Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Closing the Loop: Building Synergy for Learning through a Professional Development MOOC about Flipped Teaching

This case study describes how a MOOC, funded through an NSF grant, was used to create and assess faculty professional development. The MOOC, designed and developed using a backward design process, guided participants through an online project-based learning experience that integrated learning about the flipped classroom and about how to flip a classroom as the participants designed flipped teaching materials. The course structure involved an introduction to flipped teaching and learning content, experimented with flipped ideas and concepts, and emphasized reflection and sharing of experiences with peers. Although mentoring faculty in flipped pedagogical design was the primary MOOC goal, the project also provided insights about assessing the MOOC and the personal learning experiences of MOOC participants. MOOC developers concluded that, depending on the purpose of the MOOC, course designers and instructors may need to rethink what they are assessing, and broaden their perspectives regarding how to assess what is important. Closing the assessment loop and monitoring continuous improvement may be alternative strategies for assessing learning, boosting MOOC effectiveness, and documenting conceptual change.
Narrowing the Agronomic Yield Gaps of Maize by Improved Soil, Cultivar, and Agricultural Management Practices in Different Climate Zones of Northeast China

AbstractNortheast China (NEC) is one of the major agricultural production areas in China, producing about 30% of China’s total maize output. In the past five decades, maize yields in NEC increased rapidly. However, farmer yields still have potential to be increased. Therefore, it is important to quantify the impacts of agronomic factors, including soil physical properties, cultivar selections, and management practices on yield gaps of maize under the changing climate in NEC in order to provide reliable recommendations to narrow down the yield gaps. In this study, the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM)-Maize model was used to separate the contributions of soil physical properties, cultivar selections, and management practices to maize yield gaps. The results indicate that approximately 5%, 12%, and 18% of potential yield loss of maize is attributable to soil physical properties, cultivar selection, and management practices. Simulation analyses showed that potential ascensions of yield of mai.
Control of contamination and explant browning in Curculigo latifolia in vitro cultures

Curculin, which is extracted from fruits of Curculigo latifolia has been found to have a sweet taste with sweetness-modifying characteristics of natural sweeteners and has been shown to be a good lowcalorie sweetener. In vitro growth performance of C. latifolia cultures is limited by contamination and browning. This study was aimed to minimize the effect of phenolic components, eliminate contamination and identify suitable explants for in vitro regeneration of C. latifolia. Our results showed that the use of ascorbic acid, citric acid, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), bavistin and chloramphinicol (0.1%) for 9 h significantly reduced the shoot tip explants browning. This pre-treatment was followed by 70% ethanol for 90 s, 30% Clorox ® and Tween 20 for 15 min, mercuric chloride (0.1%) for 5 min, and 10% Clorox ® for 10 min for eliminating contaminants. This technique reduced contamination (62.5% aseptic) with high survival rate (100%) of shoot tip explants. In petiole explants, pre-treatment with ascorbic acid, citric acid, PVP, bavistin, chloramphinicol and streptomycin (0.1%) for 9 h followed by the same sterilization technique significantly reduced browning and contamination (83.3% aseptic), but the percentage survival of explants was only 49.2%. Beside, rejuvenation of explants from petiole was difficult when compared to shoot tip cultures. The results showed that this technique was more efficient in sterilization of shoot tip tissue than petioles.
Prediction of meteorological and hydrological phenomena by different climatic scenarios in the Karkheh watershed (south west of Iran)

This research evaluates effects of climatic change on future temperature, precipitation and flow discharge in the Karkheh watershed (a watershed in south west of Iran). For this purpose, it utilizes general circulation models (GCMs) and the non parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test. Considered hydrometric station is the Jelogir station at the upstream of the Karkheh dam. Base time period is 1971-2014 and future time period is 2030- 2073 for prediction of meteorological and hydrometric phenomena in the Jelogir station. For GCM model, the Canadian Climate Change Scenarios Network (CCCSN) database represents data of HadCM3 model for A2 and B2 scenarios. For using in a watershed, this research applies SDSM downscaling model and introduces predicted precipitation and temperature of future time period to IHACRES model for prediction of flow discharge. Also the non parametric Mann-Kendall trend test and the Theil–Sen approach (TSA) estimator distinguishes trend of observed and predicted data. Results of scenarios A2 and B2 have not much difference. Different climatic scenarios show that temperature increases and precipitation and flow discharge decrease, also MK test and TSA estimator represent that slope of their variations will slow down in future and most of changes are related to winter and spring.
An Approach to Pinpointing Bug-Induced Failure in Logs of Open Cloud Platforms

