Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION USING STUDENT TEAM ACHIEVEMENT DIVISIONS (STAD) Yeti Suyasti, Clarry Sada, Ikhsanudin Masters Study Program of English Language Education, Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University Pontianak Email: suy

Abstract: The main purpose of this research is to improve students’ reading comprehension by using Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) cooperative learning. This learning model was done to overcome the weaknesses of teaching learning process in the classroom. STAD is an attractive alternative to teacher-centered instruction which promote the student’s learning by creating maximum opportunity for communicative and meaningful classroom interaction. It consists of five major components: class presentation, teamwork, quizzes, individual improvement score, and team recognition. The researcher conducts this classroom action research in three cycles which involved 35 students. The observation checklist, questioners and test are used to collect the data. In the first cycle, the students’ average score was 49.57. Second cycle, the students’ average score was 70.43 and in the third cycle, the students’ average score increased significantly to 81.71. The conclusion, the use of STAD improves the students’ reading comprehension and their involvement in active learning. Keywords: Reading Comprehension, STAD. Abstrak : Tujuan utama dari penelitian ini adalah untuk meningkatkan pemahaman siswa dalam membaca dengan menggunakan pembelajaran kooperatif STAD. Model pembelajaran ini dilakukan untuk mengatasi kelemahan dalam proses belajar mengajar di dalam kelas. STAD merupakan sebuah model pembelajaran alternatif yang menarik bagi pengajaran yang berfokus pada guru yang mengedepankan pembelajaran siswa dengan menciptakan kesempatan maksimal untuk berkomunikasi dan berinteraksi secara berarti di dalam kelas. STAD memiliki 5 komponen utama: presentasi kelas, kerja kelompok, quiz, peningkatan nilai individu, dan penghargaan kelompok. Peneliti melaksanakan penelitian tindakan kelas dalam tiga siklus dengan melibatkan 35 siswa. Lembar observasi, kuesioner dan tes digunakan sebagai alat pengumpul data. Pada siklus pertama, nilai rata-rata siswa adalah 49.57. Pada siklus kedua, nilai rata-rata siswa menjadi 70.43 dan pada siklus ketiga, nilai rata-rata ini meningkat secara signifikan menjadi 81.71. Kesimpulannya adalah penggunaan model pembelajaran kooperatif STAD dapat meningkatkan pemahaman siswa dalam membaca serta meningkatkan peran siswa dalam pembelajaran aktif. Kata Kunci: Pemahaman bacaan, STAD.
Can Event-Related Potential Predict the Progression of Mild Cognitive Impairment?

Summary This study was designed to evaluate the predictive value of event-related potential (ERP; N2 and P3b) in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Seventy-one patients with MCI were selected and compared with 31 healthy control subjects. They benefited from an initial assessment that included a neuropsychological evaluation and ERP. We followed them up for 1 year, and during their last visit, they benefited again from ERP and neuropsychological tests. At the end of the study, 2 subgroups of patients with MCI were differentiated according to their clinical evolution from baseline to follow-up: 41 MCI progressors (MCI-P) and 30 MCI nonprogressors (MCI-non P). The MCI-P patients had a significant decline in their executive functions compared with the MCI-non-P group at baseline and follow-up especially on trail making test B (TMT B) and verbal fluency (P < 0.0001). At baseline, MCI-P had increased P3b latencies and low P3b amplitudes compared with MCI-non P. The MCI-P showed an inversion of the P3b rostrocaudal gradient with a significant decrease in the amplitude of P3b in the parietal area compared with the MCI-non P. At follow-up, 17 MCI-P patients had converted to Alzheimer's disease (AD). There was a significant rate of decline of the amplitude of N2 and P3b in the frontal area among the groups. Furthermore, the MCI-P had a higher decrease in the rostrocaudal gradient of P3b and prolonged N2 and P3b latencies than the MCI-non P did. The sensitivity and specificity were approximately 80% and 70%, using P3b amplitude to discriminate the MCI-P from the MCI-non P. Our study underlines the interest of using N2 and P3b as neurophysiological markers for measuring MCI decline progression.
Compact microstrip band-stop filter using IDCLLR

