Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Critical Evaluation of EPs’ Cognitive Assessment Work with Children and Young People with English as an Additional Language

Conducting culturally and linguistically fair assessments is an ethical requirement for educational psychologists, particularly when working with children and young people with English as an additional language (EAL). Despite a number of existing professional guidelines and frameworks for practice, the evidence base on how to address cultural and linguistic bias when working with this population is still limited, especially in the UK context. Findings from an interview with three experienced educational psychologists highlight an increased awareness around this issue and the need for further studies and guidance on non-discriminatory assessment practice for children and young people with EAL.
Nonlinear dynamic characteristics of SMA simply supported beam in axial stochastic excitation

In this paper, nonlinear dynamic characteristics of shape memory alloy (SMA) simply supported beam in axial stochastic excitation were studied. Von del Pol nonlinear difference item was introduced to interpret the hysteresis phenomenon of the strain-stress curve of SMA, and the hysteretic nonlinear dynamic model of SMA simply supported beam in axial stochastic excitation was developed. The local stochastic stability of the system was analyzed according to the largest Lyapunov exponent, and the global stochastic stability of the system was discussed in singular boundary theory. The steady-state probability density function and the joint probability density function of the system were obtained in quasi-nonintegrable Hamiltonian system theory. The result of simulation shows that the stability of the trivial solution varies with bifurcation parameter, and stochastic Hopf bifurcation appears in the process. The result is helpful to stochastic bifurcation control to SMA simply supported beam.
A Practical Guide to Basic Laboratory Andrology

This practical, extensively illustrated handbook covers the procedures that are undertaken in andrology and ART laboratories to analyse and assess male-factor infertility, and to prepare spermatozoa for use in assisted conception therapy. The content is presented as brief, authoritative overviews of the relevant biological background for each area, plus detailed, step-by-step descriptions of the relevant analytical procedures. Each technical section includes quality control considerations and the optimum presentation of results. In addition to the comprehensive 'basic' semen analysis, incorporating careful analysis of sperm morphology, the handbook provides established techniques for the use of computer-aided sperm analysis and sperm functional assessment. The interpretation of laboratory results in the clinical context is highlighted throughout, and safe laboratory practice is emphasized. Fully revised, incorporating the new ISO TS 23162 on basic human semen analysis throughout, this is an invaluable resource to all scientists and technicians who perform diagnostic testing for male-factor infertility.
Preference and loudness of multi-tone sounds

Noise generated by the rotary parts of a machine often consists of prominent complex tones and broadband noise. In special cases where nonlinear sound generating mechanisms lead to additional combination tones the resulting sounds can evoke a rather unpleasant sensation. In a previous study, the preference and loudness of this type of signals were evaluated using synthetic sounds composed of two complex tones and additional combination tones [1]. The points of subjective equality (PSE) for loudness and preference were measured compared to a reference sound using an adaptive paired comparison paradigm varying the level of the multi-tone sound.
Adaptability and Stability Comparisons of Inbred and Hybrid Cotton in Yield and Fiber Quality Traits

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is the most important fiber crop worldwide. Characterizing genotype by environment interaction (GEI) is helpful to identify stable genotypes across diverse environments. This study was conducted in six environments to compare the performance and stability of 11 inbred lines and 30 intraspecific hybrids of cotton. Analysis of variance using the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction model revealed that genotype (G), environment (E), and GEI had highly significant effects on yield and fiber quality traits. Mean comparisons among genotypes showed that most hybrids had higher means for yield and fiber quality traits than inbred genotypes. Additionally, a larger portion of the total variability in yield traits was explained by E than G and GEI. However, G and GEI combined contributed more to the total variance in fiber traits than E. The first three interaction principal components explained the majority of GEI in all traits under study. For most traits, the environments were not clustered together, implying contrasting interaction with genotypes. Stability measurements indicated that most hybrids showed more stable performance than inbred lines for all traits. The hybrids SJ48-1 × Z98-15 and L28-2 × A2-10 displayed both better performance and stability in yield and fiber quality traits. Our results show the importance of hybridization for improving cotton yield and fiber quality in a wide range of environments.
Applying BERT to Document Retrieval with Birch

