Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“A Job Too Big for One”: Multiple Principals and Other Nontraditional Approaches to School Leadership

Background: Current federal, state, and local school accountability measures as well as policy initiatives that call for improved leadership have placed increasing demands on principals. Many districts face shortages of appropriate candidates for the job; popularly, this shortage is explained by the fact that simply too few hero-principals exist for all openings available, particularly in high-needs districts. An alternative to finding the perfect—and rare—candidate for an increasingly untenable position is to restructure the job itself. Purpose: This article examines 10 schools that have adopted alternative structures: schools with two principals, three principals, and rotating principals and a school with the principal’s duties distributed among teachers. These 10 sites provide examples of alternative ways of organizing school leadership with varying benefits and challenges. Research Methods: Data collection at the 10 schools included site visits conducted by a team of researchers, interviews with principals, teacher leaders, and district supervisors. Observational and interview protocols were adapted from the Northwestern University Distributed Leadership Study. These protocols focus on uncovering not only how school site leaders explain their decisions but also on providing evidence of what those decisions are. Interview and observational data were organized into thematic codes to permit cross-case comparison. Findings: We observed the idiosyncratic ways in which schools and districts approached the policy dilemmas associated with attempts to change the default administrative structure of principal and assistant principal. Some schools with coprincipals, for example, thrived; others struggled. Where local school sites participated actively with the policy-making process that produced these arrangements, the alternative seemed viable. Where alternatives were imposed without school input, implementation floundered. The findings analyze the origins of the reforms, school site roles, costs and benefits, the role of the district, and the long-term stability of the approach. Implications: In this article, we describe the experiences of 10 schools that have experimented with alternative arrangements for school site leadership. These experiences offer schools, districts, school boards, and researchers a series of questions to consider as they contemplate reforming the principalship itself rather than (or in addition to) preparing and searching for competent principals.
Do sleep diffi culties exacerbate defi cits in sustained attention following traumatic brain injury ?

Sustained attention has been shown to be vulnerable following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Sleep restriction and disturbances have been shown to negatively affect sustained attention. Sleep disorders are common but under-diagnosed after TBI. Thus, it seems possible that sleep disturbances may exacerbate neuropsychological defi cits for a proportion of individuals who have sustained a TBI. The aim of this prospective study was to examine whether poor sleepers post-TBI had poorer sustained and general attentional functioning than good sleepers post-TBI. Retrospective subjective, prospective subjective, and objective measures were used to assess participants’ sleep. The results showed that the poor sleep group had signifi cantly poorer sustained attention ability than the good sleep group. The differences on other measures of attention were not signifi cant. This study supports the use of measures that capture specifi c components of attention rather than global measures of attention, and highlights the importance of assessing and treating sleep problems in brain injury rehabilitation. ( JINS , 2010, 16, 17–25.)
Effect of fractional Fourier transformation on time-frequency distributions belonging to the Cohen class

We consider the Cohen (1989) class of time-frequency distributions, which can be obtained from the Wigner distribution by convolving it with a kernel characterizing that distribution. We show that the time-frequency distribution of the fractional Fourier transform of a function is a rotated version of the distribution of the original function, if the kernel is rotationally symmetric. Thus, the fractional Fourier transform corresponds to rotation of a relatively large class of time-frequency representations (phase-space representations), confirming the important role this transform plays in the study of such representations.
Moving Beyond the Boat without a Paddle: Reality Pedagogy, Black Youth, and Urban Science Education

Abstract:Much of the research that focuses on the academic success of Black youth in urban science education does not consider the provision of tools that educators can use in becoming more effective. This article discusses this issue, and introduces an approach to pedagogy—reality pedagogy—which includes five distinct types of practices (the 5 C's) which teachers can implement in their classrooms to facilitate effective science instruction. I describe the 5 C's of reality pedagogy; discuss ways they can be implemented; and show how they can both support the effectiveness of urban science teachers and the agency of Black youth in their classrooms.
The use of ecological momentary assessment approaches in eating disorder research.