The structure of inter-digital capacitance loaded loop resonator (IDCLLR) is employed for designing microstrip (MS) band-stop filter (BSF), it benefits from its miniaturization and design flexibility due to more structural parameters. Three kinds of IDCLLR-based MS-BSF are presented in this article. Firstly, a 6-stag MS-BSF consisting of a MS-line coupled with uniform pairs of IDCLLRs, and then a 9-stag MS-BSF with nonuniform pairs of IDCLLRs, are designed and tested. Secondly, to replace the IDCLLR by its complementary structure, named as C-IDCLLR with stronger coupling to the MS-line, a 8-stage C-IDCLLR-based MS-BSF with wider stop-band and sharper edge-slope is designed and tested. Finally, the IDCLLR surrounded by meandered MS-line can result in stronger coupling, hence a compact 3-stag IDCLLR-based meandered MS-BSF with good performances is designed and tested.
Periodontal Disease and Risk of Fatal Coronary Heart and Cerebrovascular Diseases

Background Recent reports have implicated periodontal disease as a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted using participants in the 1970–1972 Nutrition Canada Survey (NCS). The mortality experience of male and female NCS participants aged 35–84 years without self-reported CHD (n= 10368) or cerebrovascular disease (CVD) (n= 11251) was determined through 1993. The relation between dental health and the risk of fatal CHD and CVD was assessed using Poisson regression modeling. Results In total, 466 CHD and 210 CVD deaths were observed; missing confounder data reduced these numbers to 416 CHD and 182 CVD deaths. Adjusted for age, sex, diabetes status, serum total cholesterol, smoking, hypertensive status, and province, we found a statistically significant association between periodontal disease and risk of fatal CHD. Rate ratios (RR) of 2.15 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25–3.72) and 1.90 (95% CI 1.17–3.10) were observed for severe gingivitis and edentulous status, respectively. Non-statistically significantly increased RRs of 1.81 and 1.63 were observed for severe gingivitis and edentulous status for CVD. Conclusions These data indicate that poor dental health is associated with an increased risk of fatal CHD.
Evidence-Based Approach for Making Cochlear Implant Recommendations for Infants With Residual Hearing

Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop guidelines, based on the unaided pure-tone audiogram, for recommending a cochlear implant (CI) for infants and young children with residual hearing. As awareness of the benefits of early implantation increases and age at diagnosis decreases, an increasing number of infants are presenting for consideration of implantation with significant residual hearing in one or both ears. Determining the likelihood that these infants will have an improved speech and language outcome if they receive a CI is a challenge. Design: Subjects were 142 hearing impaired children (ages 4.6 to 16.2 yrs) with unaided three-frequency pure-tone average (PTA; at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) ranging from 28 to 125 dB HL: 62 used conventional amplification (analog or digital hearing aids [HAs]) and the remaining 80 used a Nucleus 24 (N24) or Freedom CI. Open-set monosyllabic word (Phonetically Balanced Kindergarten or Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant words) and sentence (Bamford-Kowal-Bench sentences) testing was administered audition alone to both groups of children. Results: Comparison of means for sentence testing showed that the children using CIs performed significantly better than their peers with profound hearing loss (PTA >90 dB HL) using HAs and not significantly differently to those with severe (PTA 66 to 90 dB HL) or moderate (PTA <66 dB HL) hearing loss. Comparison of means for monosyllabic word testing showed that the children using CIs performed significantly better than their peers with severe and profound hearing loss and not significantly differently to those with moderate hearing loss. Regression analysis was used to determine the equivalent unaided PTA values that corresponded to the median and first quartile scores for the children using CIs on speech perception testing. For open-set words, scored for phonemes correct, the equivalent unaided PTAs were 46 and 56 dB HL, respectively. For sentence testing, the equivalent unaided PTAs were 63 and 72 dB HL, respectively. Conclusions: Results suggest that recommendation for implantation can be made confidently for children presenting with bilateral profound hearing loss. For children with unaided PTA hearing levels in the range of 75 to 90 dB HL, a recommendation for implantation can also be made, provided that a 75% chance of improvement in hearing outcome is an acceptable level of benefit to the family and clinician. Children presenting with PTA hearing levels better than 75 dB HL should be encouraged to continue with binaural HA use.
Analysis and Simulation of Asymmetrical Cascaded H-Bridge Eleven Level Inverter

