Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing and Evaluating Continuing Education Programs: Why and How?

I n the world of continuing higher education, we are being asked more than ever before to justify the quality of our programs, not only in terms of fiscal strength and revenue generation, but also in terms of instructional quality and responsiveness to the needs of learners and the marketplace. In the past, some continuing education practitioners viewed the assessment and evaluation of our continuing education programs as a necessary detail to convince our administrations and others of the value and quality of our programs. Assessment has occasionally been treated with too little respect in terms of its potential to improve the way we conduct our business on a day-to-day basis. The concept of evaluation as applied to continuing ed­ ucation programs is additionally complex due to our focus on adult learners and adult education. Vella, Berardinelli, and Burrow ( 1998) suggest that evaluating programs for adults must entail a . "process that respects the learner, is specific and clear about sequence, engages the learner from the beginning in response and analysis, and in fact uses all of the principles and practices of popular educa­ tion" (pg. 1 ) . The concept of respect for learners is key in adult and continuing education; it reflects a concern for the needs of learners and the demands of the marketplace that helps define the field. This article addresses the concepts of evaluation and assessment, not only as they relate to the particular program being evaluated, but to the systematic collection of data that can positively influence the quality of an overall continuing education operation. It explores the relationship between measurement, assessment, and evaluation, and addresses the question of why we should spend the time, effort, and resources necessary to conduct an effective evaluation and assessment program. In addition, this article considers the concept of a systematic assessment strategy for the institu­ tion or continuing education unit's overall program.
Impressions of an annual report: an experimental study

Considerable research has sought to establish the use of impression management in corporate annual reports (CARS), especially in depicting the reporting organisation in as favourable a light as possible. Whether there is a useful outcome from the perspective of influencing those being managed has not been addressed. Based on the evidence that impression management mainly occurs in the front half, an experiment was conducted to examine whether readers’ perceptions of a company's performance differed depending on their assigned reading. Four similar groups rated the performance of an organisation in terms of several dimensions after completing their reading task, but no significant differences were found. Respondents in three groups approximate what may be termed “sophisticated users”, perhaps not easily impressed by the front half. The fourth group, homogeneous at university level but without the same financial background, ranked financial performance higher. Implications are drawn about the effectiveness of impression management.
Calibrated integrated backscatter and myocardial fibrosis in patients undergoing cardiac surgery

Objective The reported association between calibrated integrated backscatter (cIB) and myocardial fibrosis is based on study of patients with dilated or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and extensive (mean 15–34%) fibrosis. Its association with lesser degrees of fibrosis is unknown. We examined the relationship between cIB and myocardial fibrosis in patients with coronary artery disease. Methods Myocardial histology was examined in left ventricular epicardial biopsies from 40 patients (29 men and 11 women) undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery, who had preoperative echocardiography with cIB measurement. Results Total fibrosis (picrosirius red staining) varied from 0.7% to 4%, and in contrast to previous reports, cIB showed weak inverse associations with total fibrosis (r=−0.32, p=0.047) and interstitial fibrosis (r=−0.34, p=0.03). However, cIB was not significantly associated with other histological parameters, including immunostaining for collagens I and III, the advanced glycation end product (AGE) Nε-(carboxymethyl)lysine (CML) and the receptor for AGEs (RAGE). When biomarkers were examined, cIB was weakly associated with log plasma levels of amino-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (r=0.34, p=0.03), creatinine (r=0.33, p=0.04) and glomerular filtration rate (r=−0.33, p=0.04), and was more strongly associated with log plasma levels of soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1) (r=0.44, p=0.01) and soluble RAGE (r=0.53, p=0.002). Conclusions Higher cIB was not a marker of increased myocardial fibrosis in patients with coronary artery disease, but was associated with higher plasma levels of sVEGFR-1 and soluble RAGE. The role of cIB as a non-invasive index of fibrosis in clinical studies of patients without extensive fibrosis is, therefore, questionable.
Domestication through the Centuries: Darwins Ideas and Dmitry Belyaevs Long-Term Experiment in Silver Foxes

