungal pellets could manipulate both harvesting time and initial concentration of microalgal cells in the pellets. The microalgae–fungal pellets were successfully used as immobilized cells for effective phytoremediation of secondary effluent from seafood processing plants under nonsterile condition. The chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus removal were >74%, >44%, and >93%, respectively. The scanning electron microscopy showed that the microalgal cells were not only entrapped in the pellets but also got attached to the fungal hyphae with sticky exopolysaccharides, possibly secreted by the fungi. The extracted lipids from the pellets were mainly composed of C16–C18 (>83%) with their suitability as biodiesel feedstocks. This study has shown the promising strategy to rapidly harvest and immobilize microalgal cells and the possible application in phytoremediation of industrial effluent.
Analysis of foot strike pattern, rearfoot dynamic and foot rotation over childhood. A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine the foot strike patterns (FSP), rearfoot position at initial contact (RPic, i.e., No INV/EVE) and foot rotation in children in relation to age. A total of 932 children aged 3 to 16 years participated in this study. A sagittal and frontal-plane video was recorded using a high-speed camcorder to analyse these variables. There is a significant increase (p < 0.001) of rearfoot strike patterns (RFS) prevalence in relation to age; e.g. preschool children (3–6 years old) displayed an RFS prevalence 46.65% and the adolescent population(15–16 years old) an RFS prevalence 92.20%. The total RFS prevalence in all samples was 69.25%. There was a significant reduction (p < 0.001) of prevalence of RPic in relation to age groups; preschool children displayed a prevalence of RPic 60.37% and the adolescent population 10%. There was a significant reduction (p < 0.001) of prevalence of no foot rotation in relation to age groups; preschool children displayed a prevalence of no foot rotation 48.95% and the adolescent population 13.55%. In conclusion, FSP in children are influenced by age. It is noteworthy that the RFS prevalence of children is lower in comparison to the adult population.
Biomarkers of Individual Foods, and Separation of Diets Using Untargeted LC–MS‐based Plasma Metabolomics in a Randomized Controlled Trial

SCOPE Self-reported dietary intake does not represent an objective unbiased assessment. The effect of the new Nordic diet (NND) versus average Danish diet (ADD) on plasma metabolic profiles is investigated to identify biomarkers of compliance and metabolic effects. METHODS AND RESULTS In a 26-week controlled dietary intervention study, 146 subjects followed either NND, a predominantly organic diet high in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and fish, or ADD, a diet higher in imported and processed foods. Fasting plasma samples are analyzed with untargeted ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadruple time-of-flight. It is demonstrated that supervised machine learning with feature selection can separate NND and ADD samples with an average test set performance of up to 0.88 area under the curve. The NND plasma metabolome is characterized by diet-related metabolites, such as pipecolic acid betaine (whole grain), trimethylamine oxide, and prolyl hydroxyproline (both fish intake), while theobromine (chocolate) and proline betaine (citrus) were associated with ADD. Amino acid (i.e., indolelactic acid and hydroxy-3-methylbutyrate) and fat metabolism (butyryl carnitine) characterize ADD whereas NND is associated with higher concentrations of polyunsaturated phosphatidylcholines. CONCLUSIONS The plasma metabolite profiles are predictive of dietary patterns and reflected good compliance while indicating effects of potential health benefit, including changes in fat metabolism and glucose utilization.
Association of Interleukin‐1 beta and tumor necrosis factor‐alpha genetic polymorphisms with gastric cancer in India

Interleukin 1 beta (IL‐1β) and Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐α) are key inflammatory cytokines whose polymorphisms have been correlated with increased susceptibility to gastric cancer (GC). Since geographical and racial differences exist in cancer rates, our study was aimed to evaluate the first possible association of polymorphisms in these genes with GC risk in West Bengal, India. Polymorphisms in IL‐1β and TNF‐α genes were genotyped in 120 GC patients and 135 healthy individuals. Combined effect of the SNPs in both genes with GC risk was determined through allele dosage analysis (ADA) and the survival data were analyzed by Log Rank Test. The study results revealed that IL‐1β rs1143627: T > C, rs16944: C > T (p = 0.001;OR = 1.85; 95% CI 1.30‐2.63) and rs1143633: G > A (p < 0.0001; OR = 2.53; 95% CI 1.67‐3.83) and TNF‐α rs1800630: C > A, rs1799964: T > C (p < 0.0001; OR = 2.31; 95% CI 1.54‐3.46) polymorphisms significantly contributed toward GC risk. Moreover, ADA showed that carriage of 7 “effective” risk alleles conferred a risk of almost 10‐fold in comparison to individuals carrying less than 3 “effective” risk alleles. Our survival analysis also indicated a significant association between IL‐1β rs1143627: T > C and rs16944: C > T and patient survivability. The presence of H. pylori enhanced the risk in individuals with IL‐1β rs1143627:CC and rs16944:TT genotypes. Further, meta‐analysis revealed significant association of IL‐1β rs1143627: T > C (p = 0.026; OR = 4.165; 95% CI 1.18‐14.65) and rs16944: C > T (p = 0.01; OR = 5.49; 95% CI 1.48‐20.37) in presence of H. pylori with gastric cancer in Asian population though no significant difference (p > 0.05) was found when compared to absence of H. pylori Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 59:653–667, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An Ounce of Prevention: Identifying Cues to (In)Action for Maternal Vaccine Refusal