This paper analyzes the performance of asymmetrical cascaded h-bridge eleven level inverter with photovoltaic cell as its input source. The inverter is capable of producing eleven levels of output-voltage levels from the dc supply voltage. From this analysis it is found that the total harmonic distortion of the system is low when compared to asymmetrical cascaded h-bridge nine level inverter. Hence the efficiency of the system will be improved. Also it uses less number of power semiconductor switches when compared to symmetrical cascaded h-bridge eleven level inverter. The analysis has been simulated using MATLAB. The simulated output shows very favorable result.
MODEC - Modeling and Detecting Evolutions of Communities

Social network analysis encompasses the study of networked data and examines questions related to structures and patterns that can lead to the understanding of the data and the intrinsic relationships, such as identifying influential nodes, recognizing critical paths, predicting unobserved relationships, discovering communities, etc. All of these analyses, germane to a variety of application domains, are typically done on static information networks; that is, a fixed snapshot of the information network. Yet, a social network changes and understanding the evolution of the network and detecting these changes in the underlying structures is paramount for a multitude of applications. Looking at networks as fixed snapshots misses the opportunity to capture the evolutionary patterns. In this paper, we present a framework for modeling community evolution in social networks by tracking of events related to the life cycle of a community. We illustrate the capabilities of our framework by applying it to real datasets and validate the results using topics extracted from the tracked communities.
A Pattern Matching Approach for Redundancy Detection in Bi-lingual and Monolingual Corpora

---The Bi-Lingual and Mono-Lingual Corpora Information relating to numerous Languages may be duplicated. This leads to slow and inaccurate search results from Bi-Lingual and Mono-Lingual databases. It is essential to structure the Sequences in a fashion that reduces the redundant sequence structure so that the analysis of BiLingual and Mono-Lingual Corpora structure is accurate to help in analyzing the features of certain complex and subjective languages. The detection will lead to the selection of right solution from large Corpora's. In this paper, we present an algorithm (we call it DSDR) that operates on a set of Bi-Lingual and Mono-Lingual Corpora and iterates in the same set to find all possible duplications present in the set. Once the duplications are found, the DSDR removes duplicated Chains and refreshes the databases resulting in remarkable reductions in the sizes of the databases. In addition, the speed of searches of certain Chains from Bi-Lingual and Mono-Lingual Corpora becomes quite fast and accurate.
THE ROLE OF THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX IN THE RETRIEVAL OF MNEMONIC INFORMATION

In the present experiment we investigated the hypothesis that a specific part of the prefrontal cortex, the mid- ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), is involved in the active retrieval of mnemonic information. Active retrieval is necessary in situations where mnemonic traces are embedded in ambiguous relations and, therefore, their retrieval cannot be the result of automatic recognition, but rather the result of higher control mechanisms. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine the activity in the brain related to the active retrieval of nonverbal stimuli (faces and locations). The results of the research confirmed the hypothesis that the right mid-VLPFC is critical for the retrieval of nonverbal information.
Etiology of severe pneumonia in Ecuadorian children