Software bugs have been one of the dominantcauses of system failures, especially in cloud systems basedon open source platforms. One big challenge fortroubleshooting these cloud systems is to pinpoint thesoftware bug-induced failure in large and complex log fileswhich is a nightmare for administrators. So far, there hasbeen little study on how to identity bug-induced failuresbased on log analysis. In this paper, we analyze and describefeatures of bug-induced failure logs from bug repository and Q&A websites, and then propose a general automaticapproach to pinpoint logs of bug-induced failure from logfiles of open cloud platform. In the approach, two algorithmscalled MPIN and SPIN are presented for log classification. We evaluate our approach by applying logs collected frombug repositories of OpenStack and Hadoop, and five Q&A websites. The experimental result shows that the proposedapproach can identify logs of bug-induced failure inOpenStack logs with 83.9% precision, and for Hadoop logswith 82.52% precision.
The role of dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion as buffers in the relationship between negative life events and symptoms of depression

Scope Previous research has shown that significant relationships exist between the constructs of mindfulness, self-compassion, negative life events and psychological distress, specifically depression. It is well established that both mindfulness and self-compassion are positively associated with psychological health (Baer, 2003; Keng, Smoski & Robins, 2011; MacBeth & Gumley, 2012), and that each helps individuals to cope with negative life events, resulting in lower levels of depression (e.g. Bergomi, Ströhle, Michalak, Funke & Berking, 2013; Bohlmeijer, Prenger, Taal & Cuijpers, 2010; Hall et al., 2013; Johnson & O’Brien, 2013). Mindfulness and self-compassion have also been shown to be related constructs, but their respective roles in the relationship between negative life events and depression remain unclear (e.g. Bluth & Blanton, 2014; Hollis.Walker! &! Colosimo,! 2011). Purpose The present study sought to examine the individual and combined contributions of trait mindfulness and self-compassion in the prediction of depressive symptoms in the presence of negative life events. Specifically, the study aimed to the consider the following; (1) the relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion; (2) the independent relationships that mindfulness, self-compassion and negative life events each have with symptoms of depression, and; (3) the independent and combined moderation effects of mindfulness and self-compassion in the relationship between negative life events and symptoms of depression. Methodology A total of 654 participants were recruited from the general public and psychology undergraduates at the University of Newcastle. After deleting multivariate outliers, this left 649 participants, mean age 30.6 years (range=17-82 years), with 510 females (79%) and 139 males (21%). An online questionnaire, which was part of a larger study, was administered using Lime Survey software. The questionnaire took approximately 40-50 minutes to complete and included a number of different measures, some of which were not relevant for the current study. Within this study, the following questionnaires were analysed; The Five Facet Mindfulness MINDFULNESS AND SELF-COMPASSION !
Challenging the hierarchical categorization of luxury fashion brands

The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics through which consumers structure the heterogeneous field of luxury fashion brands, and to discuss how the distinguishing characteristics become meaningful for consumers. The empirical data was generated through 12 personal interviews, which were elicited with free sorting tasks with brand cards depicting luxury fashion brands. The findings show that luxury fashion brands are categorized in more diverse ways than just by applying brand-related characteristics. Instead, the consumers determine and interpret these characteristics in relation to other brands and reflect them against their personal consumption experiences as well as the social context and time. Thus, the brands were not necessarily organized in hierarchical order (higher – lower degree of luxury). The study extends the understanding of the fragmented luxury fashion field, where previous research has emphasized the product perspective and neglected the consumers’ interpretations of what constitutes luxury.
Reducing Transmitted Vibration Using Delayed Hysteretic Suspension

Previous numerical and experimental works show that time delay technique is efficient to reduce transmissibility of vibration in a single pneumatic chamber by controlling the pressure in the chamber. The present work develops an analytical study to demonstrate the effectiveness of such a technique in reducing transmitted vibrations. A quarter-car model is considered and delayed hysteretic suspension is introduced in the system. Analytical predictions based on perturbation analysis show that a delayed hysteretic suspension enhances vibration isolation comparing to the case where the nonlinear damping is delay-independent.
Enhanced Class-Dependent Classification of Audio Signals

The process of Audio Signal Classification (ASC) involves the extraction of features from sound and the use of these features to identify the class it belongs to. There are many possible applications for ASC including for example speech recognition, audio database creation and information retrieval, health condition monitoring, audio scene analysis, etc. While relevant features have been well studied and identified for speech signals, they are relatively less studied for other types of audio signals. Considering the fact that different classes of audio signals have their own unique characteristics, the idea of class-dependent feature selection and classification is examined in this paper. In particular, the paper uses a class-dependent method based on a proposed scatter-matrix based class separability ranking measure to select a highly relevant feature subset for each type of the audio signals. An effective training model is also incorporated into the proposed method. The support vector machine with radial basis function kernel is then used as the classifier. Experiments have been conducted on speech and two other types of audio sounds, i.e., coughing and the sound generated when a cup touches a plate or vice versa. Compared to some recently published methods, the proposed class-dependent ASC method requires fewer features and is able to achieve the same or better classification accuracy.
econstor Make Your Publications Visible . A Service of zbw