We present Birch, a system that applies BERT to document retrieval via integration with the open-source Anserini information retrieval toolkit to demonstrate end-to-end search over large document collections. Birch implements simple ranking models that achieve state-of-the-art effectiveness on standard TREC newswire and social media test collections. This demonstration focuses on technical challenges in the integration of NLP and IR capabilities, along with the design rationale behind our approach to tightly-coupled integration between Python (to support neural networks) and the Java Virtual Machine (to support document retrieval using the open-source Lucene search library). We demonstrate integration of Birch with an existing search interface as well as interactive notebooks that highlight its capabilities in an easy-to-understand manner.
Averaging Quaternions

M ANY applications require an algorithm that averages quaternions in an optimal manner. For example, when combining the quaternion outputs of multiple star trackers having this output capability, it is desirable to properly average the quaternions without recomputing the attitude from the raw star tracker data. Other applications requiring some sort of optimal quaternion averaging include particle filtering [1] and multiplemodel adaptive estimation [2], in which weighted quaternions are used to determine the quaternion estimate. For spacecraft attitude estimation applications, [1] derives an optimal averaging scheme to compute the average of a set of weighted attitude matrices using the singular value decomposition method [3]. Focusing on a four-dimensional quaternion Gaussian distribution on the unit hypersphere, [4] provides an approach to computing the average quaternion by minimizing a quaternion cost function that is equivalent to the attitude matrix cost function in [1]. Motivated by [1] and extending its results, this Note derives an algorithm that determines an optimal average quaternion from a set of scalaror matrix-weighted quaternions. Furthermore, a sufficient condition for the uniqueness of the average quaternion and the equivalence of theminimization problem, stated herein, tomaximum likelihood estimation are shown. For the scalar-weighted case, the goal is to find the average of a set of n attitude estimates, qi, in quaternion form with associated weights wi. The simple procedure
Combining electrospun polydioxanone scaffolds, Schwann cells, and Matrigel to improve functional recovery after a complete spinal cord transection in rats

COMBINING ELECTROSPUN POLYDIOXANONE SCAFFOLDS, SCHWANN CELLS, AND MATRIGEL TO IMPROVE FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY AFTER A COMPLETE SPINAL CORD TRANSECTION IN RATS Ashok Kannan, Master of Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Science degree in Anatomy and Neurobiology at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2011 Raymond J. Colello, D.Phil., Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology Spinal cord injury (SCI) has presented itself as a multifaceted pathology that is largely inhibitory to regeneration, and therefore to functional recovery, even though spinal cord neurons have been found to be innately regenerative. Thus, having identified the key players in the inhibition of this innate regeneration, SCI researchers have focused on two major types of approaches: (1) blocking inhibitory cues and (2) promoting innate regeneration. Schwann cells (SCs) have long been shown to promote and enhance functional recovery after SCI through providing supplemental myelination and trophic and tropic factors to regenerating axons, though singular approaches rarely address the complex SCI pathology. Guidance channels and scaffolds have been shown to provide physical support and directional cues to regeneration axons. Therefore, a combinatorial approach in which SCs migrate into and throughout a guidance scaffold would be an ideal research focus for treating SCI. However, cell migration into guidance scaffolds has been shown to be problematic. This study attempts to assess and improve twoand three-dimensional SC migration on electrospun scaffolds. Additionally, we evaluate the ability of SCs, seeded on Matrigel-coated electrospun scaffolds, to improve functional recovery in rats with completely transected spinal cords.
Nonnegative Matrix Factorization of Transition Matrices via Eigenvalue Optimization

We consider the nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) approach to clustering where the matrix to be factorized is a transition matrix for a Markov chain. We prove the equivalence of this problem to an eigenvalue optimization problem and based on this equivalence, interpret clustering NMF as finding a k-partition of the data for which the stationary states of random walkers associated to each component are optimally closed. One novel feature of this interpretation is that it simultaneously outputs clusters as well as a “local ranking” of the data within each cluster, in the sense of PageRank. The local ranking provides label confidences and naturally identifies cluster representatives. A relaxed formulation is identified and a novel algorithm is proposed, which we show is strictly decreasing and converges in a finite number of iterations to a local minimum of the relaxed objective function. A semi-supervised version of the algorithm yields excellent results for the MNIST handwritten digit dataset. We conclude with an intriguing relationship to a reaction-diffusion system for antagonistically-interacting random walkers.
A ‘ ‘ Rosetta Stone ’ ’ for metazoan zooplankton : DNA barcode analysis of species diversity of the Sargasso Sea ( Northwest Atlantic Ocean )