OBJECTIVE Eating disorder (ED) research is increasingly focusing on the proximal antecedents to disordered eating behavior. Such antecedents may include cognitions, environmental stimuli, social interactions, and affective states. Current ED theories suggest that the relationships between antecedents and eating behavior may be complex, including interaction associations, time-lagged effects, and associations that persist only for brief periods of time. Similarly, these theories often include the consequences of behavior-influencing variables of interest (e.g., short-term reductions in negative affect). Careful examination of such theories, however, has been limited by a reliance on data collection methods not appropriate for testing these effects. METHOD This study examines alternative methods for data collection and analysis that overcome previously noted limitations, using data collected in several studies with eating-disordered participants. RESULTS The development of a technique called ecological momentary assessment (EMA) allows the ongoing study of behavior in its natural context and reduces biases associated with retrospective recall. The development of technology that allows the sophisticated collection and storage of such data (e.g., palm-top computers), along with statistical procedures for analyzing hierarchically nested, repeated measures data, allow precise testing of complex theoretical models. DISCUSSION We demonstrate several important features of this research: (1) patients are willing and able to engage in EMA studies, (2) data not possible to collect using other designs are obtainable, (3) complex theoretical models can be evaluated using these data and appropriate statistical methods, and (4) the collection and analysis of EMA data present unique difficulties to ED researchers. Finally, we endorse and provide recommendations for the use of EMA in future ED research and practice.
Distributed Data Compression and Flow Balancing for Network Lifetime Optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks

The paradigm of large scale self-configuring wireless sensor networking has been at the focus of the networking and communication research for more than a decade due to their potential use in applications such as environmental sensing. Energy-efficient information extraction from the area over a wireless sensor deployed is one of the vital elements of wireless sensor networking. The sources of energy dissipation in a sensor node can be categorized into two main functional areas: communication energy dissipation and computation energy dissipation. Communication energy dissipation includes transmit and receive energy dissipation components. Computation energy dissipation includes sensing, data processing, and data compression components. Although there are many possible definitions of Quality of Service (QoS) for data networking, the definition specific to the sensor networks is the provided coverage for the sensed phenomena in the targeted area along with other metrics such as delay, jitter, and throughput. To provide the required QoS for extended operation lifetime in sensor networks the energy sources of the nodes should be used optimally, which suggests that the nodes should cooperate in sensing and transferring information for lifetime optimization (i.e., if a critical sensor node runs out of energy before the other nodes then the coverage provided by the whole sensor network deteriorates, thus, to avoid such situations the nodes in the network should cooperate to balance the energy dissipation collectively). In the general model considered for sensor networks, there is a base station in or near the sensed area and sensor nodes in the area transfer their data to the base station possibly by relaying their packets through intermediate sensor nodes acting as relays. To optimize the lifetime of such a sensor network (assuming the energy dissipation is due to communication energy dissipation consisting of transmit and receive energy dissipation components) the traffic generated by the sensor nodes should be transferred to the base station without letting some nodes run out of their limited battery energy before the other nodes. Transmit energy dissipation from node-i to node-j, ,depends on the specific parameters of the radio and the
Efficient foot motor control by Neymar’s brain

How very long-term (over many years) motor skill training shapes internal motor representation remains poorly understood. We provide valuable evidence that the football brain of Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (the Brasilian footballer) recruits very limited neural resources in the motor-cortical foot regions during foot movements. We scanned his brain activity with a 3-tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while he rotated his right ankle at 1 Hz. We also scanned brain activity when three other age-controlled professional footballers, two top-athlete swimmers and one amateur footballer performed the identical task. A comparison was made between Neymar’s brain activity with that obtained from the others. We found activations in the left medial-wall foot motor regions during the foot movements consistently across all participants. However, the size and intensity of medial-wall activity was smaller in the four professional footballers than in the three other participants, despite no difference in amount of foot movement. Surprisingly, the reduced recruitment of medial-wall foot motor regions became apparent in Neymar. His medial-wall activity was smallest among all participants with absolutely no difference in amount of foot movement. Neymar may efficiently control given foot movements probably by largely conserving motor-cortical neural resources. We discuss this possibility in terms of over-years motor skill training effect, use-dependent plasticity, and efficient motor control.
How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies?

Media reports teem with stories of young people posting salacious photos online, writing about alcohol-fueled misdeeds on social networking sites, and publicizing other ill-considered escapades that may haunt them in the future. These anecdotes are interpreted as representing a generation-wide shift in attitude toward information privacy. Many commentators therefore claim that young people “are less concerned with maintaining privacy than older people are. ” Surprisingly, though, few empirical investigations have explored the privacy attitudes of young adults. This report is among the first quantitative studies evaluating young adults’ attitudes. It demonstrates that the picture is more nuanced than portrayed in the popular media. In this telephonic (wireline and wireless) survey of internet using Americans (N=1000), we found that large percentages of young adults (those 18-24 years) are in harmony with older Americans regarding concerns about online privacy, norms, and policy suggestions. In several cases, there are no statistically significant differences between young adults and older age categories on these topics. Where there were differences, over half of the young adult-respondents did answer in the direction of older adults. There clearly is social significance in that large numbers of young adults agree with older Americans on issues of information privacy.A gap in privacy knowledge provides one explanation for the apparent license with which the young behave online. 42 percent of young Americans answered all of our five online privacy questions incorrectly. 88 percent answered only two or fewer correctly. The problem is even more pronounced when presented with offline privacy issues – post hoc analysis showed that young Americans were more likely to answer no questions correctly than any other age group.We conclude then that that young-adult Americans have an aspiration for increased privacy even while they participate in an online reality that is optimized to increase their revelation of personal data.
Identification and characterization of a functional mitochondrial angiotensin system