In this paper we investigate the analytical and empirical linkages between firms’ capital investment behavior and financial frictions arising from asymmetric information, proxied by firms’ liquidity and degree of uncertainty. Measures of intrinsic and extrinsic uncertainty are derived from firms’ daily stock returns and S&P 500 index returns along with a CAPM-based risk measure. We employ a panel of U.S. manufacturing firm data obtained from COMPUSTAT over the 1984–2003 period. Financial frictions captured by interactions between firms’ cash flow and both intrinsic and CAPM -based measures of uncertainty have a significant negative impact on firms’ investment spending, while extrinsic uncertainty has a positive impact.
Out-Group ' s Culture Enacting Cultural Interests : How Intergroup Contact Reduces Prejudice by Sparking Interest in an

In the present research, we examined the hypothesis that cues of social connectedness to a member of another social group can spark interest in the group’s culture, and that such interest, when freely enacted, contributes to reductions in intergroup prejudice. In two pilot studies and Experiment 1, we found that extant and desired cross-group friendships and cues of social connectedness to an out-group member predicted increased interest in the target group’s culture. In Experiments 2 and 3, we manipulated cues of social connectedness between non–Latino American participants and a Latino American (i.e., Mexican American) peer and whether participants freely worked with this peer on a Mexican cultural task. This experience reduced the participants’ implicit bias against Latinos, an effect that was mediated by increased cultural engagement, and, 6 months later in an unrelated context, improved intergroup outcomes (e.g., interest in interacting with Mexican Americans; Experiment 4). The Discussion section addresses the interand intragroup benefits of policies that encourage people to express and share diverse cultural interests in mainstream settings.
SIRE-DP-2008-15 CHEBYSHEV POLYNOMIAL APPROXIMATION TO APPROXIMATE PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

This pa per suggests a simple method based on Chebyshev approximation at Chebyshev nodes to approximate partial differential equations. The methodology simply consists in determining the value function by using a set of nodes and basis functions. We provide two examples. Pricing an European option and determining the best policy for chatting down a machinery. The suggested method is flexible, easy to program and efficient. It is also applicable in other fields, providing efficient solutions to complex systems of partial differential equations. JEL Classification: C63, G12
A Randomized Trial of Silymarin for the Treatment of Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis Short title : Silymarin for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Background & Aims: Silymarin is a complex mixture of 6 major flavonol ignans and other minor polyphenolic compounds derived from the milk thistle plant Silybum marianum; it has shown anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-fibr otic effects, and may be useful in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We aimed to study the efficacy of silymarin in patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NAS H)—the more severe form of NAFLD. Methods: We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebocontrolled trial of consecutive adults with biopsy-proven NASH and a NAFLD activity score (NAS) of 4 or more at a tertiary care hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, f rom November 2012 through August 2014. Patients were randomly assigned to groups giv en silymarin (700 mg; n=49 patients) or placebo (n=50 patients) 3 times daily for 48 weeks. After this 48-week period, liver biopsies were repeated. The primary efficacy outcome was a d ecrease of 30% or more in NAS; findings from 48-week liver biopsies were compared with those from the baseline biopsy. Secondary outcomes included changes in steatosis, l bular inflammation, hepatocyte ballooning, NAS and fibrosis score, and anthropomet ric measurements, as well as glycaemic, lipid, and liver profiles and liver stiffness measu rements. Results: The percentage of patients achieving the primary efficacy outcome did not differ significantly between the groups (32.7% in the sily marin group vs 26.0% in the placebo group; P=.467). A significantly higher proportion of patien ts in the silymarin group had reductions in fibrosis based on histology (reductio ns f 1 point or more), (22.4%) than the placebo group (6.0%) ( P=.023), and based on liver stiffness measurements ( decrease of 30% or more) (24.2%) than the placebo group (2.3%) ( P=.002). The silymarin group also had significant reductions in mean aspartate aminotrans fera e to platelet ratio index (reduction of 0.14, P=.011 compared with baseline), fibrosis-4 score (re duction of 0.20, P=.041 compared with baseline), and NAFLD fibrosis score (reduction of 0.30, P<.001 compared with M AN US CR IP T AC CE PT ED ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 5 baseline); these changes were not observed in the p lac bo group (reduction of 0.07, P=.154; increase of 0.18, P=.389; and reduction of 0.05, P=0.845, respectively). There was no significant difference between groups in number of adverse events; adverse events that occurred were not attributed to silymarin. Conclusion: In a randomized trial of 99 patients, we found th at silymarin (700 mg, given 3 times daily for 48 weeks) did not reduce NAS scores by 30% or more in a significantly larger proportion of patients with NASH than placebo. Sily marin may reduce liver fibrosis but this remains to be confirmed in a larger trial. It appea rs to be safe and well-tolerated. ClinicalTrials.gov no: NCT02006498.
Molecular characterization and virus neutralization patterns of 1 severe , non-epizootic forms of feline calicivirus infections 2 resembling virulent systemic disease in cats in Switzerland and in 3 Liechtenstein 4