Species diversity of the metazoan holozooplankton assemblage of the Sargasso Sea, Northwest Atlantic Ocean, was examined through coordinated morphological taxonomic identification of species and DNA sequencing of a 650 base-pair region of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (mtCOI) as a DNA barcode (i.e., short sequence for species recognition and discrimination). Zooplankton collections were made from the surface to 5,000 meters during April, 2006 on the R/V R.H. Brown. Samples were examined by a ship-board team of morphological taxonomists; DNA barcoding was carried out in both ship-board and land-based DNA sequencing laboratories. DNA barcodes were determined for a total of 297 individuals of 175 holozooplankton species in four phyla, including: Cnidaria (Hydromedusae, 4 species; Siphonophora, 47); Arthropoda (Amphipoda, 10; Copepoda, 34; Decapoda, 9; Euphausiacea, 10; Mysidacea, 1; Ostracoda, 27); and Mollusca (Cephalopoda, 8; Heteropoda, 6; Pteropoda, 15); and Chaetognatha (4). Thirty species of fish (Teleostei) were also barcoded. For all seven zooplankton groups for which sufficient data were available, Kimura-2-Parameter genetic distances were significantly lower between individuals of the same species (mean1⁄40.0114; S.D. 0.0117) than between individuals of different species within the same group (mean1⁄40.3166; S.D. 0.0378). This difference, known as the barcode gap, ensures that mtCOI sequences are reliable characters for species identification for the oceanic holozooplankton assemblage. In addition, DNA barcodes allow recognition of new or undescribed species, reveal cryptic species within known taxa, and inform phylogeographic and population genetic studies of geographic variation. The growing database of ‘‘gold standard’’ DNA barcodes serves as a Rosetta Stone for marine zooplankton, providing the key for decoding species diversity by linking species names, morphology, and DNA sequence variation. In light of the pivotal position of zooplankton in ocean food webs, their usefulness as rapid responders to environmental change, and the increasing scarcity of taxonomists, the use of DNA barcodes is an important and useful approach for rapid analysis of species diversity and distribution in the pelagic community. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Whey Protein Intake Modulates Lipid Metabolism by Transcriptionally Affecting PPARs and SREBP1c and Their Downstream Enzymes in Mice

Background: The effects of whey protein intake on the transcriptional expression of genes related to lipid metabolism in mice were investigated herein. Methods: For 4 weeks, mice were fed AIN-93G composed of either casein or whey protein as the protein source. Then the gastrocnemius muscle, liver, and epididymal adipose tissue were excised. Expression levels of the transcription factors, PPARα, PPARγ, and SREBP1c, and those of the enzymes modulated by these factors, HSL, LPL, ACCα, and FAS, were measured by real-time PCR. The effects of whey protein were compared to those of the case in control. Results: The mRNA expression of PPARα was enhanced in the gastrocnemius muscle, while that of PPARγ was increased in the liver and epididymal adipose tissue. The expression of HSL and LPL was increased in the epididymal adipose tissue and gastrocnemius muscle, respectively. The mRNA expression of SREBP1c was suppressed in all of the three tissues. The expression of ACCα was suppressed in the gastrocnemius muscle and liver, while that of FAS was suppressed in all of the three tissues. Conclusions: These results indicate that whey protein intakes transcriptionally modulate PPARs and SREBP1c directing lipid metabolism toward the enhancement of triglyceride breakdown and suppression of fatty acid synthesis.
Rethinking typological universal , deontic > epistemic ― The case of Japanese modal marker ‘ monoda ’ ―