Background In Latin America, community-acquired pneumonia remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children. Few studies have examined the etiology of pneumonia in Ecuador. Methods This observational study was part of a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted among children aged 2–59 months with severe pneumonia in Quito, Ecuador. Nasopharyngeal and blood samples were tested for bacterial and viral etiology by polymerase chain reaction. Risk factors for specific respiratory pathogens were also evaluated. Results Among 406 children tested, 159 (39.2%) had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), 71 (17.5%) had human metapneumovirus (hMPV), and 62 (15.3%) had adenovirus. Streptococcus pneumoniae was identified in 37 (9.2%) samples and Mycoplasma pneumoniae in three (0.74%) samples. The yearly circulation pattern of RSV (P = 0.0003) overlapped with S. pneumoniae, (P = 0.03) with most cases occurring in the rainy season. In multivariable analysis, risk factors for RSV included younger age (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.9, P = 0.01) and being underweight (aOR = 1.8, P = 0.04). Maternal education (aOR = 0.82, P = 0.003), pulse oximetry (aOR = 0.93, P = 0.005), and rales (aOR = 0.25, P = 0.007) were associated with influenza A. Younger age (aOR = 3.5, P = 0.007) and elevated baseline respiratory rate were associated with HPIV-3 infection (aOR = 0.94, P = 0.03). Conclusion These results indicate the importance of RSV and influenza, and potentially modifiable risk factors including undernutrition and future use of a RSV vaccine, when an effective vaccine becomes available. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT 00513929
Improvement torque performances of interior permanent-magnet machines

Due to their excellent efficiency, power density and constant power speed region, interior permanent-magnet (IPM) machines are very suitable for electric vehicles (EVs). This paper proposed a new IPM rotor topology, which can offer high reluctance torque, wide constant power speed range and excellent overload capability. Besides, five rotor topologies with integral-slot distributed-windings IPM machines, including four existing IPM topologies and the proposed IPM topology, are designed optimally. Their characteristics, which include d-q axis inductances, saliency ratios, electromagnetic torques, corresponding torque ripples, back-electromotive forces (EMFs), overload capabilities and flux weakening performances are evaluated quantitatively. Finally, a three phase 48s8p hybrid rotor PM machine is built to verify the performances of the proposed IPM machine. This work provides some general concepts for machine developers who are willing to build IPM machines for high-performance EV applications.
Effect of Evaluation Threat on Procrastination Behavior

The author evaluated the effects of evaluation apprehension and trait procrastination on behaviors. The author examined private university students from southern California (N = 72) on two independent variables: evaluation threat (manipulated) and trait procrastination (nonmanipulated). The author found a significant interaction effect between type of evaluation threat and level of trait procrastination on the number of days to complete an assigned essay. Post hoc analyses showed high trait procrastinators in the high evaluation threat group significantly delayed returning essays compared with those in the low evaluation threat group. Also, in the low evaluation threat group, low trait procrastinators delayed more than did high trait procrastinators. These results suggest that educators can reduce behavioral delays by increasing evaluation threat, depending on a student's level of trait procrastination.
Variable Selection in Bayesian Smoothing Spline ANOVA Models: Application to Deterministic Computer Codes

With many predictors, choosing an appropriate subset of the covariates is a crucial—and difficult—step in nonparametric regression. We propose a Bayesian nonparametric regression model for curve fitting and variable selection. We use the smoothing splines ANOVA framework to decompose the regression function into interpretable main effect and interaction functions, and use stochastic search variable selection through Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling to search for models that fit the data well. We also show that variable selection is highly sensitive to hyperparameter choice, and develop a technique for selecting hyperparameters that control the long-run false-positive rate. We use our method to build an emulator for a complex computer model for two-phase fluid flow.
Decoding the structure of the WWW: A comparative analysis of Web crawls