Recent increases in childhood vaccine exemption rates are a source of concern within the public health community. Drawing from the health belief model and in-depth interviews with 50 mothers (n = 50) who refused one or more vaccine, the aim of this study was to identify the specific reasons and the broader decision context(s) that underscored participants’ vaccine refusal. Results indicate that the vast majority of participants supported vaccination until a particular cue motivated them to consider otherwise, and qualitative analysis identified three main categories into which these cues fell: perceived adverse reactions, endorsements from health care professionals, and perceived contradiction among expert-endorsed messages. These categories point to the central role of health communication in motivating vaccine refusal. Better understanding these cues can inform vaccine communication scholarship and practice, and also lend theoretical insight into the intertextual nature of controversial health messages and decisions.
Feature Dimensionality Reduction for Video Affect Classification: A Comparative Study

Affective computing has become a very important research area in human-machine interaction. However, affects are subjective, subtle, and uncertain. So, it is very difficult to obtain a large number of labeled training samples, compared with the number of possible features we could extract. Thus, dimensionality reduction is critical in affective computing. This paper presents our preliminary study on dimensionality reduction for affect classification. Five popular dimensionality reduction approaches are introduced and compared. Experiments on the DEAP dataset showed that no approach can universally outperform others, and performing classification using the raw features directly may not always be a bad choice.
Benzoic acid in nursery diets increases the performance from weaning to finishing by reducing diarrhoea and improving the intestinal morphology of piglets inoculated with Escherichia coli K88+

A total of 224 weaned pigs (DanBred sows x PIC 337 sires) with an average body weight (BW) of 6.37 ± 0.34 kg (21 days of age) were used to evaluate how different levels of benzoic acid fed to weaning pigs orally inoculated with Escherichia coli (K88+ ) affected the nursing and grow-finishing performance, the physicochemical properties of the intestine, the volatile fatty acid concentration in the caecum and the incidence of diarrhoea. Pigs were randomly allocated in an experimental design of randomized blocks in a 4 × 2 factorial design, and they were administered four levels of benzoic acid (0.00%, 0.25%, 0.50% and 0.75%) and inoculated (or not) in two consecutive days with 1 ml solution containing 106 CFU/ml of E. coli (K88+ ). Seven replicates (pens) per treatment were used, and four animals were kept per pen. Supplementation with 0.75% benzoic acid promoted better performance (p < 0.05) in the nursery phase as well as in the subsequent phases until slaughter, and it decreased the incidence of diarrhoea in piglets (p < 0.05). In the piglets fed the benzoic acid diet, the villus height in the jejunum and ileum was greater until 42 days of life (p < 0.05), the crypt depth was decreased in the caecum (p < 0.05), and the butyric acid concentration was increased in the caecal content tendencially (p = 0.0708). In conclusion, supplementation with 0.75% benzoic acid has a positive effect on piglets by reducing diarrhoea, improving intestinal health and promoting the performance from weaning to finishing. Thus, benzoic acid can be considered a potential alternative that can replace growth-promoting antibiotics.
Counterfactual Normalization: Proactively Addressing Dataset Shift and Improving Reliability Using Causal Mechanisms

Predictive models can fail to generalize from training to deployment environments because of dataset shift, posing a threat to model reliability and the safety of downstream decisions made in practice. Instead of using samples from the target distribution to reactively correct dataset shift, we use graphical knowledge of the causal mechanisms relating variables in a prediction problem to proactively remove relationships that do not generalize across environments, even when these relationships may depend on unobserved variables (violations of the "no unobserved confounders" assumption). To accomplish this, we identify variables with unstable paths of statistical influence and remove them from the model. We also augment the causal graph with latent counterfactual variables that isolate unstable paths of statistical influence, allowing us to retain stable paths that would otherwise be removed. Our experiments demonstrate that models that remove vulnerable variables and use estimates of the latent variables transfer better, often outperforming in the target domain despite some accuracy loss in the training domain.
Sleep Hygiene Index: Psychometric Characteristics and Usefulness as a Screening Tool in a Sample of Nigerian Undergraduate Students.