The renin-angiotensin (Ang) system regulates multiple physiological functions through Ang II type 1 and type 2 receptors. Prior studies suggest an intracellular pool of Ang II that may be released in an autocrine manner upon stretch to activate surface membrane Ang receptors. Alternatively, an intracellular renin-Ang system has been proposed, with a primary focus on nuclear Ang receptors. A mitochondrial Ang system has not been previously described. Here we report that functional Ang II type 2 receptors are present on mitochondrial inner membranes and are colocalized with endogenous Ang. We demonstrate that activation of the mitochondrial Ang system is coupled to mitochondrial nitric oxide production and can modulate respiration. In addition, we present evidence of age-related changes in mitochondrial Ang receptor expression, i.e., increased mitochondrial Ang II type 1 receptor and decreased type 2 receptor density that is reversed by chronic treatment with the Ang II type 1 receptor blocker losartan. The presence of a functional Ang system in human mitochondria provides a foundation for understanding the interaction between mitochondria and chronic disease states and reveals potential therapeutic targets for optimizing mitochondrial function and decreasing chronic disease burden with aging.
Examination of Stress Experiences of the International Students who are Educated in American Universities with respect to some Variables 1

Stress sources and stress levels of international students who study at American Universities were examined with respect to their class-standing, gender and English language fluency. Research findings show that number one stressor for female students is “Concerns about the future (graduation, employment, marriage, etc.)”. Males' number one stressor is “Academic burdens (grades, difficult classes, excessive homework, etc.)”. A significant difference between males and females was observed with respect to “Inadequate orientation programs for newcomers at the university,”. A significant difference between freshmen and seniors was observed with respect to “Inadequate orientation programs for newcomers at the university,”. According to this finding, the need for orientation for freshmen is significantly higher than seniors'. It is observed that there is a significant, medium level, and negative correlation between stress level and English language fluency. It is found out that the stress level of international students does not significantly change with respect to gender. The stress levels of freshmen were found to be higher than senior and graduate students. In light of the findings, some suggestions were made to counseling centers, international offices and English preparatory programs of the Universities.
Characteristics associated with the occurrence of adverse events: a retrospective medical record review using the Global Trigger Tool in a fully digitalized tertiary teaching hospital in Korea.

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to examine the performance of the Global Trigger Tool and to investigate characteristics associated with the occurrence of adverse events (AEs). STUDY DESIGN Retrospective medical record review. SETTING A tertiary teaching hospital, Korea. METHOD We employed two-stage review of a random sample of 630 charts for patients discharged between January and June 2011. Two quality improvement specialists reviewed the presence of AEs using 53 triggers developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Two physicians reviewed and validated the findings of adverse events. Positive predictive values for individual triggers were calculated. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with AEs. RESULTS Of 629 patients, 45 (7%) experienced at least one AE during their hospitalization. Among the observed AEs, 61% were preventable. The frequent types of AEs were 'procedure-related' and 'medication-related'. Six triggers had positive predictive values of greater than 50.0%: 'health care-associated infection', 'any procedure complication', 'medication: other', 'return to surgery', 'occurrence of any operative complication' and 'intubation/reintubation'. Significant factors associated with the occurrence of AEs were length of stay (OR 1.13; 95% CI 1.07 to 1.20) and the number of triggers (OR 1.49; 95% CI 1.11 to 1.98). CONCLUSION The Global Trigger Tool was useful for the detection of adverse events in a Korean hospital setting. Triggers with high positive predictive values should have priority for incorporation into routine screening systems. Furthermore, patients who stay longer in the hospital need to be closely monitored using triggers to improve patient safety.
Alcohol dose and aggression: another reason why drinking more is a bad idea.