27 Feline calicivirus (FCV) infections are associated with oral ulceration, chronic 28 stomatitis and a limping syndrome. Epizootic outbreaks of virulent systemic disease 29 (VSD) have been reported in the USA and Europe. Here, the molecular 30 characterization and neutralization patterns of FCV isolates from cases of severe, 31 non-epizootic infection associated with skin ulceration and edema are presented. 32 Samples from eleven symptomatic cats, four in-contact cats and 27 cats with no 33 contact with symptomatic cats were collected and tested for FCV, feline herpesvirus34 1 (FHV-1), feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). 35 Phylogenetic analyses based on the capsid (VP1) gene of FCV and virus 36 neutralization with antisera raised against four FCV vaccine strains were performed. 37 Nine kittens and two adult cats in two shelters and two veterinary clinics in four 38 geographically distinct locations in Switzerland and Liechtenstein were affected. The 39 cats showed fever, tongue and skin ulceration, head and paw edema, and 40 occasionally jaundice, generalized edema and dyspnea. All symptomatic cats tested 41 FCV-positive but were negative for FHV-1, FeLV and FIV, with the exception of one 42 FIV-positive kitten. All kittens of one litter and both adult cats died. The disease did 43 not spread to cats in the environment. Cats in the environment displayed 44 phylogenetically distinct, but related, FCV strains. Virus neutralization patterns 45 suggested that some cases might have been potentially prevented by vaccination 46 with the optimal vaccine strain. In conclusion, clinicians should be aware of severe, 47 non-epizootic forms of FCV infections with initial clinical presentations similar to VSD. 48
Realization of Microstrip Bandpass Filter Balun Using Double - Sided Parallel - Strip Line with Novel Coupling Scheme

In this paper, we propose a microstrip fllter balun adopting double-sided parallel-strip line (DSPSL) with a conductor plane inserted in the middle of the substrate. Fed by the DSPSL at input port, two microstrip fllters on top and bottom layers are excited simultaneously, with the frequency-independent out-of-phase feature obtained between two output ports. The proposed fllter balun exhibits excellent performance with good frequency selectivity because of multiple transmission zeros generated by a new coupling scheme. Finally, a fllter balun sample is designed and fabricated, and good agreement is obtained between its measured and simulated S- parameters.
Analysis of Offset Antennas in Radio Telescopes

We present an analysis on the performance of two popular dual offset antennas design, i.e. the offset Cassegrain and Gregorian reflector antennas. In our study, we have adopted the design parameters for the Cassegrain configuration used in the Atacama Large Milimeter Array (ALMA) project. Modifications on the original parameters are made so as to meet the design requirement of the offset configurations. To reduce spillover loss, we have adjusted the angle between the axis of the primary reflector and that of the sub-reflector to 0.20o. The results obtained from the physical optics computation show that the amplitude at the main lobe of the Gregorian configuration is approximately 74.02 dB, while that of the Cassegrain configuration is approximately 74 dB. The maximum (relative) side lobe level, SLLdB for the Cassegrain and Gregorian configurations are found as -3.67 dB and -3.69 dB respectively. Although the magnitude of the main lobe for both configurations is comparable, the Gregorian antenna gives relatively lower SLLdB. In other words, the Gregorian configuration performs relatively better than its Cassegrainian counterpart.
POINT CLOUD AND DIGITAL SURFACE MODEL GENERATION FROM HIGH RESOLUTION MULTIPLE VIEW STEREO SATELLITE IMAGERY

Abstract. Nowadays, multiple-view stereo satellite imagery has become a valuable data source for digital surface model generation and 3D reconstruction. In 2016, a well-organized multiple view stereo publicly benchmark for commercial satellite imagery has been released by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA. This benchmark motivates us to explore the method that can generate accurate digital surface models from a large number of high resolution satellite images. In this paper, we propose a pipeline for processing the benchmark data to digital surface models. As a pre-procedure, we filter all the possible image pairs according to the incidence angle and capture date. With the selected image pairs, the relative bias-compensated model is applied for relative orientation. After the epipolar image pairs’ generation, dense image matching and triangulation, the 3D point clouds and DSMs are acquired. The DSMs are aligned to a quasi-ground plane by the relative bias-compensated model. We apply the median filter to generate the fused point cloud and DSM. By comparing with the reference LiDAR DSM, the accuracy, the completeness and the robustness are evaluated. The results show, that the point cloud reconstructs the surface with small structures and the fused DSM generated by our pipeline is accurate and robust.