STUDY OBJECTIVES The objectives of this study were to investigate the psychometric properties of the Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) and determine its capacity to screen for poor sleep quality in a nonclinical sample of Nigerian university students. METHODS A total of 348 students appropriately completed the SHI, the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). RESULTS The internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of the SHI was . 64 and its construct validity was modestly satisfactory. It had a significant negative correlation with the MEQ (r = -.170, P < .001) and positive correlations with global PSQI (r = .289, P < .001) and ESS (r = .219, P < .001) scores. Prior to the factor analysis, our sample was randomly divided into two. In one half of the sample (sample 1), exploratory factor analysis of the SHI items yielded a three-factor model. Confirmatory factor analysis on the other half (sample 2) corroborated this model with satisfactory indices of fitness (c2 = 67.805; df = 55; c2/df = 1.233; P = .115; goodness of fit index = .943; Tucker-Lewis index = .958; incremental fit index = .972; comparative fit index = .970; root mean square error of approximation = .037). A cutoff total score of 16 on the SHI had the best sensitivity (77.0%) and specificity (47.5%) to identify students who were categorized as experiencing poor sleep quality, according to the PSQI (area under the curve = 0.65, 95% confidence interval = 0.59-0.71). CONCLUSIONS The SHI exhibited satisfactory psychometric properties as a self-rated assessment instrument in the evaluation of sleep hygiene and as a screening instrument for poor sleep quality among Nigerian undergraduate students.
Random Walk Laplacian and Network Centrality Measures

Random walks over directed graphs are used to model activities in many domains, such as social networks, influence propagation, and Bayesian graphical models. They are often used to compute the importance or centrality of individual nodes according to a variety of different criteria. Here we show how the pseudoinverse of the "random walk" Laplacian can be used to quickly compute measures such as the average number of visits to a given node and various centrality and betweenness measures for individual nodes, both for the network in general and in the case a subset of nodes is to be avoided. We show that with a single matrix inversion it is possible to rapidly compute many such quantities.
MicroRNA-200 and microRNA-30 family as prognostic molecular signatures in ovarian cancer

Background: MicroRNAs (miRs) play a vital role in the occurrence, development, and progression of human cancers, but its role in the prognosis of ovarian cancer is unclear. Methods: We performed a meta-analysis by searching PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases for eligible studies. The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to explore the association between miRs expression and overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) on ovarian cancer patients. We also used Kaplan–Meier to analyze the relationship between miRs and OS in OncoLnc dataset. Results: A total of 15 records were included into the meta-analysis. The expression level of miR-200 family showed significant association with OS (HR = 0.78, 95% CI: 0.64–0.94) and insignificant association with PFS (HR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.50–1.03). Subgroup analysis revealed that an increased expression level of miR-200c was associated with better OS (HR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.45–0.74). An increased expression level of miR-200a, miR-200c, and miR-141 was associated with better PFS (miR-200a, HR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.42–0.75; miR-200c, HR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.14–0.87, miR-141, HR = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.12–0.63). Similarly, higher expression of miR-30 family was associated with elevated OS/PFS for ovarian cancer (OS, HR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.13–0.74; PFS, HR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.64–0.87). The OncoLnc dataset presented that elevated expression level of miR-30d-5p was associated with better OS (n = 470, P = .0197). Conclusion: The meta-analysis reveals that miR-200 family and miR-30 family could be promising prognostic biomarkers of ovarian cancer.
Enterically delivered insulin tregopil exhibits rapid absorption characteristics and a pharmacodynamic effect similar to human insulin in conscious dogs

Current therapy fails to emulate rapid (first‐phase) insulin release in relation to a meal, a key defect in types 1 and 2 diabetes. We aimed to quantify the pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) profile of insulin tregopil, an enterically‐absorbed insulin analog that restores the normal distribution of insulin between the hepatic portal and peripheral circulations.
Gender dysphoria in youth: An overview for primary care providers

Background and purpose: Primary care providers who encounter children are often the first line of contact for individuals with gender dysphoria, which occurs when sex assigned at birth is incongruent with one's true, expressed sexual identity. Because those with untreated gender dysphoria are at risk of a variety of negative outcomes, including mood symptomatology, suicidality, substance use disorders, and other psychosocial risk factors, it is critical that health care providers are adept in the provision of holistic, patient-centered care. The purpose of this report is to provide an updated review of the current evidence from the literature pertaining to the identification, treatment, and coordination of care among children with gender dysphoria within the primary care setting or medical home. Methods: Using PubMed and CINAHL, a literature review spanning from 2012 to the present was conducted using the following key words: gender dysphoria, transgender health, LGBT health, and hormone therapy. Reference lists of identified articles were also explored for relevance. Conclusions: Treatment may include a social transition, hormone antagonist therapy, or the administration of cross-sex hormone therapy, with a medical home needed to facilitate coordination of care. Best practice guidelines vary across pediatric and developmental groups and include both reversible and nonreversible modalities. Screening for negative psychosocial sequelae must be completed to include mood symptomatology, suicidality, substance use disorders, and risky sexual behavior, so that appropriate screening, identification, and treatment interventions can be implemented. Implications for practice: The primary care medical home must act as a foundation for the identification of gender dysphoria and/or associated comorbidities and must treat, when able, or refer, when indicated. In addition, because of structural barriers and stigmatization, public policy often fails the transgender community and can exacerbate the aforementioned psychosocial comorbidities faced by the transgender youth community. Health care providers, particularly nurse practitioners, are in a unique position to expand on the face-to-face care provided to the community and engage in advocacy efforts to dismantle structural barriers impeding transgender individuals and communities while also providing primary health care, anticipatory guidance, and care coordination.