OBJECTIVE Numerous studies have examined the impact of alcohol on violence; however, only a small number have addressed differences elicited by different doses of alcohol. Such studies are limited by mixed findings, small sample sizes, inconsistent alcohol doses and control conditions, a bias toward studying only male participants, and the predominant use of only one particular measure to assess aggression. The present laboratory investigation was designed to elucidate and advance this literature by improving on these limitations. METHOD Participants were 187 (95 men and 92 women) social drinkers. Following the consumption of one of six alcohol doses (i.e., 0.0 g/kg, 0.125 g/kg, 0.25 g/kg, 0.5 g/kg, 0.75 g/kg, and 1.0 g/kg), participants were tested on a laboratory task in which electric shocks were received from and administered to a fictitious opponent under the guise of a competitive reaction-time task. Aggression was operationalized as the intensity and duration of shocks administered to one's "opponent. " RESULTS Analyses revealed a highly significant positive linear trend between alcohol dose and aggression for both genders. CONCLUSIONS Our data aid in clarifying a body of literature that has been afflicted with numerous limitations and will help guide the selection of alcohol doses for researchers conducting future laboratory-based aggression studies.
Pair-Wise Distance Metric Learning of Neural Network Model for Spoken Language Identification

The i-vector representation and modeling technique has been successfully applied in spoken language identification (SLI). In modeling, a discriminative transform or classifier must be applied to emphasize variations correlated to language identity since the i-vector representation encodes most of the acoustic variations (e.g., speaker variation, transmission channel variation, etc.). Due to the strong nonlinear discriminative power of neural network (NN) modeling (including its deep form DNN), the NN has been directly used to learn the mapping function between the i-vector representation and language identity labels. In most studies, only the point-wise feature-label information is feeded to NN for parameter learning which may result in model overfitting, particularly when with limited training data. In this study, we propose to integrate pair-wise distance metric learning in NN parameter optimization. In the representation space of nonlinear transforms of hidden layers, a distance metric learning is explicitly designed for minimizing the pair-wise intra-class variation and maximizing the inter-class variation. With the distance metric as a constraint in the point-wise learning, the i-vectors are transformed to a new feature space which are much more discriminative for samples belonging to different languages while are much more similar for samples belonging to the same language. We tested the algorithm on a SLI task, encouraging results were obtained with more than 20% relative improvement on identification error rate.
Elevated CO2 Affects Predator-Prey Interactions through Altered Performance

Recent research has shown that exposure to elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) affects how fishes perceive their environment, affecting behavioral and cognitive processes leading to increased prey mortality. However, it is unclear if increased mortality results from changes in the dynamics of predator-prey interactions or due to prey increasing activity levels. Here we demonstrate that ocean pCO2 projected to occur by 2100 significantly effects the interactions of a predator-prey pair of common reef fish: the planktivorous damselfish Pomacentrus amboinensis and the piscivorous dottyback Pseudochromis fuscus. Prey exposed to elevated CO2 (880 µatm) or a present-day control (440 µatm) interacted with similarly exposed predators in a cross-factored design. Predators had the lowest capture success when exposed to elevated CO2 and interacting with prey exposed to present-day CO2. Prey exposed to elevated CO2 had reduced escape distances and longer reaction distances compared to prey exposed to present-day CO2 conditions, but this was dependent on whether the prey was paired with a CO2 exposed predator or not. This suggests that the dynamics of predator-prey interactions under future CO2 environments will depend on the extent to which the interacting species are affected and can adapt to the adverse effects of elevated CO2.
LIMSI @ WMT11

This paper describes LIMSI's submissions to the Sixth Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation. We report results for the French-English and German-English shared translation tasks in both directions. Our systems use n-code, an open source Statistical Machine Translation system based on bilingual n-grams. For the French-English task, we focussed on finding efficient ways to take advantage of the large and heterogeneous training parallel data. In particular, using a simple filtering strategy helped to improve both processing time and translation quality. To translate from English to French and German, we also investigated the use of the SOUL language model in Machine Translation and showed significant improvements with a 10-gram SOUL model. We also briefly report experiments with several alternatives to the standard n-best MERT procedure, leading to a significant speed-up.
Houses of Healing

This study examines the impact of female inmate participation in a facilitator-led group on psychosocial (anxiety, depression, self-esteem) and spiritual well-being. A convenience sample of 36 women (21 intervention, 15 comparison) was recruited from a women's prison in the Northeast. Participants in the groups described positive outcomes in the interviews and in the quantitative measurements of anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Trends in the data, however, indicated an additional differential effect related to program involvement for depression and anxiety scores. The spirituality scores were high at all times for both groups, with slight increases over the period of the study.