El problema del origen de los animales y plantas domesticos, y los medios por los cuales fueron producidos a lo largo de la historia humana, eran de profundo interes para Charles Darwin que consideraba la domesticacion como one grand experiment en evolucion. En primer lugar, elaboro una analogia entre la seleccion artifcial, por la cual los criadores obtenian caracteres deseados en especies domesticas, y la seleccion natural, la poderosa fuerza conductora de la evolucion en la naturaleza. Al mismo tiempo, Darwin distinguio dos procesos dentro de la seleccion artifcial: seleccion metodica y seleccion inconsciente. Adjudico gran importancia a esta ultima ya que podia producir cambios graduales inesperados asociados a aquellos caracteres conscientemente seleccionados. Aunque la analogia seleccion natural/seleccion artifcial fue inicialmente controvertida, demostro ser extremadamente util para establecer la realidad de la seleccion natural como el factor clave de la evolucion. De todos modos, los mecanismos involucrados en el proceso de domesticacion eran ampliamente desconocidos y planteaban problemas intrigantes como las causas subyacentes a las recurrentes similaridades morfologicas, fsiologicas y comportamentales que aparecian en distintas especies de animales domesticos. Un distinguido genetista ruso, Dmitry K. Belyaev, propuso que la domesticacion era regida por un proceso de seleccion desestabilizadora que afecta los mecanismos de control neuroendocrino de la ontogenesis directa o indirectamente en respuesta a la aparicion de un factor de stress. Tambien sugirio que el factor clave de la domesticacion, que producia sorprendentes resultados similares en muchas species, es la seleccion para mansedumbre (tameness). Entonces, en 1959, diseno un experimento a largo plazo de domesticacion de zorros silvestres (Vulpes vulpes), en el cual los zorros eran exclusivamente seleccionados para mansedumbre. Actualmente, casi 50 generaciones despues, cerca del 100% de la poblacion experimental busca contacto activo con los humanos exhibiendo un comportamiento tipicamente perruno que ha sido directamente relacionado a modifcaciones neuroendocrinas ontogeneticas. Los zorros domesticados tambien exhiben caracteristicas morfologicas, fsiologicas y reproductivas tipicamente perrunas. En este ensayo, paso revista a las ideas de Darwin sobre domesticacion y luego me enfoco en el experimento, aun en marcha, de Belyaev y las consecuencias de sus resultados para la teoria de la domesticacion y la evolucion.
Determinants of Decision Rule Use in a Production Planning Task

Abstract A wide array of decision rules capable of significantly enhancing decision-making performance across a range of tasks has been available for many years. Unfortunately, decision makers have stubbornly resisted using them. The present research investigates factors that might encourage decision rule use. In a simulated production planning task, 157 subjects were offered the recommendations of a simple but powerful decision rule. In the base case, subjects underestimated the usefulness of the rule and were vastly outperformed by it. Two interventions aimed at increasing use of the decision rule were examined: (1) giving subjects explicit feedback comparing their performance with how well they would have done had they used the rule and (2) providing them an explicit description of the rule′s performance benefits. Feedback on performance relative to the rule substantially increased perceived usefulness of the rule, rule-usage behavior, and decision performance. Rule description had a less clear effect. There was no overall significant effect of rule description on perceived usefulness or performance, although there was a significant overall effect on two measures of rule-following behavior. This increased rule-following behavior translated into significant performance improvements for the groups not receiving feedback, but not for the groups receiving feedback. We conclude that showing decision makers the benefits of using a decision rule via explicit aggregate feedback comparing rule and non-rule performance is an effective and underutilized way to increase their perceptions of the rule′s usefulness, their use of the rule, and their decision-making performance. Explicitly describing the performance characteristics is a secondary significant determinant of rule usage, especially recommended in cases where it is not feasible to provide aggregate outcome feedback.
The Incidence of Deep Venous Thrombosis After Arthroscopic Knee Surgery

We retrospectively reviewed the records of 2050 arthroscopic knee surgeries performed at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital from January 1993 to December 1994. The number of clinically detected deep venous thromboses, with confirmation by duplex ultrasonography, was determined. Prospectively, preoperative and postoperative duplex ultrasonographic images were completed on 239 patients divided into 2 groups: those undergoing nonligament, intraarticular arthroscopic surgery (N 131) and those undergoing arthroscopically assisted ligament surgery and extraarticular or osteotomy surgery (N 108). For the retrospective study, the incidence of deep venous thrombosis was 0.24%. Prospectively, seven total deep venous thromboses were identified (rate, 2.9%), with five being identified within 8 days of surgery in asymptomatic patients (rate, 2.1%). There were no statistically significant associations or correlations between the development of deep venous thrombosis and patient personal data or surgical variables, respectively. The difference in the rate of deep venous thrombosis between the two prospective groups was not statistically significant; however, patients who had more invasive surgery tended to be at higher risk for developing deep venous thrombosis. A cost-benefit analysis did not support the routine use of duplex ultrasonography to detect deep venous thrombosis in patients undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery.
2 Diversity in Ensemble Feature Selection