要旨 モダリティを表す語彙形態であるモーダルマーカーが、1つの形式で2つ以上のモダリ ティとして機能する多義性(polysemy)を持つことは異なる言語間で確認され、この多 義性は義務や許可を表す「行為拘束的モダリティ(deontic modality)」と話者の命題に対 する意見の表明を表す「認識的モダリティ(epistemic modality)」の間で議論される。 ま たこの多義性は「行為拘束的モダリティ」から「認識的モダリティ」が派生したものであ り、その逆ではないという文法化の「一方向性仮説(unidirectionality hypothesis)」が言 語類型論的普遍性(typological universal)であると見なされている。 しかし、最近では この類型論的普遍性である多義的アプローチに対して、モーダルマーカーは1つの中核的 意味特性からなり、どの用法を意味するかは文脈によって決定されるという単義的アプ ローチ(例:Kratser 1981, Papafragou 2000)が注目を集めている。 本研究では、複数の 機能をすると見なされている日本語のモーダルマーカー「ものだ」の「行為拘束的モダリ ティ」と「認識的モダリティ」の用法の関係を考察し、単義的アプローチによる説明の妥 当性を主張する。 分析において、機能主義言語学に基づく言語習得理論である「競合モデ ル(Competition Model)」(Bates & MacWhinney 1981)による「キュー(cue)」の概念 を用い、競合モデルが言語習得だけでなく文法化の分野においても適用可能であることを 述べたい。
On the Problem of Pillai with Tribonacci Numbers and Powers of 3

Consider the sequence$ |\{T_n\} _{n\geq 0}$ of Tribonacci numbers defined by $T _0 = 0$, $T_1 = 1$, $T_2 = 1$ and $T_{n+3 }= T_{n+2} + T _{n+1} + T_n$ for all $n \geq 0$. In this paper, we find all integers c admitting at least two representations as a difference between a Tribonacci number and a power of $3$.
Improving Waxy Maize, the Heritage of South East Asia

Amylose-free (waxy), i.e. amylopectin maize has been a vegetable and staple food in East and South-East Asia for centuries, resulting in hundreds of landraces (LR). Eating preferences could have resulted in the additional selection for different starch properties of waxy maize, of interest in the food and feed industry. But within twenty LR from Vietnam and Thailand, disappointingly no evidence was found for special starch properties. For minority ethnic groups waxy LR are still the main staple food, well liked for their soft grains with favorable cooking properties. But maize protein is severely lacking in quality that makes waxy maize an unsuitable staple food especially for small children. High quality protein maize (QPM) developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has 90% of the nutritive value of milk protein. We combined the recessive waxy and QPM alleles into modern high yielding lines resulting in double quality grains. In a second step this double quality was introgressed into two landraces of the Hmong minority by two backcrosses. Seeds are available now of the two improved waxy landraces, which possess high yield potential, high protein quality and good eating quality. Consumption of double-quality waxy maize as staple food will improve the diets of children, a good reason to produce it.
Powdery scab. Research in Switzerland

There is a long tradition of powdery scab research in Switzerland. As long ago as the 1920’s Nora Wild conducted investigations into the morphology of tuber infection and the influence of different environmental factors on the occurrence of the disease (Wild, 1929). Many years later, Diriwächter began work to see if the causal organism, S. subterranea, which is an obligate parasite, could be cultured on artificial media. In addition, he tested the ability of a range of chemicals to control the pathogen (Diriwächter, 1981).
Normal and delayed lexical acquisition in German

The acquisition of the lexicon is a central and complex component of child language development. It has received growing interest within psycholinguistic research and is becoming a field of study in its own right. At the same time, lexical development also interacts with acquisition processes in other linguistic domains. Therefore, early lexical capacities might be indicative of subsequent language skills. It is a question of crucial importance, whether certain capacities belong to the normal range of individual variation, or whether these capacities should rather be considered as an indication of a delayed or disturbed language acquisition process. To answer this question, empirically based knowledge about the normal course of vocabulary development within a particular language has first to be established. In this paper, a longitudinal study on early lexical acquisition in German is presented which deals with both descriptive and predictive aspects of lexical development.
Brief Criminal Attitude Scale