The understanding of the immense and intricate topological structure of the World Wide Web (WWW) is a major scientific and technological challenge. This has been recently tackled by characterizing the properties of its representative graphs, in which vertices and directed edges are identified with Web pages and hyperlinks, respectively. Data gathered in large-scale crawls have been analyzed by several groups resulting in a general picture of the WWW that encompasses many of the complex properties typical of rapidly evolving networks. In this article, we report a detailed statistical analysis of the topological properties of four different WWW graphs obtained with different crawlers. We find that, despite the very large size of the samples, the statistical measures characterizing these graphs differ quantitatively, and in some cases qualitatively, depending on the domain analyzed and the crawl used for gathering the data. This spurs the issue of the presence of sampling biases and structural differences of Web crawls that might induce properties not representative of the actual global underlying graph. In short, the stability of the widely accepted statistical description of the Web is called into question. In order to provide a more accurate characterization of the Web graph, we study statistical measures beyond the degree distribution, such as degree-degree correlation functions or the statistics of reciprocal connections. The latter appears to enclose the relevant correlations of the WWW graph and carry most of the topological information of the Web. The analysis of this quantity is also of major interest in relation to the navigability and searchability of the Web.
Persistency of excitation for uniform convergence in nonlinear control systems

In previous papers we have introduced a sufficient condition f or uniform attractivity of the origin for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems which is stated in terms of persistency of excitation (PE), a concept well known in the adaptive control and systems identification literature. The novelty of our condition, called uniform �-PE, is that it is tailored for nonlinear functions of time and state and it allows us to prove uniform asymptotic stability. In this paper we present a new definition of u�-PE which is conceptually similar to but technically different from its predecessors and give several useful characterizations. We make connections between this property and similar properties previously used in the literature. We also show when this condition is necessary and sufficient for uniform (global) asymptotic stability for a large class of nonlinear time-varying systems. Finally, we show the utility of our main results on some control applications regarding feedforward systems and systems with matching nonlinearities.
Measurable Notions of Complexity and Their Relationship to Biological Complexity

Complexity is often invoked as a motivation for a systems approach to biology. We review three measurable notions of complexity from the areas of computation and data analysis. These measures have each led to mathematical theory and to further insight on the complexity of objects, demonstrating the benefits of having a well‐defined measure of complexity. Each measure is applicable in the study of particular biological systems; however, none is satisfactory to serve as a universal measure of biological complexity. The study of biological systems will likely require numerous measures of complexity, each appropriate for analysis in specific settings.
Perception, adfærd og oplevet arkitektonisk kvalitet

Dette paper beskriver, hvordan man med udgangspunkt i en RFID baseret kortlægning af menneskers adfærd i bygningsrum teoretisk og praktisk kan arbejde evidensbaseret med perception i betydningen af ”menneskers opfattelse og fortolkning af deres omgivelser”. Paperet opbygger gennem en kombination af neurovidenskabelige og sociologiske metoder en forståelse af sammenhængen mellem perception, såvel individuel som kollektiv adfærd i rum, og oplevelsen af arkitektonisk kvalitet. Paperet søger dermed at beskrive, hvordan man evidensbaseret kan arbejde med perception og kvaliteten af vore fysiske omgivelser - i denne sammenhæng i arkitektoniske rum.
Robust Visual Object Tracking with Top-down Reasoning

In generic visual tracking, traditional appearance based trackers suffer from distracting factors like bad lighting or major target deformation, etc., as well as insufficiency of training data. In this work, we propose to exploit the category-specific semantics to boost visual object tracking, and develop a new visual tracking model that augments the appearance based tracker with a top-down reasoning component. The continuous feedback from this reasoning component guides the tracker to reliably identify candidate regions with consistent semantics across frames and localize the target object instance more robustly and accurately. Specifically, a generic object recognition model and a semantic activation map method are deployed to provide effective top-down reasoning about object locations for the tracker. In addition, we develop a voting based scheme for the reasoning component to infer the object semantics. Therefore, even without sufficient training data, the tracker can still obtain reliable top-down clues about the objects. Together with the appearance clues, the tracker can localize objects accurately even in presence of various major distracting factors. Extensive evaluations on two large-scale benchmark datasets, OTB2013 and OTB2015, clearly demonstrate that the top-down reasoning substantially enhances the robustness of the tracker and provides state-of-the-art performance.