Ensembles of learnt models constitute one of the main current directions in machine learning and data mining. Ensembles allow us to achieve higher accuracy, which is often not achievable with single models. It was shown theoretically and experimentally that in order for an ensemble to be effective, it should consist of high-accuracy base classifiers that should have high diversity in their predictions. One technique, which proved to be effective for constructing an ensemble of accurate and diverse base classifiers, is to use different feature subsets, or so-called ensemble feature selection. Many ensemble feature selection strategies incorporate diversity as a component of the fitness function in the search for the best collection of feature subsets. There are known a number of ways to quantify diversity in ensembles of classifiers, and little research has been done about their appropriateness to ensemble feature selection. In this paper, we compare seven measures of diversity with regard to their possible use in ensemble feature selection. We conduct experiments on 21 data sets from the UCI machine learning repository, comparing the ensemble accuracy and other characteristics for the ensembles built with ensemble feature selection based on the considered measures of diversity. We consider five search strategies for ensemble feature selection: simple random subsampling, genetic search, hill-climbing, ensemble forward and backward sequential selection. In the experiments, we show that, in some cases, the ensemble feature selection process can be sensitive to the choice of the diversity measure, and that the question of the superiority of a particular measure depends on the context of the use of diversity and on the data being processed.
TRANSFORMING RHETORICAL DOCUMENT PROFILE INTO TAILORED SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC PAPER

Since abstract of scientific paper is author biased, readers’ required information may not be included in the abstract. Tailored summary may help them to get a summary based on their information needs. This research is the first one that implements tailored summary system for scientific paper. Tailored summary applies information extraction that transforms a scientific paper into Rhetorical Document Profile, a structured representation of paper content based on rhetorical scheme of fifteen slots. This research adapted building plan that used rhetorical scheme of seven slots. We also implement tailored summary system. After generating initial summary, surface repair is conducted to improve summary readability. Each sentence in initial summary is combined with template phrase based on syntax-tree combination method. There are five groups of template phrases provided in surface repair. We construct evaluation standards by asking five human raters. The best method for sentence selection subsystem that uses Maximal Marginal Importance-Multi Sentence is employing TF.IDF weighting system with precision/recall of 0.61. The surface repair subsystem has acceptance of 0.91.
Organizations Working Together

Interorganizational Networks A New Institution A Typology of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships and Networks What is Coordination? Environmental Determinants of Network Systems External Control and Technology Structural Properties Centrality, Size, Complexity, Differentiation, and Connectedness Conflict and Interorganizational Effectiveness The Failure of Evolution Theoretical Implications, Practical Recommendations, and Global Applications
Employment, Sense of Coherence, and Identity Formation

The present study investigated the influence of contextual (i.e., being in college vs. being employed) and psychological (i.e., sense of coherence) processes on achieving a sense of adulthood in a sample of 317 emerging adults. Identity formation, conceptualized as multiple dimensions of exploration and of commitment, was conceived of as a mediator of these relationships. Individuals who perceive themselves as adults scored higher on commitment and lower on ruminative exploration than those who do not perceive themselves as full-fledged adults. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that the relationships of sense of coherence and attending college versus being employed to sense of adulthood were partially mediated by identity formation—and by the dimension of commitment making in particular. Being employed and scoring high on sense of coherence are directly and indirectly (through making stronger identity commitments) related to a greater sense of adulthood. Implications and suggestions for future research are outlined.
Tuberous Sclerosis 1 Promotes Invariant NKT Cell Anergy and Inhibits Invariant NKT Cell–Mediated Antitumor Immunity

Development of effective immune therapies for cancer patients requires better understanding of hurdles that prevent the generation of effective antitumor immune responses. Administration of α-galactosylceramide (α-GalCer) in animals enhances antitumor immunity via activation of the invariant NKT (iNKT) cells. However, repeated injections of α-GalCer result in long-term unresponsiveness or anergy of iNKT cells, severely limiting its efficacy in tumor eradication. The mechanisms leading to iNKT cell anergy remain poorly understood. We report in this study that the tuberous sclerosis 1 (TSC1), a negative regulator of mTOR signaling, plays a crucial role in iNKT cell anergy. Deficiency of TSC1 in iNKT cells results in resistance to α-GalCer–induced anergy, manifested by increased expansion of and cytokine production by iNKT cells in response to secondary Ag stimulation. It is correlated with impaired upregulation of programmed death-1, Egr2, and Grail. Moreover, TSC1-deficient iNKT cells display enhanced antitumor immunity in a melanoma lung metastasis model. Our data suggest targeting TSC1/2 as a strategy for boosting antitumor immune therapy.
BEST: Next-Generation Biomedical Entity Search Tool for Knowledge Discovery from Biomedical Literature