Dr. Taylor is Head of the Student Counselling Service at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a part-time psychotherapist to an institution for delinquent girls. He is a former university lecturer in psychology, prison psychologist, and probation officer who has authored many papers on various aspects of clinical and criminal psychology. In the research paper presented here, Dr. Taylor gives the results of a brief criminal attitude scale. It consists of a number of items that criminals were heard to express, and it was administered to various administratively classified groups of convicted offenders. The scale was also given to noncriminal groups in which reasonable precautions were taken to ensure that they were in fact noncriminal in behaviour as well as in law.
A simple statistical model on the degree of interconnection in partially molten rocks

The connectiveness of the melt phase strongly inf1uences physical properties of partially molten rock such as seismic absorption due to melt squirt or electri­ cal conductivity. The interrelation between the con­ nectiveness, the geometry and the fraction of melt is studied theoretically for the idealistic case of melt oc­ curring in ellipsoidal (spheroidal or penny-shaped) in­ clusions. A critical melt fraction leading to complete grain-boundary wetting is found ranging between 2<X and 5<x, where <X is the aspect ratio of the melt films. The probabiJity of overlapping of randomly distributed inclusions is estimated by a statistical approach. This prcbability depends on the melt fraction ß and the as­ peet ratio <X and is used to define (a) the degree of interconnection and (b) the mean number n of con­ nections to neighbouring inclusions. (a) may be impor­ tant for seismic absorption due to melt squirt, while (b) controls the electricaJ conductivity. The function n(lX, ß) is given approximately by 11 ~ (5.65 + 1.72j<X) ß. It is con­ cluded that in mantle regions of moderate seismic-ve­ locity decrease a reduced degree of interconnection might be important if melt occurs either in films or pockets.
FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF VIBRATIONS CAUSED BY A DEFECT IN THE OUTER RING OF A BALL BEARING

Rolling element bearings are important to nearly all forms of machinery. Fault diagnosis for rolling element bearings has traditionally been done using vibration analysis by identifying characteristic fault frequencies in the spectrum. This work has been done to complement the bearing fault diagnosis process. A preliminary vibration analysis of a rolling element passing over a single point defect on the outer ring of a ball bearing using FEA software ANSYS has been done. Vibration signals for two different defect sizes have been extracted and an index for comparison of different defect sizes has been proposed.
EXTRACTION OF PINEAPPLE LEAF FIBRE : JOSAPINE AND MORIS

Natural fiber especially pineapple leaf fiber (PALF) has so much to offer in the uprising world of industry. Hence tests have been carried out on two most common types of pineapple planted in Malaysia, which are Josapine and Moris. Josapine shows a better quality in terms of taste, leaf size and even easier to be extracted whilst maintaining good quality of fiber. Hence, more tests should be done to improve the quality of pineapple leaf fiber.
Multi-agent RL for Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

1 ABSTRACT Reinforcement learning has proven to be extremely successful at getting a single agent to solve a single goal. In real life, however, tasks often require the joint cooperation of many actors with different intentions, information, and abilities. Multi-agent systems introduce a significant degree of complexity. Recent work on multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) focuses on social dilemmas. In a social dilemma, the interests of an individual conflict with that of the group. Humans adeptly and intuitively solve social dilemmas by engaging in complex, temporally extended tasks like communication, punishment, and action prediction effectively working together towards a common goal while preventing free-riders from taking advantage of free work. Because social dilemmas require these complex interactions, they are a perfect setting to explore techniques in multi-agent reinforcement learning. Under these conditions, is it possible for artificial agents to learn the behaviors necessary to act in a prosocial manner? My work represents an initial step in exploring the challenges of multi-agent reinforcement learning in a social dilemma. I start by building a gridworld version of the classic prisoner’s dilemma and use the Asynchronous Actor-Critic Agents (A3C) algorithm to simultaneously learn the optimal policy for two agents. The training of independent agents with mutually dependent policies raises an issue of stability. I explore this issue along with the impact of discount rate, entropy, and fixed agent policies on cooperation. In the end, a hyperparameter search successfully results in fully cooperative behavior between two trained agents. However, the learned policy is naive and easily exploited by a human.