As the volume of publications rapidly increases, searching for relevant information from the literature becomes more challenging. To complement standard search engines such as PubMed, it is desirable to have an advanced search tool that directly returns relevant biomedical entities such as targets, drugs, and mutations rather than a long list of articles. Some existing tools submit a query to PubMed and process retrieved abstracts to extract information at query time, resulting in a slow response time and limited coverage of only a fraction of the PubMed corpus. Other tools preprocess the PubMed corpus to speed up the response time; however, they are not constantly updated, and thus produce outdated results. Further, most existing tools cannot process sophisticated queries such as searches for mutations that co-occur with query terms in the literature. To address these problems, we introduce BEST, a biomedical entity search tool. BEST returns, as a result, a list of 10 different types of biomedical entities including genes, diseases, drugs, targets, transcription factors, miRNAs, and mutations that are relevant to a user’s query. To the best of our knowledge, BEST is the only system that processes free text queries and returns up-to-date results in real time including mutation information in the results. BEST is freely accessible at http://best.korea. ac.kr.
The role of HMG-CoA reductase inhibition in endothelial dysfunction and inflammation

Statin-induced inhibition of HMG-CoA reductase reduces cholesterol production and prevents the formation of many non-steroidal isoprenoid compounds, such as farnesylpyrophosphate and geranylgeranylpyrophosphate, that act as lipid attachments for the post-translational modification of various proteins, including the G-proteins and transcription factors involved in a number of cell processes. However, the blockade of isoprenylation elicited by statin treatment also has biological effects on cell function that go beyond the decrease in cholesterol synthesis: these are the so-called “pleiotropic” effects that mainly relate to vascular function. Endothelial dysfunction is an independent predictor of cardiovascular events that correlates with inflammation markers/mediators and robust predictors of cardiovascular diseases such as increased high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels. The results of in vivo and in vitro studies indicate that the statins have beneficial effects unrelated to cholesterol lowering, such as improving endothelial function, increasing myocardial perfusion, and enhancing the availability of nitric oxide. This review describes the pleiotropic effects of statins that may be involved in modulating/preventing endothelial dysfunction and inflammatory processes, as well as the cellular and molecular mechanisms through which they improve endothelial function.
Civil war in alcohol policy: Northern versus southern Europe

The attitudes of Room and the alcohol public policy field he represents are well-captured by his slighting reference to John Tierney’s consistently well-written pieces in the New York Times addressing conflicts of interest. Room (2010) simply dismisses Tierney – a wellinformed and acute observer of the scientific scene writing for the most influential American newspaper – on the grounds: ‘‘Mocking quotes from newspaper science writers should not deflect us . ’’. Room thinks it obvious that readers should simply endorse his refusal even to consider the thoughts of an opinion leader in a venue read by millions of people. Tierney (2010) addressed exactly this Olympian perspective:
David Abercrombie, Elements of General Phonetics . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966. Pp. 203.

This 200-page book by a distinguished author in the field of phonetics has been reviewed at some length, not only because of its intrinsic interest, but importantly also because in recent years the subject of phonetics has received less than the attention it deserves in the context of general linguistics in this country. Although the book is ostensibly intended as a textbook for students with no prior knowledge of phonetics, it none the less demands the reader's close attention and, embodying as it does the author's theoretical position in relation to his subject, it has to be seen against a deeper background than a students' beginning class in phonetics. Any criticisms that follow will be taken, it is hoped, as constructively intended to contribute to discussion, not least about the part to be played by phonetics as the study of meaningful pronunciation in the rapidly widening field of the general study of language. In an age of abstractions, in which the close study of language is too often missing from a highly abstract linguistics, phonetics has a major contribution to make to striking the balance between fact and theoretical fiction. The book is written, with few exceptions, in the fluent, readable style that one has come to associate with the author. Perhaps, indeed, for evidently pedagogical reasons, it sometimes reads a little too well but, first, the overall strategy of the book. It opens with an introductory chapter on language and what is called MEDIUM (SC. speech, writing, etc.) which, though at times a little jargonesque, contains much of interest. Here there is the promise of a new and illuminating way of considering the facts of pronunciation, and although for his part the reviewer would have preferred to see stress laid rather on the importance of phonetics to the rapidly expanding fields of socioand psycho-linguistics (so far more socioand psychothan linguistic in emphasis), nevertheless the forward-looking spirit in the concluding paragraph of the first chapter is indeed welcome. In it the author sees the phonetician's object of study as 'the aural medium in all its aspects' and foresees a 'broader subject, which would study language mediums in general all aspects of all existing and potential mediums, and the relations between them. Phonetics as we know it today would be only a part of this new subject, but also its ancestor, for it is already showing signs of broadening its scope and of developing in this direction*. It is not wholly clear what the author has in mind (although the call is reminiscent of de Saussure's appeal for the creation of a new semiotics) and, unfortunately, the theme is not subsequently developed, but the willingness shown to experiment and accept change must be welcomed and if the suggestion is that a great need exists to